Chapter 18
"Where are you going, Doctor?" Nell calls from her seat.
Erin stops short at the entrance to the bus aisle—the one that'll take them to Philadelphia.
She just boarded and was about to find a seat on the lower level, but apparently Nell, settled into the first row as always, has no interest in starting the trip alone.
The tour's production director lifts her bag off the seat beside her, hangs it on the side hook—exactly what it's there for—and pats the cushion twice.
"Sit down," she says, and Erin smiles and settles in next to her. "You're not going to make any friends this way, honey. You need to put yourself out there and socialize."
The doctor runs a hand through her hair and says nothing.
Her head has been aching since she got up, and all she wanted was to sit down and close her eyes until after breakfast, when she'd head upstairs to check Mia's vitals—but they've got five hours ahead of them, and talking with Nell is something she genuinely enjoys.
With Nell, she always has the feeling that the woman understands her without needing an explanation, as if she can read her thoughts and emotions before Erin even voices them.
"You're right," the doctor admits, crossing her right foot over her left knee.
"It doesn't do much good to agree with me if you're not going to do anything about it." Nell doesn't look up from her phone, where she's typing a message while she answers.
"You're right about that too," Erin says, with a hint of amusement that makes Nell look up and set her phone down.
The bus starts moving, and a fleeting thought crosses the doctor's mind—she wonders what Mia is doing.
"Have you talked to your sister?" Nell asks.
"Yeah, I called her a couple days ago to see what she wanted."
"And what did she want?" she presses, without missing a beat.
"Money." Erin leans her head back against the headrest. "She wants to take a mixology course that, according to her, will be really useful for her bartending job."
Nell makes a noise somewhere between a scoff and a raspberry that makes Erin laugh.
"Shouldn't her boss pay for that? Or at the very least, her?" the woman asks.
"That's exactly what I said, but she launched into her usual speech—told me I'm selfish, that I don't understand her, that I don't try to put myself in her shoes."
Another noise from Nell, louder this time.
"Please tell me you didn't give her the money, Doctor."
Erin looks at her and shrugs.
"More like I gave it to her as a gift, since she never pays me back."
"You need to learn to tell her no, Erin." Nell tries to be gentle about it, because what she really wants to ask is how long Erin plans to let her sister take advantage of her like this.
"I know, but it's hard. I'm all she has, and—"
"And instead of taking care of you, she takes advantage of you. I'm sorry to be so blunt, Dooley, but you need to open your eyes."
Erin nods in agreement, but she doesn't need to open anything—she did that a long time ago. What she needs is the courage to put her foot down with her sister. To tell her she's there for her whenever it really matters, not to fund every whim.
"Let's change the subject," Nell suggests, turning toward her.
Erin narrows her eyes at the woman's sideways smile.
"Word around here is you had some company the other night. The journalist, right?"
The doctor goes rigid.
"What is wrong with the people on this tour?" she asks, stunned. "Do you all share information with each other?"
Nell lets out a loud laugh that makes her shoulders shake and her glasses slide down her nose.
"Honey, get used to it. Everyone here knows everything. If you fart too loud, someone will hear it and know it was you."
Erin can't hold back the deep, unguarded laugh that bursts out of her, and the two of them end up in tears.
"Duly noted. No farting."
"So," Nell says, giving her a gentle nudge with her elbow, "is it true? Are you hooking up with Lexie?"
Erin's eyes go wide.
"I'm not hooking up with anyone, Nell. We spent the night together, that's it. I don't think I need to explain to you that sex doesn't have to come with strings attached."
Nell's laugh rings through the bus again.
"Of course not. I just wanted to see your reaction."
Erin wrinkles her brow.
"Don't you like her? Lexie's cute, and she's a good person. Maybe she'd be good for you—"
"Drop it, Nell. I don't know if the other night will happen again or not, but what I do know is that I'm not looking for anything serious."
Nell goes quiet, and Erin fidgets while she waits.
"Just to clarify—you don't want anything serious with anyone, or you don't want anything serious with Lexie?"
The question catches Erin off guard.
"What? You don't know the answer?" Nell prods, clearly enjoying herself.
"You didn't give me time to think," the doctor protests.
"You shouldn't need time to think for a question like that, Dooley. It's simple—you just have to say whether it's the first one or the second."
