Chapter Eleven

The black t-shirt.

It had survived all this time, buried under multiple items, looking a bit worse for the wear, but still with the pattern of one of his favorite bands' logos.

He wondered if this was a sign.

Against his better judgment he washed it, and put it in his nightstand.

As Jenny had slept with him the next night it was almost like he could feel the shirt burning a hole through the wood.

He felt guilty – and he knew why. He wondered why he didn't just throw it away. After all, what did it represent? A failed relationship?

Through it all Neela continued to call.

And on one fateful day he found himself typing "I'm thinking of you…" to her new cellphone, wondering what he meant by that, and hitting send before he could overanalyze it.

When she responded that she was thinking of him too he nearly had a coronary.

He broke up with Jenny a week later. After he did it he finally realized who she had reminded him of. Katey Alvaro. Make the mistake once shame on you, make the mistake twice, shame on me…

The black shirt haunted him.

On February eleventh, which he supposed Frank would call "TS-Day" as in t-shirt day, Ray finally decided to do something about his predicament.

Neela was still calling, and though he badly wanted to ask if the Australian doctor was in the picture since she had mentioned him a few times, he studiously avoided asking. He didn't want to know.

February eleventh was when he decided to send a Valentine's Day gift. A black t-shirt to be precise. He went to the post-office before his shift, addressed the envelope, put his return address on it, and sent the thing by priority mail to arrive on Valentine's Day.

He stood in line with the other doofus' to do it. Thirty minutes of standing in line with other men who looked just as harassed and stressed out as he did. He figured they were sending last minute gifts just as he was, but with a different intent.

He didn't include a card, hoping she would get the message loud and clear. But he did write "Happy Valentine's Day" on a post-it and stuck it to the front of the shirt.

The next few days were sheer torture. He waited. Checked his messages, waited some more.

She called at some point on the twelfth, but he didn't pick up the phone, knowing that if he did he wouldn't be able to have a straight conversation.

So it was with some trepidation that he picked up the phone on February fifteenth, squirreling himself into the doctor's lounge, putting himself in a corner where he hoped he wouldn't be noticed or heard.

"Hey." He told himself not to give anything away, knowing mail got lost, knowing she might not have even opened the envelope yet.

"Ray." When she said his name quietly he knew she had opened it, knew this phone call was going to dictate what they were going to be next.

"You got my package."

"Yes, I did. It caused some…problems."

"What problems?"

"I opened it while Simon was over. It was from you, I couldn't wait to open it. Who knew what you had sent me? A gag gift, chocolates, Peeps… It seemed innocent at the time. But after I opened it, I didn't feel like doing much of anything with Simon. It was Valentine's Day. Thus, problems." He could hear the tiredness in her voice, and thought that she was probably underplaying what had gone down. An epic argument from the sound of things.

He had received the confirmation that she had been seeing someone else, but he dared to hope that it sounded like history. This time he wasn't going to jump to conclusions. So he waited, and was rewarded when she continued. She never could stand awkward phone silences.

"We were already having some problems. I told him about the offer at Duke, and he wasn't quite sure how to take it. We were just so new…"

He finally inserted himself into the conversation.

"What does this have to do with me, Neela?"

"Everything." Neela sighed, and he could almost picture her rubbing her face. "I remember the shirt Ray."

"I was hoping you would. It followed me to Baton Rouge. I didn't take it, but it followed."

"On two legs?" She sounded confused.

He laughed nervously. "No, my mom packed it with other things, and she just found the box it was in and gave me the box." He decided to go the same confessional route she did. "It caused kind of the same problem with me and Jenny."

"Wow. Who knew a t-shirt could have so much power."

"Indeed."

"So, I was thinking Ray."

"Yes?"

"I'd like for you to see me in this t-shirt."

His heart pounded so hard his vision blurred.

"I'd like to see you in the tee-shirt."

"Unfortunately, I can't get away. They're already antsy with me visiting other universities, and it's hard for me to make an excuse to come down to Baton Rouge. You understand? I want to make sure you understand that I want to make the effort, but I can't." He could hear her anxiety.

"I get it, Neela. I get it. Look, there are VA hospitals in Chicago. I think I can come up with a legitimate reason to visit. And that way it'll be more than a twenty-four hour jaunt."

She let out a huge sigh, and he realized she must have been holding her breath. It made him feel giddy. He made her nervous.

"Ray, that would be fantastic. And by the way, this time, you're staying here."

"Okay." Was all he could choke out.

"And Ray?"

"Yeah?"

"I'll be free by then..."

He filled in the blank: …of certain Australian doctors.

He took a deep breath. "I can't believe you're taking the plunge."

"I've learned a lot about myself this year. I'm more comfortable with risk. And someone told me 'inaction is a form of action.' I might as well do something this time around."

He couldn't resist. "Do something?" He said lasciviously.

"Oh, Barnett. Just you wait. Call me with your flight details."

He practically broke his fingers getting to a travel website as fast as he could.

When he finally showed up a month later she was wearing the t-shirt over jeans at the airport.

"Did you come from work in that?" He thought she had said she was working today.

"Yup."

"What did everyone think about that?"

"Most people asked me if I had run out of laundry. One patient went on and on about a song called 'Death Blue'-"

"An instant classic." He interjected. She looked at him with a dubious expression.

"And Morris…" She laughed. "Morris told me that if I didn't come in the next time he saw me looking like I got laid he would beat you with a stick."

Ray had the decency to at least adopt a somewhat chagrined expression. "I might have told him I was coming."

"Yeah, I know. He practically crowed it to me while I was eating lunch. Do you know what Morris is like when he's feeling right?"

"Pompous."

"Overbearing."

Simultaneously: "An ass."

"But we love him." Ray issued a silent thank you to Archie.

"That we do."

"Any problems with the man from Down Under?"

"He's upset. It's awkward. God. I thought Abby and Sam had the record for most disastrous relationships in the hospital. It's hard working next to not only one, but two people you've dated."

"You won't be doing that much longer."

"I know. I gotta figure things out. I gotta figure this out." She wrapped her fingers around his with her last statement.

"Hey. I like your shirt."

"It was given to me by a man with dubious taste."

"Hey!"

She smiled.

She wore the shirt every night for the next four that he was there. Though other than the first night when they talked, talked, and talked, it didn't stay on very long.

He wondered if he would need to bronze it. Bring it out to show their kids and use it to tell the story of how their parents met. Turn it into a pillow.

It would be hard to get Neela to part with it.

She kept it when he returned to Baton Rouge, saying she needed it beside her when she was thinking of him. Then she inserted some naughty bits of how she'd be using it while he was gone.

He told her to send him pictures. Which promptly made her blush and turn all shades of red.

He always won the flirtation battles, he had more practice. But she could tear him to shreds just by throwing him a flirtatious look over her shoulder while wearing his black t-shirt.

This time around, they were getting it right.

And two years later she answered his question about where she would put the black t-shirt in the future.

She sewed a piece of it into the lining of her wedding dress.

End.