"Was that right? Did I do that right?"
Disclaimer: Copyright belongs to Tess Gerritsen and Janet Tamaro, and this story is written purely for entertainment.
Maura Isles is rich – beyond rich, even. She runs her own philanthropic organization, named the Isles Foundation, which makes charitable donations on a regular basis to quite a number of various entities. One cause is particularly dear to Maura, one that is close to her own heart. It is giving to children in foster care – these are children whose own parents either cannot or will not give them the care they need, and so they are placed into the foster system, to stay for as long as necessary or until such a time as an adoption can be arranged.
On this night, for one such program, the Isles Foundation was having a fund-raiser. It was an evening gala well-attended by donors, an event complete with the men in full black-tie and the women all dressed to the nines.
Maura was heralding the attendees. "Good evening, everyone. Thank you all for coming, and thank you for your kind generosity. The time has come to determine our raffle winners!"
The prizes were awarded, one by one, to donors who came forward and received appreciative accolades. When the 11th place winner, one Megan Smith, was announced, the girl who eventually made her way to the front was an incredulous and awkward teenager of about eighteen.
"Dr. Isles," the astonished girl stammered in disbelief, "I've never won anything in my life! What have I won?"
Maura opened the envelope and smiled at her. "You've won tickets to baseball. Er .. a baseball match."
Megan let out an excited shriek. "Oh! This might be the 11th place prize, but it's the one I was hoping for all along! I wanted so much to win it!"
"Well. It's yours."
Another small shriek escaped her. "It's like it was meant for me! This is first prize, to me!"
Maura smiled, happy for her. "You have two tickets there. One for you, and one for a friend, to go to the baseball."
The girl's face clouded somewhat, and she looked away, clearly crestfallen but bravely trying not to show it. Maura prompted her, but the only answer she got was a stammered "Dr. Isles, when the raffle is over, could I have a word with you?"
Puzzled, Maura agreed.
When the raffle had concluded, and Maura had seen to some of the guests, she caught up with Megan. The teen led her to a quiet corner. "What is it that's troubling you?" Maura asked gently.
Megan told her. "Thanks to you and your generosity, I'm now at Boston University on a pre-med scholarship. I'm very grateful! But–," she continued, before Maura could respond, "– now that I'm 18, I'm no longer in foster care, and so I'm here on my own. I have friends, but they're all back where my previous foster home was. It's the other side of the country from here, in California. Dr. Isles …" She hesitated.
"Yes?"
"You're the closest thing to a friend that I have, here in town. Would you come with me to the game?"
Maura was taken completely off-guard by the girl's earnest request. "Oh! I … thank you. Er, are you certain that's what you want?"
"Yes! I'd like to go with you."
Maura realized there was more to it than Megan simply being new in town. She was a role-model for this young woman, and could open many doors for her in the medical field. Perhaps such mentoring could even lead to future professional collaboration? She agreed to meet her at Fenway Park for the game. This answer clearly delighted the teen, who left in a high state of anticipation.
On the day in question, the big game between the Boston Red Sox and their perennial rivals the Yankees, Maura had to be told by Megan to forgo her usual getup of designer high heels in favor of sneakers. She took her advice begrudgingly, and after a quick-change, the results of which she wasn't entirely pleased with, she made do.
She found Megan at their seats in the club section. The girl was sitting forward and scanning the field in wide-eyed pleasure at their excellent vantage point. Maura, for her part, spent less time looking at the players and more just looking about her, as it was the first time in her life that she'd ever been inside a baseball stadium.
Suddenly the crowd roared as one at what was happening on the field, and Maura nearly fell out of her seat as she reeled and clapped her hands over her ears. Something else must have happened in quick succession, as the crowd again erupted into hollering. "You could have warned me it would be so loud!" Maura shouted to Megan, who was sitting on her left. The woman immediately to Maura's right seemed one of the loudest of all. She was shaking her fists in the air in impassioned fervor, as she roared directly beside Maura's ear.
Maura reached into her tiny, expensive handbag and pulled out a pair of earplugs. As she was inserting them, the woman to her right noticed what she was doing and looked at her as if she were crazy, then shrugged. She turned her attention back to cheering for the game, as the next pitch came in.
