"Yes," I said, my voice already a touch wary. I picked up my coffee cup, turning to gaze out at the elegant, clean lines and modern interior of Kiss-Met's offices.
"This is Hank Herriman from Private Property Management Solutions and Efficiency Strategies."
"That is a very long name," I said candidly, sipping the bitter coffee.
The man stumbled, apparently caught off-guard. "Well… yes, it kind of is."
"Not very efficient."
Hank cleared his throat. "Ms. Daise, I am calling because my client has sent several letters in the mail over the last two and a half months."
"Okay," I said slowly. Burning dread built in my chest like holding my hand over a flame. The singe was coming. I could feel it.
"We have not heard from you since sending an advance notice, but your landlord has sold your condominium unit. At this time, you have two weeks to vacate the premises."
I could practically hear my psyche sizzling like bacon in a pan. "Did you say… vacate?"
"Yes, Ms. Daise. We've been informed that several of the tenants thought the notices were community newsletters because of the yellow paper color—"
"You sent them onyellowpaper?" I screeched into the phone. "Of course, I didn't open them! No one reads the newsletters!" My whole body hurt. My head buzzed, and my sense of reality had taken a psychedelic turn for the worse. "You can't be serious."
"I am, Ms. Daise. You have two weeks until eviction."
Chapter two
Rook
Rule #1: Get married.
My photographic memory was out to get me.
Ordinarily, having an eidetic memory—as it is more scientifically referred to—was an asset to me in my line of work. I didn't suffer from the "I'm so bad with names" phenomenon a huge chunk of the population seemed to suffer from. I remembered everyone's faces and their names with perfect clarity. The pregnant patient with a bad case of rosacea and anxiety about pre-term labor? Ava. The peri-menopausal mother of three with messy hair? Megan. I remembered them all, and usually, that was something that my patients appreciated. They weren't just a name on a chart. They were people to me, and my brain refused to forget that fact.
However, this morning, it was working against me.
Try as I might, I couldn't seem to getherout of my mind. The image of Gemma Daise's startled expression staring up at me from the elevator, the smell of lilac and coffee clinging to her ribbed blouse, the way her breasts had nearly spilled out of her top when she'd reached her hand down her shirt and taken her bra apart—all of it was seared in my brain. The images of her swishy blond hair and those dark, denim blue eyes looped on repeat in my mind. Goddamn that woman.
Shaking thoughts of the haphazard gremlin out of my head, I turned my attention back to my patient who sat in a gown across from me. She was young, twenty-two, with two streaks of bright green in her dark bob, a septum piercing in her nose, and a determined gleam in her eyes. "I want my tubes tied."
I glanced down at her chart, although there was no point. I'd already memorized it. "Do you have any history of cancer in your family, Ivy?"
"Nope." She leaned back, staring me down.
A hint of amusement warmed my thoughts. I understood why she had come in as a new patient armed for battle. Many OB/GYNs would refuse to perform a tubal ligation on a woman so young. "Okay," I said, closing her file. "I'll have our surgical center give you a call this week to schedule the procedure."
Her eyebrows, both pierced, rose up high. "Wait, that's it?"
"You're healthy, you have had your required physical exam, your bloodwork looks good, and you have expressed that you feel certain about the procedure." I stood slowly, unhurried. "Our surgical center staff will be happy to answer any questions you have about the procedure. Is there anything else, Ms. Ramirez?"
She blinked twice. "Uh, I guess not. I didn't think it would be that easy."
"It's not easy," I replied calmly. "It's a permanent, serious procedure to choose tubal ligation at your age. But then again,if you're here and looking as determined as you are, I trust that you've thought through those implications already."
The hard set in her round features returned. "I am. I've thought it through backwards and forwards, and I know what I want."
I shrugged. "There you have it, then. Is there anything else I can do for you?"
"No." She gave me a baffled stare. "My sister said you were really amazing. I think she was right."
