Love On Call

Not so tonight. Tonight she thought of Mari Mateo. Oddly, she didn’t focus on the day they’d spent working together the way she usually considered her interactions with colleagues, although Mari had settled in seamlessly and was a welcome addition to the team. She remembered instead the easy way they’d talked about the hardest things, for both of them. She’d always been a pretty good listener, even when she’d rather shut out the shouts for medic or whispered pleas to make sure some loved one in another part of the world knew a soldier’s last thoughts had been of them. She’d never been a talker herself—never saw the point in dwelling on what couldn’t be changed—but Mari’s courage in exposing her personal struggles had inspired Glenn to open up a little, hell, a lot more than she ever did with anyone else.

As she covered the miles, she replayed more than their words, although they counted for a lot. Images cascaded through her mind, of Mari engrossed in examining a patient in a brightly lit cubicle, Mari sitting across from her in the hole-in-the-wall pizza place, Mari relaxing on Glenn’s pathetic excuse for a porch as if there was nowhere else in the world she’d rather be. Glimpses of gleaming hair, so black and bright, and the quick flash of warm dark eyes and an amused smile lit up her consciousness like a strobe suddenly illuminating a dark screen. She could have wiped the images from her awareness if she’d wanted, but she didn’t. Memories of Mari kept her company as her limbs stretched and her lungs expanded, reminding her of something she’d forgotten or maybe never really known, that the other side of solitude was loneliness. She was used to being alone, even in a crowded camp or bustling ER, and she’d never considered she was lonely. Maybe it took not being to know you were.

Glenn let the unanswerable question flee with her straining breaths. She was doing fine, no matter how she described her life, and one shared dinner with a companionable woman wasn’t about to change that, nor did she want it to. She’d faced her ghosts and was making peace with them in the best way she could. That was enough for her.

As she reached the farthest point from town and turned to circle back, traffic suddenly picked up. She slowed and stared at a light patch in the sky that shouldn’t be there. Laughing, she cut down a side street and ran toward the illumination coming from the fifty-acre fairgrounds on the east side of the village that was alive with music, the roar of mingled voices, and multicolored flashing lights. Now she knew where everyone was headed on a weeknight. The rodeo.

She’d forgotten the rodeo was in town for the rest of the week. When the fairgrounds weren’t home to the annual summer county fair with its vendors, barns full of animals, show rings, and carnival midway, the space hosted other events: the boat show, huge antique fairs, classic car exhibits, and the always popular rodeo. Pretty soon a steady stream of pickups and cars passed her, and on a whim, she pulled the twenty dollar bill she kept folded in the small key pocket of her shorts and purchased a ticket for the grandstand show.

She picked up a bottle of water from the guy selling soda, beer, and water from a cooler he lugged back and forth in front of the grandstand and went in search of a seat in the nearly full stands. She’d seen the barrel racing, cattle roping, bareback riding, and obstacle course races a few hundred times in her life, or so it felt, but she still watched the competitors put their mounts through their paces and clapped along with everyone else at the simple enjoyment.

“Hey, Glenn!”

Glenn scanned the bleachers and grinned when she saw Harper Rivers with her fiancée Presley and Glenn’s friend Carrie, who also happened to be Presley’s admin and longtime friend. Carrie had shed her stylish office attire in favor of her habitual scooped tee, shorts, and sandals. With her curly shoulder-length red hair pulled back in a careless ponytail she looked closer to eighteen than early twenties. Glenn waved and climbed between the spectators clogging the aisles. She worked her way down the already full row to where her three friends pressed together to make room for her.

“Thanks for the seat.” Glenn dropped down next to Carrie. “Must be a sellout crowd. Good for the town coffers.”

“Hey.” Carrie gave her a shoulder bump. “If I’d known you’d be free, I would’ve told you we were coming tonight.”

“That’s okay. Hadn’t planned on it.” Glenn uncapped the water and drank down half. She and Carrie hadn’t known each other long, but they had developed a quick, easy friendship. They often ended up together at group gatherings, especially since their mutual friends were pairing off, but things had never gone any further than that, mostly because neither one of them had ever pushed for more. “I was at the hospital pretty late anyhow. First day of the new program.”

“I heard you had some excitement.”