Chapter 10
The smell of the outpatient unit at Hartford Healthcare Cancer Institute in Torrington was always the same.
So were the magazines. Listlessly Zoe leafed through an issue of InTouch that she’d read cover to cover three months ago.
The articles on plastic-faced celebrities she didn’t recognize failed to interest her for a second time.
The trouble with hospital appointments, she reflected, was the waiting.
Her father’s appointments took a particularly long time, because he usually needed a blood transfusion, which required two hours of sitting while the borrowed blood trickled through his veins.
It was a process Zoe was well-used to, because she’d been accompanying him to them for the last eight years, although the transfusions were ramping up in frequency.
At the beginning, he’d needed a transfusion every six to nine months.
Now it was every three to six months. If Zoe thought about that too long, her stomach started to swirl with dread and so she clamped down on the thought, pushed it away.
The important thing was the transfusions were still working. Mostly.
She scanned through the magazine, barely skimming over the articles with their accompanying lurid photos—deeply bronzed spray tans, way too much makeup, rictus grins, or worse, leers.
Zoe tossed the magazine aside, wondering why she was feeling so restless. She should be used to this routine by now. Her dad certainly was, relaxing in his recliner, reading a tattered copy of Guideposts, a faint smile on his face. He glanced up, sensing her gaze upon him.
“Okay, honey?” he asked gently.
A lump formed in her throat as she nodded. “Yeah, okay,” she managed. When, Zoe wondered, would she stop feeling that ache of love and guilt and fear that threatened to overwhelm her, when it came to her parents? Probably not until they were dead, and that was something she refused to think about.
She reached for the magazine once more, staring unseeingly down at its glossy pages as her mind pinged from her parents to the other uneasy element of her life…
Dan Bryson and his daughter. There had definitely been a low-key flirty vibe between them at Maggie’s dinner, not in small part due to the way their host had been determinedly pushing them together.
They’d ended the evening promising to meet up for a drink and discuss logo ideas, and Dan had suggested tonight.
Just the thought of heading over there for a drink had Zoe’s stomach swirling with nerves—excitement warring with dread, anticipation with anxiety.
It had been a long time since she’d been on a date, and the last few matches on Hinge, which she’d initiated out of a bored kind of desperation a long time ago, had been entirely forgettable.
She hadn’t had time for anything else; her only real relationship, such as it was, had been during her one year at art school in Hartford nearly ten years ago.
But why was she even thinking like this? Dan wasn’t asking her out on a date. This was a business meeting, and his daughter would be present. She was freaking out—and hoping—for absolutely no reason.
A thought which was depressing rather than reassuring.
“Shall we pick up a pizza on the way home?” her dad suggested with a small smile. “For a treat?”
“Sure.” Zoe managed a smile back. Pizza with her parents on a Friday night…
and then a business drink. “I am going out a little later, though,” she told him, like an apology.
“Just next door. Our new neighbor is joining the business association. He’s making a logo for a banner for the fireworks display on the fourth, and I’m advising him. ”
“Is he?” Her father’s face lit up with interest. “Was he the one who knocked on the door the other day? I should have come and said hello…”
“It’s okay, Dad,” Zoe said quickly. “There’ll be another time.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re going out,” he stated firmly as he reached over to pat her knee. “You need more of a life than looking after your doddering old mom and dad.”
“You’re not doddering,” Zoe told him. Her father was fifty-eight, her mother fifty-seven. Yes, they looked a lot older, and their lives were severely constrained by their health issues, but they didn’t dodder. And she would never begrudge them anything.
He held up his arm with the IV, the bag of blood nearly empty. “Almost done,” he said cheerfully, and Zoe nodded, amazed that after so many years of hardship and illness, her father could still maintain a cheerful attitude toward everything life had thrown at him.
* * *
Three hours later, Zoe was once again standing in front of her mirror, wondering what to wear.
She definitely wasn’t going to go the dress route again, especially after Zach’s comment the other night, but she did want to try a little…
all without seeming like she was, of course.
She reached for a shirt from her closet—a flowing button-down she’d bought at Goodwill and had never worn, mainly because the polyester material was scratchy and cheap-looking.
She held it up to her front and then, with a groan, tossed it aside.
