3
Dr. Wilder had moved to the couch and was folding laundry in her lap. “Hey, did you pick up my doctor?” she asked, seeing Clara.
“Sure did. He’s helping Dad with the hay.”
“How much luggage did he bring with him?”
Clara looked curiously at her mother. “One bag. Why?”
“I just wasn’t sure he’d really stay the whole week.”
“Would it really matter if he didn’t? Dr. Pike will be back soon enough. If the office has to close for a few days, people can go to urgent care.”
“I don’t know if Melinda can get back as soon as she expects to,” Dr. Wilder confided. “Her mother could die at any time or hang on for three months. That’s why I want to stay open as long as we can.”
Clara wondered if her mother was more worried than she had realized about the loss of income. “Can I help get dinner ready?”
“Liesl’s bringing dinner. She was afraid I’d try to cook if she didn’t. You could set the table.”
“She knows you pretty well,” Clara pointed out, opening a drawer and selecting a pale blue paisley tablecloth. “You probably would try to cook.”
“Well, I’m sure I could manage to put something simple together.”
“See?”
“I could have ordered something and had you pick it up.”
“But you wouldn’t have,” Clara teased, spreading the tablecloth with a snap. “You would have hobbled around the kitchen on one foot. Six people?”
“Nine. Asher and the twins are coming.”
“Oh, fun.” Her three youngest cousins were still in high school but had such active social lives that she had not seen much of them lately. She took out a new box of beeswax tapers and counted nine round jute placemats and nine blue and white striped cloth napkins.
“Candlelight and real napkins?” her mother remarked. “Pulling out all the stops.”
Jesse hadn’t been home in years and years. If that didn’t call for cloth napkins, what did? “I just hope Aunt Liesl’s bringing a fatted calf for our boy.”
“I wouldn’t put it past her. So…how does he look?”
Clara saw the quiet concern behind the calm brown eyes. She glanced down the hall toward the front door to ensure that they still had privacy, and answered, “Tired. He slept the whole way here. But otherwise, he looked pretty freaking good.”
Dr. Wilder raised her eyebrows. “I thought you grew out of that crush.”
“So did I.” Her phone chimed and she glanced down at it. “Karaoke with Yoli and the girls tonight. Not until eight, though.”
“Don’t forget the science club tomorrow.”
“I know, I won’t forget.”
“Maybe you should take Jesse with you to karaoke.”
“Jesse? I’ll invite him if you want, but he won’t go.”
“You sound pretty sure about that,” Dr. Wilder observed.
“He just seemed tired.” And cranky. And annoyed about being here.
“Care to make it interesting?”
Clara looked at her mother again, surprised. “Like, bet money on it?”
“Sure.”
“You must be really bored,” she realized.
“I haven’t left this house in three weeks,” Dr. Wilder reminded her. “I’ll take what entertainment I can get.”
“All right. I’ll bet you ten bucks he doesn’t go.”
“Make it a cool hundred.”
“A hundred dollars, for real? It takes me all day to earn that kind of money.”
“I know how much you make,” her mother said serenely. “I also know how much you like to shop.”
“Fine,” Clara relented, somewhat reluctantly. “If you’re going to peer-pressure me into it, a hundred bucks. But I get to ask him, not you.”
“Of course. Do your worst.”
“Why do you think he’ll go?” she asked curiously.
“It’s not easy for a man to say no to a beautiful twenty-four-year-old.”
“That depends on the man,” Clara objected. “And the twenty-four-year-old.”
Her mother was unruffled. “In a vacuum or in any context.”
Clara was taken aback by this simplistic attitude; to Jesse, the context of their familial history would far outweigh any physical appeal she might have. “Okay. Kind of an old-school take, but I get it. Well, you’re going to lose a hundred bucks.”
“We’ll see.” Dr. Wilder tossed the last folded undershirt back into the laundry basket. “Are you making swans?”
“Nope, just this rectangular shape,” Clara said, holding up a napkin she’d been working on, “but it has like, these diagonal pockets for silverware or greenery or whatever.”
“Oh, that’s cool. You’re not going to get my wedding china out, are you?”
“Nope,” she said again. “Don’t want to hand-wash it.”
“Smart girl.”
Clara finished the rest of the napkins and put out the flatware and glassware, feeling her mother’s gaze on her the whole time.
Jesse might not have any sympathy for the marathoner with the bad knee, but Clara did. Grace Wilder was the type of person who couldn’t stand to sit still for long and didn’t want to be a burden, and although her friends dropped by pretty regularly bearing food and gossip, she was quietly going out of her mind with cabin fever.
Clara just hoped Jesse’s visit would ease some of the boredom.
She snapped a few angles of the table to post later across her social media accounts (#familydinner #tablescape). “I’m done, I guess. Want me to take that laundry?”
“Yes, please, Clara. The table looks great.”
“It’s fun to decorate this house,” she said, stacking the laundry baskets and lifting them. “Anything looks good when you have high ceilings and nice woodwork.”
“It isn’t just the house. I took pictures of all the Christmas decor you put up so I can duplicate it next year. It looked like a magazine spread.”
“I think that’s called ‘mom goggles.’”
Dr. Wilder gave an inelegant harumph.
