Dancing in Dreamtime Read Free

with a wag of his chin. Veronica gripped the edge of the bench to keep her hands from trembling, wondering if she had finally met a kindred soul.

    Although she did nothing to enhance what nature had blessed her with, neither padding nor painting, wherever Veronica went men flung after her the lassos of their gaze. They saw in her wavy auburn hair and rosy complexion promises of offspring and delight. Her swaying walk set their hearts racing. Had they been moose or bison they would have battered one another to win her favor; since they were human, they invited her on dates. But Veronica found her suitors to be drearily predictable, passionate only about money and sex, perhaps with milder interest in cars or golf, without an ounce of imagination. Their idea of high adventure was to try a new restaurant or to shift the asset allocation in their portfolios. One after another she told them no, no, a thousand times no.
    â€œYou won’t bloom forever,” her mother warned. “One day the bees will stop buzzing around.” Then I won’t get stung, Veronica thought. “Would a doctor be such a bad catch?” her father asked. Caught like a cold, she thought, or like plague? She bit her tongue and let her parents nag. For how could they know what she longed for, when she had only the vaguest notion herself?
    She chose to work the graveyard shift in the emergency ward because at night there were fewer doctors around to pat and pinch and ogle her. The bleary-eyed interns only gave her speculative stares, as if they were studying the menu but too tired to eat. The male nurses had learned to fear her wrath.
    Night was the prime time for accidents and mayhem, as if people took leave of their senses with the onset of darkness. Husbands beat up their wives. Boys raped their girlfriends. Mothers with nerves rubbed raw by bawling infants took too many pills. Toddlers swallowed paperclips or mothballs or keys. Teenagers tried uppers or downers, sliced their arms with razor blades, wrecked their cars. Drunks tripped on curbs and broke bones. Muggers worked the sidewalks, car thieves worked the streets, rival gangs fought over turf with guns or knives. During the graveyard shift, wave after wave of sirens rushed toward the emergency room like storm-driven surf.
    â€œIt beats me why you keep working nights,” her father said, in the tone of baffled affection he had used toward Veronica since her adolescent blossoming. “You’ve got enough seniority to work afternoons, maybe even straight days.”
    â€œDon’t hide your light under a bushel,” said her mother.
    â€œThose surgeons you work with can earn a thousand bucks with a few flicks of a scalpel,” her father said, “and you won’t give them the time of day.”
    â€œYou’re so often asleep when your beaus call, I have to convince them you aren’t sick,” her mother complained.
    â€œThey aren’t my beaus,” Veronica said. “They’re just men pestering me.”
    Her mother sighed. “You’re punishing us, aren’t you? As if it’s our fault you’re gorgeous.”
    â€œOkay,” her father conceded. “Maybe all the doctors are creeps. But there’s other fish in the sea. Right? What about that vice president from the bank? Or the bowling alley magnate? Or the tech entrepreneur? Or the contractor who builds pizza franchises? Those are decent guys, and they’re rolling in dough.”
    â€œSnag a husband while you can,” her mother advised. “Do you want to be a night shift nurse for the rest of your life?”
    The answer to that question was no. Veronica did not want to be any sort of nurse forever. She was already nearing burnout from dealing with broken, bleeding, desperate people. But she could not decide what else to do with her life. No matter what path she envisioned—teaching, forestry, market gardening, graphic design—it led through a