Chapter Four #2
“Where are we going anyway?” Chase struggled to keep pace with her. It had rained the night before, and her ancient Converse sneakers hardly had the tread necessary to fight the mud in her pursuit of Norah. She immediately regretted not wearing her boots.
“Tulane.”
“The medical school?”
“The hospital. We’re going to meet some of the patients.” Norah continued to breeze gracefully through the grass and down the dirt path that led to the parked army vehicles, her long legs emphasized by the khaki shorts she wore that basically forced Chase to notice her ass.
“You know what this reminds me of?” Chase was still three paces behind, her breath getting a little short the closer they got to the jeep. “The two times you made me go running with you at Brown.”
Norah stopped so abruptly Chase nearly barreled into her.
“Don’t.” She kept her back turned.
“I’m sorry.”
Norah started walking again, faster this time if that were even possible, and Chase scrambled to get her feet moving.
“Don’t worry about it. Let’s just not. Okay?” Jesus, how could she talk so easily going at this pace?
“I was just being friendly.”
“I know. But the reminiscing isn’t necessary.”
A sharp pain stung Chase directly in the middle of her chest, and she wasn’t sure if it was Norah’s dismissal or an impending heart attack. Both seemed equally likely at this point.
“I’m sorry.”
Norah stopped again, this time with a little more warning. She offered Chase a kind smile, one reserved for strangers.
“It’s okay. Really. We’ve done a great job working together so far. Let’s just keep doing that. A new Norah and Chase.”
Chase kind of liked the old Norah and Chase though.
Chase answered with an equally cordial smile, but the pain in her chest remained and spread through her ribcage with a nauseating roll. Less than a minute later, they arrived at the olive-drab jeep, Norah immediately going for the driver’s seat.
“Guess I shouldn’t have to ask who’s driving, huh?” Chase opened the passenger door and climbed into the seat.
“Please.” Norah jingled the keys in front of Chase’s face with a playful grin. “We all know how you drive. Remember that weekend in Boston? Fourth year?”
Chase’s pain blunted, and her breathing slowed a little.
“I thought we weren’t doing that.”
“You’re right.” Norah turned her head, pretending to focus on something on the misty horizon. “I’m sorry.”
Chase slowly placed her hand on Norah’s shoulder, the same jolt of heat she’d felt three days earlier returning with a vengeance.
The gesture felt a little forced, but Chase had been desperate to touch her again, even just for a second, to see if that same electricity was still there.
Norah didn’t turn around, but she didn’t pull away either, and Chase kept the connection for a few more seconds, until Norah finally lifted the keys to the ignition.
“You know how I figure it?” Chase held her hands at her sides, suddenly more aware of them than she’d ever been, like awkward, alien appendages that had just now appeared. “It’s totally normal for a bit of the past to creep in every now and then.”
“Is that how you figure it?” Norah kept her eyes ahead on the lush, winding road, but Chase was positive she saw a hint of a smile in them.
“It is. We have history. I’m not saying we should open a bottle and stay up all night festering in lesbian-breakup drama.”
This time, Norah couldn’t suppress a squall of laughter. “I have no idea how to respond to that remark.”
“What I mean is, we should cut ourselves a break. It’s human nature. And, contrary to what you like to believe, you are, in fact, human, Nor.”
The jeep took a sharp turn, sending Chase tumbling across the center console and nearly falling into Norah’s lap.
“I’m sorry. What were you saying?” Norah flashed her a defiant smile as Chase pulled herself back up.
“I was saying…” Chase thought about testing her luck, maybe one more quick touch of the shoulder or a hand on Norah’s knee.
But the morning had been nice enough already.
Norah had opened up to her more than she had in three days.
Time. Maybe all Norah needed was a little time.
“What I was saying was that I’m driving back. ”
The trip to Tulane was much too short for Chase’s liking.
An hour alone with Norah was all she’d wanted for nearly a decade now.
Of course, she didn’t always know or admit that rather inconvenient fact.
Chase had done a fantastic job separating herself from the devastating loss she’d essentially forced on herself so long ago.
Her bed had stayed full, various women who wanted little else from her coming and going without issue.
