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blouse inside her
jacket. The weather had been rainy when the train left Chicago last night and
her suit had been just right for the temperature, but on this side of the lake
the air was thick and cloying. If Vivid were traveling with a more cosmopolitan
companion, she would have thought nothing of removing her jacket and letting the
little breeze cool her, but she knew the men of the Midwest were far more
conservative than those at home, and since she was still trying to make a good
impression, she sweltered in silence.
    She still couldn't believe his attitude.
She thought she'd left such narrow-minded people behind, but here one of them
sat beside her, grim-faced as if he were the injured party. Had he really not
been aware of signing the contract? Vivid thought not. Nate Grayson did not
impress her as a gullible man.
    As they continued riding, Vivid refused to
speak unless he spoke first, but after a while she couldn't keep silent
because, frankly, Vivid enjoyed conversing. She also reasoned that if they
talked, maybe they could learn a bit more about each other, and he might come to
see that she was indeed suited to be the doctor here. “Is the weather always
this warm in May?"
    "Sometimes."
    He said nothing more.
    Vivid tried another topic. “How long
before we reach our destination?''
    "Two hours."
    Two hours! She wondered how on earth she'd pass the
time if he refused to answer with more than two words. But even though she had
to travel with a man who thought her unqualified simply because she wore
skirts, she was determined to be pleasant. She'd always had an open, outgoing
personality, and very few people remained distant in her presence. However,
Nate Grayson seemed to be one of those immune to her natural charm. In the end
she gave up trying to be polite.
    Nate decided to avoid conversation because
he needed to think. He admitted to himself that he was impressed by the lady
doctor despite his opinions. That she'd made the cross-country journey
unaccompanied spoke of her fearlessness. In the face of the rampant progression
of Jim Crow and the frightening newspaper reports of the increasing violence
perpetrated against members of the race by White Leaguers, Kluxers, and the
like, she'd been undeterred. Furthermore, to be a doctor in this day and age,
she needed to be a woman of strength. He looked up from the road to where she
sat next to him watching the trees and scenery roll by in pace with the wagon.
He saw her soft smile as her eyes followed a brown hawk soaring languidly
above. She seemed to take pleasure in the surroundings, which he found
surprising. Yet she still looked as if she'd spend more time shopping than
doctoring. And the Grove desperately needed a doctor. When Doc Miner died last
year, Nate had to ask Wadsworth Hayes, a traveling doctor, to add the Grove to
his circuit. Hayes was an ancient man, nearly blind, yet he was the only
physician available to treat the Grove's Black population. Nate and his Aunt
Abigail harbored concerns over the man's methods of bleeding his patients to
restore health and questioned some of his other remedies, too. But they had no
other medical expertise to call upon. If Grayson Grove were not such a small
and isolated community, they would not have such a frustrating time finding a
physician. But the Black men graduating from medical schools like Howard and
the closer University of Michigan in Ann Arbor were seeking to establish
practices in larger cities such as Boston, Philadelphia, and Richmond. Nate had
written many letters, but it seemed no one wanted to practice in a place like
the Grove where payment for services was more likely to be rendered in chickens
and vegetables than in coin. There were also no big city amusements available
unless one counted the gambling and whores at Maddie's Liberty Emporium outside
town. There were no theaters, no tea houses. Only occasionally was the Grove
treated to a traveling troupe of Black actors or singers. The lack of