She was due at Dan’s in fifteen minutes, so she really needed to figure something out.
A knock sounded on the door, and Zoe tensed. Not Dan again, surely, checking upon her? Suggesting he walk her over to his house?
“I’ll get it,” she called, and then hurtled down the stairs to the door.
She opened it to see Jenna Miller standing there, her auburn hair in its usual long braid, a determined expression on her face.
“Jenna…” Zoe didn’t think Jenna had ever been to her house before.
She hadn’t thought Jenna had even known where she’d lived, even though they’d both lived in Starr’s Fall for just about all their lives.
Jenna was ten years older than her and ran the general store.
She and Zoe had become friends through the business association, but like everyone else, Zoe kept her at a little bit of a distance.
“Surprise,” Jenna greeted her. “I’ve come to help pick out an outfit. Just like you did for me.”
“What…” About six months ago, or even more now, Zoe had gone over to Jenna’s place behind the general store and helped her choose an outfit for her date with Jack Wexler, to whom she was now engaged, so clearly her wardrobe choice had been spot on, and she didn’t need any help.
“Only fair,” Jenna told her with a grin and started in.
Zoe moved to block her entrance, folding her arms as she stared her down. “How do you even know I’m going out tonight?” she demanded.
“Dan told Maggie, who told Laurie, who told me,” she replied, like it was obvious, which, to be fair, it probably was.
“It was all in relation to you guys working together on the logo, but we know what this really is about. A hot date.” She waggled her eyebrows with a laugh.
“Now are you going to let me inside or what?”
Or what, Zoe thought, was the probable answer.
She had a panicky, fluttery feeling in her chest, an itchiness in her throat.
People didn’t come to her house. Ever. Besides Emma, the day nurse, and a few of her parents’ friends who had tailed off over recent years, no one had crossed this threshold.
She valued her privacy, and so did her parents.
“I really don’t need help,” she stated, setting her jaw. “Thanks, though.”
Jenna cocked her head, her hazel gaze sweeping slowly over Zoe in considering assessment.
“What’s going on?” she asked quietly. “I’m just trying to be the friend to you that you were to me.
And,” she added frankly, “I know this isn’t technically a date.
I mean, everyone in Starr’s Fall is seeing romance whenever they can, and truth be told, there’s been a lot of it lately.
But I know you and Dan are just talking about the logo. Really.”
“So it doesn’t really matter what I wear,” Zoe replied in a tone that was turning steely. She was still blocking the door.
Jenna blinked, clearly surprised and also a little hurt by her attitude.
Zoe couldn’t understand it herself. The Zoe who Jenna and everyone in Starr’s Fall knew might have snarked that she didn’t need Jenna’s help getting dressed, for Pete’s sake, since her wardrobe staples were patched overalls and holey cable knit sweaters.
She would have laughed and waved Jenna off, assuring she already knew exactly what she was wearing.
She would have stayed confident and in control.
Instead, Zoe was acting like she was being attacked, and she was ready to defend her home to the death.
She was also being weirdly hostile, considering Jenna was her friend and this was Starr’s Fall.
It was just she wasn’t used to friends coming to her door.
Involving themselves in her real life. She’d kept everyone at just that little bit of a distance, and right now she was realizing how much she liked it that way.
“Are you really not going to let me in?” Jenna asked, sounding incredulous as well as a little sad.
Zoe swallowed hard. She had the sure and dreadful feeling that if she refused to let Jenna in, their friendship would suffer a serious, maybe even fatal, blow. It cost something for Jenna to come all this way and put herself out there for her. Could Zoe really refuse?
“This just isn’t a good time,” she said at last. “I’m sorry.”
Jenna frowned, like she wanted to ask more, but then she slowly nodded.
“Okay,” she said heavily. “I get it.” Zoe didn’t think she did, but she just nodded back as Jenna slowly turned around and walked back down the path.
Zoe watched her go, feeling suddenly near tears, and when Jenna reached the street she closed the door, briefly resting her forehead against the wood.
“Zoe?” her mother called. “Who was at the door?”
“Just a friend,” Zoe called back, her voice like a thread while inside she thought bleakly, But maybe not anymore.