Disclaimer applies.
Notes: Doctor you dork!
3. Autumn
The first signs of autumn came not with the leaves changing overnight, setting the mountain and entire countryside ablaze with color, but with the blue mageflowers that seemed to sprout into full bloom out of nowhere, filling the streets with coquettish charm.
Doctor seemed fond of those flowers, which only grew in the immediate area, and fonder still of the rarer red strain. They were said to have numerous beneficial properties, without any of the usual toxic side effects that went hand in hand with medicinal herbs -- like a Holy Grail of medicine. On Wednesdays we went up Mother's Hill together in search of specimens, and though we never did manage to find one (I heard from Mary that Basil had slightly more luck -- after a week of haggling, he'd bought a valuable packet of seeds from Won and hoped to cultivate them himself), those chilly, brief morning hours never seemed like time wasted.
The first weekend of the new season was the annual Music Festival, organized by Pastor Carter at the church. Carter came calling on the morning the day before the festival, asking if I'd like to participate. I tried to excuse myself -- I'd taken piano lessons briefly as a child, but quit as soon I possibly could. It wasn't that I hated music; rather, I detested the teacher and couldn't be bothered to practice.
I remember that my decision to quit then had become the first disappointment of many for my mother.
Carter managed to talk me into it, though. Convinced me that it didn't matter, that I could just play the ocarina -- didn't require any skill at all, and I wouldn't be playing alone anyway, and they were in need of a fifth...
There are times when I wonder if I am not too nice for my own good, despite everything.
We spent most of that afternoon rehearsing before the actual performance in the evening. Mary was on the organ, and Elli and Ann both on recorders. (I assume he didn't ask Popuri to help out because there was no way he could manage to get her to sit still for an entire afternoon.) But it was Karen who was the real star of the show.
It wasn't exactly the first time I'd heard her sing; when she got really drunk she had the tendency to start belting out old-fashioned drinking songs at the bar, expecting the whole room to join in with her (and they often did, except for Mary, who'd go off and hide in a corner, face red as a tomato) -- but I don't think that counted.
She had a rare, powerful voice, raw and bold and expressive, but softened at the same time by an unexpected warmth and tenderness. I could see now why Carter hadn't cared whether or not the rest of us could actually play -- by the time we were done with the first song, the entire audience was in tears, and at the end of the last song, everyone was standing and dancing and clapping to the music.
That was something that took not just talent, but real passion. And not for the first time since we'd made up, I wondered why she had chosen, in the end, to stay.
After the concert ended, we all bundled up and trekked over down to the inn to have a few rounds of drinks -- of course.
Prim Elli and tomboyish Ann, normally as different as night and day, giggled together over something cute Cliff's pet bird had done earlier. Gray, having escaped his grandfather's hawkish supervision, was awkwardly complimenting Mary on her organ performance, and Mary was blushing so much I was worried her head might explode. (Mary's mother Anna was giving Gray the Eye.) Karen and Rick were studiously ignoring each other -- Karen by downing shot after shot and engaging in loud, boisterous banter with Duke from across opposite sides of the room, Rick by nursing a mug at his usual seat at the bar.
(Doctor wasn't there -- of course.)
I stayed in the corner chatting with Popuri, who, like Ann and Mary, was still underage but didn't need any alcohol in her system to get her going. But soon enough, it grew dark, and people began to leave. Rick, apparently deciding that it was past bedtime for his kid sister ("I'm not a child anymore, Rick!"), dragged Popuri off with him. With them went Carter with little May and Stu (whose bedtimes had definitely long passed) and Mary with her parents. Manna, having lost her primary conversation partner (imperious Anna -- I'm not sure how those two managed to even stand each other, except maybe by just talking past each other all the time), dragged off Duke before he and Karen could do any further damage. And Ann took the opportunity to excuse herself to take dinner up to Cliff, who had withdrawn to his room upstairs early on in the evening.
Leaving behind a rather awkward assortment of people.
Seeing as how Karen was busy drinking herself into a stupor now that Duke and Rick were gone -- and I was not looking forward to the results of that -- I decided to take her home. Elli came over and offered to help, since she lived just right next door to the general store. I looked at her doubtfully. Her face was still flushed with alcohol, and she didn't seem entirely steady on her feet. But I knew from experience that Karen could be quite a handful, and figured I could use any help I got, so I accepted.
