Chapter 10 Zoe
ZOE
Zoe’s frustration had been building all day.
For a moment, it had seemed like Nathan was going to let her do her job, but as the afternoon wore on, it became more and more clear that wasn’t happening.
He didn’t stop her from filming again, and he even tried a little bit to pose for her pictures, but the quality of the content was still very low.
The pictures and videos mostly showed a stiff-looking Nathan with an odd facial expression taking blood pressure or sitting by his computer while he gave consultations.
All of that was about as interesting to the average viewer as watching paint dry.
If Zoe could have had an overall narrative, about a small-town doctor juggling his love life with his professional life or tracking down the root of medical mysteries, for instance, she could have probably pieced these shots together with a voiceover and pulled something off.
But as long as Nathan refused to do anything interesting, the project was doomed. Her career was doomed.
“Have a nice day and just come back if you have any other concerns.” Nathan smiled at the patient, a young man whose name Zoe hadn’t caught.
“Thanks, Doc.” The man shook Nathan’s hand and left.
“That was the last one, right?” Zoe asked Nathan.
“Yes.”
“Great.” The word was a little too sharp. Zoe turned and started packing up her camera and equipment. When she turned back, she saw that Nathan was packing, too — he was putting gauze strips and a syringe into a black medical bag that looked like it had come from a bad 1950s movie.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I have one more appointment today,” Nathan said. “But it’s a house call. And you’re not invited.”
“What?” Zoe forced herself to take a deep breath. Why couldn’t Nathan just be civil with her? “Are you serious? You’ve been making my life difficult all day, and now that you’re actually doing something interesting, you won’t let me come?”
“That’s about the size of it,” Nathan said. He lifted his medical bag with one hand and started towards the door. “I’ll be done around six thirty or seven. Let’s meet back here. We need to talk.”
“No.” Zoe stepped into his path, blocking his exit with one hand on the doorframe.
Nathan stopped very close to her, and for a split second, she was overwhelmed by that pine scent.
He could have easily moved her out of the way with one hand, but he didn’t.
He was so tall and so handsome — and, more importantly, so annoying.
Zoe focused on that. “I’m coming with you. ”
“Move, please.” Nathan tried to step around her, but Zoe held her ground. Instinctively, she lifted one hand to press against his chest and hold him in place. They both froze at her touch. The outline of his pectoral muscle pressed against her palm.
“No,” Zoe repeated. She didn’t move her hand. “I get that you’re stubborn. I get that me being here is a big inconvenience. But I can’t let you being a stick-in-the-mud bring us both down. I’m coming, and that’s final.”
Nathan let out a long sigh. He took off his glasses, simply holding them in his hand for a moment while he rubbed his temples. Then he put them back on.
“You can come,” he said finally. “But no filming. And no getting in the way. You need to stand back, not ask questions, and be polite. Do you understand?”
“Sure,” Zoe said quickly, ignoring her annoyance at the requirements.
She was intrigued by Nathan’s secretiveness.
He’d tried to avoid filming all day, but he was much firmer now than before.
Maybe she was finally going to find the hook the show needed, even if Nathan wouldn’t allow her to film it yet.
Maybe they were going to visit his secret child or his mysterious twin brother — though neither of those seemed likely.
Probably this was going to be another visually bland consultation.
“Come on, then.” Nathan put his hands on Zoe’s shoulders and gently moved her to the side so that he could get through the door. Her skin prickled where he’d touched her, but she tried to ignore it.
They went out past reception, both nodding to Maya as they passed, and circled to the small parking lot behind the clinic. To Zoe’s surprise, Nathan led her to an old pickup truck instead of one of the fancier cars in the lot.
“Is this what you drive?” she asked.
“Yeah. Get in.”
“Okay, you have to let me take a picture of you with the truck.” Zoe reached for her camera. “This is great. A nice picture of you in your lab coat with the truck would help showcase your small-town upbringing and your humility…” She was already framing the shot in her mind.
“I thought we agreed that you wouldn’t take pictures.”
“When we’re at the patient’s house I won’t, but we’re not there yet.”
