“What?” Timmons mouthed back at her, and Norah repeated herself, this time with a volume that contradicted the quiet serenity of the ICU.
“Name.”
“Hobbs. Jim Hobbs,” Timmons shouted back.
“Mr. Hobbs, can you hear me?” Norah placed a hand gently on the man’s shoulder and immediately thought of the early AIDS crisis, when nurses and doctors refused to touch patients as they died those horrible deaths. If Mr. Hobbs could hear her, this may have been the only human contact he’d felt in days, and that could go a long way.
“Mr. Hobbs, I’m Dr. Norah Bishop, and this is Dr. Durgin. We’re here investigating what’s making you sick.” The man didn’t respond, but Norah saw the tiniest twitch of his left little finger, which made her wonder if he was in there. There wasn’t enough science to prove he was. But there certainly wasn’t enough to prove he wasn’t. In spite of herself, Norah had always been spiritual. Her faith in something better, a plan preferable to any she could forge, gave her solace when she needed it. And that was enough of a reason to believe.
She looked up from Mr. Hobbs’s nearly translucent face and into Chase’s soft, warm eyes. With a quiet understanding, an almost telepathy they’d always shared, they nodded together, exchanging a moment of peace and respect for this man neither of them knew.
After enough time had passed, Norah pulled down the starchy bed sheet covering Mr. Hobbs and examined his chest, his fingernails, his eyes, and even the soles of his feet. The exam felt voyeuristic and cruel, especially since she wasn’t used to actually touching patients anymore. But learning everything she could about this emerging monster was the only way out.
“Hungry?” Norah had noticed Chase’s unusual silence during the first hour of the drive back to camp.
“Actually, yeah. Starving.” Chase seemed to perk up a little, her shoulders no longer slouching against the window, and the color reemerging to her slightly sunken cheeks. Norah hated that she knew her well enough to sense exactly what was going on in Chase’s head. She was replaying the images of Mr. Hobbs, already punishing herself for not being able to save him or countless others.
“I just saw a sign for Tito’s Red Hot BBQ in five miles. What do you say?”
“Well, how can I say no to Tito?”
A few minutes later, Norah pulled the jeep off Exit 19 on Route 145, surprised to be surrounded by nothing but a few streetlights and a sign for a Mobil station.
“You sure Tito’s here? Looks like he may have gone home for the night,” Chase said. It was dark, but not too dark for Norah to appreciate that cunning smile she’d begrudgingly missed so badly during all these years apart.
“No kidding. Talk about the middle of nowhere.”
Against Norah’s better judgment, they kept driving what must have been another ten miles down the dimly lit one-lane highway, following the arrow the initial Tito’s sign had pointed in, until finally, like a giant BBQ mirage, a neon sign reading “TI-O’S BBQ” emerged. The secondTflickered weakly, but mainly, thesign just read “TIO’s.” The parking lot was cracked and tattered, southern-Louisiana greenery peeking through like tiny caterpillars trying desperately to become something bigger, something better. A few beat-up Chevy pickups with the tailgates torn off were scattered about, but for the most part, Tito’s looked desolate.
“What do you think? We’ve made it all this way. Might as well see what Ti-o has to offer, huh?” Chase, always up for an adventure, flicked her eyebrows.
“Might as well. And hey, you never know. Could be a diamond in the rough.”
“A diamond in the very rough,” Chase said, laughing and throwing open the passenger-side door.
The inside of Tito’s Red Hot BBQ was only a slight upgrade from the dilapidated brick foundation and peeling siding of its exterior. There was less than a handful of other patrons, mostly obese men in trucker hats with flannel shirts that oddly matched the place’s “I.” A woman in her late thirties, looking like she’d lived a few extra decades during that time, slowly shuffled to the door to meet Norah and Chase as they waited apprehensively at the sign reading “Please Wait to be Seated.”
“What can I do for you two ladies,” the woman, dressed head to toe in faded black cotton accented only by a red plaid apron splattered with an even redder sauce, asked.
“Two for dinner, please.” The woman eyed Norah in her army fatigues, the look of admiration and curiosity that Norah recognized so easily clear on her face.
“Right this way.” Her drawl was thick, and the “y” in “way” seemed to travel off into the heavy night air.
Tito’s menu, which was just a piece of printer paper that had been laminated at a nearby Staples, was passable, and after very little deliberation, Chase ordered the pulled pork with a side of mac and cheese.
“You still eat like a teenage boy, I see,” Norah said, keeping her tone as light as it had been on the drive up.
“My eating habits haven’t changed as much as my metabolism has.” Chase smiled and patted her stomach, which was still quite flat in spite of what Norah assumed was many meals consisting of Taco Bell and Funyuns.
“You still look fine to me.” Before Norah had a chance to rethink her remark, the words had escaped, and she knew she’d almost crossed a line that she could never get back over.Fine. It wasn’t exactly the most complimentary of words. And she knew full well that Chase looked more than just fine, sitting there in her loose linen shirt that was unbuttoned just low enough to show off the line of her collarbone, the creases at the edges of her eyes wrinkling every time she smiled. Fine wasn’t the half of it. And unfortunately, Norah could tell Chase picked up on that sentiment immediately.
Chase’s smile evolved into a full-on grin, and the pale color her cheeks had been holding all day suddenly flushed with a sensational pink.
“Are you flirting with me?” Chase ran a hand through her messy hair, her smile taking on just a hint of smugness that Norah found undeniably magnetic.
“I…” If she were anybody else, literally anybody else on the planet, Norah would have lied. She would have lied her fucking pants off. But Chase knew her. Even all these lifetimes later, she knew her. And no way could she entirely dismiss the chemistry that was still so evident between them.
“Hey.” Before Norah had a chance to offer any kind of explanation she would never be able to articulate properly, Chase reached across the splintering wood table and squeezed Norah’s hand just once, a gesture so casual and playful Norah found herself wishing Chase would give her more. “I’m just teasing you.”
