I try to pull myself up so I can go wash my face, fumbling to find where I’m supposed to push to flush the toilet and failing, falling to the side in exhaustion and landing on the cool tile.
“Mia,” Ansel says, bending one knee beside me, rubbing my arm.
“I’ll just sleep here until I die. I’m pretty sure Harlow will send one of her manservants to retrieve my body.”
Laughing, he lifts me into a sitting position and then tugs his shirt up and over my head. “Come on, Cerise,” he murmurs, kissing just behind my ear. “You are burning up. Let me put you in the shower and then we are going to the doctor. I worry. You are making me worry.”
THE DOCTOR IS younger than I expect: a female in her thirties with an easy smile and reassuring competency with eye contact. While a nurse takes my vitals, the doctor speaks to Ansel and, presumably, he explains what’s going on with me. I catch only when he says my name, but otherwise have to trust that he’s relaying everything accurately. I imagine it goes something like, “The sex was great and then we got married and now she’s here! Help me! She won’t stop throwing up, it’s incredibly awkward. Her name is MIA HOLLAND. Is there a service by which we ship wayward American girls back to the States? Merci!”
Turning to me, the doctor asks me some basic questions in broken English. “What are the symptom?”
“Fever,” I tell her. “And I can’t keep any food down.”
“What is your highest, ah . . . temperature before you come here?”
I shrug, looking at Ansel. He says, “Environ, ah, trente-neuf ? Trente-neuf et demi?” I laugh, not because I have any idea what he’s just said, but because I still have no idea what my temperature is.
“Is it possible you are pregnant?”
“Um,” I say, and both Ansel and I laugh. “No.”
“Do you mind if we do an exam and take some blood?”
“To see if I’m pregnant?”
“No,” she clarifies with a smile. “For tests.”
I stop short when she says this, my pulse hauling off in a full sprint. “Do you think I have something I need a blood test for?”
She shakes her head, smiling. “Sorry, no, I am thinking you just have a stomach virus. The blood is . . . ah . . .” She searches for the word for several seconds before looking up at Ansel for help. “Ça n’a aucun rapport?”
“Unrelated,” he translates. “I thought . . .” he begins and then smiles at the doctor. I gape at this shy version of Ansel. “I thought since we are already here we can do the standard tests for, ah . . . sexually—”
“Oh,” I mumble, understanding. “Yeah.”
“It’s okay?” he asks. “She will do my tests at the same time.”
I’m not sure what surprises me more: that he looks nervous about my answer or that he’s asking the doctor to test us for STDs in case someday I stop throwing up and we actually have sex again. I nod, numbly, and hold out my arm when the nurse pulls out a rubber strip to tie below my bicep. If this was any other day, and I hadn’t just vomited up half of my body weight, I’m certain I’d have something smart to say. But right now? I’d probably promise her my firstborn if she could make my stomach settle for just ten blessed minutes.
“Are you on birth control or would you like to arrange?” the doctor asks, blinking from her chart up to me.
“Pill.” I can feel Ansel look at the side of my face and wonder what a blush looks like on skin as green as mine.
Chapter SEVEN
I WAKE TO THE feeling of lips pressed carefully to my forehead, and force my eyes open.
The sky directly above me isn’t an illusion I’ve been imagining all week. Ansel’s bedroom is on the very top floor of the apartment building, and a skylight over the bed lets in the early morning sun. It curls across the footboard, bright but not yet warm.
The far wall slants down from a lofted ceiling of about fifteen feet, and along the low wall of his bedroom are two French doors that Ansel has left open to a small balcony outside. A warm breeze stirs through the room, carrying the sounds of the street below.
I turn my head, my stiff neck protesting.
“Hey.” My voice sounds like sandpaper rubbed across metal.
His smile makes my chest do a fluttery, flipping thing. “I’m glad your fever has finally broken.”
I groan, covering my eyes with a shaking hand as my memory of the past few days returns to me. Throwing up everywhere, including on myself. Ansel carrying me into the shower to clean me up, and later, to cool me down. “Oh my God,” I mumble. “And the mortification sets in.”
He laughs quietly into another kiss, this one to my temple. “I worried. You were very sick.”
“Is there any surface of your apartment that remained untouched by my vomit?”
He lifts his chin, eyes shining in amusement, and nods to the corner. “Over there, the far side of the bedroom is clear.”
I cover my face again, my apology muffled by my hand.
“Cerise,” he says, reaching out to touch my face. Instinctively I shrink away, feeling revolting. I immediately want to correct the flash of hurt in his eyes, but it clears before I’m sure I believe it was really there. “I need to work today,” he says. “I want to explain, before I leave.”
“Okay.” This sounds ominous, and I take a moment to look lower than his face. He’s wearing a dress shirt. After a quick mental calculation, I realize he’s feeling the need to explain because it’s Saturday.