Chapter 6 #2
Michaela was standing naked in his snow-white living room when he walked in.
She looked like a goddess. She turned and looked at him with a smile.
She had a bold cheekiness to her that he loved.
She wasn’t vulgar or arrogant. She was daring and afraid of nothing.
She was unusually confident for a girl her age.
“Want to go for a swim?” she suggested. He laughed, remembering the erotic delights of the night before.
“I’d love to. But I’m working. I have a patient in forty minutes.
No time for a swim now. Later.” He hadn’t thought when he saw the beautiful pool that he would ever have as much pleasure in it as he had with her.
Michaela was an unexpected gift in his life, and like no one else he had ever met.
They were a perfect match. He could sense it.
“What would you like to do then?” she asked with a slow smile as she walked toward him, tantalizingly.
Unable to wait a moment longer, he lunged toward her, and she ran away from him on light feet, and he chased her through the apartment, while she laughed at him, eluded him, leaping over furniture, and then let him catch her.
Sometimes she was a child and he loved it.
It made him feel like a boy again. But there was nothing innocent about her.
She was knowing and cunning, with a wealth of experience.
He’d had many women in his life, had never married, and had lived with a few, but had never known a woman like her and so much like him.
She fulfilled all his fantasies as though she read his mind.
She found new ways to fill the next half hour of his time.
She said she was going back to her apartment while he went to work, and she had a go-see that afternoon.
She wanted to keep her hand in her modeling career even though she was his ambassador now.
Her first night out with him had been a huge success.
And he wanted her to meet some of his more important patients, to inspire confidence in him from the way she looked.
It was a strong subliminal message. He was beginning to think he wouldn’t like her going back and forth to her apartment.
He liked having her near at hand for the occasional free time he had between patients, she seemed to know so well how to fill it.
It was a whole new way of working for him, and he liked it immensely.
She was a very creative girl, and a free spirit.
And he was beginning to suspect that he could neither control nor possess her.
It was a first for him and an aphrodisiac like no other.
Billie was just leaving the pathology lab at Cedars at noon to go down to the cafeteria for lunch when her cellphone rang. It was Jason, she was surprised to see.
“Hi, is this a bad time?” he asked her.
“No, I’m just going to lunch. How are you?” She’d had fun with him the night before at their Mexican dinner and after.
“I’m great and I happen to be outside. Can I drag you off campus to a deli I know nearby?” She was startled and didn’t know what to say for a second.
“Are you here?” she asked him. “I mean in the neighborhood somewhere?”
“I am. There was a Mafia killing today I had to cover. Very old-style, in a barbershop near the hospital. A rival Mafia family killed three of the top guys. It’s all drug-related nowadays.
” He sounded blasé about it. He had seen the same scenario too many times.
“If you go out the main entrance and look to the right, you’ll see me.
I’m wearing a red shirt.” She was almost there and did as he told her.
She smiled when she saw him. She was still wearing a lab coat, and someone had left a stethoscope in the pocket, which she didn’t need for work.
Jason walked toward her, smiling too, and she looked up into his brown eyes, happy to see him. “The deli is only a block away, do you want to walk?” He was glad he had called her on the off chance she’d be free. He was happy she was.
“Sure. It must be upsetting going to crime scenes like that,” she said, walking along beside him, enjoying the sun and his company for lunch. It was an unexpected treat.
“I’ve gotten used to it, which I don’t like either.
You get inured and hardened to the horrors of the human condition, and the things people do to each other.
I’m definitely ready for a switch to a better department.
But I don’t know music, or anything about gardening or cooking.
I could do art or theater reviews, I guess.
But I still want politics,” he explained.
“I’ve had all the gang murders I can stomach. How was your work today?”
“Interesting. I’m learning a lot.” She loved the feeling that she was acquiring knowledge she could use later.
They had gotten to the deli by then, and it smelled delicious when they walked in. The smell of wholesome food reminded Billie instantly of her mother.
“My mom used to make great soups, especially in winter.” Billie ordered a cup of turkey noodle soup, to honor the memory.
And a turkey sandwich to go with it, with cranberry sauce on freshly made whole wheat bread.
“My mother was a really good cook. I’m sorry I never learned how, the year that I took care of my sister and my father.
We ate a lot of hamburgers and frozen pizza.
My sister can’t cook either. But she never eats so she doesn’t care.
The last time I looked there was half a lemon and three Coke Zeros in our fridge. I buy takeout on the way home.”
“I actually like to cook,” Jason said. “My mom’s not much of a cook either.
I learned in self-defense. I’ll cook dinner for you some night when we both have time.
I make great spaghetti and meatballs, and steak.
” He had ordered a pastrami sandwich, which was one of the deli’s specialties, and a big slab of cheesecake for dessert.
He looked very athletic and had a hearty appetite, and he ate all of it while they were talking.
He was curious about her sister, the model, and the relationship they shared.
Billie seemed like a whole different kind of woman, honest, smart, and straightforward.
There was no artifice about her, and he liked her small, delicate, feminine appearance.
“She’s off and running with her new guy, the one I told you about,” she said about Mickie.
“He’s a big-deal plastic surgeon, who isn’t a surgeon, in Beverly Hills.
” She laughed. “He only does noninvasive treatments. She’s very excited about it, and about him.
I don’t know anything about plastic surgery.
It always seems kind of narcissistic to me. ”
“As long as she’s not involved with a drug dealer, that’s good.
There are a lot of bad guys in L.A. who prey on pretty, innocent young women, actresses and models.
I see the end result sometimes.” He was serious as he said it, and Billie nodded.
The plastic surgeon sounded showy to her, but at least he was a serious professional man.
“My sister is pretty and young, but I wouldn’t call her innocent.
She was a grown-up when she was twelve, or acted like one.
I used to worry about her, especially after my mom died, but she can take care of herself.
And she goes nuts about a guy for a while, but then she gets bored, and drops him and moves on.
And the plastic surgeon is too old for her.
He’s forty-two. He won’t last long either.
She’s nineteen and very adult for her age.
She’s still young, but pretty jaded.” It surprised Jason, because there was a natural quality and an innocence about Billie that he found very attractive, and made him want to protect her. The two women sounded very different.
“It’s weird how different siblings can be,” Billie said as she ate her sandwich.
She loved the food at the deli where Jason had taken her.
He liked to eat well. “My sister used to joke and say she’d been switched at the hospital at birth and didn’t belong in our family.
But she and our father have a lot in common.
” She didn’t add that they were both only interested in themselves.
She hadn’t spoken to her father in months.
She didn’t call him anymore. He never sounded pleased to hear from her, and didn’t care about what she said, or what she was doing.
She’d sent him a text when she got to L.A.
, just so he’d know where she was, and said she was staying with Mickie.
There had been no response. He had felt no responsibility for her whatsoever as soon as she turned eighteen and left for college.
He considered his job done, even though she had no other parent, with her mother gone.
She knew that Mickie called him once in a while, and he was happy to hear from her.
They were kindred spirits, and neither of them expected much from the other, which made it easy for him.
He had his dairy and his bottle of bourbon at night, and that was all he needed.
An occasional call from Mickie was icing on the cake, but he didn’t need anyone in his life, not even her.
And Mickie was much the same. She had never mourned their mother as Billie had, and never talked about her.
Billie still missed her five years later.
“My sister and I are somewhat different, but not that much,” Jason said. “She loves country life, I prefer the city. But we both write, she her novels, and I for the paper. Our parents instilled a love of writing and books in us all our lives.”