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“It’s a fact no one around here gives birth in daylight,” Jack said, serving his wife a short beer.
“My very able helper,” Mel said. “When I have a delivery at Doc’s, Jack usually sits up through the night in case I need him for anything.”
Mike came into the bar, took his place beside Mel. Jack introduced him as a former LAPD police officer who’d served with him in the Marine Corps. Next was Doc.
“You know, there’s a lot of interesting experience in this little bar. I bet it would be good for some of the kids to hear about your career choices. How about it?”
Mike said, “I’ve done that, actually.”
“You have? How’d it go?” Zach asked.
“Hmm,” he said, shaking his head. “They wanted to know two things—have I ever shot anyone and have I ever been shot. My answers were yes, and not yet. Shortly after that I was shot. I don’t think that’ll get the department any recruits.”
“I’d be happy to talk to the kids about birth control, sexually transmitted disease and sexual assault,” Mel said. “I’ve been looking for a way into the school—this is pretty conservative country.”
“Mel,” Jack said, “Zach was just saying he’s new and hopes he’s not just passing through.” Preacher came into the bar with a rack of clean glasses. “Preacher, meet Zach, new high school teacher in town. He’s looking for some volunteers to talk to his students about their career choices.”
“Hey, man,” Preacher said, shoving his rack under the bar, wiping a big meaty hand on his apron and sticking it out. “Nice to meet you.”
“You could talk about being a chef,” Jack said.
Preacher looked at Zach, smiled and said, “No way in hell. I barely talk to my own wife. Welcome to town.” Then he went straight back to the kitchen.
Zach leaned over the bar and looked past Mike and Mel to Doc. “Dr. Mullins?” he questioned hopefully.
Doc lifted his one whiskey of the day along with a bushy white eyebrow. He sipped, put the whiskey down and said, “In your dreams, young man.”
Zach picked up his beer and said, very good-naturedly, “That went well.”
“You know what you got yourself here, young man,” Jack said. “You got yourself an excellent place to have a beer.”
“How about you, Jack? You’d do it, right?”
“Sure, Zach. I’ll go tell the kids all the advantages of owning your very own bar. Right after that, Mel can teach them sexual responsibility. Kind of a little family business.”
“That’s it,” Zach said. “An excellent place to have a beer.”
Three
Sue and Doug Carpenter and Carrie and Fish Bristol—best couple friends—had been having an after-work beer at Jack’s a couple of times a week since he opened, so Mel knew them well. And Sue had called Mel to make an appointment for her sixteen-year-old daughter. On the phone she had said, “The girl is pregnant and we have to do something.” Well, this was Mel’s job—to give medical attention to pregnant women, whatever their age or marital status. And Sue was a bit put out that Mel insisted on seeing her patient alone first.
“What have we got, Brenda?” Mel asked, looking at the chart.
“I guess I’m pregnant,” she said. “Figures.”
Mel looked up from the chart. Brenda was a high school junior. From gossip between the Carpenters and Bristols at the bar, Mel had gathered that this girl was an honor student, cheerleader, student council officer—a leader. College bound; scholarship material. Nature certainly doesn’t discriminate, Mel thought. “Do you know how many periods you’ve missed?”
“Three. Can you get rid of it?”
Mel tilted her head, surprised by the caustic edge to the girl’s question. Brenda had always been soft-spoken, on the sweet side. The tragedy was usually that these young girls were ready to throw away their lives, their promising futures, based on some immature romance with a young boy. Didn’t sound as if Brenda was suffering from that syndrome. “You have lots of options, but first things first—how about I examine you to be sure that’s what’s going on.”
“Fine,” she said shortly. “Whatever.”
“Okay, let’s get you in this gown. Everything off. And I’ll be back. How’s that?”
Rather than answer, Brenda snatched the gown and didn’t even wait for Mel to leave before she began undressing.
Mel went to the kitchen, had a sip of her diet cola and ran this over in her mind. Maybe Brenda was just mad at her mother for finding out. Maybe the boy had taken off. Maybe a lot of things, she thought. She reminded herself to stick to the facts for now.
