Rosalind puts her hand on my shoulder for a moment as she begins walking, tactfully leading me farther away from the patient area. “I realize you’re a close friend, but I can’t divulge a patient’s personal information to anyone but her next of kin. However, if you want to know about placenta previa in general—it’s what happens when the placenta is located wholly or primarily in the lower part of the uterus. At this later stage of pregnancy, the placenta can rub against the unfolding uterus, and bleeding can occur. The condition occurs in varying degrees of seriousness, from mothers requiring immediate C-section to those we can monitor on an outpatient basis.”
Arturo already said Shay could come home soon, so she must be on the less dangerous end of the scale. I breathe out in relief. “It helps to know that. Thanks so much.”
“You’re welcome,” Rosalind says. “And—forgive me, but do I know you? I can’t shake the feeling that we’ve met before.”
“Um. Yeah.” Until very recently I was acting out violent sexual fantasies with your boyfriend. “We ran into each other at the public interest law benefit last weekend. In the restroom. We had mutual dress envy.”
Instantly Rosalind’s eyes light up. “That gorgeous green silk. Of course! Do you know, I looked for one like it online? No luck so far.” Politely she holds out her hand. “Rosalind Campbell.”
As we shake hands, I say, “Vivienne Charles.”
Rosalind’s smile widens, and her fingers give mine a tiny, conspiratorial squeeze. “Oh! So you’re Jonah’s Vivienne.”
She knows who I am. She’s not angry. She called me Jonah’s Vivienne. “Excuse me?”
“I’m the guilty one who stole him as my date the other night.” Rosalind shrugs, smiling. “Hope you didn’t mind. What a pity we didn’t run into you together—we could’ve met then, under less stressful circumstances.”
Rosalind was Jonah’s date, but she knows Jonah and I have been together, and she doesn’t mind, and I understand exactly zero of this. “We need to talk. Do you have a minute?”
Although Rosalind seems surprised by my question, she nods. “Sure.”
She leads me into a nearby examination room, empty and awaiting its next patient. Rosalind closes the door behind us and—perhaps by habit—I sit on the patient’s table, while she claims the doctor’s chair. It’s like I’ve come to her for a diagnosis.
“All right,” Rosalind says, “what’s this about? You don’t look like you’re about to tell me where you bought your gown.”
“It’s about Jonah—”
“Oh, no.” She holds her hands up to ward off my next words. “I don’t give romantic advice to anyone. Never turns out well.”
“That’s not what I meant. Just—Jonah obviously told you about me, but he never told me about you. I didn’t see you with him until the two of you left the benefit together, and—I guess I don’t understand your relationship.”
Her eyes widen. “Oh, no, no! Jonah and I are friends. That’s all.”
“Just friends?” My voice sounds more skeptical than I meant for it to. It’s hard for me to imagine any woman being near Jonah and not wanting to rip his clothes off.
Rosalind begins to smile. “I happen to be very much in love with one of the best chefs in town—and luckily for me, she’s not the jealous type.”
She. Well, that explains why Rosalind doesn’t want to jump Jonah’s bones.
“Candace and I have lived together for more than a year now,” Rosalind continues. “But the down side of being involved with a chef is that they’re unavailable several evenings a week. Since babies don’t keep to a timetable, my schedule is unpredictable as well. So I often find myself alone on a rare free night when I’d like to see a movie or go to a party, and sometimes I enlist Jonah to come with me.”
“Got it,” I say. “And I’m feeling pretty stupid right now.”
Rosalind laughs, but not unkindly. “It’s all right. I hope I didn’t start a lover’s quarrel.”
“Not exactly.”
Maybe I should feel elated. Jonah doesn’t have a girlfriend. He wasn’t using me to cheat, or having sex with somebody else, any of that.
But Jonah’s behavior isn’t the issue. My jealousy is.
The envy and fear I felt when I saw Jonah and Rosalind together told me a truth I’d wanted to deny: I want more from Jonah. More than sex, more than this twisted fantasy that imprisons us both. I have no idea what more could mean, for us.
Nothing, probably. Jonah made it very clear from the very first time he suggested our arrangement that he wasn’t looking for romance.
And it terrifies me that I feel this way about a man who pretended to rape me.
Rosalind says, “I’m not one bit surprised he didn’t get around to telling you about me yet, much less introducing us. Jonah’s one of the most private people I’ve ever met.”
I nod as I realize just how strong those steel walls around him truly are.
“So, if I’ve set your mind at ease, I should get back to work.” She rises and goes to the door, but pauses with a hand on the knob. “One last thing—”
“—yeah?”
“Jonah almost never talks about his personal life. But he talked about you.”
My reckless heart aches and warms at the same moment. “What did he say?”
“Very little. Your name, that you were someone he’d spent time with. He spoke about you just today, actually, when we grabbed a quick dinner—he worried he’d upset you. That’s about it,” Rosalind says. “Which is more information than he’s given me about any other woman in his life in the four years we’ve been friends. Whatever else is going on—you’re important to him.” Rosalind gives me a crooked smile. “So if I’m what you were upset about, no more worries, all right?”
I want to believe her. I want it too much. Right now I might make myself believe anything if it meant going back to Jonah.
More lightly, Rosalind says, “Good-bye, Vivienne. I’m sure we’ll see each other around, one way or another.”
Then she’s gone, and I sit alone in the examination room for a few long minutes, feeling a kind of pain no medicine can cure.
Once I’ve pulled myself together, I go back to the waiting room. Arturo and Carmen are still in tears, but after some more hugging and lots of Kleenex, Arturo returns to Shay’s side. Carmen and I make an emergency Target run.
“She’ll want socks,” Carmen says, pushing the red shopping cart toward the women’s section. “Soft fuzzy socks, so her feet won’t be cold. And could we get her a maternity nightgown, or does she have to wear that stupid hospital one the entire time? I bet she does. Well, would she want any pillows? Maybe the ones in the hospital suck. Anyway, everybody likes extra pillows.”
“Calm down, okay?” If I don’t stop her, she’s likely to walk out of here with half the store’s merchandise. “Shay only asked for some snacks and something new to read. Let’s just grab that and get back to her before visiting hours are over.”
Carmen looks like she might start crying again. “I just want to take care of her.”
“I know. And Shay knows that too, okay?” I give Carmen a quick hug around the shoulders.
She isn’t convinced. “I dug myself a pretty deep hole.”
“Well—yeah. But you can’t shop your way out of it. Let’s listen to Shay and Arturo for a while. Take your cues from them.”
Finally Carmen nods. “But I still think the socks are a good idea.”
“They are, aren’t they?” So we pick up some of those, too.
Our visit to Shay’s bedside is necessarily brief—visiting hours are ending, and she’s clearly tired and emotional. Carmen babbles on about the stuff we bought, while I set the granola bars and cups of applesauce nearby, where she can reach them. Arturo keeps his hand in Shay’s the entire time.