Page 77 of Holiday Unscripted
I order her a white wine and a whiskey for myself. “Well, well, well.” We look over when a woman with short salt-and-pepper hair is walking toward us, round black glasses perched at the tip of her nose. “If it isn’t little Elizabeth,” she says walking to her.
Elizabeth smiles at her. “Dr. Torres,” she says her name as she kisses her cheek. “I’m so happy to see you,” she adds and then looks at me. “Nate,” she calls my name, “this is Dr. Torres, she is one of the reasons I went into medicine.”
I smile at the woman. “Oh please.” Dr. Torres shakes her head. “Nonsense.”
“She has the best emergency clinic I’ve ever been to.” He smiles at the woman. “A place I used to end up frequently with two older brothers.”
I laugh. “You were very accident prone,” I tease her.
“How is the clinic?” she asks Dr Torres, who smiles sadly.
“I’m shutting it down,” she informs her. “It’s time for me to retire and I never found anyone I trusted enough to take it over.”
“What?” Elizabeth says, her hand coming up to hold on to my arm. “That clinic is…” She shakes her head. “It’s the only clinic that I know of in the area.”
“I’m sure someone will come around and open a new one once I’m gone,” she mentions. “Excuse me, dear, I’m going to go and congratulate Joshua.”
“I can’t believe it,” Elizabeth whispers. “See this scar?” She lifts her bare arm and I see a little V scar. “Joshua threw a plastic chair at me.” I roll my lips, trying not to laugh. “See this?” She puts her head back and points to another small scar. “Four stiches, running up the steps from Joshua because I scratched his DVD of The Fast and the Furious.” My hand comes up to touch her chin gently. “I can’t believe it.”
“If we can get everyone’s attention,” the emcee announces. “We’ll be serving the first course in five minutes, so everyone take their seats.”
I walk side by side with her to the table and Jack comes over with Evie, sitting down with us. “Did you know Dr. Torres is closing down her clinic?” Elizabeth asks Jack, who looks like he’s in shock as well. “I know.” She pffts. “She can’t find someone she trusts to take it over.”
“That’s so sad,” he replies. “I was wrestling with Joshua once when I was sixteen”—Jack turns to Evie—“and I fucked up my elbow. I told Mom and she ignored me. Said something about not roughhousing.”
Elizabeth and I both laugh because she would always say that. “Two days later I went to tell her that I was in pain still. She took one look at it and called me an idiot, but then told me to get in the car. My elbow was fractured. I ended up in a cast and missed my bantam hockey year playoffs.”
“What did that teach you?” Evie asks him.
“To never go to my mother when I was in pain. I would go straight to my father.” We all laugh at him.
Joshua and Macy are introduced to everyone as husband and wife. The two of them doing their first dance to “Come Away with Me.”
Everyone claps when he dips her. “Isn’t that sweet?” Elizabeth says sarcastically when they finish and the food comes out.
The plates are cleared when another song comes on and I see people head to the dance floor. I push away from the table. “Will you dance with me?” I hold out my hand.
“Again?” She smiles up at me as she takes my hand and I almost, almost whisper out always. But instead, I just nod my head.
“If you keep this up”—Jack follows my lead, getting up and holding out his hand for Evie—“people are going to think you like each other.” We look at each other before laughing at Jack and walking away.
I slide my hand around her waist while she puts one of her arms over my shoulder, her fingers sliding into the back of my hair.
“So on a scale of one to ten,” Jack quips from beside us, “how happy are you that in two days you can finally have your room back?” He looks at Elizabeth with a smirk on his face. It’s a look I’ve seen before, many times. A look that says I’m going to fuck with you until you tell me the truth.
“What?” Elizabeth says to him as I look at her, the both of us moving side to side.
“Well, everyone is pretty much leaving tomorrow night, max by the twenty sixth, so your room will be free.”
“Oh,” she replies softly and I feel the tightness form all over my body.
“You can always still stay with me,” I offer. “Baby Cat has gotten used to you anyway.”
“Is that why?” Jack asks and then Evie laughs.
“Would you leave them alone?” she scolds. “He thinks the two of you have been hooking up.”
My stomach lurches. “What?” I say.
