The Repeat Year (15 page)

Chapter 11

W
hen she got home, it looked like every light in the second story was switched on. Even her own bedroom light. She dragged her feet on the stairs, anticipating something she probably didn’t want to walk in on. But Kerrigan was alone. Olive found her in her bedroom, wearing a glittery black dress, pawing through the closet. When she heard Olive come in, she turned around and held up a white, gold-sequined tank top.

“What do you think of this? It doesn’t look like something you’d own, which is why I like it so much, I guess.”

“What are you doing?” Olive asked. She threw her backpack on the floor and inspected her African violet, which was looking a little thirsty. Despite her best intentions, it was difficult remembering to water it weekly.

“Don’t tell me you forgot. You promised me we’d go out tonight.”

That was before Olive had known she’d get called in to work. “I worked twelve hours today, Kerrigan. I’m a little tired.” She dumped a half-full glass of water from her nightstand into the clay pot.

“You’re always tired. It’s not even nine o’clock. You’re turning into a little old lady.” She tossed the sequined top at Olive. “Put it on.”

It was difficult negotiating these awkward intersections in her life. Her thoughts were still with Sherry in the hospital. With the lost little boy. Olive fingered the sequins. She wanted to keep her promise and be a good friend to Kerrigan, but a noisy, crowded bar was the last place she wanted to be right now. She didn’t feel up to pretending to have a good time.

“This is our last chance for a girls’ night out,” Kerrigan said. “God knows when Phil gets back tomorrow, it will be back to twenty-four-seven coupledom for you.” She struggled to squeeze some loose hangers back into the closet. “So what do you say? You’re only twenty-five once.”

The first bar they hit was Castaway’s, a tropical-themed bar popular with the twenty-somethings. Brightly patterned fabric like sarongs draped across the ceiling, hurricane lanterns lit the tables, and the bartenders wore hideous shirts. Olive was momentarily reminded of St. Lucia, where she would be headed in less than two months. She tried to stay in the moment and think of this as another time-space experiment, like today at work had been. She was breaking the pattern, forging ahead into uncharted territory. What else had she missed last year by staying home?

“Here we are. The first round’s on me,” Kerrigan said as she deposited two glasses as large as cantaloupe halves on the table. The slushy pink liquid inside made Olive guess they were strawberry daiquiris. A sparkly glaze of sugar coated the rims. Kerrigan lifted her glass high. “To my best friend, who I love, but who needs to loosen up.” She clinked glasses with Olive. “Now loosen up.”

Kerrigan told her about the text messages she’d been receiving from Steve, asking her to meet up with him, as if they hadn’t broken up months ago. She rhapsodized about the resort in Cozumel where she and Ciara had stayed last month, and how the maid had folded their towels into different animals—a swan one day, a rabbit the next, an unbelievably elaborate elephant on the last day. It was all for tips, of course, but still she hoped the resort Olive would stay at in St. Lucia did towel animals. She talked about the student worker in her office whom she wanted to sleep with. He was Indian American and had the most beautiful eyebrows she’d ever seen.

“They probably frown on office romances at the university,” Olive said. “And besides, don’t you think he’s a bit young for you?”

“I didn’t say I was going to sleep with him. I only said I
wanted
to.”

That was the problem—there wasn’t much of a difference between those two things in Kerrigan’s world. It was one of the many things about Kerrigan that Olive envied. She doubted that Kerrigan would ever be made to repeat a year. Kerrigan seemed to live with no regrets.

Two daiquiris, three mojitos, and a mango margarita later, Kerrigan suggested they walk to a bar down by the Capitol. It wasn’t until they were only a block away that she mentioned Steve would be there.

“Kerrigan! I thought this was supposed to be girls’ night out.” A blister was developing on Olive’s left pinky toe, and her right heel felt raw and abraded. She wasn’t used to walking long distances in heels.

“It is, it is. I just want him to see me in this hot black dress and remember what he’s missing.”

They passed an abandoned shop with a royal blue awning. Up ahead loomed a stretch of high-rise condominiums. A brief feeling of déjà vu stole over Olive. She looked up and down the street, trying to determine why this area felt familiar to her, but the more she tried to place it, the less familiar it looked.

