“Oh,” she said, blinking. “I think we both know he does those things on his own.”
“Bless him,” Mae added, still smiling. “Okay, what’d your husband do?”
“Well,” said Hannah, grimacing. “In addition to storming off this morning to go speak to some auditor about my books, which I wish he would have left to me”—she frowned when Mae laughed out loud—“he has decided that you require protection during operational hours lest your agitators grow bolder. And he has … erm, secured said protection.”
“Oh,” Mae said, tilting her head to the side. “Well, that’s not a bad point. Dr. Ravi is a young man, but he still hasn’t arrived, and while my grandfather has the heart, I’m not sure his left hook is what it used to be. Are we going to hire some muscle?”
“Not … exactly,” Hannah said, her grimace growing. “You are more … borrowing some. From the Vixen.”
For a moment, Mae just stared at her. It wasn’t that she didn’t comprehend what was being implied, it was more that her mind was abjectly refusing to accept the gall of it. Once she could get her tongue working again, all it would say was, “You cannot be serious.”
“He agreed,” Hannah said, shrugging and looking a little baffled by it herself. “Thaddeus said he only needed a day to sort out some outstanding personal business and then he is all yours.”
Mae scoffed at that, an incredulous, bitter sound that exploded from her throat before she could stop it. “Is he, indeed?”
“Mae, this whole thing has always been so queer,” Hannah said, reaching out and touching her pale hand to Mae’s wrist. “We all see how he watches you. We all see how you—”
“Donot,” Mae snapped. “Mr. Reed has not spoken a single word to me since the day we met, despite sharing my company on many social occasions. He is clearlynotinterested, Hannah.”
“I wouldn’t say clearly,” Hannah replied, withdrawing her hand with a frown. “Thaddeus behaved much the same toward me until I forced the issue. You could always do the same.”
“I could,” Mae said, lifting her chin. “But I’m not going to. I refuse.”
“Excuse me,” came a woman’s voice from the entry, bringing both Hannah and Mae around to face a woman who had her young son by the sleeve, watching their exchange with a bemused kind of fascination. “You’re the doctress, aren’t you?I’m sorry to interrupt, I just don’t see any other Black ladies in the room, so I had to assume.”
“I’m not a doctor,” Mae said, sighing. “But I am in charge. How can I help?”
“Winston here is on my last nerve,” the woman said, jiggling her son by the sleeve, a boy who looked to be around eight or nine, with a mop of brown hair and an unbothered smirk. “I heard you can give him the pox and keep him until they fade. Is that true?”
Hannah gasped.
Mae sighed. “Yes. He can spend a day in the nursery with the other infected children, but he will be put to work on that day. Once he sprouts a few spots, probably a week or two later, he can come back and stay with us until they clear.”
“You hear that, Winston?” the woman said to her son, who grinned at her. “You’re going to itch so bad, you’ll wish you never brought that creature into our house.”
“Do you want to leave him today?” Mae asked, a little wary about the width of this child’s grin. “Miss Lazarus will take him until evening or tomorrow morning, if so. Did you bring any particulars?”
“I will do what?” Hannah asked, balking.
“Not you,” Mae said, flipping her hand. “Dinah.”
As it was, their conversation was necessarily paused while Winston was settled in for his infection visit and given some tasks to do around the nursery in the meantime. Dinah received him with the smile of a girl who recognized a kindred spirit immediately and was not cowed by the prospect.
Mae’s heart was thundering the entire time.
What in the devil was she meant to do with Mr. Reed? What was she going to say to him?
Good God, what was he going to say toher?Anything?
At long last, was he going to say something to her?
She had to stop and grip the wall to breathe.
Audits and vandals and impacted teeth. Children seeking pox. Foreign doctors and aging men who took on more work than they ought. Fireproofing and new glass, dirty forceps, and so on.
And now Roland Reed.
In her clinic.
