Moonstone (19 page)

Kelsey felt a hand on her shoulder and opened her eyes. “Denise was worried about you,” Barb said.

“Did Denise sleep here last night?” Kelsey had thought it was strange that Denise was over so early, but it was even stranger seeing that her mom was still in her pajamas.

“We were up playing cards late.”

“Late enough to spend the night? I wish I had those kind of card games.”

“Well, we both had a little too much to drink. She didn’t want to stay but I insisted. And don’t get any ideas. She slept in Nate’s room.” Barb paused. “What happened to you?”

“Nothing. Randy, my tech guy, didn’t show to help with the install yesterday so I got stuck doing it alone. It was a late night—that’s all.” Kelsey rolled over and glanced at the clock. She sighed. It wasn’t likely that she could get ahold of Randy on a Saturday. Or anyone else for that matter. She wasn’t about to let Joy down.
Dr. Henderson.
“I was planning on finishing up this morning. Is it really nine already?”

Barb nodded. “I’ll get a travel mug for your coffee.”

“I’m buying lunch. Don’t argue. I’ll charge it to Alpine. But can we plan on meeting a little later this afternoon? Maybe two o’clock?”

Joy smiled at the sound of Kelsey’s voice. She’d had a restless night rehashing their evening together, particularly everything that hadn’t been said. “No problem. How’d last night go?”

“It was a long night…I’m running a test on each of the workstations now. So far, all the connections seem to be working. You could really use a new printer. This thing’s ancient.”

“Add it to the list,” Joy agreed. “I can’t wait to try out the new program.”

“I hope you like it,” Kelsey said. “There’s bound to be bugs we’ll have to fix, but that’s why we are meeting up on a Saturday. I should have time to fix any bugs you find before we go online officially Monday morning.”

It was only ten. Joy had to figure out what to do to stay busy in the next several hours. She’d already gone for a swim—a completely distracted swim—but a mile nonetheless. As much as she didn’t want to overthink what she was going to say to Kelsey later it was hard not to obsess about it. A few minutes after she’d ended her call with her, the phone buzzed with a text. She felt foolish hoping for a text from Kelsey. Texting would suggest they’d officially crossed the line from business to personal, Joy decided.

Vanessa texted with a picture of a pair of black stilettos and one word:

Me?

Joy texted back:
That depends. Do you want to pay your bills in small change?

Small change? If I wear these babies I’d get twenties at the club,
Vanessa responded.

Taking up pole dancing?
Joy texted. It wasn’t hard to imagine Vanessa sidling up to a pole with disco lights flashing.

Maybe,
Vanessa replied.
I’m bored.

There are worse hobbies. What does T say?

She says Go for it.

Why am I not surprised?
Joy could tell Vanessa to stop dating Tina. She’d thought about it.

I’m buying them.
Can’t beat half price.

One of the open relationship rules, at least according to Vanessa, was that they had to tell each other if they wanted to date someone. But she wasn’t ready to tell Vanessa about Kelsey. There wasn’t anything to say. Yet. She tossed her phone on the couch and went to face the laundry pile.

“Is it two already?” Kelsey asked. She was sitting in Helen’s chair at the front desk. She glanced at her watch and then up again at Joy. “On the dot.” Kelsey stood and stretched. “Everything’s working so far.”

“Great. I can’t wait to try it out.”

“I don’t think you’ll be disappointed,” Kelsey said.

Last night Kelsey had worn beige slacks and a cream-colored silk blouse. Professional. Today she had on a pair of slim-fitting jeans and a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows and the top two buttons undone. Vanessa’s comment about flannel repeated in Joy’s head. Clearly she’d been wrong all along about flannel. Flannel
was
sexy.

When Kelsey turned around to reach for a pen, the jeans showed off her butt and when she turned back around and leaned forward to grab a clipboard, her flannel shirt gaped enough to show the edge of her black bra. Casual Saturday wasn’t a bad thing, Joy thought. Kelsey didn’t look tired from the long night. No, she looks gorgeous as usual. It was frustrating that her mind didn’t even attempt to slow her body’s response to Kelsey. But Kelsey would do that to anyone. She was too good looking for someone not to get distracted.