And her heart stayed safe, only very infrequently failing to forget the choices she’d made that permanently changed the course of her life.
But sitting next to Norah, the thick Southern air whistling through the open windows of the jeep, it was too easy to remember.
It felt too good. Every few miles, the faintest hint of strawberries would come from the driver’s seat, and Chase’s body tightened.
Somehow she wasn’t surprised Norah was still using the same shampoo.
Chase’s mind painted another grainy picture, this time of the shower she shared with Norah in their cramped Brown campus apartment.
The edges of the tub were always cluttered with bottles, mostly Chase’s, and mostly two-thirds empty.
Norah’s things were always meticulously arranged in a metal basket hanging by the head.
In three years, she never complained about Chase’s toiletry experimentation.
The picture then began to move, and Chase saw Norah, a few years younger, and maybe less broken by the world, but still insanely beautiful, pulling back the shower curtain and smiling at Chase.
Pain wasn’t something Chase allowed herself to feel anymore.
So she shut the image down immediately—no matter how good the memory was in the moment.
She avoided looking at Norah as they drove.
She wasn’t sure why. As much as Chase wanted to talk about the past, she felt every bit as awkward as she imagined Norah did, riding along together in a silence that bordered on familiarity and pure discomfort.
The person next to her was someone she’d known for more than a third of her life. But she was also a stranger now.
By the time the jeep stopped in the Tulane parking lot, Norah was all business again.
The radio, which Chase had turned to some Top 40 station, was silent, and the small but notable smile Norah wore as they rode together down the Louisiana back roads had been wiped away. Chase’s heart sank a little farther.
“Right. Let’s start in the ICU. I think that’s where most of the cases are anyway.
It seems like people are either fine or sick as shit.
Most people aren’t walking away from this thing with some mild sniffles.
” Norah shut the driver’s side door and tucked her green T-shirt back into her pants, her posture stiffening with a military precision Chase had recognized in her from long before Norah was ever called “Captain.”
“Right. Good idea.”
Chase followed Norah again, and this time there was no denying who was in charge here. They were all just humoring her when they appointed her Norah’s co-chief. Norah knew exactly what she was doing.
A gaunt woman with gray hair pulled back in a tight bun and a pair of colorful reading glasses greeted them in the lobby of the hospital.
Chase figured “greeted” was a rather generous term for it, given the woman’s chilled nod and the stiff line of her already thin mouth.
She announced herself as secretary to Jeffrey Timmons, CEO of Tulane Medical Center, and, without any additional fanfare, led them on a dizzying tour through the hospital’s maze-like hallways and up to the seventh floor.
Chase hoped Norah was paying closer attention than she was or they might never find their way back.
“Mr. Timmons is ready for you two. Go ahead in.” The entire exchange felt like a strong gust of wind, and then, the secretary to Mr. Jeffrey Timmons, whose name Chase never caught (or maybe was never spoken) was gone.
The door to the office with Timmons’s name and various fancy credentials was shut, but before Chase had a chance to wonder whether she should just walk in, Norah had turned the handle and plowed it open.
A man much younger than Chase had expected stood from behind a massive desk framed by panoramic windows that overlooked the city of New Orleans.
His hair was dark and slicked back against what was inarguably a pleasant face, and he wore a suit that Chase recognized probably cost several months of her own salary.
“Doctors. I’m Jeff Timmons. Please, come on in and have a seat.” The smile he offered was far softer and more genuine than seemed fit for someone in his position, but Chase relaxed a little.
“Mr. Timmons.” Norah began speaking, and Chase realized she’d been looking at her to take charge of the scene.
“Please. Call me Jeff.”
Norah smiled and sat down, Chase following her lead. “I’m Dr. Norah Bishop with the army, and this is Dr. Chase Durgin with the CDC.”
Timmons reached his hand out cheerfully to Norah, but Norah just smiled politely.
“We better not.”
Chase realized that things like shaking hands had just become a casualty of the outbreak.
It was epidemiology 101—source control. Fomites, what happens when humans touch their faces on a regular basis, are one of the biggest vectors for disease.
Why hadn’t Chase thought of that? Maybe she needed Norah even more than she thought.