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It was the world's most perfect day: warm, clear, and sunny. Moreover, it was happening in Hawaii. How convenient, Natalie Lambert thought, as she just happened to be in Hawaii on this very day! Of course, yesterday had been much the same, and no one really expected tomorrow to be any different. Still, the woman was anything but complacent about the weather — she knew there were others in the world far more climatically challenged than herself. She pushed aside a stray lock of honey-brown hair, which had somehow escaped the confines of the red, yellow, and blue Hawaiian-print scrunchie Natalie had purchased back in Toronto especially for this vacation. She placed her ball-point pen down on the white, courtesy-of-the-hotel, beach towel, and then reached for her piña colada. She took a long, slow sip of the refreshing liquid. Natalie then pulled three picture-postcards out of her bag and looked them over, trying to decide which one to send to whom. One — palm trees against the evening Hawaiian-sky — was immediately set aside; it was the only one suitable. The other two were more difficult to choose between: a gorgeous, pink sunset and a sun-drenched shore. But, finally, she decided; after all, who had been telling her for months now that she needed to get out and get more sun? The woman picked up her pen again, glanced at the picture of the pink sunset over the Maui beach, and then turned the postcard over and began to write.
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Natalie stared at the back of Nick's postcard for a long while. She hadn't the faintest clue what she should write.
"Having a great time — without you" ? "The sun here is incredible" ? "The nights are lonely" ? "Haven't seen a dead body in days and I'm having withdrawal symptoms" ? She should have had a talk with Nick before she left. But how was she supposed to talk to him when she couldn't even write him a stupid postcard? Just then, a hotel bellboy in a tropical-print shirt, which would have been considered gaudy in any other location in the world but this one, and blinding-white shorts walked by, interrupting the vacationing coroner's spiraling reverie. "Lambert? Natalie Lambert? Paging Natalie Lambert." "Here. Over here." Nat set down her pen and waved to the local boy without bothering to rise from her beach towel. "Ms. Lambert? There's a delivery for you. Would you like me to leave it in your bungalow or ... I can bring it to you out here." "A delivery? A package? For me?" Natalie had to admit, she was curious! "Out here will be fine." She wasn't ready to go back in yet, but she knew that she wouldn't stop thinking about the package if it was sent to her room. Nat absently admired the deep tan on the bellboy as he returned to the hotel. It wasn't often you saw a tan like that in Toronto and never during her shifts at the morgue — the pallor of death, like death itself, transcended skin tone. Natalie sat up and began to reapply sunscreen, feeling that it must be about an hour since her last basting; though, she couldn't be sure since she'd left her watch on the dresser. It was Hawaii after all, where the only times of day of any importance were sunset and sunrise — actually, not so different from her life in Toronto in that respect. The bellboy returned about ten minutes later, carrying a huge basket filled with fruits and orchids. It was beautiful! Natalie was truly stunned. Who could have sent such a thing? she wondered. Probably the travel agency — trying to atone for that silly 'Please Go Away' sign above their door — thanking her for using their service. "Now, there must be a card in here somewhere..." Natalie muttered as she sat up to take a better look. She carefully rummaged around, trying not to destroy the arrangement too much, but, even so, out fell a banana — at the height of ripe perfection. And, there, safely tucked beneath, was a small, white card.
 "Yeah, like that's going to happen now. Make me feel guilty, why don't you, Nick?" Natalie was already feeling bad about how she had left: not telling Nick before hand; letting Tracy usurp Sidney out from under Nick for the duration; arranging an outgoing flight at noon, when she knew Nick would not be able to drive her to the airport. She had just lost perspective on everything. Her work and personal lives were so intertwined now. She spent her nights at the morgue doing autopsies and her days in the lab examining Nick's blood and tissue samples and rerunning tests — sometimes she didn't sleep for days on end. In her efforts to help Nick, she had sacrificed a lot more than she'd been willing to admit. It was so frustrating when he just poured it all down the drain, either literally or figuratively. It wasn't like she ever had the opportunity to get involved with her patients, so she'd never learned how to keep a professional distance from them. Natalie sighed. She just had to keep reminding herself that it was his life, his eternity. She could remind him of what he wanted when 800 years of bad habits tried to squelch his dreams, but she couldn't force it down his throat. It was just so easy to get engrossed in the research. In the process of looking for a cure, the young Dr. Lambert had become fascinated by the unique physiology of the vampire. Cells regenerated so quickly, she could actually observe the process under the microscope. Instead of simply treating the symptoms, if she could just isolate the factors that made him a vampire instead of a mortal.... And if she could isolate those factors, would it be possible to safely use them on humans as treatment for cancer or AIDS or any of a dozen other currently incurable afflictions...? It just sucked her in every time. In an effort to stop thinking about her work — or was it her hobby? — Natalie laid back down on her towel and picked up the Rita Mae Brown book Tracy had given her. Well, she had eight more days of sun, surf, and pineapple to get her life back in balance. Hey, it could happen. At the very least, she'd catch up on her sleep. |