Tim Murphy - Christodora

Francelle stepped in with a bag of groceries. “Oh, good Lord,” she blurted out. She all but dropped the bag on the floor near the door. She retreated, calling back, “I’m running more errands!”

Ava and Sam burst out laughing, mortified and delighted — this would certainly make things awkward around the house with Francelle — and kept going until they were both done, then lay there on the parquet, clothes down around their ankles, breathing heavily, exhausted.

“Was something in your coffee?” Sam asked her, cradling her on the floor.

She giggled. “You just looked so sexy to me, all sweaty. My Elliott Gould.”

With a groan of reluctance, Sam stood up, releasing her gently, picking his sweaty running clothes up off the floor. “All right, Aves,” he said. “Hanky-panky time’s over. I gotta go make deals for Donald Trump and you gotta go get everybody healthy. And together we’ll conquer New York.”

“I’m gonna ask Renny to lunch,” she said, pulling a brush from her bag and re-fluffing her hair wings. “I have about a dozen ideas for streamlining DOH, doing more with less.”

“Go get ’em, honey,” Sam said. He leaned down and kissed her dutifully, then trudged up the stairs. She stood up, put her clothes back together, and was slipping her pumps back on when Francelle gingerly reentered the kitchen.

She smiled impishly at Francelle; she couldn’t resist — it was fun to tweak her island sense of propriety. “Good morning, Francelle,” she singsonged.

Collecting dishes and cups off the table, Francelle gave her a sidelong frown, but Ava caught the frown twisting into an amused, awkward smile as Francelle turned away. “Morning to you, Mrs. H.,” Francelle said. “Aren’t you running late to be downtown?”

She laughed. “You sound so reproving, Francelle!” She picked up her bulging bag. “No, not too much so. It doesn’t hurt to throw off the schedule a little bit here and there. Would you do that sometime today, Francelle? Would you leave a load of laundry till tomorrow and call your sister for twenty minutes instead?” How bizarre! she thought. She’d never told Francelle to call Jamaica from the house phone before! She liked how it felt: magnanimous.

Francelle turned, looked at her perplexedly. “I guess I might have time for that,” she finally said, loading the dishwasher, “seeing as it’s Serendipity day. You didn’t forget that, did you?”

She had forgotten — in her head, she’d been planning her workday out through six o’clock — but she wouldn’t give Francelle the satisfaction of knowing that, not with all the unspoken tension between them over who spent how much time with Emmy and whom, inevitably, Emmy was more attached to, felt safest with. “Of course I didn’t forget that, Francelle,” she said. “Wednesday is Serendipity day. I look forward to it as much as Emmy does.” Did Emmy look forward to it?

“All right, Mrs. H., have yourself a good day, then. I’ll leave something for you to heat up tonight before I leave at two.”

“Enjoy your half day, Francelle.” She strode over to Francelle and put an arm around her. Francelle went rigid, taken by surprise — perhaps a touch horrified? “Thank you for all you do for us, my dear. You’re part of this family.” As she walked away, she spied Francelle looking back at her, mouth agape, completely baffled now. Oh, she had ruffled the unrufflable Francelle. What fun!

The glorious spring day, the flowers blooming on the dividers on Park Avenue, the rough thrill of the 6 train downtown. . the preponderance of good-looking men on the subway and on the street, which she seemed to notice with a special zeal, even though she’d just had sex with Sam. I could have sex all over again right now! she thought, amazed and delighted, walking down Worth Street, aware of feeling sexier in her scoop-neck blouse, higher-than-usual heels, fluffier-than-usual hair. She was only thirty-eight, for God’s sake! The youngest deputy health commissioner the city had ever had. And maybe the sexiest? she thought with an inner giggle.

On the way in, she passed Lauren from TB control. They didn’t get along usually. But she surprised herself, exclaiming, “Such a lovely day, isn’t it?” as they passed. She seemed to surprise Lauren, too, who nearly winced. “Yes, it is,” Lauren replied. “I nearly didn’t want to come inside.”

“I had no choice,” she sang back. “I have a full plate today!” She stopped in the office kitchen for a second cup of coffee, then, carrying it with panache and a certain boom-boom in her step, she thought, swung into her own office. And there was a handsome young Hispanic man in a shirt and tie, square-framed glasses sitting on his face, in the chair in front of her desk with a stack of files on his lap — probably not a day over twenty-five!

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Well, hello there.”

He looked up, startled. “Oh! Hello, Doctor.” He rose abruptly, some of the files slipping from his lap to the floor, and they knelt down to collect them together. “I’m Hector. Villanueva. From Columbia.”

“Oh, of course.” She smiled. “You’re my intern for the summer. Dr. Ferrer told me about you. Well, hello, Hector.” She extended her hand. “It’s nice to meet you. Please just call me Ava.”

He looked at her quizzically. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure I’m sure,” she said. He was certainly handsome, she thought, settling behind her desk, but so shy and awkward! She could already tell. And those glasses! He had such large, lovely brown eyes behind them. Hadn’t he heard of contact lenses?

“I’m sorry I’m sitting here,” he said, even though he wasn’t sitting anymore, but was standing, nervously, the stack of folders in his arms. “Mrs. — um, Mrs. Conti said it was okay because she didn’t know where else to put me until you came in.”

“It’s fine,” she said, her mind already thrumming with all the different projects she could put him on. . and wasn’t this sweet, she already felt a bit maternal toward him! “I came up at Bellevue. I know how to work around distraction. I’m not one of those lab geeks!”

He laughed — awkwardly, she noted; oops, he probably was one of those lab geeks. “So how’s Columbia?” she asked. “Renny—” She caught herself. “I’m sorry,” she said, all mock contrite. “ Dr. Ferrer said you were interested in infectious. I.D.”

He nodded soberly. “I am.”

“But why? Infectious is over, everything’s been figured out. Why not cancer or heart? That’s where the big work’s gonna be — and the big money.”

“Well—” he stammered. He was so nervous! Was she talking too hard, too fast, scaring him? “Well, in the developing world— infectious—”

“Oh, I get it! You want to do I.D. in the developing world. Oh, well, that’s a different story. Lots of work to do there! You’re from — where, the D.R.?”

“The P.R.,” he said. They both laughed a bit at the inadvertent wordplay. “We came here when I was thirteen.”

“Ah, sí, muy bien ,” she said. “Maybe you can help me with my Spanish, among other things, because it’s not very good.”

“Sure, I’ll help you,” he said softly. She smiled. She hadn’t even been serious, but he’d taken her seriously. He was sweet. If only he’d lose those dorky glasses — he didn’t know how handsome he was!

She needed to bring them back on point — her busy day! Her meetings! The outlines and flowcharts she wanted to work through! “Let’s talk about what I’ve got on my plate and how you can help me out,” she began. And just then, speaking of I.D., Blum rapped on her door, came in, and handed her a brief, ignoring Hector.