“I’m supposing this is not a coincidence, you being here?” Ben asked. He gestured for Shanna to sit down across the table from him. They were in the doctors’ lounge, a tiny place with a table, two chairs, an old sofa, a refrigerator and barely enough room to turn around. Sparse of comfort and cramped, but well used by Ben’s largely volunteer staff. “Which means you’re stalking me, correct?”
She grasped the cup of yerba maté he’d made, a tealike drink popular in Argentina, like it was her lifeline. Ben had mentioned it was his favorite, but she hadn’t quite acquired the taste for it yet, like she hadn’t yet acquired the taste for the changes she needed to make in herself.
“Believe me, I had thirty hours to think about it on the flight. You know, questions you’d ask. Answers I’d give. What would sound plausible, what wouldn’t.”
“Plausible would be good,” he conceded, still absolutely bewildered by her being there. Wondering, also, if he was hallucinating or under some kind of other spell that plucked his thoughts from his mind and turned them into reality. Because he’d thought about her in every unoccupied moment since he’d left Tuscany. She’d even managed to creep into a few of his occupied moments. And now here she was, like he’d ordered her up and, poof, she appeared. “But under the circumstances, difficult. You followed me halfway around the world, and I’m trying to imagine how plausible any explanation for that could be.”
“Other than stalking you,” she said quite brightly. Taking a sip of the maté, she let the bitter taste mellow out on her tongue for a moment, then nodded as she swallowed. “Which I’m not. At least, not in the traditional sense.”
“Okay, then tell me what’s the untraditional sense.” It was flattering that she’d followed him here. At least, he thought it was. Or hoped it was. Because there was the distinct possibility that Shanna Brooks was some kind of lunatic, and he’d completely missed that in her back in Tuscany. Blinded by the aura, oblivious to the reality? No, that didn’t make any sense because he’d looked into her eyes more than once, and there was nothing to suggest anything wrong with her. In fact, one of the things he’d been drawn to had been her spark, her vitality, which shone in her eyes.
“It’s hard to explain. I… I need something different.”
“You needed something different so you stalked me and ended up in my jungle hospital. Which, by the way, isn’t on the map, or any global tracking system I know about. So you had to put some effort into finding me.” These kinds of things never happened to him, and he wondered if he should pinch himself to make sure he was awake.
Shanna shrugged. “You’re right. You’re way off the map. But you’d mentioned you were in Argentina, and I’m resourceful. So, here you are.” She took another sip of maté, watched him carefully over the top of her mug.
“Yes, here I am.” So was she being deliberately vague, or was she as unsure of herself as he was sensing, putting forward the brave front with nothing behind it to back it up? Because Shanna Brooks seemed almost as surprised to be here as he was to see her here. “Several years, now, which gets me back to my original question…”
“Why am I stalking you?” She drew in a deep breath. “The answer is… I want to be like you. So who better to show me how to do that than you?”
Now he was back to the theory that she might be a lunatic. “What you’re telling me is that you want to be like a recluse doctor who’s running an isolated, struggling volunteer hospital in the middle of a jungle?”
She smiled. “Not sure it does. So you’re thinking I’m crazy, aren’t you?”
“Probably not crazy enough to medicate you. But odd enough that I might have to keep an eye on you, take away sharp objects, limit your prescribing to sugar pills.”
Shanna laughed. “Don’t blame you. In the same position, I might also be calling for a security guard.”
“If we had one,” he said. “Which we don’t. So what didn’t you tell me back in Tuscany that I obviously should know since you’ve set your sights on… me?”
“That’s a fair question, I suppose.”
“Which you’re going to answer, I suppose?”
She sat her mug down on the table and simply studied him for a moment. Looked deep into his eyes, never breaking contact for what seemed like an eternity. Then she drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly and smiled. “You deserve an answer, but it’s not necessarily the real answer because…”
“Because it’s hard to explain,” he filled in.
“Harder than you can know.”
“Then, start at the beginning.”
“The thing is, every story has so many beginnings. With this one, let’s begin where medicine and I came to a parting of the ways. For the sake of keeping this brief, let’s just call it a discrepancy of idealisms, and move on from there. After I hung up my medical diploma, I went on a road trip. You know, in search of myself, in search of truth, maybe in the higher sense in search of the meaning of life.
“Who knows what I was in search of but, whatever it was, I met you and I liked the way you talked about your medical world. Thought maybe I might like the way you actually deal with it, as well. And I’ll admit I probably got caught up pretty easily as I didn’t have my own medical world any longer.”
“Cutting to the chase,” he interrupted. “You followed me here to study me.”
“Like I said, it sounds crazy. The only thing I know for sure is that I don’t know anything. I loved being a doctor, think I want to keep doing that. But…” She shrugged. “You need volunteers, and I’m here to volunteer.”
They hadn’t talked about this in Tuscany, and it was something that should have come up when they’d discovered they were both physicians. Of course, how much had he told her about himself? Not much. Shanna had done the same, so he couldn’t fault her for that. “Well, you’re off to a good start, showing up at my door with your own patient.”
“Then you’ll let me stay?”
He’d seen good medical skill and that was almost enough to hire her on the spot. But he was cautious about the people he brought in, even if he had spent time with them on holiday. So while his impulses were telling him one thing, his head was still ruling him. It had to because his only priority was Hospital de Caridad. “You show up on my doorstep and declare yourself ready to work, and think I’ll just let you start working?”
“I was hoping. And you can do an internet search on me.”
“Oh, I intend to.” Although what he’d seen of her already told him everything he needed to know. That, and there was no reason to doubt she was who she said she was. Still, those were personal feelings getting in the way, and whatever was going to happen with Shanna had to be kept professional. From here on out she wasn’t a wishful memory left over from holiday but one of his volunteers. One of the many who got treated no differently than anyone else. In a way, that was too bad, because he’d like those wishful memories.
“You’re a cautious man, Ben Robinson.”
“Have to be.” He smiled. “You never know who’s going to pop out of the jungle and ask for a job.”
“Look, I appreciate the opportunity. Just tell me what you want me to do, then point me in the right direction.”
He pointed at the door. “Evening house calls. You can come along… observation only for now, just to see how