Maura had opened her bag again, and pulled out a dainty pair of high-powered binoculars that she had brought. After a few moments of scanning, she asked Megan – in a voice made unintentionally loud by the use of her earplugs – "Why are they all spitting all the time? Is that part of the game?" Her distaste at the behavior was clearly evident.
"No, no!" Megan said. "That's just from chew." She got a blank look. "Tobacco."
"Now, you know that chewing tobacco is very bad for you. It can lead to a high incidence of oral cancer. It's terrible. They shouldn't do that!"
At this, the woman on her right had taken notice of her again, and was giving her a look. An interesting weirdo we've got here, the woman thought, before a hit caused her to stand from her seat and yell again. Maura pressed her hands back over her ears, even with the earplugs.
Maura pulled a third item from her bag – a pocket-sized book of baseball rules and regulations. She began to scan it, and tried to make any connections to what it was telling her with what she could observe happening on the field. She was pulled out of reading one of the more dense paragraphs by a hand on her right shoulder. Somewhat nervously, she pulled her right earplug out to hear what the woman seated on her right was trying to say to her.
"Put that rule-book away," the woman ordered her brusquely. "I can tell you what's going on. Put it away, I said. I can explain it to you." Maura looked at her, dumbfounded, and the woman went on. "I heard what you said before – is spitting part of the game? Ha! What kind of a question is that? Anyway, forget about it. My name's Jane. Pleased to meet you." She thrust out her hand.
Maura took it, uncertain, and responded. "My name is Maura. This is Megan."
"Yeah? Hiya. This over here is my brother, Frankie." The man beside her said, "Hey," and gave them a thumbs up quickly before turning back to the game. Like Megan, he was fully invested in the contest taking place below them.
Jane, true to her word, launched into an explanation of the game, telling Maura everything she needed to know and pointing out how to make sense of both the action on the field and how it was all tracked on the scoreboard. She went into what each statistic meant. Much to her surprise, Maura found herself beginning to really be able to enjoy the game. Jane's animated explanations were interesting, and her manner of telling them was amusing, to say the least.
A vendor came past, laden with food and drink, and Jane asked her for a bottled water. Maura added, "Do you have any wine?"
"What?!" Jane could hardly believe it. "No! No, you can't buy wine here. What they have is sodas, water, and beer. Those are your choices."
"I never drink beer. So, just make that two waters, please –"
"– and a hot dog!" Jane cut in.
"No ..."
"You're at a baseball game. It's like the law, that you have a hot dog. It's a vital part of the experience."
Maura began to explain how hot dogs were made – and did you know the kinds of things that went into them? – but before she could really get going, Jane spoke over her.
"Make it TWO hot dogs. Wait … Megan, you in on this? Okay, yeah – three hot dogs, lady. Thanks."
"I really can't," Maura told her. "Do you have perhaps just a nice kale salad?"
Jane had had enough. "Nope. No. That is IT, we're done. Never mind our order, lady, thanks anyway. It's the seventh-inning-stretch, so tell you what. Come with me downstairs to the concessions, and you can have your pick from there. Okay?" Maura saw that Megan was happily chatting with Frankie about the game, so she allowed herself to be led by Jane down to the main concourse.
They arrived at concessions and Jane saw the look on Maura's face as she took in the various stalls and their mostly unhealthy offerings. She gave her a 'what-are-you-gonna-do?' gesture, palms raised. Maura realized that if Megan had won the 8th prize at the raffle, she would have had access to a private box seat and catered food, but then in that case there would have been one ticket and she wouldn't have been invited along, herself. She settled on a turkey wrap.
"Happy now?" Jane asked, not quite hiding her amused distaste at Maura's food selection. "Okay, good. Come on, let's get back to our seats."
When they were settled once again in the club section, Megan excitedly got Maura's attention and pointed to the Jumbotron overhead. The giant screen displayed the words "Kiss-Cam!" as it rapidly scanned the crowds, making Maura's head spin a bit.
"What? What is that?" Maura asked.
