Dr. Brown stared out of the clinic's window at the feet of snow piling up on the streets. He sighed and turned around to see Edna sitting behind the desk, filling out some odd forms. She always pushed the forms off to the last possible moment or until boredom overcame her. It was already noon and the snow didn't show any sign of lifting. They were going to be there for awhile. Luckily they actually didn't had a single patient that day. They had both arrived to open up just before the snow hit. He could have stayed at home and saved Nina the trouble of watching Delia. More so, Edna could have stayed home and taken care of Jig instead of having Ephram do it. Ephram, by the way, had already called them six times asking for their help.
Ephram was in the living flipping through a picture book he found. It wasn't of Amy, as he had kind of hoped, but it was still interesting. All of the pictures where brown and all of the people in them were dressed from the 1800's. Jig would hate this album. There wasn't one smile. As he turned the page he heard screaming. He placed the album on the table and ran over to Jig's room. When he opened the door he found Jig screaming in her bed, asleep. He rushed over to her and tried to wake her up. He shook her gently at first but her nightmare was too much. Then, suddenly, she fell quiet and still. He tried shaking her again but she didn't wake up.
"Jig!" he yelled but there was nothing. Ephram paused for a moment, trying to think about what to do. He removed Jig's blanket and picked her up. He carried her out of her room and into the bathroom. He carried her into the shower, turned himself around, and turned the shower on. The water hit the back of his head before it hit her face. After a few moments of them both getting drenched Jig began to stir. He smiled when she opened her eyes and looked at him, raising her hand to protect her eyes from the water.
"Ephram?" she asked him confused as she regained her stance, giving a relief to Ephram both mentally and physically. She then began to cry. She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around him and cried onto his shoulder.
"Whoa, hey, hey what's wrong?" he asked her.
"I hate it here! I hate it here so much! I just want to go home! I hate the cold! I hate this house! I hate being sick! I just want to go home!" she cried. Now he wrapped his arms around her. He knew that feeling. It took a deer to get him out of it. Jig needed a deer.
"You are home, Jig," he told her. She tightened her grip on him. After a few moments she relaxed her hold.
"Your neck is purple," she told him and he laughed.
"So this is what you look like with brown hair," Jig said. She was wrapped in several blankets on the couch by the fireplace. The fire was blazing and Jig was enjoying the heat immensely. Ephram walked around the couch and sat next to her, wearing a bathrobe. He handed her the mug of tea he was carrying and chuckled slightly.
"Weird huh?" he asked her.
"It's nice. It gives your face more color. You don't look like you're about to throw up or, cry," she told him.
"Really?" he asked her. She nodded.
"You see with purple hair it brings out all of the blues and purples of your face, making you look pale. But brown hair brings out the reds and oranges, giving you color."
"That's just the fire."
"How do I look?"
"You look like Hell, Jig," he confessed.
"See, it's not the fire. This is good tea, what kind is it?" she asked him.
"Oh, I don't know. I just added a lot of sugar, figured you'd like it," he answered simply. Jig smiled and nodded and the two fell silent for a few moments.
"So have you talked to Amy today?" she asked him. He was a little surprised, but was also suspecting the question a little.
"Yea, this morning."
"How'd it go?"
"Ended when I mentioned Colin," he told her. She sighed.
"It sucks, doesn't it? Love? I don't understand this great attraction people have toward it. I've never seen anything good come out of it," Jig said and took a sip from her mug.
"They why are you so bent on getting Amy and I together?" Ephram asked her. Jig turned to him and smiled.
"Because I want to see something good come out of it."
"Amy! Phone!" Bright yelled upstairs. He heard Amy rush down the stairs and gave her the phone when she reached it. She covered the mouthpiece with her hand and watched him walk away until she was sure he was out of hearing range.
"Hello?" she asked into it.
"Hello, Amy Abbott?" a girl asked her. Amy paused. It wasn't a voice she knew.
"Uh, yea, who's this?"
"Hi, I'm Desi Quincampoix, I'm a reporter for our school newspaper," she introduced herself. Amy sighed.
"Yea, hi Desi. What can I do for you?" she asked already knowing. Jig had warned Amy about her.