Clara put her parents’ laundry away and then headed up to her own room to pack a bag for later. When she returned to the main floor, the men had come inside, the Jim Wilders had just arrived, and the old house was full of voices again.
“So, Jesse,” her Aunt Liesl asked him over dinner, “are you nervous about starting your new job on Monday?”
Everyone laughed; they all knew he was vastly overqualified to work in a small-town GP’s office.
“A little,” he admitted. “I’ve never had a patient who knew me when I was a kid.”
“There won’t be too many of those,” Dr. Wilder promised him.
“Clara and Yoli run the place,” Aunt Liesl told him. She was a warm, capable woman, naturally blonde and slightly overweight from sampling her own cooking. “Just do whatever they tell you and you’ll be fine.”
“I didn’t know Clara was working there,” he said, looking at her.
Clara was surprised that her mother had not mentioned it to him when they’d arranged for him to take over for her. “The office manager moved away a few months ago, so I’m filling in. Yoli’s your tech, and she’s good. She’s been working for Mom and Dr. Pike for years.”
“But there’s no nurse,” he said, looking back at her mother. “Right?”
“The nurse was run out of town on a rail,” Uncle Jim put in helpfully.
“Don’t tell that story in front of the kids,” his wife chided.
“We’re sixteen,” Lorelei reminded her, utterly offended.
“And we already know that story,” her twin sister Eloise added.
“Everyone knows it,” Asher confirmed.
“We don’t need to hear it at the dinner table,” the Colonel spoke up, and the subject was abandoned.
“The fact of the matter is, none of this is my fault,” Dr. Wilder said lightly. “I would just like to make that clear. I planned to have this surgery at our least busy time of year, when I had a full-time partner and a full-time nurse available to cover for me. And then Melinda had to fire Darcy, and then Melinda’s mother got sick and she had to fly to Toronto. I really do appreciate you coming here to rescue me, Jesse.”
“Well, when you pointed out that you’ve never asked me for anything, how could I refuse?” he asked wryly.
She laughed without remorse. “I know I put you on the spot. But I still appreciate it.”
Clara knew that her mother had always felt a special connection with Jesse, who had followed in her professional footsteps, and his self-imposed exile over the last several years had been painful for her. Maybe this week together would allow the two of them to have more of a relationship going forward.
“I’m going to the Gila Monster to sing karaoke with Yoli,” Clara said to him when he brought two plates for her to load into the dishwasher. “We go once a month. It’s pretty fun. You should join us.”
He gave her a quizzical look. “No, thanks.”
“Are you sure?” she asked carefully.
He did not answer right away. Her hands paused in her work as their eyes met and held. Jesse had great eyes, expressive and dark and thickly lashed, with little crinkles at the outer corners. Was he amused that she had asked? He better not be.
She got a faint whiff of his aftershave, elusive but manly, just as he said, “If I’m being honest—”
“Don’t sugarcoat it,” she joked, knowing that he wouldn’t.
He looked down at her face for another long moment, and then said, “You couldn’t pay me to sing karaoke. It sounds like a total nightmare.”
She laughed, and he smiled at her. It wasn’t a big smile, but it was definitely a smile.
“What about watching other people sing it?”
He took the plate she was holding and placed it in the dishwasher for her. “Even worse.”
“You better stay home, then,” she laughed, shooting her mother a glance.
“That’s what I’m going to do,” he answered.
Dr. Wilder shrugged her defeat, but mouthed silently, “Double or nothing?”
Clara nodded indulgently.
“You’re not going to be driving home tonight, right, Clara?” her mother asked aloud.
“Right, I’m staying at Yoli’s.”
“Not going to drive there, either,” her father said, bringing more plates to the sink.
“We’ll walk. It’s not far at all. I’m not going to be drinking a lot, though. You know I only have one margarita.”
“If you want me to give you a ride to Yoli’s, I will. I wouldn’t mind at all. If that DeWitt guy is hanging around and you don’t want to walk in the dark—”
“Dad, he’s not going to be a problem. Seriously.”
“Is he still liking all your Instagram posts?”
“I don’t know,” she lied, and winced a little.
“You’re not sharing your location on the internet, right?”
“Right,” she said quickly. “I don’t even post anything same-day. I have a huge backlog of scheduled posts.”
“Good,” the Colonel said briefly.
“Who’s DeWitt?” Uncle Jim asked with interest.
“DeWitt Petty,” his brother provided.
“Petty? I don’t know him. He bothering Clara?” The Colonel’s brother was a buoyant personality and appeared to be his foil in every way, with sandy hair, a quick smile and an irreverent sense of humor. But the two men were close and Clara suspected that beneath Jim’s jocular surface, they weren’t all that different.
“No,” she exclaimed, before anyone could form a posse. “No one’s bothering me.”
“What’d he do?”
“He didn’t do anything, and it’s not a big deal .”
“I can finish the dishes,” Aunt Liesl interceded mercifully. “You don’t need to hang around.”
“But you made dinner,” Clara objected.
“I’m doing the dishes,” the Colonel said with authority. “Go have fun, Clara. Liesl, sit down. Jim, coffeemaker.”
Clara exchanged a look with her sympathetic aunt, and made herself scarce.