“Um . . . no?” I said.
To my surprise, Miss Bernice clapped her hands together.
“That’s right, baby girl,” Miss Bernice said. “You don’t need to be nobody’s wife! When the boys come around, you take what you want and move on, ’cause that’s what they’ll do to you!”
My eyes widened with amused shock for a split second before I regained control of my face.
“Okay, Miss Bernice,” I said. “Uhhh . . . Thanks for the advice?”
“Just looking out,” Miss Bernice said. She flipped off her sheet, exposing her leg, now sans foot. “You wanted to take a look at this, right? Go ahead, Doc.”
I smiled and took a look at Miss Bernice’s surgical site. I’d long stopped trying to correct Miss Bernice when she called me Doc. When James and I first met her in the Emergency Department, her eyes had gone wide when he introduced me as a medical student.
“You training to be a nurse?” she’d asked.*
“A doctor,” I said automatically, and her smile turned bright.
“A doctor!” she’d said, clapping her hands together. “Oooh, I’m proud of you, baby! You too, sweetie,” she said off-handedly to James, who laughed, understanding. “But you! How long have you got left in school?” When I told her （“A year and a half, ma’am,”） she scoffed. “That’s no time! I’m calling you Doc now!”
I walked out of Miss Bernice’s room with a smile on my face, as I always did, and made for the workroom. I had only an hour and a half left until my dinner date with Ricky. My quick post-op wound check with Miss Bernice had taken ten minutes longer than I had expected, given her line of questioning, but now I had finally finished off my checklist.
To my surprise, when I returned to my apartment, Nia was there, lounging on the sofa. Since our conversation a few days ago, she had been making a concerted effort to be present when and however possible. With her grueling new bakery schedule, I knew that frequent visits weren’t sustainable, but I appreciated them regardless. But at least I had her today to witness my transformation.
Ricky was always brazen in his appreciation of me. All I had to do was stand up from my chair and stretch to get an approving Mm! from him, or a half-lidded, lascivious stare. I caught him looking even when the Ass was clearly out of view, sneaking glances at me from over his laptop. When I was feeling a little saucy, I added some sashay to my step when I walked past him just to watch him gawk.
And so today, with twenty minutes left on the clock, I was going to preen and primp like nothing he’d ever seen. The falsies were coming out, the foundation, the uncomfortable but dazzlingly effective push-up bra. I was not, as one might say, fucking around. If I did this right, my halfhearted vow of chastity didn’t have a chance of making it through the night.
“Damn, girl, you trying to get pregnant?” Nia asked when I stepped out of my bedroom in my new dress.
I spun around to show off all the angles.
“No,” I said smugly. “Just reminding Ricky exactly who he’s taking out tonight.” I paused, patting my stomach affectionately. “At least until we eat. This dress is not going to be very forgiving.”
Nia laughed.
“Where’d you get it? It’s definitely a freakum* dress, but classy. I need me one of those.”
I sent Nia the link to the dress, then solicited her opinion on which of my four pairs of heels I should wear. She showed me a picture of the new pair she’d just purchased （purportedly the “comfiest stilettos in the world”） and, when I expressed my skepticism, opened a YouTube video review. We watched it, pausing every few seconds to say, “Oh my god, shoes,” then pulled up the classic 2006 “Shoes” video to round it out. It felt like Nia and I had reverted right back to our old patterns, but better now, because her happiness was genuine.
Of course I was late after all that. Five minutes before I was meant to leave, Nia and I were still draped across the couch and laughing, and I hadn’t even put on eyeliner.
“Hurry!” Nia shouted after me when I rushed into my room to finish up.
La Ventana was packed when I showed up, eighteen minutes into our reservation. They had definitely gone for an Instagram aesthetic, with clean, white tile walls and woven baskets of ivy hanging from the ceilings. The wall across from the bar was painted with a large relief of Machu Picchu as viewed through an open window.
“What’s the reservation under?” The hostess, a pretty, willowy woman wearing dark red lipstick, asked.