"Why don't you just pick one name and stick with it?" Erin asks, amused. "I don't care which one—just stop cycling through all of them."
"The advantage of being sixty is that you start doing whatever you want without caring what anyone else thinks. So I'll call you whatever I feel like, whenever I feel like it—and don't change the subject on me."
Erin lets out a quiet laugh through her nose and grabs her right ankle as she thinks.
"I don't know, Nell. Lately I'm not very sure what I want. I'm pretty confused."
The woman nods, as if that's exactly the answer she was waiting for.
"And does a certain singer with lavender hair have anything to do with that confusion?"
Erin's heart leaps into her throat.
"Why are you asking that?" she demands, her voice a little sharper than she intended.
Nell raises her hands in a gesture of peace.
"Just a question, Doctor."
Erin stares at her, unconvinced.
"Questions usually get asked for a reason—especially yours."
"Then you're already answering it yourself."
Erin's eyes narrow as she thinks it over, until she decides she's done with this conversation.
"Are you seeing anyone?" she asks, and Nell stares at her like she's just suggested something horrifying.
"I spent decades married and I was very happy, but my quota for putting up with another person is full. Now I want to live life on my own terms—so men only interest me for a little company, and preferably just long enough to, you know."
Erin laughs and drops her leg to the floor, slouching in her seat to stretch out.
"I'm going to rest my eyes for a bit, if you don't mind." She stands to go find an empty row.
"Nice way to avoid answering me."
The doctor is still laughing as she walks away.
She sits down a couple rows behind Nell, leans her back against the window, and stretches her legs across the seat next to her.
She tucks the small travel pillow between her head and the headrest, and just as she's about to close her eyes, her phone buzzes.
She digs it out of the side pocket of her pants—light gray today—and unlocks the screen to find a text from Mia.
Mia Wilder
Can you come up for a sec?
Erin is surprised, because Mia almost never texts her—she's never once asked her to come by her room, except the day she left the note asking to be woken up.
She pockets her phone without replying and gets up to head upstairs.
Noah is slouched against the window with his over-ear headphones on and his eyes closed, same as on every trip.
The doctor walks past him to the back of the upper level, where the only private room on the bus sits—always reserved for the singer.
She doesn't bother knocking; she simply opens the door and closes it behind her, finding Mia sitting on the bed with bare feet on the floor and both hands pressed flat on the mattress.
"Everything okay?" Erin asks, studying her.
The singer doesn't look pale, but she does look like she's not quite right.
"You said to let you know if I felt anything weird," Mia says, looking almost embarrassed to have bothered her.
Erin pulls the chair from the desk and drags it right in front of the singer, sitting down and leaning her elbows on her knees.
"Of course. What's going on? Are you dizzy?"
"No, it's not that, but there's this weird pain back here and I don't know what it is." Mia reaches back and touches the base of her skull, and Erin frowns and scoots the chair a little closer.
"Weird how? Describe it to me—exactly where."
Mia leans forward and points to the base of her skull, right at the top of the back of her neck.
"It's not a headache. It's more like this really uncomfortable tightness. I don't know how to explain it, Dooley—it feels like something's squeezing me right there."
"Okay, let me feel."
Erin stands up and sits beside her on the bed, framing Mia's head in both hands as she presses her fingers gently through her hair.
"Around here?"
"Yeah, right there." Mia swallows.
"How far does it spread? What area does it cover?"
Mia raises her own hands and finds Erin's, and she takes them and guides them to exactly where it hurts.
"Am I going to pass out?" she asks, frightened.
"No, I don't think this is related to that. Does it hurt more when I press, or is it always the same intensity?"
"Same, but it's not exactly pain…"
"Just that clamped-down feeling. Right," Erin murmurs, meeting Mia's blue eyes.
"So what is it?"
Erin drops one hand and takes Mia's, pressing two fingers to her wrist to check her pulse just in case.
"I think it's just tension—like that area is locked up tight."
"Why would it be?" the singer wants to know.
"Could be a lot of things, but mostly stress and nerves. Lie down. I'll work on it, and if it doesn't ease up, I'll give you an anti-inflammatory or a muscle relaxant."
"On my back?"
"Yeah, face up."
Mia lets herself fall back onto the mattress and Erin sits beside her at chest level, sliding her hands behind Mia's head to work the area.
"Relax. Close your eyes if you want and try to clear your head."