In Her Way (7 page)

"Look, I didn't mean to --." My hand shoots out and lands softly on her arm.

She scrunches up her nose for a second, shakes her head, and then replaces her red teary face with a smiling one. "Totally. I -- that's -- it's fine."

I bite my lip and watch her as she turns to leave.

She stops before she's out of sight and asks, "Do you mind if I pick the music today?"

My shoulders shrug seemingly of their own accord, but I nod and say, "Sure." I feel crappy about the being the gluten police and if picking the music makes her think I'm great again, I'm all for it.

Em finds me in the staff lounge once Kaylee leaves. "We all ready?"

I take a deep, full breath, blink, and say, "Yeah, I think so. I need to get a complete list of appointments from Kaylee, but it's gonna be busy."

Em smiles. "Busy is good." She winks at me over her shoulder as she leaves.

I make my way up to the front desk. On the way I hear music start playing over the speakers we had installed throughout the place. It's a Celine Dion song, one of her hits. Pretty good choice. I (along with pretty much every girl who grew up in the 80s and 90s, I think) have kind of a small obsession with her songs because they were everywhere when I was younger. In fact, Em and I had almost perfected a routine of "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" at the karaoke bar by the time we graduated from college.

I tip my head to the side, nod approvingly, and continue up to see about today's schedule. When I stop at her desk, Kaylee smiles up at me and hands me a print out of the client schedule for today, without my even having to ask (so either she's getting the hang of this computer stuff or Em printed the list for her earlier). I make you-got-this duck lips at her and then walk back to my part of the office. Neve and Sarah are preparing for our first few clients. I look out the window to make sure our "Grand Opening" banner is out by the street.

Once our front door opens and our first clients come in, the day passes by in a blur. There are lots of teeth, lots of smiles, lots of handshakes, and lots of thank yous. Some of the women patients comment on how cute our decorating is. The older patients love that we're locally owned and easy to get to. The kids love the "Smile" wall and getting their picture taken with Polaroid by Em to hang on one of the lines of string by a tiny clothespin.

And everybody loves Kaylee.

"Your secretary is such a lovely young lady."

"That Kaylee is sweet as can be."

"The young woman up front was a huge help."

"Her singing was just delightful."

Well, I'll admit that last one confused me a bit, but I figured the man meant that the Celine Dion hits music she had playing was nice. I did wonder how he could know that she picked it, but I was busy and people are never at their most comprehendible when gloved fingers and sharp tools are being shoved in their mouths. At each compliment, I beam and try to remember to tell Em she was right, that Kaylee really is the kind face that will bring customers back.

I'm also constantly interrupted by every single member of my family texting or calling the ENTIRE day (yes, I'm completely smiling when I say this -- I really do love them) to wish me luck and congratulations on my first day.

By the time I give my last patient a thumbs up and hand him off to Neve to schedule his next cleaning, I'm exhausted and realize I haven't checked on the front of the office all day (Em was right in saying I wouldn't have time -- she's so smart).

In the now quiet, almost patient free place, I start to notice the music again. It's still Celine, singing "All By Myself." One of my personal favorites.

Right away, I realize that it's not that the office is necessarily quieter than before, but that the music is louder. In fact, it sounds like Celine is freaking standing in our office. I get a little excited, I'll admit, and quicken my pace to the front desk. Now, I know she couldn't actually be here, but you tell that to my bouncy feet.

When I reach the desk, I see what's making the music so loud. It might have something to do with the fact that Kaylee's singing along, word-for-word, actually really freaking well. In the chorus, she belts it out and throws her head back as her fingers move over the keyboard.

In the movement, she catches sight of me and directs the last bit of the song toward me, intense facial expressions, reaching hands, and all. Not a bit embarrassed. She smiles and takes a bow as the song finishes.

Mr. Junt, our last patient, walks up behind me as I stand frozen in awe.

"Gotta keeper there, Doc." He winks at me and makes his way out the door, tipping his hat to us as he leaves.

It isn't until we clean up, have a mini-celebration in the back, and the girls go home for the day that Em and I get a moment alone. At first, we hug. Then we dish about our days.

"I love everyone I saw today!" I flop down in one of the waiting area chairs.