The place was called Heureux Hasard, and it was more of a bistro than a bar. A jazz quartet was playing on a small platform in the back. The regulars were older and more sophisticated than the Castaway’s crowd—probably in their thirties or forties, buying whole bottles of wine instead of just by the glass, eating steamed mussels and roast beef au jus even though it was after midnight. Olive suddenly felt like a silly undergrad in her sleeveless, sequined top, but she had such a nice buzz going, she didn’t mind much.

They both spotted Steve at a booth in the back, so they chose a table in the storefront window. The waiter took their order—two glasses of pinot blanc and a plate of Brie and crackers—and then carded them. Olive found this so funny that she couldn’t stop laughing. She twisted her hair into a loose bun to lift it from the back of her neck. After the long walk, it felt downright balmy in the bistro.

“He’s not even looking over here,” Kerrigan complained. “Do you think he’s with that black-haired girl?”

“It doesn’t matter. He’s not worth it. He’s just playing mind games with you.” Olive let her hair tumble down. She cupped the bulb of her wineglass and looked into its pale liquid as though she were gazing into a crystal ball. “You will meet someone new very soon. A rodeo cowboy. His name will be . . . Clay.”

Kerrigan snorted with laughter. “I like that. That’s good. Now tell me what will happen to Steve.”

Olive waved her hands in front of the glass, nearly knocking it over. “Alas. I see only bad things for Steve. Painful urination. Genital warts. Penile discharge.”

“Oh my God. Did you just say penile discharge? You’re so much more fun when you’re drinking.”

Olive was glad Phil was out of town, so he wouldn’t see her like this. He hated when she drank too much and worried about her safety. When he went to bars, he drank only one or two beers before switching to soda. Being raised by an alcoholic father had made him a very cautious drinker. He’d seen firsthand the destruction alcohol could cause.

The waiter brought over another round of drinks. “Compliments of the gentleman in the back booth,” he said.

“Pathetic,” Olive scowled. “We don’t want them. He can’t buy you back with drinks. Send them back.” She felt bold and infallible. It was nice to focus her energy on this smaller, more manageable crisis.

“Is there any way we can keep them but you tell the gentleman we sent them away?” Kerrigan asked the waiter. He shook his head and left with the tray of drinks. “Well, that was dumb. We had free drinks, and now we have no free drinks. Hey, this hot guy is totally staring at you. Two o’clock. Be cool.”

Olive glanced over her right shoulder but saw only a table of women.

“Sorry. My two o’clock. Your, um . . . Oh, shit. He’s coming over here.”

The hair follicles on the nape of her neck contracted. She busied her hands with the cheese knife, cutting herself a notch of Brie. In the moment before he spoke, she felt certain she knew who it was, just as she had instantly recognized Sherry earlier today. Improbable. Unlikely. But what about this year wasn’t? She was being led by mysterious cosmic forces with unknowable designs. That and Kerrigan, who had dragged her unwittingly right into his neighborhood. Now she knew why these streets seemed familiar.

“It
is
you,” Alex said. “Why did you turn down my drinks?”

Olive looked up at Alex. “We thought they were from Steve—her ex.” She concentrated hard on appearing sober, as it suddenly became apparent to her that she was not. “Kerrigan, this is my coworker, Dr. Kerrigan. Er . . . Carpenter. Alex, this is my friend, Kerrigan Morland.”

“Please. Call me Alex,” he said, as he shook Kerrigan’s hand. He turned to Olive. “I hope I’m not interrupting. I’m here with some friends, and I was surprised when you came in. I’ve never seen you here before.”

“She’s never been here before. She doesn’t get out much,” Kerrigan supplied.

“Same here,” Alex said with a smile. “Occupational hazard. Would you both like to join us?” He looked different in his jeans and black dress shirt, untucked, without a tie. Less like the Alex she worked with. More like the Alex she had had a summer fling with last year. The way he was looking at her right now made it difficult to believe he remembered nothing of their past relations.

