Prognosis: Romance

“What type of medicine do you want to practice, James?” Virginia asked, cutting off a sports comment from her husband.

“I’m considering pediatric infectious disease, though I find pulmonology intriguing, too.”

He saw no need to mention that he had a younger cousin with cystic fibrosis, which perhaps explained his interest in pulmonology. Watching Kelly’s lifelong battle with the disease and hearing about the excellent care she had received from the doctors at the children’s hospital had probably been part of what had influenced him to enter medical school after receiving his advanced science degree, despite his parents’ displeasure that he’d chosen to leave academia. His parents were more interested in theory than practice in almost all disciplines, expounding that the true geniuses developed science while those of lesser intelligence and imagination put it to everyday use.

“Lou has a touch of emphysema,” Lois said eagerly, drawing James’s thoughts away from his parents’ affectations. “Maybe you could listen to his lungs later.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have a stethoscope with me,” he replied.

Virginia rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Lois. You’ve been after poor James for free prescriptions and exams ever since you found out he’s a medical student.”

Lois huffed. “Aren’t you the one who asked him to look at your granddaughter’s rash?”

“That’s different. I was simply asking for an opinion, not drugs.”

“I didn’t ask him to prescribe anything for Lou. I just thought he might want to listen.”

“Why would he want to do that?” Virginia demanded with a shake of her head.

“They’ve been arguing like that for more than sixty years,” Shannon informed James quietly, leaning toward him so he could hear her better over the noise of all the others. Her shoulder brushed his as they sat side by side on the bench.

A bit too keenly aware of that point of contact, he tried to concentrate on what she had said. “So they knew each other before they married brothers.”

“They’re first cousins. They were raised almost like sisters. Makes the family tree a little complicated.”

“I see. And you all live in this area?”

“I live in Little Rock, and so do Stu and Karen. Stacy and J.P. live in Bryant. Uncle Lou and Aunt Lois are visiting from St. Louis and staying for a few days with my parents in Sherwood. They have two daughters and five grandchildren of their own back in Missouri. Needless to say, it’s pretty crazy when both families get together on occasion.”

“Are you from this area, James?” Virginia asked.

Swallowing a bite of his juicy, perfectly grilled burger, James wiped his mouth on a paper napkin before replying. “I’m from northwest Arkansas. Fayetteville. My parents moved there from Tennessee when I was twelve. They’re both professors at the university.”

“Got my degree there,” Stu commented as he scooped potato salad onto a plastic fork. “Karen and I met at a music club on Dickson Street when I was a senior and she was a junior.”

“You’d have been a student there after Stu and Karen,” Lois commented, looking James over assessingly. “Stu’s thirty-eight. You’re—what—thirty?”

“I will be on October fifth. But I didn’t get my degree at Fayetteville. I went to Vanderbilt.”

Several of the people around him frowned and he could tell he’d just lost a few Arkie points.

“I’m still a Razorbacks fan, though,” he assured them. “Uh—woo, Pigs.”

The frowns turned to chuckles and conversation moved to the prospects for the next SEC football season.

“Nice save,” Shannon murmured into his ear. “Do you even like football?”

“Couldn’t care less,” he replied from behind his burger.

She laughed. “That’s what I thought.”

A noisy argument erupted from the kids’ table, requiring adult intervention, and then the overlapping conversations moved to new topics. During the next twenty minutes, James learned that Hollis was a retired quality-control manager, Virginia had been a dental hygienist, Stu was an elementary school principal, Karen an accounting office manager and Stacy was a stay-at-home mom married to a police officer.

“You haven’t mentioned what you do,” he commented to Shannon when there was a momentary lull in the chatter.

“Shannon drifts,” Stacy murmured, hearing the question.

Virginia seemed both annoyed and mildly alarmed by that remark. She looked at James as if worried he’d take Stacy’s comment the wrong way. “Shannon is so good at everything that she has a hard time narrowing her interests down to one career.”

Shannon grinned. “Yeah, that’s it. I’m too good to pin down.”

Her mother frowned at her.

Ignoring the silent censure, Shannon looked at James again. “I’ve had a few jobs that didn’t work out. You might say I get restless easily. But I just started a new business and I like it quite a bit.”

“What’s your new business?”

“I’m running a kids’ party business. I call it Kid Capers. Birthday parties mostly, though I do an occasional tea party or other special-occasion event. I handle all the planning and make the arrangements so all the parents have to do is show up and write a check afterward. It’s fun.”

“I see. Is there a big demand for kids’ party planners?” he asked, genuinely curious.

She shrugged. “The struggling economy isn’t helping, but there are still quite a few people who are willing to pay to have someone else take care of all the party details.”

“I’m surprised you’re free on a Saturday afternoon. Did you leave this day open to spend time with your family?”

“I, um, didn’t have any bookings today,” she admitted. “Like I said, a lot of people are pinching pennies these days.”

“Shannon really does throw some amazing parties,” her mother said loyally. “She has a binder full of themes for the clients to choose from or she takes their ideas and makes them work. She’s young, of course, and just getting started, but we’ve all offered to assist her in any way we can.”

“And as much as I appreciate the offer, I’ve told you repeatedly that I’ve got everything under control,” Shannon said with a firmness that made James suspect there had been a few arguments about that subject.

“By working part-time at a toy store to pay her bills,” Stacy murmured.

“Just twenty-five hours a week,” Shannon said quickly. “The manager there is very good to let me keep my weekends free for my new business and I enjoy working at the toy store. For one thing, it keeps me current on what’s popular with the kids for party themes.”

Shannon’s father chuckled. “I keep telling Shannon these fancy parties for kids are just downright frivolous. Back when our kids were little, we had cake and ice cream and a bunch of neighborhood pals over for pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey and Twister. That was the extent of it.”

“Mama hired a pony for my birthday once, remember, Hollis?” his brother, Lou, reminisced. “My tenth, I think. I still remember how much fun that was.”

“And she didn’t need a planner to help her with it,” Hollis said pointedly.

Shannon tilted her head at him. “Okay, Dad. We got your point.”

She didn’t sound cross, exactly, James decided, studying the family dynamics. More resigned and just a little irked, as if she were used to her family indulgently dismissing her work—rather as if she didn’t like it, but half expected it, anyway.

“Do you remember a special birthday party from your youth, James?” Lois asked, looking eager to jump into the conversation again.

“I never actually had a birthday party. My parents weren’t really into that sort of thing.”