Em smiles. "Everyone had insurance, so I love them, too!"

We giggle.

"Oh! And they couldn't stop raving about Kaylee."

Em takes in long breath.

"What?"

"The word raving
does
fit with Kaylee, but only if you're using it in the sentence, 'Kaylee's constant singing drove me stark
raving
mad and if I have to listen to it again, I'm going to dig out my own ear drums with a spoon.'"

I open my eyes wide. "Oh no! Sorry. I guess I didn't hear it in the back. Did Neve and Sarah say anything?" I ask. I know they walk patients to and from the exam rooms, so they spend a lot more time up front than I do.

"Let's just say if what your mama says about faces freezing was true, the three of us would all look like this forever." Em contorts her face into a grimace and bares her teeth like she's facing death.

I can't help but fold forward in a laughing heap.

Em waves her hand. "She's actually pretty good. It's just the constant nature of it that makes it really dreadful. All the customers I talked to thought it was simply charming and they loved her, though, so no business lost due to singing today, just our sanity."

I stand up and wipe at my eyes. "Well, I suppose I could talk to her about it tomorrow."

"You'd do that?"

I turn my face so I'm looking all sideways-sexy-like at her. "Of course. 'If You Ask Me To.'" I sing the title/chorus of one of the songs that played today.

We laugh, lock up for the night, and take our business-owning-selves out to freaking dinner.

8

I'm Probably Not Going to Say it

"Okay. Let's practice how you're going to say it." Em straightens her shoulders and gets into her I'm-getting-serious-about-this stance.

I bite my lip. "I'm probably not going to say it." I wince, turn my face, and pull my shoulder up in defense.

Em slaps me (see? I was right to flinch). "Jules! You've got to! You said!" She whispers in a forceful way that makes it seem like we're having a full on yell-fight. But we're in the back of the office and we don't want certain people to overhear.

I narrow my eyes and point at her. "Yes, but I've been thinking. Why can't you? Why does it have to be me? I'm supposed to be working on being less -- harsh."

"But you said you would yesterday!" Her eyes dart around quickly like she's looking for a way out. "And because you're the one who brought her here!"

"It wasn't just me that brought her here! You were basically drooling over her in that interview and don't think I didn't notice those elbows of yours squeezing away. Plus, you were the one who convinced me to keep her here."

Em's face lets go of some of its tension and she opens her mouth to respond, but nothing comes out.

Whispering with this much intensity is tough and I feel like I'm spitting a lot, so I lean back and place my hand on my forehead to calm myself down.

"Okay, okay, so we're equally responsible for Kaylee. Ugh." I let my head fall back. "What are we going to do?"

Em sighs. "I don't know, but I literally cannot listen to another Celine song. She's completely ruined the lady for me."

I widen my eyes in acknowledgment. "Right? Even our song."

Just then, Em's desk phone direct line rings. She smiles real big at me and shrugs her shoulders, then walks over to answer it.

Great. So it's me. I tap my toe on the floor as I think. Maybe if I can get her to stop playing the music she knows, she won't sing along.

I clear my throat and walk up toward the front desk. "So Kaylee...." I say slowly, making my way next to her and half-sitting on the horseshoe shaped desk. "Would you mind if we listen to some different music today?"

Her perfect brown hair is doing the flouncy curl thing I always try to muscle mine into doing but it never really will. She's wearing a prim little peasant top and a maxi skirt. Her mouth opens and she takes in a breath like she's going to respond. Then she stops, closes her mouth, and narrows her eyes at the ceiling. "Different music?"

"Yes." I nod. "I love Celine, too, but if we keep listening to her every day, none of us will be able to stand the sound of her. Let's let someone else pick the music today."

She scrunches her nose and looks up at me. "Okay." She bats her dark lashes like a lost puppy.

I smile. "Great. Thanks. Good talk." I pat her on the shoulder and walk away, standing tall like a business owner who has just had her first fix-it talk with an employee should.

I strut my way to Em's space in the office and plop down in one of her talk-to-patients-about-insurance chairs across from her desk. She's off the phone already and I can't help but wonder if she didn't dial her office phone from her pocket or something else equally sneaky to get out of talking to Kaylee.

"I did it."

