Elizabeth Bevarly - Dr. Irresistible

Because what could possibly be more irresponsible than being knocked up and abandoned, right? The last thing Pru needed was for her senior class to be hearing about that. “No, I hadn’t planned to attend,” she said. Then, unable to quite quell the ten-year-old hurt that had haunted her, she found herself adding, “Do you honestly think I want to go to a ten-year reunion and see a bunch of people who voted me ‘most irresponsible’ in the senior class superlatives? Why should I put myself through that? High school was bad enough the first time around. Who needs to go through it a second time?”

Hazel chuckled. “Oh, come on, Pru,” she said. “Lighten up. It’ll be fun. Aren’t you curious to see how everyone turned out?”

“No,” she answered honestly.

The other woman’s smile turned positively predatory. Oh, yeah. Now she remembered Hazel Dubrowski. Really well. She’d been one of the most carnivorous members of the senior class. In fact, now that Pru thought more about it, she recalled that Hazel had been on the yearbook staff and had been the one who spearheaded the senior superlatives in the first place. And the one who spearheaded the campaign was the one who usually wound up deciding the winners, based on the prevailing winds.

Sure, Pru could see how she might have been viewed as irresponsible back then. But Hazel was the one who would have created the category. And somehow, Pru was certain she’d done it on purpose, just so she could hang the crown of thorns on Pru’s head. And that was because, Pru also remembered now, Jimmy Abersold had asked her to the junior prom, instead of Hazel.

Oh, it was all coming back to her now. Funny, how selective a person’s memory could be about something like high school—until that memory was forcibly jarred by some baaaad karma, like Hazel was bringing with her now.

“Well, I’m sure they’re all anxious to see how you turned out,” she told Pru with a smile that was at first knowing and then suspicious. “And just how did you turn out, anyway?” she asked further. “I mean, it’s one thing to be a nurse, but what else is going on with you, Pru? I kind of always figured you for the type to wind up knocked up and abandoned somewhere.”

Pru felt a cool weight settle in the pit of her stomach at hearing her own words—her own fears—echoed back at her. But even if she had indeed ended up exactly the way Hazel had known she would, Pru refused to capitulate to the other woman’s meanness.

Schooling her features into the blandest expression she could, she replied evenly, “Really.”

Hazel nodded. “Oh, yeah. I imagine most of the class of ’90 assumed the same thing. Even if you were Little Miss Goody-Two-Shoes for the most part, someone as irresponsible as you were was bound to wind up pregnant and alone and relying on welfare. It’s just the logical conclusion to make.”

Amazed at her ability to remain civil, Pru repeated, “Really.”

And in that moment she knew she had made the right decision in disregarding the invitation to her ten-year reunion. There was no way she would let her senior class discover firsthand just how right they’d been about her all along. The last thing she needed was for 240 people to laugh and point and say, “Man, it’s even worse than we thought it would be. She really did get knocked up and abandoned.” And worse, “Hey, Pru, we told you so.” And worse still, “We knew what kind of person you were all along, even if you never believed it yourself.”

Hazel nodded again, more adamantly this time. “But, gosh,” she said, “just look at you, all professional in your nurse’s uniform. Maybe you have built a solid, responsible life for yourself. I suppose stranger things have happened. Probably. Maybe. In outer space somewhere.”

A solid, responsible life, Pru repeated to herself, ignoring the sarcasm inherent in the response. She hoped the heat she felt flaming in her midsection didn’t show up in her face.

“I mean,” Hazel went on, as if she sensed Pru’s discomfort and wanted very much to compound it, “for all I know, you’re happily married, and you and your husband have a big, beautiful house right here in Cherry Hill. Hey, for all I know, you married a doctor.” Hazel’s smile, however, indicated what a joke she thought that was. “I can just see you subscribing to the orchestra, the ballet, and the theater,” she went on blithely, clearly not meaning a word of what she said. “You probably spend your spare time volunteering at an art museum or being active in your garden club and your reading group and your cooking club. And your kids are probably all beautiful and smart and going to private school. Tell me I’m right,” Hazel dared her. “Tell me that’s exactly the way you live these days.”

Pru swallowed hard, wishing she could agree with every word that Hazel said. Not because she wanted it to be true, and not because she particularly aspired to such a grand life. But because she knew that once her old classmate found out the truth, Hazel would gleefully recount the situation to every single member of the Easton class of ’90 when she went to the reunion.

Oh, I saw Pru Holloway last month, and she hasn’t changed at all. She’s still totally irresponsible. Got herself knocked up by some jerk who dumped her. Now she’s a single mother struggling to pay the bills on some dinky apartment. She’s probably on food stamps and has credit-card debt out the wazoo. Most likely her kid’ll end up in jail. Then we honest taxpayers will have to pay both their ways through life.

Oh, yeah. She could see it now. Everyone in the Easton High class of ’90 ought to have a lot of laughs at her expense. And even if Pru wasn’t planning to attend herself, she didn’t want her title of “Most Irresponsible” to be perpetuated forever. She hated to be the butt of jokes, even in absentia.

But the fact was, she forced herself to admit, that the label still fit. As much as she had tried to change her ways, and as much as she hated to admit it, she was irresponsible. She always had been. She always would be. She didn’t know why she tried to kid herself otherwise.

There was no husband, no house, no lifestyle of forthright responsibility. There were no subscriptions to the arts—hey, who could afford it? There was no volunteer work—hey, who had time? There were no garden clubs, reading groups or cooking clubs. The closest thing Pru had to a garden was the questionably breathing African Violet on her kitchen windowsill, the one she—irresponsibly—kept forgetting to water. The only books she’d bought in the last year had been about infant care and breastfeeding, and even those she’d only—irresponsibly—skimmed. As for cooking, well…she wondered if microwaving pot pies and Beefaroni on a regular basis counted for anything. Anything other than being totally irresponsible about one’s health.

And then, of course, there was that business about having been knocked up and abandoned, Pru reminded herself unnecessarily. Yep, pretty much the ultimate in irresponsible behavior.

“So just what is your life like these days, Pru?” Hazel challenged her again, smiling in a way that indicated she just couldn’t wait to hear. Mainly because she just couldn’t wait to tell everyone they knew that Prudence Holloway had turned out exactly the way they had all known she would.

Resigned to her fate, Pru opened her mouth to confess.

But she was intercepted by a deep baritone that answered for her, “Her life is pretty much exactly the way you described it.”

She spun around to find Seth Mahoney standing behind her, smiling that incredibly charming smile that made every female in a fifty-foot radius melt in a puddle of ruined womanhood at his feet. Hazel Dubrowski Debbit, Pru realized upon turning her attention back to her old classmate, was no exception. Because she stood gaping at Dr. Mahoney as if he were a great, big, hot-fudge sundae with marshmallows and strawberries on top.