She gave Brenda a few minutes, knowing better than to stretch this out for too long. Brenda didn’t need to settle her nerves; she needed to get this over with.
“Have you had a pelvic before?” Mel asked her.
“No,” she said shortly. “Just do it.”
“Sure thing,” Mel said. “But let me get your blood pressure and listen to your heart first, if you don’t mind.”
“Whatever.”
“Brenda, excuse me, but are you angry with me?”
“I am angry in general,” she said.
Mel sat on her stool and looked up at the girl. “Because …?”
“Because this sucks.”
“Well, people make mistakes. You’re human …”
“Yeah? I could live with that if I knew I was making a mistake!”
“Okay, let’s back up a little. Want to tell me about it?”
“Why bother? Do it, okay? You’ll just think I’m as stupid as I already think I am.”
“Try me,” Mel said, crossing her legs, resting her arms on her knee.
“I went to a party. A kegger. I got drunk. I woke up sick. Puking sick. The guy I was with said he passed out and nothing happened. But obviously someone is lying if I’m pregnant.”
Mel couldn’t help herself—her mouth dropped open. “Brenda, you told your mother about this?”
“Not until two periods didn’t come, because how was I going to know? I did one of those home test things. I never thought it would be … positive …”
“Were you sore? In your vagina?”
“I was sore everywhere! Like I’d fallen down a flight of stairs! And so sick I wanted to die. My vagina was about the last thing on my mind!”
“When you woke up—you were dressed? Any evidence of rape?”
“Completely dressed. Right down to the vomit on my shirt. And in my hair,” she added with a shudder.
“And you were with friends? Anyone see anything?”
“I was with a couple of girlfriends and one useless guy. They were all as drunk as me. We’d never … It was like the first time for something like that. I’ve had maybe one or two beers, but I’ve never been to a kegger before. I’m obviously not much of a drinker.”
“Do you remember drinking a lot?” Mel asked.
“I don’t remember much of anything. A couple of the guys said I was totally shitty. Drunk out of my mind. And one of my girlfriends swears my date really did pass out right away.”
“Ever think there could have been a drug involved? Slipped into your beer?”
“What kind of drug?” she asked.
“What do you think happened?” Mel asked her.
“I think I got hammered and let some guy—Obviously I wasn’t in a position to make a good decision. Plus, these are my friends. Well, the girls I went with are my friends—they wouldn’t lie to me. I don’t hang out with the other ones who were there.”
“All of them were your friends?”
“Someone’s not—unless there was a guy there who also doesn’t remember.”
Mel leaned forward. It was in her mind to ask Brenda if she’d ever heard the term, whiskey dick. “An unfortunate reality for most males is that too much alcohol inhibits erection or ejaculation. Whoever did this remembers.”
“And is lying …”
“Well, somebody’s lying—and if you’re pregnant and can’t remember getting that way, it probably isn’t you. Brenda, you could have been raped.”
“Or—I could have been so stupid drunk I didn’t know what I was doing.”
“Same thing, in my mind,” Mel said with a shrug. “Have you talked to the police?”
“Yeah.” She laughed bitterly. “Right.”
Mel reached out a hand to touch her knee and Brenda flinched. Mel’s mind immediately flashed on Carra and she cringed inwardly. “You have DNA in you, Brenda. The person responsible can be revealed.”
“Uh-huh. That should be interesting.” She laughed again. “Real interesting.”
“Listen, Brenda …”
“I don’t want to know. Whoever it is will just say I wanted it. Why wouldn’t he? And I would never be able to say otherwise, since I don’t fricking know. Meanwhile not only the whole school, but the whole town would know Brenda is a whore. Brenda’s knocked up, Brenda would like everyone to believe she was drugged.” She laughed at Mel. “Who are we kidding? Huh?”
“Is that likely? Let me tell you something—girls who aren’t sexually active don’t usually have one occasion of getting drunk and waking up pregnant because they wanted it.” Brenda looked away. “Have you been sexually active? Not that it matters in this case.”
