Never Too Late (8 page)

Carla smiled at his attempt to cheer her up. “Something like that.”

“Maybe it’s not the right job for you.”

“Maybe.” Mike led her to the patio, where he’d set two glasses and a bottle of her favorite champagne.

“This was so sweet. I can’t believe you gave up a date.” Carla sat and kicked off her low-heeled shoes, propping her feet in Mike’s lap. She groaned as he dug his thumbs in.

“It’s fine.”

“Can I ask you something personal?”

Mike poured the champagne. “Is there anything you don’t know about me?”

Carla took a long sip. The bubbles tickled her throat and the alcohol hit her stomach with a calming thud. “It’s different with Rob. In bed, I mean.”

Mike choked on his champagne. “How do you mean?”

“It feels right, doesn’t it? Like in a movie? The music swells and stars paste themselves to the inside of your eyelids?” Carla brushed hair away from his forehead. Who was she without him? Without their marriage?

“You’re a hopeless romantic. I love Rob differently than I love you, but not more.”

“I’m not asking for reassurance.” Well, maybe she was—the reassurance it felt right to be in the arms of someone who ignited passion in you.

“Yes, it feels right sexually. Can I ask you something?”

“Turnaround?”

“You think you’re gay because you’ve been attracted to a few women over the years.”

Carla looked away. Should she tell him about Jamie? He’d understand, but her feelings were so jumbled she couldn’t talk about it right now. And if she quit it would be irrelevant.

“But how do you know? I mean, don’t you want to have a one-night stand or something? To see what sex with a woman is like?”

Now it was Carla’s turn to choke on the champagne. “No. I can’t imagine—”

“I know it’s scary, but you can’t be a lesbian without a girlfriend.”

“Yes, I can.”

“You won’t want to be. You’re beautiful and smart and the most loving person I know. You need to find someone who gives you all the passion you deserve.”

“Romance novels make it sound easy.” Carla’s laugh came out choked and she reached for Mike’s hand. “I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

“You can find gay-oriented groups and activities online. Maybe a book club?”

“I never thought past getting Lissa off to college and helping you move out.”

“You’ve always taken care of us. Now you need to focus on you. We have a chance to follow new dreams, honey.” Mike squeezed her hand. “Honest dreams. Not what our parents and upbringing told us we should want. Don’t make me set you up on blind dates.”

Carla smiled. Would she ever find someone as loving and caring as Mike? Passion had been a small sacrifice over the years.

Mike’s cell phone rang. “Hi, Lis. Yep, right here.”

“Hi, sweetie,” Carla said, taking the phone. Her mood lifted at the sound of her daughter’s energetic voice.

“Steph has a craving for your spaghetti sauce. How do I make it?”

Carla’s world circled around her as she recited the recipe, reminding Lissa to use fresh marjoram and oregano. “Give Steph a hug for us.” She handed the phone back to Mike. “I hope the reasons for our divorce don’t throw her into a tailspin. For all the books out there on coming out, I’ve never seen one that explains how to come out to your teenaged daughter.”

“She’ll be fine. We’ll all get through this and be stronger for it. Promise me you’ll think about dating?”

“Think. That’s all.”

Mike kissed her on the cheek. “I made reservations for eight. Plenty of time for a hot bath. I’m sure you need one.”

Carla groaned. The last thing she needed was a bath.

One day at a time. Carla repeated Mike’s advice as she pulled into the parking lot, the end of her first week eight hours away. Jamie’s Highlander was in its usual place. No matter how early she got here with thoughts of making coffee for Jamie, she was always here first, shut in her office going through patient files.

She sighed as she got out of her Subaru. Part of her wanted to go home, crawl back into bed, and waste the day on a romance novel. Fictional love was less heartbreaking—the girl you’d never forgotten scooped you up and carried you off to a future in her arms.

Smoothing the skirt that was one of her favorites and feeling silly for hoping Jamie would like it, she took a deep breath and stepped into the clinic. It was quiet except for Melissa’s voice coming from the office to the right, Jamie’s office. She hesitated at the closed door. She couldn’t lie to herself that she’d hoped to see Jamie, maybe even talk to her alone. Chickening out, she went to the break room and poured coffee into one of the chipped brown mugs. They could use a whole new set of dishes.

