Carol shrugged without replying, which was as good as saying no. She gave him her back as she marched into the bookstore.
‘I’ll get a slice at Sbarro,’ he called after her. ‘Meet me in the food court when you’re done.’
Howard gathered up their shopping bags. There wasn’t much room to maneuver, and people bumped into him as he walked. Little kids dodged in and out of the crowds. Teenage girls from his high school classes chewed gum, blew bubbles, and waved at him, giggling. A couple of the girls carried tiny bags from Victoria’s Secret, and he wondered what they’d purchased. Panties. Sexy bra. Maybe a boyfriend would get to see them in it. Or out of it.
It depressed him to be forty.
Howard passed more stores. Suncoast. Gymboree. Wilson’s Leather. He stopped at a Rocky Mountain Chocolate kiosk and bought himself a piece of milk chocolate almond bark. After the pizza, he’d want dessert. He fumbled with his bags again as he headed for the food court, and he walked carefully, because the floor was slippery with wet boot marks.
Ahead of him, he spotted an empty storefront. A line of parents and kids stretched out the door into the mall corridor. Getting closer, he saw that the vacant space had been converted into a free weekend clinic for families, sponsored by St. Anne’s. Vaccinations. Strep tests. Flu shots. Massages. The clinic was a hive of activity. Nurses handled registration and gave out balloons to the children. A short, pretty woman with long black hair demonstrated muscle stretches to a young girl in a shoulder brace.
And in the midst of all of them — there she was.
Janine Snow.
Howard stopped. People bustled around Janine, but for him, she was the only person there, as if she were in the halo of a spotlight. She stood beside a portable curtain, talking to a patient who was invisible behind the white sheet. He’d never seen her before in the flesh. Real. Alive. She didn’t see him watching her, which was a good thing, because he found he couldn’t drag his eyes away. It made him feel like a voyeur, staring between the crowds. Others whispered as they walked by.
That’s her.
She had a magnetism that wasn’t like other people. Yes, she was beautiful and blond, with fullness and curves under her white coat, but to Howard, the attraction went deeper than that. It was her life; it was the drama of being her. She was famous, infamous, gifted, cool, erotic. She was as far removed from Howard’s own life as a distant star, and yet she was so close that he could have taken a few steps and touched her.
Somehow, after a while, she felt his stare. She looked up from her work and saw him, and their eyes met.
His physical reaction was immediate. A full erection squeezed its way into the pocket of his underwear. That wasn’t a common event at his age. Hard-ons didn’t just happen anymore. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d experienced something so intimate with a woman. She was staring at him, and he was staring back. There may as well not have been a single other soul in the mall around them.
She went back to her patient. He was nothing to her again. A stranger. Even so, they’d shared a connection. Something had passed between them. It had only lasted a moment, but it took his breath away.
‘Everyone looks at me now,’ Janine mused.
Cindy put down her clipboard and glanced at her friend, who’d spoken softly from a few feet away. Janine tilted her head toward the mall, and Cindy looked out at the crowds and saw a middle-aged man eyeing her friend like a fan stalking a celebrity. He was a little doughy, and he labored under the weight of numerous shopping bags. He had a long face with puppy-dog eyes behind old-fashioned black glasses. His coat, plaid shirt, and jeans were the uniform of a suburban husband.
When the man realized Cindy was watching him, he looked away, embarrassed, and trudged toward the mall’s food court.
‘He’s harmless,’ Cindy said.
Janine shrugged. ‘Oh, I know.’
Her friend stripped off her latex gloves and nodded at the child with her, indicating they were all done with the dreaded shot. The little boy scampered to join his parents. Cindy’s eyes followed him, and she felt the same old yearning that dogged her whenever she saw a mother and child together. As if she’d missed something in her life. Janine didn’t seem similarly affected. When her time with a patient was over, that person disappeared from her consciousness. Cindy didn’t understand it, but she’d seen it in doctors over and over.
‘You want some lemonade?’ she asked her friend.
‘Sure.’
Cindy filled two Dixie Cups from a large plastic pitcher near the check-in desk. She drank one and then refilled it, and she ate a stale butter cookie. They’d already been on their feet for hours, and she was exhausted.
‘Here you go,’ she said, handing a cup to Janine.
‘Thanks.’ Janine sipped pink lemonade and eyed the gawkers in the mall. ‘It’s odd. I’ve been saving lives for years, and no one had a clue who I was. Now people think I shot my husband, and I’m recognized everywhere.’
‘Duluth is still a small town,’ Cindy said.
‘Yes, that’s what Archie says. He told me to come here today. He said it would humanize me if people saw me giving shots to little kids. I guess my compassion is just a legal strategy. She lowered her voice further and added: ‘You know what this means, don’t you?’
Cindy looked at her, confused. ‘No.’
‘Archie is already thinking about the jury pool.’
Cindy was shocked, but she realized that Janine was right. Archie knew that trials were shaped months in advance by the public perception of a defendant. Initial prejudices, good or bad, were hard to overcome. Janine’s lawyer wanted the people of Duluth to see her as a doctor. A healer. Not a rich, cold adulterer who could point a gun at her husband and pull the trigger.
‘I’ll be back in a minute, okay?’ Cindy said. ‘I need to splash some water on my face.’
She retreated to a bathroom at the back of the empty store. It was handicapped-accessible and smelled of pine disinfectant. She left the door open and didn’t bother turning on the light. She washed her hands, then her face, and she dried her skin with paper towels from the dispenser.
As she stared at her dark reflection in the mirror, it happened again.
Pain, like a lightning bolt between her legs.
Cindy couldn’t hold back a loud cry. She grabbed the porcelain sink, riding the wave, squeezing her eyes shut. Nausea rose in her throat, and she was ready to bolt for the toilet. Her body felt as if it were being torn in two. She wanted to scream again, but as quickly as it had come, the wave crested and washed away. She breathed slowly and deeply, relaxing. Her body was clammy with sweat.
Opening her eyes, she saw Janine watching her closely from the bathroom doorway.
‘Is everything okay?’ Janine asked. ‘I heard you cry out.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Are you feeling all right?’
Cindy brightened her smile. ‘Sure. It’s just stomach cramps.’
Patients lied to doctors all the time, and doctors knew it. Janine didn’t believe her. ‘The pain looked sharp. Has this been happening a lot?’
‘Every now and then.’
‘Have you seen your doctor?’ Janine asked. ‘Because you should.’
‘I will. I’m due for a physical in a couple months. Right now, I’m too busy.’
Janine frowned. ‘Too busy’ was every patient’s excuse.
‘I’m sure it’s nothing,’ Cindy added, which was a stupid thing to say to a doctor when you weren’t a doctor yourself. Her gut told her it was something, but she wasn’t ready to face whatever it might be.
‘Take a break,’ Janine told her. ‘Go sit in the food court for a while.’