James Hynes - Next

Nurse Amazon has stepped back from the truck to swig some more Gatorade. It’s almost as if she wants Kevin to get a better look at her, but then he considers how he must look to her — pale, sweaty, rumpled — and thinks, I should be so lucky. But of course he takes a good long look anyway, admiring her solid, fat-free thighs, the definition of her biceps, the muscles in her throat as she tips her head back and swallows. Then she lowers the bottle, swipes her lips with the back of her hand, and says, “No charge.”

“Must be my lucky day, then,” Kevin says, pausing to swig the last of his water, which is noticeably warmer already. “Getting nursing care for free.”

Immediately Kevin realizes he’s said something he shouldn’t have. She stiffens; there’s a slight catch in her breathing, not quite a gasp. For a moment Kevin thought he’d seen a brightness in her gaze, not necessarily flirtatious, but the gleam of a good-looking, fit, fortysomething woman appreciating a man’s regard, even if she wasn’t particularly interested in return. But now that’s gone, as if a curtain has fallen.

“Nursing care?” Her voice, too, has noticeably cooled.

“It’s just you seemed to know your way around a bandage.” Kevin knows he ought to shut up, but that’s never stopped him before. “The way you snapped on those gloves…”

The Amazon slugs the last of her Gatorade and twists the top back on the empty bottle like she’s twisting Kevin’s neck. He’s trying to put it all together — the military bearing, the sculpted physique, the pickup truck — of course! She’s a lesbian — a weight-lifting, Latina, ex-military lesbian — and she thinks he’s coming on to her.

“I didn’t…,” Kevin starts to say, with no idea how he’s going to finish the sentence.

“Thoracic surgeon,” says the woman, tossing the empty bottle into the truck bed. “And I’m afraid I’m running a little late.”

“Ah,” says Kevin. “Of course.” Idiot, he thinks. Idiot, idiot, idiot.

“You’re going to need a department store to replace those trousers.” She holds her palm out for his empty water bottle. “Do you have a car?” She drills him with her gaze, daring him to apologize.

“No,” he says, his mouth suddenly dry again. “I’m just here for the day.” He gingerly hands her the bottle, and she practically flings it into the back. “I have a job interview.”

“Yes, you said.” She steps back and gestures to the side like a maitre d’, and it takes a moment for Kevin to realize she wants him to get out of the truck. Clutching his coat, he scrambles down to the pavement and turns awkwardly, his torn trouser leg flapping, his knee still smarting from the antiseptic. Meanwhile Dr. Amazon grips the side of the driver’s doorway and yanks herself in one go up into the seat.

“There’s a Nordstrom’s out at the mall.” She looks down at him from the truck. “Do you have a cell, to call a cab?”

“No, actually.” He deliberately left his cell in Ann Arbor, so that if Stella calls him from Chicago, he won’t have to lie.

The good doctor slams the door and starts her truck, and the well-tuned roar of the engine startles Kevin a few paces back. I guess a ride’s out of the question, he thinks. Then her darkly tinted window whirs down, and she drapes her elbow out the window. He moistens his lips and says, “I don’t suppose you have a cell I could borrow.” He has to raise his voice to be heard over the confident rumble of the truck.

“My cell’s for emergencies only.” She points past him toward the bridge. “You can catch a bus right over there, far side of Lamar.” She looks him up and down. “There’s a Target a couple miles south, at Ben White.”

Her truck jerks into gear, the engine roars. Did she just say Target?

“Hey, thank you!” Kevin cries over the rumble, minding his manners, hating the way his voice rises an octave. “You’ve been very kind, Miz…”

“ Doctor Barrientos.” She guns her engine to drown out any further bleatings from Kevin. He steps back as her glossy truck reverses out of its space, screeches to a stop, then heaves forward, past the toes of Kevin’s shoes and out of the lot onto the street.

Kevin limps past the end of the pedestrian bridge, toward Lamar. He drapes his jacket over his arm, careful not to empty his inside pocket. His knee stings, his sock is sticky with blood, and his nerves are still jangling. He feels old and slow and a good deal more fragile than he felt just fifteen minutes ago, all because of his little accident, and it doesn’t help that he’s been insulted by his good Samaritan, through no fault of his own. His misunderstanding about her had been wholly inadvertent, and let’s face it, not all that much of an insult. What the hell’s wrong with being a nurse?

He sees her truck idling angrily at the intersection. Target, he thinks. She said that just to piss me off. I’ll have you know, Doctor, these trousers were picked out by my very stylish and much younger girlfriend at the Abercrombie & Fitch in Briarwood Mall, thank you very much. Say what you want about Stella, she has an eye for quality; she’d never take him to fucking Target. Say what you want about Stella, but she knows what she wants, and goes for it without hesitation. Her single-mindedness, her ferocity, is what still thrills him about her after three years, even though he’s certain that he doesn’t love her. Well, pretty certain: he’s a little surprised at the moment at the depth of his anger at the doctor’s implied insult of his girlfriend’s sartorial judgment. It’s one thing for him to roll his eyes at his girlfriend’s joy at the gaudiest artifacts of pop culture— American Idol, anyone? Project Runway? — and her guilt-free uninterest in the books and movies and music Kevin loves, but it’s another for some humorless bitch in a pickup truck to do it. Don’t say nothin’ bad about my baby, Doctor .

He hobbles a little faster toward the corner, almost as if he means to come alongside the surgeon’s truck and catch her eye and give her a piece of his mind. But the intersection where the bridge meets the cross street is crowded with vehicles, radiating heat and impatience; the fender bender on the bridge has reduced traffic to a single lane each way, and cars are backed up along Lamar. As Kevin comes to the corner, a motorcycle cop in a tight, dark uniform — now that guy must be hot — is weaving his massive bike through the gridlock toward the center of the bridge, his flasher bright even in the midday glare. By the time Kevin turns back to the doctor’s truck, she’s rounded the corner and accelerated south down Lamar, shifting up with a stuttering, guttural roar.

The motorcycle cop glides to a stop at the corner, right in front of Kevin. His helmet dips toward Kevin’s leg and then his mouth speaks loudly from under his tinted visor.

“You hurt?” he shouts. His idling bike makes his whole body vibrate, as if he’s just a little out of focus. He points at Kevin’s leg, and Kevin, like an idiot, looks down at his own injury as if he’s surprised to see it.

“No,” Kevin shouts back. “I just fell down. It’s got nothing to do with that.” He lifts his chin up the bridge toward the accident, and the cop gives him a brisk cop nod and rumbles away. Actually, Kevin feels a little wobbly, a little lightheaded, as if his brain is floating free of his head. Perhaps that’s why he doesn’t wait for the walk sign and hobbles out into the clotted traffic across Lamar, his surgically incised trouser leg flapping. The heat reverberates off the backed-up vehicles, and the air stinks of exhaust. He turns left across the street and limps alongside an exhausted little park of underachieving trees and yellowed grass. Southbound cars rev up Lamar as they escape from the jam on the bridge, and over their rumble Kevin hears birds creaking and cawing from the drooping trees.