Nathan gave her a look, and Zoe let her camera slide back into her bag. “Fine, I won’t take a picture of you with the truck.”
She climbed into the passenger seat, wondering why Nathan was in such a mood. He’d been annoyed with her all day, but this patient was definitely special somehow. Not least because Nathan was making a house call instead of asking whoever it was to come into the practice.
They pulled out of the parking lot and drove along the main street.
Zoe spotted the diner where she’d eaten.
Even a few of the pedestrians walking along the sidewalk looked familiar — they must be Nathan’s patients.
She’d spent just a few days in Islingburn, and Zoe was already getting to know it a little too well for her liking.
After thirty-two years in New York City, there were still hundreds of streets she’d never explored and thousands of people she’d never seen.
Islingburn was small, and within a few minutes, the main street had entered a narrower residential neighborhood. They drove past houses with big front yards and an elementary school. The further they got from Islingburn, the fewer houses there were.
“Are you taking me somewhere to murder me?” Zoe joked, trying to break the tension.
Nathan glanced at her, his mouth a firm line.
He was clearly not amused in the slightest, and, with a sigh, Zoe sank back into her seat.
Apparently, this drive was going to be awkwardly silent, and there was nothing she could do about it.
Well, maybe not nothing. She reached for the car’s ancient radio and a pop song came on over the speakers.
She turned up the volume enough to drown out the fact that they weren’t talking.
With the music playing and the warm early evening air pouring in though her open window, the drive became almost pleasant.
Outside, scattered houses gave way to leafy forests and rolling hills.
About twenty minutes after leaving the clinic, Nathan turned onto a gravel drive, and they crunched to a stop.
Ahead of them stood a modest house painted a bright, cheerful green, like leaves in springtime.
The garden in front looked wilted and overgrown, as if it hadn’t been cared for in a while, but the house looked warm and inviting.
“Leave the camera in the car, okay?” Nathan asked. He turned to Zoe, his blue eyes meeting hers for the first time all day. “Please.”
“I will.” Zoe put her bag in the back seat. “I promise, I won’t film.”
“Or interfere.”
Zoe fought the urge to roll her eyes. “Or interfere.” Her curiosity had gotten the better of her, and she’d have agreed to anything to see what Nathan was being so secretive about.
“Let’s go.” Nathan reached for the handle and got out of the car. Zoe followed. The air outside smelled like flowers and sunshine and warm earth, and the only sounds were the soft rustle of wind in the leaves above, the buzz of crickets in the distance somewhere, and the melody of birds singing.
Nathan headed towards the house, Zoe on his heels. Despite the cheeriness of the house, Nathan’s serious expression made Zoe’s chest tight with foreboding. Maybe he didn’t want her to film because she was about to see something truly terrifying…
Nathan went right up to the door and entered without knocking. Zoe paused for a deep breath on the porch before she followed him in.
The moment she stepped through the door, Zoe’s chest clenched so tightly that she could barely breathe. Her knees weakened and her head spun. It took all her willpower not to turn and run back into the fresh June air.
It wasn’t about the house. No, the house was just as bright and cheerful inside as it was outside, with early evening sunlight spilling through tall windows, and fresh flowers on the living-room table.
But even the bright, floral scent wasn’t enough to drown out the burning smell of antiseptic and illness.
The doorway led right onto the living room, with a dining room to the left.
The living room furniture had been arranged to one side to make room for a hospital bed where a woman lay.
She looked older, perhaps only in her sixties, but she was so bony and thin that it was hard to tell.
Her head was covered by a pale-yellow scarf, but Zoe knew that beneath it, she was bald. A cat slept on her legs.
Zoe rubbed her chest, trying as hard as she could to draw in air. For a split second, she wasn’t standing in a cheerful house in rural Vermont with a handsome doctor, but in a cramped apartment in Brooklyn with another woman in a hospital bed.
Zoe slammed back into the present as Nathan crossed the living room to the woman.
“Hi, Elizabeth. How are you feeling?”
Zoe forced herself to step the rest of the way into the house and close the door behind her. Then she leaned against the wall. Staying out of the way wasn’t going to be a problem. Staying on her feet and breathing might be.