6. Wren
WREN
The coffee in my mug has gone cold.
I'm staring at it from the wrong end of an eight-hour shift, and the clock above the reception desk says I've only been here forty-five minutes.
“You look like a ghost.” Paige slides a fresh mug under my nose and lifts the cold one out of my hand without asking. “What is happening with you?”
“Nothing.”
Her eyes narrow. “Wren.”
“I didn't sleep great.”
“Mm.” She makes the same noise I made yesterday at Rowe. Skeptical.
I sip the new coffee and burn my tongue, but I welcome the pain because it gives me something to think about that isn't the loop running in my head since last night.
Sorrowful eyes. A clenched jaw and cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass. The way he flinched and how he refused to let me misunderstand him for a single second longer than necessary. The way his hand cradled a shaking monkey like the monkey was made of glass.
The way he'd looked at me when I laughed.
I burn my tongue again, on purpose this time.
“Okay.” Paige hops up onto the counter, legs swinging. “Spill. Carnival report. I want every detail. Animals first, because I know that's where your brain goes.”
I crack a small smile despite myself. “The animals are happy.”
“Stop it.”
“I'm serious. The elephant has a tarp puzzle. With fruit in it. The lion has all his claws. The zebra has a pony friend named Domino because she gets lonely. The bear was sulking about Missouri.”
“The bear was sulking about Missouri,” Paige repeats deadpan.
“Apparently Missouri was offensive.”
She blinks at me. “Okay, A, I am obsessed with everything you just said. B, you said the lion has all his claws, which of course you checked because you're you. C, so why do you look like that?”
“Look like what?”
“Like a girl in a Hallmark movie who just got home from her grandma's bakery,” Paige says dryly.
“I do not look like—”
“Wren, you've smiled twice.”
I pull the mug closer to my face and let the steam fog up the bottom of my glasses. Then I wonder what Rowe would think of me with my glasses on. And then I wonder if that's the reason I didn't put my contacts in today.
“Alright, alright,” I finally say. “I only met three of the main performers.” I count them off on the rim of my cup. “Logan. He came to get me from the parking area. Said he was the fire-eater. Looks like he'd start a building on fire if he was bored.”
“Oh, that's a hot guy red flag for sure.”
“His twin,” I continue. “Rowe. The animal tamer.”
“So he's the one with the monkey.”
“Yeah,” I breathe.
Paige's eyes narrow. “Mm-hm.”
I keep talking. “And then there was a knife-thrower. Cole, I think. Rowe called him Cole. He was sitting on the steps of a trailer flipping a knife between his fingers like a fidget spinner, and he looked at me like he was deciding which side of beef to start carving from.”
Paige's eyes go dreamy. “Oh my god.”
“It was unsettling,” I say firmly.
“Bet it was hot.”
“Paige.”
“It was hot, Wren. Just think of the guys around here.”
I roll my eyes. The mug is warm in my hands. The clinic smells faintly of antiseptic and wet dog and the cinnamon roll Paige reheated when she came in. The little radio on the counter is playing some new country song I haven't heard yet.
“Anyway,” I say.
“Oh no, you don't.”
“Anyway, the animals are well cared for, the operation seemed clean, I gave Peanut an injection, I have to go back for five more days to follow up, the end.”
“The end.”
“The end.”
Paige slides off the counter and plants her hands on the edge of it and leans toward me until I have no choice but to look at her.
“Tell me about Rowe.” The way she says his name makes my neck hot.
“There's nothing more to say,” I object.
Paige glances toward the back hall, drops her voice. “Wren. Whisper it. Just to me.”
I open my mouth. Close it.
I should not say it out loud. I should pretend I have my act together for one more shift, and then I can go home and put my face in a pillow and scream about it like an adult.
“He's—” My voice cracks. I drop to a whisper. “Paige, I cannot stop thinking about him.”
Her mouth falls open.
“I haven't slept. I tried. I lay there from eleven until almost three, and every time I closed my eyes, I saw his hands.
He has these hands, Paige, with these scars on his forearms that I'm trying really hard not to think about because it's none of my business, and he holds his monkey like the monkey is the last good thing left on earth, and his lion chose him and you can tell, you can just tell, the way an animal looks at a person when they've decided that's their person—”
“Oh my god.”
“—and he flinches when people touch him, like really flinches, like it physically hurts him, and instead of letting me think it was about me, he said it's not you twice, Paige, twice, like he couldn't stand the idea of me walking out of that tent thinking it was about me, and what kind of a man does that—”
“Wren—”
“—and he has these eyes, like he's been sad his whole life and he doesn't know how to put it down, and he walked me to my car at a polite distance the entire way like he was afraid of accidentally brushing my arm and I—Paige, I have never in my life—”
“Wren.”
The voice isn't Paige's.
I freeze, clenching my coffee mug.
Dr. Vance is in the doorway of the back hall, and I don't know how long he's been there. His expression is the one I've come to recognize as I have been listening and I am about to make today worse on principle.
Paige goes very still beside me.
“Good morning, sir,” I manage.
“Is it.” He steps into the reception area. His tie is crooked, and there's a coffee stain on his shirt cuff. He looks like he slept in his car, which—knowing what I do about his marriage—he might have.