Betty’s office was behind the front counter, secluded from patients’ view but close enough that she could keep an ear on the goings-on. Her office.
If I stay.
Turning on the Mac, she took a sip of coffee and held the cup away as if it’d bitten her. She was a coffee snob, but this wasn’t even tolerable. She could remedy that.
If I stay.

A week and she still wasn’t sure. The job was interesting and a good fit for her skills. But to be teased every day with the future she couldn’t have kept her off balance in a way she didn’t like. Jamie not remembering her was part of the dilemma, but so was her own cowardice. She’d listened for the staff to mention a partner or any call from one. The thought of Jamie single sent her heart into excited cartwheels, but it would be unprofessional to approach her in a personal way. Ten minutes later she knocked lightly on Jamie’s door, her heart pounding. She hadn’t been alone with Jamie since the interview.

*

Jamie had just found something interesting in the patient file when she heard a knock at her door. She was making some progress now that she wasn’t struggling to find a new office manager. She expected Don or Sara when she opened the door, but instead Carla stood there, wearing a pretty peach-colored floral-print skirt and matching knit top. Carla in her office took some getting used to. “Good morning.”

“Do you have a minute?”

Jamie pulled her eyes from the white sweater draped over Carla’s shoulders. “Sure.” She closed her eyes for a moment as Carla walked by. She liked that perfume.

“I was entering yesterday’s billings and had a question.” Carla clasped the patient file in both hands. “I’m sorry to bother you, but Betty’s not coming in until after lunch.”

Jamie sat down behind her desk. “No bother.”

“I’ve been reading your chart notes so I can get used to your handwriting, and the terminology you use. If I’m reading this file correctly,” Carla said, setting it on the desk, “you adjusted this patient and put heat on her neck and did ultrasound on her shoulder. But you checked only the boxes on the billing page for the adjustment and the ultrasound. Did you mean to not bill for the heat pack, or was it an oversight? I want to make sure I’m doing everything right with the billing.”

Jamie put her forearms on the desk. Carla’s eyes held hers, subtly shaded with eye shadow that brought out the gold tones, and still as kind as they’d been the first time she’d seen them. She was beautiful, an older version of the woman she’d known for a night. She shook off the memories. “Legally I can bill for any physical therapy, but I don’t. I bill for only one. I don’t run my clinic like a hospital where they nickel-and-dime insurance companies for every syringe and Band-Aid. At the heart of it, we’re charging the patient.”

“I’d say that’s honorable of you, Dr. Hammond.” Carla crossed her legs. “What about the exercise program you noted in the chart? You don’t bill for that either?”

“Not usually.”

“So you’re under-charging the insurance companies.”

“I don’t look at it like that.” Jamie tried to keep the defensiveness out of her voice. This was one area she and her father had been in complete agreement. “I’m a big believer in getting patients to do even a little exercise because it gets them involved in their healing process. I consider it part of the treatment package I provide.”

“It’s a lot different than the dentist’s office.” Carla looked at the stack of files on Jamie’s desk.

“I’m sure the billing system is very different.”

“Yes, that, but I meant what you do. I’ve never been to a chiropractor so it’s all a little mysterious. Several of your patients tried to describe how it works, but each one had a different explanation.”

Jamie leaned back in the chair. She always expected it to gently cradle her, but it felt stiff and unyielding. “Some people want me to pin down an exact scientific explanation of how chiropractic works. But you can’t pin down healing. So I give them the basics of what a subluxation is, how it affects their health, and how adjusting joints helps relieve their pain.”

“Sounds like Greek to me.”

“Why don’t you shadow me this morning since Betty won’t be in. You need to be able to answer patients’ questions about what we do.” She wasn’t thrilled by the idea of having Carla in close proximity all morning, but it was true Carla needed to know what she did.

“I’d love to,” Carla said. “I mean, it’s probably a good idea for me to know what goes on in the treatment rooms. I’ll be in my office if you need me.”

