“I had a headache, and you were dancing,” she told them, skipping the part where she might have spent her whole weekend preoccupied with questions about Gene. Why hadn’t he stayed the night? Why hadn’t they had sex? Why had he left without leaving a number or contact information? Had he lied to drunk her about the screaming and crying being okay?
Why was she obsessing over the kinkiest night of her life?
She never imagined that yelling at someone and deliberately causing them pain would be fun.
“I did the clinic and church,” Lillian volunteered, hoping the puppy decorations on the walls of the clinic didn’t call her a liar.
Not enough Hail Marys on the planet could make her forget what she and Gene had done. His mouth on her chest. His masked face and his promises of pleasure.
Even thinking about it made her hot, even if she was never going to see him again. “Didn’t you guys do anything this weekend? You were pretty close to a guy.”
“I kissed a lot of guys, but nothing more because I was on call in L and D on Saturday,” Clarissa said. Everyone groaned in sympathy. Delivery call was one of the more painful experiences because they had to attend every sick baby delivery and every C-section.
“I planned a wedding.” Molla changed the subject to something less depressing, adjusting one of her colorful hair scarfs. She’d once told them she had to cover her hair because she was a married Jewish woman.
“A wedding?” Lillian said. “Who’s getting married?”
“My twin brother.
“Congratulations.” Lillian hadn’t even known she had a brother. “How many years have they been together?”
“Years?” Molla said. “Oh, nothing like that.”
“Months?” Clarissa asked.
Molla considered, “Not with an s.”
“Weeks? Days?” Clarissa lowered her bet.
“Weeks,” Molla confirmed.
“It took weeks?” Clarissa said in disbelief. “They just decided to get married? That’s pretty early to know if someone got… You know.”
Clarissa, who typically had the sunniest disposition of the three of them, was showing some cynical edges. She’d had a few hard call nights lately. Otherwise, she’d have never tried to suggest Molla’s twin brother was having a shotgun wedding.
“How did they know they were perfect for each other?” Lillian asked honestly, as she couldn’t even be sure what she felt for Gene.
Molla shrugged. “It’s our way. You have the same background, the same goals, and so the question becomes one of…” she thought for a second “…compatibility.”
“Must be nice.” Whoever this brother was marrying didn’t sound like she spent the night wondering whether or not she’d done the wrong thing in bed.
Or if the guy would ever call them back or they were just some needy weirdo with a spanking fetish.
This wasn’t fair. He could disappear. Poof, magic, never be heard from again.
That showed the totally naive idiot she was. Of course she got ghosted by the masked Halloween guy. Ghosting was the only thing that was ever going to happen. She was stupid to think while it had been intense for her that it could mean anything different to him.
Clarissa, who was facing the door, suddenly sat up straight, “Oh, my god. Did one of my NICU patients die? Is it the one whose mom abrupted?”
Their office manager was approaching with a massive gargantuan flower display.
“No,” Molla disagreed. “It’s not tasteful enough for a funeral.”
“True,” Clarissa relaxed. “We’d probably do purple roses for that. Did one of us win a horse race like the Kentucky Derby or the Ascot? Or is someone crazy excited about election day?”
The flowers approached, making it difficult to see anything beyond them because it was essentially a bush of roses with a tangled mass of baby’s breath stuck in between like spider webbing.
“I don’t know what that is, but somebody murdered at least five rose bushes,” Molla said.