Olive’s alcohol-soaked brain was struggling to keep up with her accelerated heart. “Thanks, but we—”

Kerrigan nudged her under the table with the toe of her shoe. “We’d love to,” she finished. “We’ll be right over.” Olive gave her an openmouthed look, but Alex didn’t see it because he was already pointing out his table. He stepped away, and Kerrigan started gathering her purse, her wineglass, and the plate of Brie.

Olive slapped the table with her palm. “What the hell, Kerrigan?”

“Come on, live a little. You know cute doctors are my favorite kind of doctors.”

Neon warning signs flashed in Olive’s head.
Bad idea, bad idea, very bad idea.
Why did fate have it in for her? What was up with that? Two months had passed since she had walked away from Alex in the ICU locker room, and she’d been doing a damn good job avoiding him since then. But now here they were, at midnight in a dusky bar with a bass for a heartbeat. Perhaps it was the universe’s idea of a “man walks into a bar” joke. Or was this some kind of temptation: Phil out of town, and Alex the carrot dangling in front of her nose, waiting to see if she’d bite?

“Well, I won’t bite,” she said adamantly, and flung her purse over her shoulder.

“That’s good to know.” Kerrigan led the way to Alex’s table, which was conveniently located only two booths away from Steve and company’s.

Alex was sitting with two other residents that Olive thankfully didn’t recognize: Jim Bilkers, an emergency medicine intern, and Anoop Mehrotra, a second-year internal medicine doc. When they caught a glimpse of Kerrigan in her little black dress, they fidgeted in their seats and self-consciously patted their hair. She and Kerrigan sat on the same side of the booth with Alex, and Olive was dismayed to find that in this close proximity, her thigh almost touched his. She pressed her knees together and tried to take up as little space as possible. They ordered a round of drinks, and Kerrigan was all smiles and laughter, at her most flirtatious with her ex only a few feet away.

Apropos of nothing, Alex said, “Olive is the most badass nurse in the ICU.”

“In all our years of friendship, I never figured you for a badass,” Kerrigan quipped.

“Badass how?” Jim asked, and gulped his beer. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Telling off doctors?” Olive could already tell he was the type of doctor Tina would call a
nump
, a Narcissistic Über Macho Prick.

“No,” Alex said. “But this girl is not afraid of anything or anyone. Last week we had a gangbanger recovering post-op from multiple gunshot wounds. When he woke up, he was crazy as a wildcat, trying to yank out his catheter, and complaining we were starving him. He was NPO, of course.” He paused to translate for Kerrigan, “Nothing by mouth. So I was not looking forward to dealing with this dude. But then here comes Olive, and she walks up to his bedside, and says nice as pie, ‘Sir, we were able to save your life. And I know you’re very uncomfortable, but you’re still recovering. If you let me help you get better, I’ll make sure you get some barbecued ribs soon—’ Because that’s what he’d been begging for. And just like that”—Alex snapped his fingers—“the wildcat became a kitten.”

“Hard core,” Anoop pronounced, and grinned at Olive. He had kind brown eyes and was drinking a Tom Collins. Definitely not a nump.

“I don’t know about that,” she said, blushing despite herself. What Alex had described was true, but Olive had never imagined herself as being particularly brave in her actions. The patient had been younger than her, and she hadn’t viewed him so much as scary as scared. Tina had once grudgingly admitted to Olive that she had a way with patients, but even then, Olive had viewed this as the more ho-hum gift of “people skills” or “communication skills.” Not a lack of fear. Not bravery, as Alex was trying to convince the table.

Jim vied for the floor and told a story about a young man who came into the ER after his hand had been severely mangled by his snowblower. The wound was so grotesque that the admitting nurse, who had over twenty years of ED experience, had thrown up on the spot. After Jim described his heroic efforts to save the man’s hand, he concluded with, “What kind of idiot sticks his hand into a snowblower? Since then, I’ve been surprised by the sheer number of idiots I see on a daily basis. You would not believe how many people get shit-faced and then decide to climb up on ladders and clean their gutters. Big mistake.”