Linda replied, "I hate to disappoint you, but that won't happen until September 18th."
"But aren't you going to sleep together, when you go to New York? Won't the temptation be too great…" Before Kit got all of the words out of her mouth, she stopped herself, noted Linda's expression and nodded knowingly. She also gazed skyward, with an exasperated expression on her face. "You're getting separate rooms, aren't you?"
Linda methodically prepped the supplies for the next patient, double-checking readouts for dosages. "I think it's best."
Kit persisted. "But you have to make sure you know what you're getting into. What if you're not compatible? What if you don't fit right?"
Linda re-boxed some sterile gauze and gave Kit her full attention. "And what if we did? What if we're compatible and we have the greatest sex ever?"
Kit grinned deliciously. "Ooh, sounds like fun."
Linda said "I don't know. Sex always seemed like something you could get tired of really fast."
Kit squinted at her, putting her hand on her hips. "Is something wrong with you? Have you ever really had any? Because that's one thing I could never get tired of."
"Well then, that's one way you and I are different."
No matter how many times she and Kit argued over petty little things like this, Linda would never forget how they'd gotten close in the first place. There had been a patient named Mr. Petty, whom Kit had spent lots of time with. He was a World War 2 veteran and would enthrall Kit with stories about valor and survival in the carnage of Europe, and how he, his battalion, a few other American squads and some Russian soldiers had broken down the gates at a German concentration camp. "What I'm going through is nothing," he would often say. "I saw the hollow stares of all those people, who couldn't even feel joy at being freed."
Linda had taken Kit aside a few times and warned her. "I know he tells great stories," she would say, "but you shouldn't get too close to Mr. Petty. It's not good for you."
"But he doesn't have anybody," Kit replied. It was true. Mr. Petty married a woman he met there, one of the camp survivors. She'd been starved, raped and mistreated so much that it had permanently damaged her ability to have children. She and Mr. Petty had been married for over thirty years until she died, peacefully, in her sleep.