For the first leg of our trip back we were mostly quiet. Well, except for Karen, who seemed to want to break out into song every few steps we took. I considered that the better option to her just conking out on us, though, and counted my blessings.
As the clinic came into sight, however, Elli spoke up.
"Claire?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you... are you..." She seemed to change her mind about something. "Did you know? Doctor's birthday is coming up!"
I relaxed. "Is that so?"
"Mmhm! End of next month. I wish I knew what to get him..."
She looked as if she expected me to reply.
"Well, what kinds of things does he like? Books maybe?"
"I don't know what he likes to read, though. Aside from all that academic stuff -- and he can just go to the library for that."
That was true. Though ours was a small library, it was well-stocked thanks to Mary's efforts.
"Anything on TV?"
"I don't think he watches it."
"Music?"
"I've never heard him listening to any."
"You could ask your grandmother to knit him something, or ask Zack if there's been any interesting shipments lately. I'm sure the doctor would appreciate anything practical or useful you come across."
"I don't know..."
"A giant robot panda that goes kaboom!" suggested Karen, very helpfully.
"Not what you want for your birthday, what the doctor wants," I said. Elli giggled a bit, and luckily I was saved from thinking up further suggestions then by the sight of Sasha waiting furiously under the old tree at the front of the general store.
"Karen!" said her mother in a voice that clearly meant business.
Elli and I took one look at each other, and immediately scurried off to leave Karen to fend for herself. (Even drunk she was much better at dealing with an angry Sasha than anyone else in town was. Must have been in the blood.)
But as I headed back home, I wondered why it felt like I had just finished slogging through a violent battlefield myself. And if so, who had won the battle, what the battle had been all about in the first place, and if I had even wanted to win it.
It didn't occur to me until much later that I should have just told her to ask Doctor what he wanted herself.
o-o-o
Only a few days later, Elli came to greet me at the door when I dropped by the clinic.
"Oh, Claire. Do you have a moment? Something is wrong with the doctor. He seems to be troubled with something, but he won't tell me what's going on..." She sounded so frantic that my heart began to beat faster. Her hands were clasped tightly before her, but her fingers were fiddling with the front of her dress. "If it's okay with you... Can you please go talk with him for a while?"
"Of course," I replied with genuine warmth. "I'll see what I can do."
"Oh, thank you so much." The relief in her voice, I think, was equally sincere.
Elli had been fretting so badly that I was actually surprised when I slipped past the curtain and saw Doctor sitting there, lost in thought but looking otherwise none the worse for wear.
She was right, though, about there being something off in his demeanor: he was so distracted by invisible dust motes in the air that he didn't even notice me coming in.
I approached his desk slowly.
"Hello, Doctor," I said in a low voice.
He jumped a little at my voice before relaxing. "Oh, it's you."
I hesitated. "Is something the matter? Elli's been worried about you."
"Elli's worried? Ah... I didn't mean to make her worry." He frowned. "I was just thinking about something."
"Something?"
He looked at me as if deciding what to say. Finally, he looked away, his eyes settling on the notes scattered across his desk. "Well, about the way I communicate with my patients. I have a tendency to make people uneasy, I believe..."
I could see how his odd sense of humor might throw people off at times, but uneasy? Did he really think he was that bad? Or was he really that stiff with people other than me?
I realized suddenly that I did not know. Aside from Lillia and Ellen -- and Karen's hypochondriac father Jeff, once or twice -- I had never really seen him interacting with his other patients, or with people he did not know very well.
And indeed, I recalled now, there were times when he seemed to forget that he wasn't the only person in the room, or times when he talked to people as if he were talking to a wall, and times when he got... carried away.
"I suppose I've been wondering how to change that," he said then. "What about you? What do you think?"
Oh dear.
"You're asking the wrong person, you know," I said with an uncomfortable little laugh.
"What do you mean?" he asked, genuinely puzzled. "You're on good terms with everyone in town, and back in the summer you and Kai seemed to be getting along very well..." He trailed off, his train of thought apparently leading elsewhere.
"That," I said, "was different."
He seemed to accept that. "I don't understand, though. I find it very easy to talk to you. Did you know --" he cocked his head, frowning slightly, "I've never told anyone this much about my personal concerns. I wonder why..."
I could feel the heat rising in my cheeks. I said, hastily, "I'm very honored." Then I added, more slowly, "I think... perhaps it is a matter of opening your heart to others. Before I came here, I always closed my heart to everyone else. Like you, I never revealed anything about myself. I hid behind layers of smiles and courtesy. Maybe I was trying to protect myself? I'm not sure. But lately, I've been trying to open up a little more, bit by bit. It's not always easy, but..."