Her eyes came back and the anger had seeped away. “I had a boyfriend last year who. I really liked him a lot. But we didn’t go all the way.” She looked down. “I wouldn’t give it up. I wanted to be sure, wanted it to be special. You know?” Now there were tears in her eyes, but they vanished as quickly as they had come.
Mel touched her hand. “It’ll still be special, honey,” Mel said, standing up. “When you’re ready, it’ll be special. Let’s do an exam, test you for sexually transmitted disease, get a blood workup for HIV.”
“H-I-Vee?” she asked, stricken. “Oh, fuck!”
“One thing at a time, Brenda. Are you up-to-date on the hepatitis B vaccine for school immunizations?”
“Hepatitis B?” she asked. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“It’s also an STD,” Mel said.
“Oh, God,” Brenda said weakly.
“Take it easy, sweetheart. Feet here, in the stirrups, slide down for me, that’s it.” She put on her gloves. “Take a deep breath, let it out slowly and relax your muscles as much as possible. There you go.” Mel took a look and noted some inflammation, tenderness. She did her pap slide, then inserted a swab in the cervical area to test for chlamydia and gonorrhea. “I’m going to let that swab sit for a moment. Listen, do you remember the people who were at that party? And where it was?”
Brenda put the back of her hand on her forehead and her chin quivered. “All I want to do is get it out of me and get on with my life. School already started and everything….”
“I understand that, but I’m worried. This isn’t a situation we should ignore. What if some other young woman is attacked like this, made pregnant without even consenting to sex?”
“Or remembering that she consented?”
“Do you remember any bruising? On your arms, pelvis, hips? Buttocks?”
“My chest was really sore, and so was my throat. I thought it was from throwing up.”
“Where?” Mel asked. Brenda put her palm against her upper chest, on her sternum, right above her breasts. “On the outside? Like you’d been hit in the chest by a … by a basketball or something?”
“Yeah,” she said, apparently surprised by how well the analogy fit.
Mel finished her exam and helped Brenda sit up. “Would you be willing to talk to someone about this? Like maybe one of the nurses at the family planning clinic? Give whatever details you can remember?”
“What for?”
“For the future protection of some girl who doesn’t know what dangers lurk at a kegger?” Mel said.
Brenda looked down miserably. “I don’t know.”
“No one’s going to expose you. No one’s going to confront anyone without charges being filed. But for right now—you deserve better than to have no idea what happened to you.”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I’ll have to think about it.”
“Okay. Get dressed. But first—will you tell me one thing? The party. Was it here? In Virgin River?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Right here.”
Mel had a long chat with a nurse in the family planning clinic in Eureka. She agreed that it was very important to interview this patient, but before that could even happen, Brenda miscarried. Less than a week later the test results came back positive for chlamydia.
Mel immediately got in touch with Carra Winslow. She was a little past caring if a parent answered the phone, but fortunately for Carra, it was she who picked up. Mel was straightforward—she told her there was a venereal disease making the rounds and it was imperative that Carra return to the clinic for testing.
She also tested positive for chlamydia. Mel fixed her up with antibiotics and made her promise to return to the clinic in a couple of months to follow up. Carra still refused birth control; she was no longer seeing the two-week boyfriend. And even though he had given her an infection, she still wouldn’t blame him or name him.
But this weighed on Mel’s mind mightily. She was afraid they might have a serious problem in her town.
September and October brought a time of year that Mel disliked, though it was good for the bar. Bear- and deerhunting season. Since there was no hunting inside the Virgin River town limits, the hunters they saw were those who passed through town en route to and from the lodges and camps in Shasta and the Trinity Alps where some of the best hunting was found. As a rule, these were a decent lot of men and even a few women, many of whom had been seen at Jack’s in previous years and made it a point to stop by to enjoy Preacher’s cooking. And Preacher went to a little extra trouble, knowing they’d bring their money and high expectations. They didn’t change the pricing of their food and drinks for the hunters—it was all sold on the cheap, catering first to the town. But Jack did lay in some of the finer liquors, like Johnnie Walker Blue, because this was a monied crowd who liked their drinks. And they always left a lot more money on the bar and tables than they were charged.