“I thought we could start here,” Kelsey said, heading back to Helen’s computer, “so I can show you all the steps from check-in to checkout. Then we can move to Denise’s computer and you’ll see how the software coordinates the ordering and finally we’ll go up to your office and I’ll walk you through inputting patient records.” Kelsey scanned through the papers on the clipboard, then flipped back to the top sheet and handed a copy to Joy. “Here’s a cheat sheet of what we are going to do in case you need a reminder later. Of course, all of these steps could be done from the same workstation, but if we move around, we’ll have a good chance to make sure there aren’t any networking bugs we need to fix before Monday morning.”

Joy had worked with a similar software program at her last job, but she didn’t admit this to Kelsey. She glanced over the cheat sheet and then set it on the counter to read later.

“First off, everyone needs a user name and password. I already set you up as Dr. Henderson and made you the only administrator with full veto rights.”

“Full veto rights?”

“You control everything—deletes, price changes, et cetera.”

“Denise isn’t going to like that.”

“Then you can add her as an administrator.” Kelsey stepped back from the computer screen. “Have a seat.”

Joy took Helen’s seat and followed Kelsey’s instructions to set up her account and then a new patient file. Within a few clicks a fictitious patient named Kelsey West was checked in for a nine o’clock appointment. They moved to Denise’s office and Kelsey ran through the basics of ordering and maintaining running totals of their stock.

After a test of the ordering process, Kelsey turned off Denise’s computer. “Do you want to take a break before I show you the last part?” She picked up her clipboard and flipped through the pages. “We’ve covered a lot already.”

“Let’s keep going.” Joy guessed that Kelsey could see she was distracted. “I know Denise wouldn’t let me touch the ordering anyway, but I promise I’ll pay attention to this next part.”

“Denise likes things a certain way. I wouldn’t really want to get in her way either.”

“You’ve noticed that?”

Kelsey smiled. “Nice sarcasm. Subtle.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I love having Denise here. She’s the backbone of this place.”

“But sometimes she is…challenging.”

“It’s probably a gay thing.”

Kelsey did a double take before grinning. “You almost got me. Okay. Next workstation is yours.”

Joy followed Kelsey up to the office. Kelsey unlocked the office door with her set of keys and then held the door open for Joy. Kelsey pointed to the scarf hanging on the coat hook. “I returned the scarf. By the time I left here it was after midnight and my coat wasn’t warm enough.”

“And it’s hard to beat this stylish scarf,” Joy said.

“Clearly, I’m all about fashion,” Kelsey returned, sweeping her hand down from her flannel shirt to her jeans.

“I think the flannel shirt is a fashion statement,” Joy said. “In fact, it kind of goes with the rainbow thing.”

“Flannel isn’t a fashion statement. Flannel is a clothing necessity of the North Coast. It’s like a hoodie. You can’t get by without at least one flannel shirt and four hoodies,” Kelsey argued. “Don’t tell me you don’t own a flannel shirt.”

“No flannel.”

“Where are you from?”

Joy laughed.

“Clearly, not here,” Kelsey added.

“You don’t know how many times I’ve wished I was from somewhere else,” Joy admitted. “Anywhere but Raceda…still, I think you look good in flannel. Fashion statement or not.”

“No compliments yet,” Kelsey said. “Let’s see how things work out with the new software come Monday morning. Then I’ll take a compliment.”

“It’s more of a compliment to flannel.” Joy paused. It was hard to ignore that Kelsey was blushing. “I never thought it really looked good on anyone.”

Kelsey pointed at the orange wall. “I like your paint choice.”

“Redirecting?”

“I would never in a million years decide to paint a wall orange.” Kelsey continued, “I’m into more subtle colors, I guess. But this works. What are you going to paint the other walls?”

Joy knew she needed to play along. “I haven’t decided. Maybe a cream color to tone down the orange a bit. How’d you know I painted in here?”

“Denise mentioned it. She was hoping it was a sign that maybe you were going to stick around for a while.” Kelsey pointed to the old leather chair. “Have a seat. First off, let’s pull up that patient that we checked in earlier—Kelsey West.”

Joy followed the steps that Kelsey directed and soon had a patient file complete with a history with no previous eye exams but a recent difficulty reading fine print and no current prescriptions. Joy paused when she’d finished typing. “You really should have an eye exam done. Maybe I should book you an appointment.”

“The fine print thing really isn’t a big deal. I just have to hold whatever I’m reading a little further away than I used to.”

“An eye exam covers more than just whether or not you need prescription glasses.”