"Hmm," he said thoughtfully. "That does make sense. 'Give and you will receive.' Something like that?"
This time when I laughed, it was not forced. "You've been spending too much time with Carter."
Doctor and Carter were actually fairly good friends, I'd learned. I wasn't quite sure why, as their conversations with each other never seemed to make any logical sense whatsoever, although Doctor seemed to find Carter amusing company, and likewise Carter, with his strange God and curious beliefs, seemed to find in Doctor a ready-made audience for his convoluted morality tales and occasional out of the blue ghost stories. I suppose it made sense to them, and that's all that really mattered.
"Is that a bad thing?" he asked.
"Not at all," I replied. "But see? You can communicate with Carter just fine, can't you? You don't make each other uncomfortable."
"And you," he reminded me.
I nodded. "And me."
"I see," he said. He looked up from his notes, and for the first time that day, smiled. "Thank you! I feel much better now. I'll keep what you said in mind."
And for the first time since I'd left the city, I wondered if I, too, had truly begun to change.
Elli was waiting for me when I headed back to the lobby area.
"How was it?" she asked anxiously.
"Seems he was worried about how he comes across to his patients. He's better now, though."
She released the breath she had been holding.
"I'm a little jealous," she admitted quietly. "In all the time I've known him, he's never confided in me like that before... I guess he just needed the distance of an outsider's perspective. Oh! I didn't mean --"
I shook my head and smiled. It didn't bother me as much as I'd thought it would, that some of the townspeople still thought of me as an outsider. Because some of them still did, I knew, despite Doctor's impressions. It may have seemed like a long time, but I had been living there barely more than two seasons, only half a year, after all. And by now I thought I was beginning to understand Elli well enough to know that she had intended no deliberate harm by the slip.
But in that instant I suddenly understood a little better an offhand remark my mother had once made, so many years ago, about proximity breeding not closeness, but contempt. I had always chalked it down as a cynical commentary on her failed marriage and a reflection of her general negative outlook on life, which I had always resented. But it wasn't that familiarity bred contempt either, necessarily. For that, there must have already existed contempt to begin with, whether in your heart or the other party's...
Rather -- seeing each other every day, working together all the time, one eventually begins to take the other for granted.
I wondered if Doctor would ever come to take me for granted. Or I, him.
o-o-o
Fall was easily the busiest time of the year. Between all the crops to be harvested and all the inventorying that needed to be done for winter, it was a wonder anyone had the time to socialize. But socialize we did, at the numerous festivals that took place throughout the season.
First of these was the Harvest Festival itself.
The day before, I dropped by the clinic at around lunch, munching on a slice of frozen pizza from the store. It was quite rude, I knew (not to mention, it was a fairly uncommon import, and I probably should have saved it for when I could actually sit down and enjoy it properly), but I was pressed for time again lately, and I was trying to remember to eat and not overwork myself as I had before.
Doctor took one look at me and said, "That's bad for you, you know."
I grinned. "Says the man who's always guzzling coffee."
He actually preferred tea, but there were times when I smelled him brewing stronger substances instead. Like now.
"It's only an occasional indulgence," he protested.
"Do you see me gobbling up pizza every day?"
He considered this for a moment. "No," he admitted. He leaned back in his chair, suddenly contemplative. "The coffee's an old habit from school. I used to smoke, too, believe it or not. But I quit. Maybe I should give up on the caffeine too? There has been some recent research indicating that the health benefits of caffeine may outweigh the bad, though. Of course, tea contains caffeine as well..."
I laughed at him. "All things in moderation?"
He did not quite smile, but he seemed quite amused. "I shall have to do further research into this matter."
"Anyway," I said then, "I was wondering if you plan on attending the Harvest festivities tomorrow."
"I hadn't considered it." His reply was a little too fast, I thought.
But I was determined to make Doctor participate, for once, even if I had to drag him into it.
"Really?" I asked slyly. "You aren't worried that someone will bring something rotten and toss it in as a joke, leaving us all with indigestion?"
(Mayor Thomas had informed me earlier that it was tradition for every household to bring some sort of edible item to Rose Plaza on the day of the Harvest to add to a giant pot. The resulting soup was served out to everyone in a grand celebration of community spirit and yearly fruitfulness. It was a very lovely concept. In theory.)
