Ardena's nerves were frazzled and Shirley was being himself – which meant he was aloof, spiteful, and when he did speak to her, he was mean. Her talk with Doc Gimley proved successful, though she still wished that she had not been the one to go. But what choice did she have? If she had not gone herself, that awful Sally Forth would have gone and ended up taking credit for everything. She found it difficult to talk to Doc Gimley – especially in the examination room. Naturally, he was the town's doctor, the closest thing to a medical man in the whole county, unless you counted that old witch Hilda Boykin … which Ardena did not. That old woman was crazy... prescribing herbs for cramps and selling abortion elixirs to the whores out at Chapel's Farm. If Ardena could have run Hilda Boykin and those harlots out of the county, she would have. As it was, she got them out of town limits. But what was it about Doc Grimley that made so nervous? For all of his pomp and circumstance, he was as much a man as the others in town – even her own husband Shirley. When that horrible whore house was still in the middle of town, he went there as much as the others. There had been a time, and she thought about it often, when her husband's dalliances hurt her. He had been so helpless and so sweet when she first knew him; so gentle. So quiet and peaceful that more than a gentle breeze would have pushed him over. She had seen something in him then; something that could be brought out, polished and refined. Refined by the right woman. Refined by a strong woman. Refined by someone like her.
It seemed to fall upon him like a sickness after Junior was born – this common manliness. Maybe it was because she had given him a son, or maybe it was because he finally found acceptance among the men in town. Ardena had wanted him to be a community leader; she imagined herself as being the mayor's wife. Well, the mayor's wife... at first. And then wife to the county board member. And then the State Representative's wife. And then Mrs. Governor, or maybe Mrs. Senator.
But Shirley reached a certain point and seemed to just stop. He won the leadership of the RTPSA easily and he just stopped. When Ardena prodded him to run for mayor, he laughed at her and said the mayor was nothing but a rag doll. “Why should I be mayor?” he asked her. “Everybody watching when you go to church or if you drink before 4 in the afternoon. What's the point?”
Two months after that was when she first went to see Doc Gimley. He had seemed so... not like everyone else. Refined. Educated. Traveled. Gentile. He belonged in some grand place like New York City, not San Grila. He was amazing; made her feel amazing. Took all of her anxiety away. In her mind, he was the genius that she was a perfect match for her.
And then she found out he was going to That Place. And it hurt her more than when Shirley went there.
So she started with the women. The wives. The daughters. The mothers. Men didn't move until the women on the pressure. And while the men enjoyed the whores at the Gentleman’s Supper Club, they enjoyed peace and quiet and home even more. When the whores were burned out of town and moved to Chapel Farm, all that happened was that the men drove out there.
Except for Doc Gimley. He didn't go out to Chapel Farm. And while she never quite looked at him the same way again, Ardena felt a small victory that almost replaced the feeling she had felt after seeing him as a patient.