“Lots to do today,” Paige says brightly. “I was just heading to set up exam one—”
“Sit.” He doesn't look at her. “Both of you. I have a question, and then you can go back to whatever girls' lunch you were holding in my reception area. Wren.” His gaze moves to me. “Why have you not billed the carnival?”
“I—”
“You went out yesterday.”
“Yes, sir, I—”
He doesn’t let me finish.
“And?”
“I'm doing follow-ups. The capuchin's on anti-inflammatories. I need to monitor the swelling and re-administer over the next five days, so the visit isn't closed out. I'll bill when—”
He interrupts again. “You're going back.”
“Yes.”
His jaw works. The vein in his temple does the thing.
“Five more visits.”
“Yes, sir,” I confirm.
“For a monkey.”
“For a patient.”
His nostrils flare.
“A patient.” He says it the way someone else would say a tax audit. “A carnival monkey. Whose hand will heal whether you drive out there once or six times. Whose owners, by the way, are transient scammers, Wren—”
“They're not—”
“I don't care what they call themselves.” He takes another step closer, and Paige flinches beside me, and I feel my own shoulders pull in toward my chest before I can stop them.
“I care that you're billing one house call's worth of time over six days to a carnival in a town where every farmer within a thirty-mile radius needs a herd vet, and we have three of us, and one of them is you, and you are out playing Doctor Dolittle with a monkey that should have been left in its cage with an ice pack.”
“That's—” My voice comes out smaller than I want it to. I clear it. “That's not standard of care, sir. He had soft tissue—”
“I know what he had. I read the chart.”
He read the chart. Of course he read the chart. He read the chart so he could come stand here and tell me I shouldn't have written it.
“You should have left it.” He's not done. “You should have told them to ice it themselves and call us if it didn't resolve. Or, better yet, you should have told them what I would have told them, which is that we don't service traveling shows, and they should call a vet in the next town.”
“They called us, sir. You took the call. You sent me.”
His face goes a shade darker.
I shouldn't have said it. I know I shouldn't have said it the second it's out of my mouth, and a small, horrible part of me doesn't care because it's true.
“Don't.” He points a finger at me. “Don't you stand in my reception area and correct me, Wren. I sent you because I assumed you would handle it efficiently. One visit. Sedate, examine, charge enough to make it worth the gas, leave. Not adopt the entire damn carnival.”
“I'm not adopting—”
“Five visits.”
“Sir—”
“Five.” He laughs, but there's no humor in it. The sound is ugly. “Do you have any idea what your billable hour is worth to this practice on a Tuesday morning? Do you know how many calves I've turned down this week because we're short-staffed?”
I don't answer, because there's no right answer.
“That monkey doesn't pay your salary,” Vance continues.
“Sir—”
“The cattle do. The horses do. The dogs and cats whose owners actually live in this county do. Not a—a—” He waves a hand toward the window like the fairgrounds are out there mocking him. “—a freak show that's going to be gone in two weeks and won't ever pay an invoice over thirty days.”
My eyes are starting to sting. I will myself to not cry.
“I'll bill them at the higher rate, sir. I told them I would. They didn't argue.”
“They didn't argue because they don't intend to pay, Wren.”
“That's not—”
His phone rings. He yanks it out of his pocket and looks at the screen.
“Goddamn it.” He's already walking toward the back. “A horse is foaling. Stilton's place. Of course it's now.” He jabs the screen, lifts it to his ear. “Bill, how's it looking?”
The back door slams. The little bell over it rattles once and goes still.
Paige moves first. She takes the mug out of my hand. Sets it on the counter. Puts both of her hands on my shoulders and turns me to face her like I'm one of our patients and she's checking my pupils.
“Hey.”
I open my mouth. Nothing comes out.
“Hey. Wren. Look at me.”
I look at her.
“He's a miserable little man,” she says. Quietly. Furiously. “He's a miserable, miserable little man and his wife is leaving him and his practice is bleeding cash because he's too cheap to hire another vet and none of that is your fault. None of it. Do you hear me?”
I nod.
“You did the job. You did the job right. A bone bruise on a primate's wrist gets followed up. Period. End of sentence. That is literally the standard of care for that animal, and if he wants to argue with the AVMA, he can go argue with the AVMA, not with you.”
“I shouldn't have—” My voice is a rasp. I clear it. “I shouldn't have corrected him.”
“You shouldn't have had to.”
“I—”
Paige crouches in front of me. Her hands stay on my knees.
“Breathe.”
“I'm breathing.”
“You're not. You're holding it. Out for four. Come on.”
I let the breath out. It shudders.
“Good. Again.”
I do it again.
The third time, the tears spill over, and I swipe them away with my fingers.
“I'm fine,” I insist. It sounds like a lie even to my own ears.
“You're not.”
“I will be,” I insist.
The corners of Paige's mouth curl into a small smile. “Better.”
She rocks back onto her heels and watches me for a long second.
“You're going back out there today,” she says.
“Yes.”
“For Peanut.”
“For Peanut.”
“And for animal-tamer-Rowe.”
I can feel my cheeks flushing. “Paige.”
“Just clarifying.”
I huff. It's not quite a laugh, but I don't think I can even manage one after the shitshow we just had.
She stands.
“Wren. That man—” she tips her chin to where Dr. Vance stormed out, “—does not get to decide whether your work matters. Whether you matter. Okay?”
I take one more steadying breath. “Okay.”
But I might have to repeat the words to myself a few more times before I believe them.