"Nonsense. No one would ever do such a thing," he replied, but I could hear the sudden concern in his voice.
"Well, I did hear that Karen put in chocolate one year..."
He looked positively queasy. "Ah. Yes. Now I remember..." He grimaced. "Fine, you win. I'll go."
I couldn't wipe the grin from my face for days.
(As it turned out, no one brought anything strange this year, and the soup was in fact quite appetizing. Doctor relented and allowed that he might make it a habit of participating every year.)
o-o-o
For the next festival, however, it was Doctor who had to remind me.
"Moon-viewing is tonight, on top of Mother's Hill," he mentioned casually.
I had completely forgotten. Back in the city, I had never bothered observing the autumnal moon festivals. My sister had been the one fond of the rice dumplings served during these occasions, not I. In fact, I'd always figured the moon festival was just another excuse to get drunk, much like the blossom viewing festivals in spring.
"There isn't any poetry involved, is there?"
He raised an eyebrow. "I happen to be a very good poet."
"Better than Mayor Thomas?" I happened to have been an unfortunate bystander at one of the mayor's impromptu poetry sessions at the inn.
He actually laughed out loud at that. "Why don't you come judge for yourself?"
How could I turn down an invitation like that?
(His poetry was indeed better than the mayor's terrible puns, and in fact quite clever in that dry unexpected way of his. What made it particularly funny, however, was the utterly clinical tone in which he recited the lines he penned. I didn't tell him that, though!)
o-o-o
A few days after the moon festival, Duke dropped by my farm and asked if I could free up some time to help him and Manna out at the winery. When I checked my schedule, I found that I could indeed squeeze out a day, and agreed, to Duke's delight. (Although the man was certainly a hard worker, and certainly fond of his grapes, and fonder still of wine, he also had the tendency to be awfully lazy.)
It wasn't until later that I realized that I had in fact already made plans for that day -- it was Karen's birthday, and we had been planning to celebrate at the inn that evening. Of course, the harvesting of the grapes probably wouldn't take all the way until then, but it meant I probably wouldn't have much time to change out of my work clothes and pick up her present from my house, where I had been hiding it for weeks now.
I mentioned my dilemma to Carter when I stopped by the church with a few extra fish. I'd never liked the few churches I'd happened upon in the city; they were places filled either with doom and gloom or false cheer, and neither sort particularly appealed. (And the less said about the breeds of people that tended to inhabit them, the better.) But after talking to Carter a few times over the past few months, I had found myself growing quite comfortable in his company. Something about his demeanor, I think: never forced, sometimes rather unorthodox, but always honest. It was easy to see why the townspeople were fond of him, why even Doctor found him easy to talk to. And after I learned that he lived entirely off of charity, I made it a point to bring him what foodstuffs I could, whenever I had the opportunity.
Still, I hadn't exactly meant to bring up my concerns -- they were not very serious, after all, and it was my fault in the first place for agreeing so quickly to Duke's request without double-checking the date -- and as soon as I voiced them I felt more than a bit silly.
But Carter listened to me intently all the same.
"Why don't you ask Cliff to help out?" he suggested simply, when I was done.
"Cliff?" I had given the man little thought after our first meeting some months ago. I recalled that Manna had told me he'd wandered into town last winter, but since he so rarely showed himself outside of the church or his room at the inn, if at all, and spoke to few people aside from Carter, Ann, and Doug, I must confess I found it easy to forget about him entirely.
Now that I thought of it, though, Ann had seemed a bit down in the past few weeks. I vaguely remembered her sighing over the fact that Cliff would likely have to skip town soon, as he was running out of money.
Carter smiled beatifically.
I found Cliff sitting in one of the front pews, tossing pieces of bread into the air for his bird to catch. To be honest, he kind of rubbed me the wrong way. I had actually wondered once before why he seemed content to just hang around brooding and otherwise doing nothing all day, why he did not venture out and search for a job himself. Even in my darkest moments, I don't think I would have been able to stand just sitting around without trying to do anything to change my circumstances.
I would have gone insane first.
But I remembered, too, that a year ago, five years ago, ten years ago, had I been in the same position he was in now -- how much a single kind smile, a single hand offered in friendship, would have meant to me.
When I thought of that lost little girl wandering and wandering and wandering, all alone in the darkness, it seemed only natural to walk up to that listless man-child before me and extend a lifeline to him, knowing that it did not matter whether he chose to accept or not, but only that the choice had been offered.