"It's the Kiss-Cam! If it stops on you, you have to kiss your neighbor! You HAVE TO," she repeated, laughing. It was clearly the high point of the seventh-inning-stretch ritual for her. Maura followed her gaze back to the Jumbotron and saw with a start that she was looking at a giant version of herself. The camera had stopped its sweep, and it was beaming her amazed expression out over Fenway, right there beside Jane, who was still oblivious.
Megan, more than anyone, knew what to do at the baseball. She had clearly said that you had to. With a shrug, Maura reached over to grab the unsuspecting Jane on both sides of her face, and pulled her into the kiss, which landed directly on the lips.
The entire stadium had a clear view of it, and of Jane's astonished, and somewhat helpless, expression as she realized what had just happened.
"Was that right? Did I do that right?" Maura asked, innocently.
For once Jane had nothing to say. She was stunned, speechless, completely at a loss – until she caught Frankie's violent snort. "Oh shut up!" she snarled at him, and gave him an elbow to try to cut short his peals of laughter. She turned away from his teasing, broken gasps for air, and once again faced Maura.
"Your first time," she said, more to herself than to anyone.
"Did I do alright? Was that the wrong thing?" Maura looked genuinely horrified at the thought.
"No, no, no." Jane could see that Maura was becoming upset, and she mollified her. "You just took me by surprise, that's all. I really wasn't expecting it when you grabbed me. No, you did ... fine." She made a good job of laughing it off, and even threw an arm around Maura's shoulders to be extra convincing. The camera hadn't moved from them, and caught it all. First the kiss, and then the awkward squeeze, looked to the audience like what they had been expecting, and the stadium broke out in cheers and applause for the 'couple' before the Kiss-Cam moved on. Megan was ecstatic with the reception, and with how much Maura was seemingly getting into the spirit of things.
The game resumed. Frankie, for his part, was beaming now – he couldn't wait to give Jane more hell about what had transpired, later. He was leaning in toward her at one point to say something snarky when a line-drive foul was deflected just enough off the ball-boy's glove to whizz into their section. It caught Frankie by surprise, coming right past his upraised hands and glancing off his brow in a solid blow. He went straight over and down into the aisle and lay there, not moving.
Time seemed to stop as they could not take their horrified gazes away from the sudden red bloom of blood. So much blood! Jane was frozen in panic at the apparent severity of the injury. Megan knew enough to see how Maura was reacting. The doctor had already assessed the injury and wasn't too concerned about the apparent loss of blood. However, the crowd was pressing in so Megan ordered everyone to stand back and to give her some space.
Jane came forward too, as she let out a cry and reached for her brother, but Maura intervened.
"STOP! I'm a doctor. Let me administer to him. He may be concussed, or have a spinal injury. Don't move him! Just call the EMTs. I'll monitor him until they arrive."
There was of course a medical crew on call within the stadium, and when they had stretchered Frankie into the ambulance, the other three followed to the hospital, abandoning the game. At the hospital it was determined that Maura had done exactly the right thing in insisting on keeping Frankie's neck stabilized, and though injured, he could expect a full recovery.
The next day Jane was back at work. She caught many amused glances her way, and several outright sneers, until one officer – clearly prompted by the others – approached her making exaggerated kissy motions. "Oh, fuck off!" Jane told him, and shoved him aside, as the laughter followed her exit from the room. She realized with dread that the entire department had either seen her on the Kiss-Cam, had heard about it from those who did see her, or else they all soon would hear of it. She was never going to live this down.
Jane had started her work day in a bad mood, but it turned truly black as the day went on. When she was told of a new chief medical examiner in charge of the morgue, she had no interest in meeting him. "Another creepy old man," she groused, but she knew she had to put in an appearance to at least let him know who she was.
When she arrived at the morgue in the lower level, she was astonished to see the same upper-class lady from the baseball game standing there. "What … are you doing here?" she blurted out.
"I'm the new Chief Medical Examiner," came Maura's reply.
"You! You're the new … you are going to be working with me?!"
Without her even quite realizing it, Jane's black mood had already fallen away. She smiled to welcome her new friend.
FIN.
Many thanks to my beta-reader, GMB, and to DocScout for her medical advice.