“Better, now that you’re here.”
“You’re a fresh one,” she said.
“Can I help it? A man comes in with plain old cat fever, and you cure that, but you give him a worse disease.”
“Really? And what malicious ailment have you contracted here?”
“Heart disease,” he said, his eyes serious.
“That’s quite normal,” Jean said lightly. “Every man falls in love with his nurse.”
“And his nurse?”
“His nurse is here to take his temperature right now.”
She shook down the thermometer, and he said, “The other side of the bed, Jean.”
“Why?” she asked, puzzled.
“I like it better that way. I’m superstitious.”
Jean shrugged. “All right,” she said, sighing. “If you say so.”
She walked around to the other side of the bed, so that the window was behind her, so that the sunlight streamed through the crisply starched uniform and the sheer slip beneath it, outlining her legs. He watched her legs, pleased with the way he had maneuvered her so that she was in silhouette, pleased with her vulnerability and her naive innocence, thinking this one was going to be like falling off Pier Eight.
“Open,” she said.
“You’re pretty, Jean.”
“Now stop that.”
“You’re lovely.”
“Stop, I said.”
“You’re gorgeous.”
“You’re too talkative. Here.” She rammed the thermometer into his mouth.
“Y’ve n’right abbe s’pretty,” he said around the thermometer.
“Don’t talk with the thermometer in your mouth,” she warned, looking at her watch.
He took the thermometer out of his mouth for a moment. “You’ve no right to be so pretty,” he repeated.
“Oh, now hush. And put that back in your mouth.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, saluting.
Jean giggled and turned away from him, walking to the window. He watched the lithe slender lines of her body. He could see the harsh elastic of her brassiere where it bit into the flesh of her back beneath the whitely transparent top of her uniform. This is better than a match, he thought. This is a damn fine way to raise a temperature. I wonder what she looks like in civvies. I wonder what she looks like in her underwear. Christ, she must look beautiful!
She turned from the window, the smile still on her face. “All right,” she said, “let’s see how you’re doing.” She took the thermometer from his mouth and studied it. “Mmmm,” she said.
“Am I dying?”
“No.”
“Why don’t people ever tell you your temperature? Doctors and nurses always make such a big mystery out of a thermometer reading.”
“You’re normal,” she said.
“That’s good,” he answered. He paused. “But maybe it isn’t, either.”
“Why not? I should think you’d want to get out of here.”
“I do, but...” He shook his head.
“What’s the matter?”
“Jean, when I leave... I won’t see you again, will I?”
“You’re impossible, do you know that?”
“I’m serious now, Jean. I’d like to stay here forever. I’d like to be here with you forever.”
She tried to laugh it off. “Well, I’m afraid that’s a little impractical.”
“I can think of something that isn’t,” he said rapidly.
“Can you? Well, well.”
“Or... or don’t you want to?”
“I want to take your pulse now, if that’s what you’re talking about,” she said professionally. She took his wrist and looked at her watch.
“My heart’s going like sixty,” he said.
“It’s not too bad.”
“Jean, could you — do you think it’s possible?”
“Do I think what’s possible?”
“Seeing me? After I’m released from the hospital?”
She didn’t answer him.
“Jean?”
“Shhh. I’m counting!”
“The hell with that,” he said, pulling his wrist away and then catching her hand with his. “Answer me, Jean!”
He was holding her hand very tightly, and there was something electric about his grip. She thought of Chuck fleetingly, and the old debate rose in her mind again. Was she flinging herself at Chuck’s head? Surely he was in New Jersey by now! Why hadn’t he called? Or written?
“I... I think you’d better let me go,” she said softly.
“No! Will you see me when I’m released, Jean?”
“I... I don’t know.”
“When will you know?”
“Please, someone may walk in.”
“The hell with everybody, Jean! The hell with everybody but us! Just the two of us, honey, that’s all, that’s all that counts.”
“Please let me go.”
“Not until you answer.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“That you’ll go out with me.”
“I have to think. Please...”
“Or is it the bar?” he asked.
There was no bitterness in his voice. There was, instead, an overwhelming sadness that instantly aroused her sympathy and her rage at the same time.
“Don’t be ridiculous!” she snapped.
“It’s against Navy Regs, you know.”
“I know that. That has nothing to do with it.”
“No?”
“No, nothing whatever.”
He was close to home now. He sensed it instinctively, the way a fighter will sense the moment for the kill.
“You could get into trouble.” He paused. “If we’re not careful. Aren’t you afraid of trouble?”
“Nursing—” She paused. “Nursing means a great deal to me.”
He saw that she meant it, and he was frightened for a moment, afraid he had taken the wrong tack, afraid the whole thing would blow up in his face now.
“Of course,” he said slowly, carefully, “no one would ever have to know, would they?”
“I... I suppose not.”
He put her hand to his mouth suddenly, kissing the palm, kissing her wrist. His lips were moist and feverish. She tried to pull her hand away, but he held it tightly, pressing it to his cheek now.
“Say you’ll come with me, Jean. Please, please. Can’t you see how I feel about you? Doesn’t it show? Jesus, can’t you see I’d go nuts if I didn’t see you again?”
“No, no, don’t say that. Please, you mustn’t. You don’t know. We... we’ve hardly met. We just...”
“Jean?”
“What? Oh, please let my hand go, won’t you?”
“You’ll go out with me?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. Please, I have to think it out.”
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered, and then he dropped her hand suddenly, and the hand felt curiously cold now that he’d released it. She brought the hand to her throat, avoiding his eyes. She could not deny that he had aroused something within her. She was confused and embarrassed by her own thoughts, and so she avoided his eyes and started for the door.
“Come back,” he whispered. “Come back to me.”
She hesitated and then looked back into the room. He was sitting up in bed, a sad smile on his face, looking pathetically weak. She wanted to hold him in her arms for a moment, wanted to comfort him, but she didn’t know, she didn’t know. She bit her lip.
“I will,” she said. “I will be back.”
“Understand you’re about ready to get out of bed,” Greg said.
“So they tell me,” he answered.
“Well, good. I guess you’re pretty damned anxious to get back to the Sykes. Must be an exciting ship, a destroyer.”
“Stop snowing me, Greg. There isn’t an exciting ship in the whole damn fleet.”
“No?” Greg said, eying him carefully. He didn’t like the way this was going. He could always get a rise out of 107, and today he wasn’t doing so hot. The bastard looked too complacent today. That annoyed Greg. He liked needling this sonofabitch, he enjoyed it immensely. “Why, the Sykes seems to be a real exciting vessel, from where I sit. It ain’t every ship in the fleet that gets a dead nurse.” Greg watched. The bastard’s eyes had flicked just a little bit. He didn’t like talking about the ship or the nurse, especially the nurse. Well, if he didn’t like it, that was just what Greg wanted.