He accepted.
o-o-o
With Cliff's help, we managed to finish much earlier than expected. Despite any remaining skepticism I might have had, it turned out that Cliff was a very efficient worker. He was a fast learner, and good at following orders. Duke was, in fact, so impressed that he offered to take him on permanently. Manna, too, seemed quite pleased (not so much for the new employee as for the fact that she now had a new source of personal secrets to mine, I suspect -- she had more than once expressed interest in the mysterious stranger at the church who never seemed to talk to anyone), and invited us both in for tea and dinner. I declined politely, explaining that I had already made plans for the evening; then, taking pity on Cliff, who looked rather like a lamb being led to slaughter, I extended said plans to include him as well. Manna, disappointed but secure in the knowledge that she would now have plenty of opportunities to interrogate him in the future, let us go with a cheerful wave.
Cliff waited for me as I ran back home for Karen's gift and a change of clothing, and on our way to the inn, thanked me profusely, over and over again.
"Thank the pastor," I said quietly, deeply discomfited. "He's the one who suggested it."
The dual chains of gratitude and obligation were the worst fetters of all, I had always thought. I had always wondered why we could not simply give freely and receive freely in turn, but instead bound ourselves in layers of ritual and duty. But then I remembered what I had told Kai, what I had told Doctor, the vows I had made to myself, that last night in my apartment.
I stopped fighting. Stopped struggling against the yoke I had voluntarily set upon myself.
"But you're welcome. As fellow newcomers, we should help each other out after all, right?"
When he thanked me yet again, though, I had to stamp down on my urge to just run.
Things got much less awkward after we reached the inn. Ann rushed over as soon as she saw us at the door, asking how it had gone, and congratulating him with a sunny smile when she heard the good news. I slipped away to let them have some time to themselves and to find Mary and Karen, and the rest of the evening passed quite pleasantly.
Mary had somehow managed to get her hands on a limited edition gunpla kit (Karen squealed in delight), while I'd ordered a panda plushie from the city and outfitted it with a pink cape and plastic toy blasters.
"Sorry it isn't giant though," I said, laughing at her stunned expression.
She doubled over in laughter then as well, looking happier than she had been in many weeks.
o-o-o
That left only Doctor's birthday.
When Wednesday morning arrived, I set off to our usual meeting spot on the Hill, picnic basket in hand, stuffed with sandwiches and apples. (The apple tree in my front yard had borne fruit weeks ago, and when I'd brought him a few of the initial batch, he had asked quite solemnly if I was trying to keep him away before breaking out into a smile.)
He was already there, and met me with surprise and pleasure once I revealed the packet of red mageflower seeds I'd bought from Won. It had taken a great deal of bargaining, and there was no guarantee that they were genuine, but it was worth it, I thought, just to see that look of giddy excitement on Doctor's face.
We unfurled the tablecloth I had brought and sat down to eat, theorizing idly about what conditions it would take for the seeds to bloom. (Basil's, thus far, had not.) To my surprise, Doctor offered me half of the seeds to experiment with on my own.
I accepted.
Fallen leaves carpeted the earth in blood and fire. The branches of the trees above us stretched dark against the sky. The apples tasted crisp and sweet.
A little past noon, I saw gray clouds approaching in the distance. We stood and got ready to head back, but as I folded the cloth and packed up our leftovers, I noticed that Doctor had fallen strangely silent. I turned, thinking to say something or other, but the words died on my tongue when I saw his gaze directed straight at me.
For a brief, silly moment I thought he was staring at my (covered) cleavage before I realized that he was in fact staring at the shell charm around my neck, which had slipped out of my shirt at some point.
I flushed.
But he said nothing.
On the way back, it began to rain. Doctor, prepared as always, opened the umbrella he had brought along with him and held it out for me. I ducked underneath. Our sleeves brushed against each other; in near unison we jerked our hands away.
The silence stretched between us until all that remained was the sound of our footsteps and the patter of water above us.
o-o-o
I was at the church gates the next day with fish and well-wishes for Carter, whose birthday I had learned it was (I wondered briefly if the miraculous coincidence of their birth dates explained Carter's otherwise inexplicable compatibility with Doctor) -- when suddenly I caught sight of Elli running towards us from the direction of the beach, her face stained with tears.
I called out to her in concern. "Elli?"
But she ran past, either not hearing me, or refusing to.
