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retorted. “You know that.”
    “You don’t date anybody,” Poppi shot back. “But you married a doctor once, why not again?”
    “He wasn’t a doctor,” Evelyn spoke up with some disdain, having known the lovely ex-Mr. Casey McDonough. “He was a psychiatrist.”
    Something else that didn’t bear bringing up on a nice day. “Have you worked with Hunsacker?” Casey asked instead.
    Evelyn nodded, her gaze sharp. “Do you think he’s for real?”
    Casey thought of her single close encounter with the good doctor. She thought of the rumors, the still-growing reputation, the praise from all strata of medical society. “He makes me nervous,” she admitted. “Ya know?”
    Finally Evelyn allowed a smile, albeit a small one. “Well, thank God. I thought I was the only one. He’s so pretty sometimes I forget how much he frustrates me. And he’s just a wee bit obsessive-compulsive. We’re running out of Phisohex from all his scrubs.”
    “It’s more than that,” Casey agreed, seeing those eyes again, remembering the doubts and unease. “He gives me the creeps. Like he’s laughing at me the whole time he’s calling me honey and telling me what a swell person I am.”
    It was all Evelyn needed. Swinging into sitting position, she leaned forward. “I’ve heard he’s been doing the fifty-dollar special.”
    Casey gaped. She’d been harboring unkind suspicions about Hunsacker, but nothing that big.
    “The what?” Poppi demanded impatiently, head still swinging.
    “The fifty-dollar special,” Casey repeated. “The pelvic with that…extra touch.”
    Now even Poppi was gaping. “You’re kidding. You mean he’s coppin’ a feel beneath the sheets?”
    For a nurse, Evelyn relied heavily on euphemism. She scowled at Poppi’s terminology. “We call it the three-finger pelvic. It’s just a rumor, mind you. But I do know he’s been seeing at least three of the nurses out at Izzy’s on a regular basis.”
    “The guy must be a marathon runner,” Poppi crowed with salacious delight. “Well, you know, come to think of it, I wouldn’t be averse to doing a little…undercover investigation for the benefit of society.”
    Casey actually laughed. “And when Jason found out and threw your cute little ass out, you could come live with Mom and me and the saints.”
    “Poppi’s coming here?” a voice piped up from behind Casey. Casey cringed, wondering just how much her mother had heard, instinctively knowing that she’d tune out anything unpleasant. After all, that’s what St. Francis would have done. Or any of the myriad St. Catherines or all those martyrs. “That’s lovely, Poppi dear. You can join us for mass in the mornings.”
    “I’m not Catholic, Mrs. McDonough,” Poppi reminded her, the ritual as old as Poppi’s first visit.
    “Of course you are, dear,” Mrs. McDonough crooned with a pat to Poppi’s head as she passed with her bucket on her way back into the house.
    Poppi watched Mrs. McDonough climb the stairs to the porch and then turned to Casey. “How old am I?” she demanded with a broad grin.
    Casey took a long sip of tea. “Twelve.”
    Poppi nodded fatalistically. “I thought so.”
     
    The fifty-dollar pelvic. Casey wondered whether it was really true. Evelyn hadn’t been able to come up with any more than vague rumor, and rumors tended to swirl around Dr. Dale Hunsacker like smoke around a magician. The whole talent to dealing with a hospital grapevine was learning how to separate chaff from wheat. The problem was, after working with Hunsacker just once, Casey couldn’t say she didn’t believe this one.
    She was being unfair, and she knew it. Casey had always maintained a certain reserve around male obstetricians. After spending those years at Izzy’s where the OBs were as thick as roadies on a Stones tour, she’d developed some pretty firm opinions about them.
    Obstetricians, she had long since learned, either loved women, or they hated them. There was no in-between. And