“Okay,” Kelsey said. “But I need an appointment after five.”

Joy clicked on the appointment schedule tab. “Looks like I have an opening next Thursday. Last appointment of the day is five thirty.”

Kelsey pulled out her phone and scrolled through her scheduler. “I’ll take it. Just don’t tell me I need to wear glasses.”

“Do you get headaches when you’ve been reading the computer screen for too long?”

“Nothing that ibuprofen can’t fix.”

“I could have guessed you’d be one of those.”

“What do you mean?”

“Stubborn.” Joy laughed. “It’s your choice. I only do the exam and make a recommendation.”

Kelsey reached over Joy’s arm and closed the appointment schedule screen, then clicked a few buttons to delete the fictitious file they’d created. “I’m not stubborn,” she said, clicking through the options. “I’m focused.” Kelsey picked up her clipboard. “How about we take a break?”

“Sure.”

Kelsey started toward the door. She paused at the window. “I can’t get over your view.”

Joy walked over to the window. A handful of kayakers dotted the water along with one sailboat. “It’s definitely distracting. I stand here thinking of all the things I’d like to be doing instead of working. Like kayaking.”

“You kayak?”

Joy shook her head. “Not even once. But it looks fun.”

Kelsey smiled. “It is. You should try it.” She paused. “What are you doing tomorrow?”

The marina was crowded on Sundays and Kelsey usually avoided it. Yacht club members vied for the choice parking spots, too many kayakers jostled for space up and down the slough and the fishermen were always surly. But John was the worst of the bunch on a crowded day. He greeted Kelsey with a grunt.

“Morning.”

“It’s six a.m.,” John grumbled. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Slack tide and the water’s still as glass,” Kelsey said. “Plus there’s no fog.”

“Not yet,” he argued.

“Can I borrow the red kayak? I’m taking a friend out this morning.”

John squinted at her for a moment and then nodded. He wouldn’t ask any questions. But he’d keep an eye trained on the storage unit and take note of her “friend.” She almost wished that John would ask. She wanted to tell someone that she had asked Joy out—she wanted someone to laugh at her excitement. But John didn’t laugh. He raised his hand and then shuffled off to his watchtower.

Kelsey pulled out her kayak and then glanced at the parking lot when she heard a car pull up. She waited for Joy to park the Honda and then went to unlock the gate.

Joy held up a pair of sunglasses. “I think you left these up in the office yesterday.”

Kelsey slipped on the glasses. The smudges were gone. “Did you clean them?”

“I’m a little compulsive,” Joy admitted. “And yours were satisfyingly dirty.”

“Just wait. They’ll be filthy again in a few hours.”

“I’ll be ready.” Joy whipped out her sunglass case and held up a cleaning cloth. She put her sunglasses on and then pointed at the kayak. “Are we both going to fit in that?”

“No, you get your very own. Want to give me a hand?” Kelsey led the way to the storage unit and they soon had the kayaks lined up at the water’s edge with one oar each. Kelsey changed into her wetsuit and then fished through the pile of rental suits to find one for Joy to wear.

“I can’t believe you grew up here and never kayaked,” Kelsey said, handing the wetsuit to Joy.

“There’s a lot I never did here,” Joy said.

Kelsey felt Joy’s eyes appraising her body and grinned. She knew the wetsuit fit her well and didn’t mind the attention. “Go change,” she said. “We don’t want to miss this sweet spot. Before we know it, high tide will be rolling out.”

Once Joy was suited up, they set the kayaks in the water and Kelsey ran through the basics on rowing and turning the kayak. Joy hopped in to test out the techniques and then started rowing out before Kelsey could add the last few safety tips. She hopped into her kayak and quickly caught up to her. For a beginner, she had a good stroke.

Kelsey nudged the nose of Joy’s kayak with her oar. “You didn’t let me finish.”

“I thought we didn’t want to miss the sweet spot,” Joy argued. “Besides, you’ll stay next to me the whole time, right?” She angled her oar toward Mather Island. “This way to the slough?”

Kelsey shook her head. “Stay with me. And slow down a little. We’ve got a long row in front of us and I don’t want you to wear out early.”

“Sorry. I’m excited.” She grinned at Kelsey. “You don’t know how long I’ve watched kayakers from that window up there.” Joy pointed to the waterfront building. “And now I’m actually on the water.”