She was followed moments later by Doctor.
He was not quite running, and his expression lingered halfway between perplexity and disquiet.
He did not notice me, and I found I could not bring myself to call out to him.
o-o-o
It was another week or so later when I noticed a strange atmosphere at the general store while buying chocolate for the upcoming Pumpkin Festival -- the last of the season, much to my relief -- and a few other household supplies. Jeff had a goofy grin plastered on his face as he greeted me (goofier than usual, that is), and outside I had noticed more than a few women giggling and whispering.
As I approached the register with my basket, I saw what must have been the reason for their whispers: a single blue feather on sale at the counter.
There was a local legend, I knew, about a mystical blue bird that granted marital felicity. In this area, it was essentially a requirement for any young man or woman who wished to be wed to find a single feather from said bird and present it to their desired partner, before any official arrangements could be made. Kind of similar to the way engagement rings worked in the city, but more romantic, I suppose. To me it was all the same. Ritualized traditions, symbols of promises, ultimately meaningless.
Upon closer inspection, the specimen at the counter was clearly a goose feather that had been dyed deep blue.
I suppose now I knew where they "found" those feathers.
"Who're the lucky young couple?" I asked Jeff, more out of politeness than any real interest.
"Well..." He hemmed and hawed, but I could get no straight answer from him.
Nobody outside seemed to know either, though a few names were dropped.
My next stop was the clinic. Elli's greeting was bright but forced, as it had been ever since the day I saw her running past the church, revealing nothing that I did not already know. (Doctor himself had been vague and distant when I questioned him, and suddenly uncertain, I had not pressed the issue.)
Today, however, I said, "Did you hear? Jeff's selling a blue feather over at the store today."
Doctor's head shot up. His face was bright red.
"It was -- a misunderstanding," he mumbled. "Now, if you'll excuse me..."
Thinking about it all rationally, I could guess at how such a misunderstanding might have come about. Even his reticence about what had happened down at the beach -- I suspected that it was not his tale to tell, and respected him for his silence.
That rational part of me, however, did not provide a reason for why the rest of me was so flustered at the moment.
I thought of the shell charm, still hanging around my neck. I thought of my mother, handing me photo after photo of acquaintances' sons, unsmiling and trussed up in stiff dark suits, and of the boys I'd dated in school.
I cared more about what other people thought than I had been willing to admit to Kai, I realized -- though perhaps I cared in the opposite way from most. I had not been the only one to witness that argument down at the beach (for it had been, apparently, an argument), and yet the conclusions I had drawn -- very rational conclusions, I had thought -- were different from everyone else's. And that troubled me more than I had ever thought such a thing could trouble me. It made me doubt myself, doubt my own eyes, my own desires.
Since I was so clearly unwelcome at the moment, I bid Doctor and Elli farewell, and headed down to the church, lost in thought.
o-o-o
Carter was no help.
"Oh, Doctor? He came over earlier to confess that he accidentally revealed something personal to Manna the other day, only to find the next morning that the whole town was whispering about it! Funny, isn't it?" He beamed. "I wonder what it was he told her..."
o-o-o
In the end, the version of the tale I pieced together from various sources went something like this: Manna ran into Doctor in the streets while he was heading back from an excursion to Zack's. She immediately flagged him down as the closest available victim and roped him into a lengthy discussion about the latest drama-filled phone call she had received from her daughter Aja. It seemed Aja had gotten engaged (a fact Manna managed to both gloat over and bemoan in the same breath), and the conversation soon turned to the doctor's own marriage prospects.
"Now, you're a young fellow too now, aren't you Doctor. Getting on though. Ever given any thought to settling down? I mean you've got a nice, steady career going and you're such a good looking young man and your dear parents must be dying to see you settled. I bet that would put their hearts right at ease. I bet they'd love to have grandchildren don't you think? Oh I do hope I get grandchildren soon. That would be just grand. But really you've been here in our town some years now after all. Surely one of our daughters must have caught your eye? Hmm? Anybody special out there for you, Doctor? Don't worry, I won't tell, I can keep a secret you know!"
"Well... maybe..." said Doctor, bewildered.
And the rest was history.
o-o-o
The rest of the town soon lost interest when no further developments occurred, but Karen laughed at me about it for weeks afterwards. Even Mary struggled not to smile every time the topic came up (which was often, thanks to Karen).
I forgave them.
(I had plenty of ammo left to spare.)