Jessica brings out a sheaf of papers, which she hands to me. “Just let me know what’s going on. If you need a day or two, we can figure something out.”
“I’m sure I can work tomorrow.”
“Well, maybe just wait and see what they say.” She touches my shoulder. “It’s all good, dude.”
Ayaz drives a battered Mercedes, at least thirty years old. It’s black, and the seats have been recovered. Inside, it smells ferny, foresty. The scent eases me as I settle in. I can’t do the seat belt, so he bends over me matter-of-factly and clicks it into place.
The wrist hurts like something is chewing on it, and I just hold it next to my body, hoping that will ease it or keep it from getting worse. I’m struggling not to cry. “It’s nice of you to do this,” I say to distract myself.
“Nonsense. You would do the same for me, I think.” He starts the car and it purrs to life.
It’s only a few blocks to the urgent care. As he pulls into the lot, I say, “You don’t have to stay. I’ll call my sister. Seriously.”
“Will you allow me to walk you inside at least?” His expression is merely kind, nothing more, and I nod. I honestly feel a little dizzy and I’m grateful when he takes my elbow.
At the window, I check in and give the woman behind the desk my paperwork, then turn to sit down and realize I’ve left my purse—along with my phone—at the café.
“Why don’t you let me sit here with you,” Ayaz says, “and when they take you for your X-ray, I’ll jog back and pick up the purse, and you can be done with me.”
“It’s not that,” I say, wincing as a round of biting starts again in my wrist. “I just don’t want to impose.” I’m leaning my head on the wall and swivel it to look at him. “This is the second time you’ve rescued me.”
He gives me a very small smile. “Chivalry lives.”
I close my eyes against the teeth gnawing on my wrist and take a breath. “What kind of books do you write?”
“Medical thrillers. Nothing you would read, I would imagine.”
“I might.” A little click makes me want to look him up when I get home. Maybe I know his work. “You don’t sound as if you like it very much.”
He spreads his palms and brings them together. “I do. When it’s moving, when I’m swimming in the depths of it, there is nothing better. I’ve been a writer since I was a small child, and it was always a delight, making up a story, seeing the shape of it.”
“But?”
“I am in the middle of something I cannot quite bring in.” He looks at me. “I don’t know why.”
His face is very pleasing, dark lashes over expressive eyes, his lower, full lip. I say, “Maybe you’re grieving still?”
“Mmm. Perhaps. It started before she died, but it’s been worse since then.”
A woman in blue scrubs comes out of the double doors. “Ms. Beauvais?”
I stand.
“I’ll be back with your purse,” he says.
The X-ray shows a hairline fracture along the radius, which will have to be set. The nurse brings in all the things she’ll need to do the job—bandages in several colors, which she offers for my selection. I choose pink for the cheeriness.
Before we start, she asks some routine medical questions, and I answer without energy until she asks, “When was your last period?”
My body goes so cold I feel I’ve been swamped by a winter wave. I think back—did I have one at all in rehab? That’s three months. Before that? I can’t remember. The last few months before rehab are a blur of anger and revenge plots and patchy blackouts. My boyfriend, Josh, was living in the guesthouse at the winery, but we were not on good terms. We might have had punishment sex, I suppose, but he was so madly in love with the Frenchwoman he’d fallen for over the long months he was marooned in Provence that I really doubted it, even if I’d goaded him.
The terrible truth is that it is unfortunately and entirely likely I had random sex with some bar connection. The thought brings a surge of self-hatred the color and texture of tar. It mixes with the pain in my arm and the fear in my gut to create a perfect storm of horror.
“I don’t know,” I say aloud, thinking about my nausea and unsettled tummy and intense appetite.
And cravings. The driving demand for artichokes.
“Do we need a pregnancy test?” she asks.
I pause. Nod. “Yes.”
She must see something on my face, because she squeezes my uninjured hand. “One thing at a time.”