"After talking to several, not to be named, sources, I've come across the fact that you and Ephram Brown have been having a relationship. May I question you on this?" Desi asked her. Amy frowned.
"We're friends, and no, you can't," Amy said and placed the phone back in the cradle. She sighed and walked up to her room.
Nina walked into her living room holding a plate of cookies. Her son was out playing in the snow, digging tunnels she hoped he could navigate successfully. Delia had been quiet for hours, sitting on a chair in the living room reading.
"Sugar break?" Nina asked Delia placing the plate of cookies on the table in front of her. Delia looked up from her book and smiled when she saw the sugar cookies on the plate before her. She leaned forward and took one. She took a bite of one and smiled at Nina.
"How'd you get so good at baking cookies?" Delia asked her.
"My mom taught me. She always wanted to start her own bakery but never got the chance," Nina told her.
"I bet you had cookies in your lunch every day," Delia said smiling at the thought.
"My mom baked a fresh batch every night. Oh, the house always smelled liked cookies. My friends would come over just to spend time in the smell," Nina said.
"You take after her," Delia told her. Nina smiled.
"Yea? Really, you don't say? Sure, of course! Does it come in any other colors, I don't like blue. My box is red. Well, see what you can do. No, we're fine here. You? Good. Hey, don't drink Milton's coffee, it'll kill ya. Okay, bye dear," Edna said and hung up the phone. She sighed and turned to look at Dr. Brown, who was sitting at the opposite side of a chessboard.
"You're move," he told her.
"Yea, sorry about that," she told him and looked over the board. She picked up one piece and moved it.
"Hm, look at that," she said with a grin she was pretending to hide.
"Checkmate?" Dr. Brown said looking over the board.
"Sorry Doc," Edna apologized standing up and walking away. Dr. Brown sighed and held his face in his hands.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Ephram asked. Jig nodded as she stood in front of the window. Ephram sighed and pulled open the curtain. It took a few moments for the both of them to get accustomed to the bright light, but when they did Jig took a few steps closer to get a better view. Actually she took a few steps closer to see if there was anything to see but snow. There wasn't.
"Ephram I don't see anything…" she told him.
"I know…" he said not looking at her. Her eyes widened in surprise. Quickly she let out a small whine and closed the curtains. She turned around to look at Ephram.
"I wasn't ready for that…"
"I didn't think you were," Ephram told her. Jig turned her back to the window and walked back over to the warmth of the fire.
"I hate snow. I hate the cold. I've never been sick before and now I'm sweating my ass off with a fever…" Jig complained.
"How are you feeling?"
"Tired," she confessed and slumped down on the couch.
"So go to bed."
"And have another nightmare? No thank you."
"Than stay up forever. Be one of those freaky people who never blink," he said and she laughed.
"In LA, we lived across the hall from this music teacher. He had every instrument imaginable in his apartment. He'd play them all the time too, but nobody minded because he was so good. Anyway, every night at my bedtime he'd play the piano for an hour. It always helped me fall asleep," Jig said with a fond smile.
"Did he teach you to play the banjo?" Ephram asked her, ignoring the fact that she just told him how to get her to sleep. He had noted the piano in the corner of the room several times. Jig laughed.
"Yea, the banjo. And the oboe, the trumpet, the saxophone, the violin, the cello, the guitar, the bass, the flute, and drums," she told him counting them with her fingers. Ephram's eyes widened in surprise as he sat on the chair across from her.
"You're kidding…" Ephram said. She shook her head.
"No. He taught me a new instrument every year."
"Didn't you like, play outside or anything?"
"There's a rule you have to know if you want to grow up in LA. If you spend too much time outside, you die," Jig told him. Ephram chuckled and Jig smiled.
"I need a picture of you for my wall. I'd have one by now but you never really smile," Jig told him.
"That's not true," Ephram said shaking his head.
"Yes it is. The only time you get close to really smiling is when you're with Amy. And then something always comes up to ruin it," Jig told him. Ephram scratched the nape of his neck.
"If I play the piano will you go to sleep?" he asked her. She nodded and raced off to her bedroom as he walked over to the piano.