Jamie rubbed her face. There was always some awkwardness with a new employee, but the employee wasn’t usually someone she’d slept with, and memories cropped up unexpectedly. Like when Carla had pulled her sweater around her shoulders. She was competent and catching on quickly, according to Betty. Patients liked Carla. Her staff liked Carla. If she was honest with herself, she liked Carla. But it was hard to have a past she’d so thoroughly left behind invade her present. And she still nurtured that pang of anger at being used and left.

*

Carla stood stiffly in the corner of the treatment room, unsure what to do with her arms. Folding them across her stomach seemed unfriendly, yet letting them hang at her sides felt awkward. She clasped them behind her back, but that didn’t dissipate the uneasy intimacy of the small room. Three steps and she could be in Jamie’s arms.

Carla cringed when the middle-aged woman yelped in pain as Jamie helped her lie facedown on the dark-brown adjusting table. The woman had needed help walking to the treatment room. Carla grimaced, hoping she was never in the same position.

“I know it hurts, Priscilla, but I promise the pain isn’t permanent.” Everything about Jamie’s movements spoke of confidence. The white Oxford shirt was snug over shoulders that were still broad. She laid her hands on the woman’s back, and Carla wondered what they would feel like on her body now. A shiver went through her and she crossed her arms.

“But I saw the doctor yesterday and he gave me pills and said it would be a couple weeks before the pain went away.”

“I have a different approach than your medical doctor,” Jamie said, her hands still moving over the woman’s back.

“We’re supposed to leave on a cruise next week.” Priscilla’s voice broke. “I haven’t had a vacation in two years.”

“Let’s see how you do in the next few days. Now I know you’ve never been to a chiropractor—”

“Is it going to hurt? My husband swears by you, but I’m afraid of that cracking sound.”

“It might hurt a little when I do the adjustment.”

Priscilla’s head popped up from the headpiece.

“It won’t hurt more than it already does. I’m going to adjust you using a drop table. You won’t hear a cracking sound.” Jamie wrote something in the file on the small counter against the wall. “You’ll feel me press on your back, and part of the table will drop away under you. Now take a breath and let it out slowly.”

Jamie adjusted something on the table and then settled her hands on the woman’s back. The movement was so fast Carla almost missed it. A quick thrust and the sound of the table as the section below the woman’s abdomen dropped. Jamie’s hands never left Priscilla’s back, and she continued to work her fingers over the muscles.

“Okay?”

“That wasn’t so bad.” Priscilla sounded less frightened.

Jamie knelt by the woman’s head, her hand on her upper back. “I’m going to send my assistant in. Her name is Marci, and she’s going to put an ice pack on your back for half an hour. Then I’ll come back and we’ll see how you feel. And just between you and me, your husband’s a bit of a baby about getting adjusted.”

Priscilla laughed. “It doesn’t hurt.” She lifted her head. “Last night I thought I was going to die when I laughed.”

“That’s a good sign,” Jamie said, before she left the treatment room.

“Interesting table,” Carla said as she tried to keep pace with Jamie. It was a silly thing to say, but she felt tongue-tied being in Jamie’s presence. Renee swore by her, but would Priscilla really feel better just from that?

“There are a lot of ways to adjust patients,” Jamie said as she opened the door to the next treatment room. “I vary my technique based on what I think will be most effective for the patient’s problem.”

Carla shook hands with a middle-aged man in a business suit as Jamie introduced her as her new office manager. Did she want to be that?

Jamie opened the man’s file. “Did you get your HR department to have someone look at the ergonomics of your work station?”

“I haven’t had time, Dr. Hammond. I’m working sixty-hour weeks on this new project.” The man rubbed the back of his head. “I’ve been waking up with headaches the last couple weeks.”

“You were supposed to come in once a month so the problem I fixed six months ago wouldn’t come back.”

“I know, I know.”

“Your health matters.” The man lay on his back on the table without any prompting from Jamie, and she put her hands under his neck.

Carla stood in the corner again, listening as she surveyed the room. It was exactly like the last one, right down to stark-white walls, dark-brown adjusting table, anatomical charts on the walls, and plastic model of a spine sitting on a small cabinet that housed a variety of medical-looking instruments. Carla visualized a soft green on the walls, some art prints, maybe an orchid on the cabinet.
If I stay.
This time Carla heard a popping sound as Jamie adjusted the man’s neck.

“Marci will bring in a heat pack.”