And seemed to gravitate more toward the men on the beach than the women.
Not that that should matter to Iris. It wasn’t like she had her eye on any of them. Still…
Not worth thinking about.
In the kitchen Tuesday morning, scrambling eggs before Scott woke up and grunted enough to tell her he didn’t want any, Iris was glad for the quick shower she’d grabbed as soon as Scott had fallen asleep after the postdawn icing. She felt better. More like herself. Had left her hair loose just to dry. Was in her favorite beige cotton pants and black-and-beige leopard-pattern sweater. Ready to take on anything in her path.
And caught herself smiling.
Because of the clothes. Because Scott should be feeling better.
Both thoughts rang true, but there was more. Standing there, helping her friend, immersing herself in the task, she felt…happy.
Not behind-the-camera alive and well, but…really happy.
In a way the sense of lightness inside her felt foreign. Almost unrecognizable, but not totally. There was distant recognition. Certainly a sense that she’d known the sensation before.
“Iris!” The call shocked her so much she dropped the spatula she’d been using, spattering egg on the floor.
As Morgan and Angel gleefully cleaned up the mess, she ran around the corner to the living room. Scott, half on the office chair, which appeared to have scooted away from him, did not look happy.
She was there in seconds, helping him onto the chair. And, wearing a full-out frown, too. “You should have called out to me.”
“I could smell the eggs cooking. I’m starving.” Full, gruntless sentences.
“The girls are enjoying them,” she grouched, but handled his left leg gently as she got it propped up on the chair. “You’re supposed to be moving to crutches today, assuming your back allows it,” she continued, all business as she walked behind him to the bathroom door, and helped him stand while leaning on the counter, and then quickly let herself out, pulling the door closed behind her.
Arms crossed, leaning against the wall, she waited outside for him, heard the toilet flush. Heard him brush his teeth, too, took the move as a sign that he was getting better, and figured him for washing his face based on the sounds she heard next. They were succeeding. The two of them, as friends, were working together and he was getting better.
As he called out to her, asking for a change of clothes, letting her know where to find them, and then, telling her to leave them just inside the door on the counter, Iris collected, deposited. Waited. And when he let her know he was ready for her help getting back, experienced that oddly happy sensation from the kitchen again.
She’d never yearned to be a nursemaid. Which was all she’d been doing both times the curious blast from the past had hit.
But she’d been wearing her attitude sweater, both times.
Maybe clothes really did have a lot to do with how a person felt.
* * *
She had to go. Standing on one leg, with Iris’s arms beneath his armpits as he lowered himself to his desk chair, Scott remembered exactly what he’d been planning to ask the physical therapist. And would do so.
Just as soon as he got the guy’s name again.
You couldn’t connect with a person enough to get the answers you needed out of them if you didn’t put forth some effort.
Like remembering a name.
And then he’d get every trick the trade had ever known. How a guy dealt with crutches and a lower back sprain at the same time. How to lift a leg that was partially deadweight with a back that was on a no-lifting order.
If the therapist wasn’t privy to the answers, he’d invent some. Period. No way was he going to have Iris helping him into his chair like that again.
Bad enough that the bathroom had been involved. The discomfort of that alone was enough to drive a guy to desperate measures. But if he had to stand there one more time with Iris’s arms looped under his, sliding against his body, holding him, there’d be a lot more embarrassing happenings than someone listening to him pee.
Like hearing him cry out in pain at the beginning of his physical therapy session later that morning. Definitely worse than pee. The way Iris had come running in from the kitchen, mouth open, her eyes wide, filled with fear…she had to go.
Let him be miserable in peace.
PT, while sweat inducing and painful, actually turned out to be a good thing. He managed to stay alert, to eventually conquer every one of the basic exercises he’d been given to start with. And to ask Joel—he’d managed to get the name of his in-home therapist for the duration by reading his name tag—the questions that had been on his mind on Sunday. Namely, any and all that would give him the tricks of the trade that would allow him to be immediately self-sufficient.