She squeezes her elbows in and whispers, "You told her to stop singing?"

"Not exactly. But I did tell her someone else was picking the music today."

Em makes a Robert De Niro I'm-alright-with-that face and says, "Oh, well I guess that'll work."

"Yeah. Thanks for the help, by the way." I lean back and glare at her.

But she just leans forward all excited and whispers, "Can it be my day?"

I shrug. "Sure."

Em's eyes narrow and she rubs her hands together. "Let's see. I need to pick something obscure so she doesn't know the lyrics." She stops and looks at me. "But office appropriate, of course." She holds out a hand to make sure I wasn't worried.

"I was thinking Coldplay would be nice. People like Coldplay."

Em shakes her head. "Uh uh, too mainstream. She'll know the songs for sure and I can't have her ruining them for me." She makes a cross on her chest and says, "Rest in peace, Celine."

After a few seconds of Em's eyes slowly scanning back and forth across the ceiling (a sure sign she's searching her brain-files in the same manner), she squeals and pulls out her iPod.

"Andrew freaking Bird." She nods. (For the record, "freaking" is really not part of his name, just an expression of right-ness in this situation. I didn't want you to worry... or be embarrassed if you tried to look him up on the computer.)

"Ooooh! You're right. She'll have no idea!" Em and I learned of the violin-player-turned-singer-songwriter from our hipster friend, Dave, in college. He "totally found him on a whim and way before you started hearing his stuff on commercials and in movies (insert hipster scoff and eye roll here)."

"Best day ever!" Em sings as she saunters over to the stereo.

I give her a thumbs up, but can't stick around to see what happens since it's almost opening time and I need to get my butt ready to examine some teeth (I don't recommend using the words butt, examine, and teeth in the same sentence ever and profusely apologize for doing it just then).

Em totally calls the fact that Kaylee doesn't know Andrew Bird and therefore can't sing along to his music like she did with Celine's. What she didn't foresee was that Kaylee cannot be held back by mere lyrics and doesn't trifle with such things as knowing or not knowing a song. She starts humming instead. Just as loud, just as dramatic. Oh, and once the chorus plays once and she thinks she's got some of it, she's right back into the singing, only it's in awful snippets instead of the steady stream of knowing-a-song-by-heart.

I can't decided which one is worse.

Em can. She changes the music back to Celine.

Later in the day, in between patients, Kaylee forwards a call back to my desk phone.

"This is Doctor Julep Maddox."

"Oh, darn. Sorry. I was looking for someone named Jules." Andrew's voice is like that chocolate bar I left in my car last summer, dark, melty, and hotter than is generally recommended.

He continues. "I really thought this was her number though. Oh well. Hey, before I go, though, can I ask how a tall drink like you is able to even hold a phone?"

"Haha." I roll my eyes to no one, but can't hide my smile so the gesture loses its snark. "I will have you know that my mama and daddy fully expected me to be another boy because they already had three and they don't totally trust hospitals or doctors or modern technology, for that matter. Meaning that they were only slightly caught off guard when I showed up. Also, I suspect Mama was simply missing her 'sippin' drinks', as she calls them, a little too much after close to a decade of being pregnant or nursing."

I can hear him chuckling on the other end. "No judgments, no judgments. I once knew a guy called Guinness. Named for totally historical reasons, of course."

"We are a rare, but fascinating breed. Every single year in school when the teachers were learning our names, they'd always stop at mine and read it a few times before saying it out loud. I can now say with complete certainty that I know exactly what a person's face looks like when they're thinking, 'Well her folks must be lushes.'"

"It sounds like you're pretty scarred about it all. I was going to call and ask if you'd like to go out for drinks to celebrate your business, but now that I know about your sordid past, that seems like it might ironically complete some sort of self-perpetuating circle of familial drink addiction."

My heart is beating way too fast, but I have no time to worry if I'm having some sort of tachycardia-type attack, because I'm trying to figure out if drinks mean a date. Friends have drinks together all the time. Right? I decide to say yes, then wait for the ceiling to fall in or for my desk to burst into flames.

When they don't, I say, "Well sir, I'll have you know that I love a good self-perpetuating circle. I'm in."

"Okay, listen carefully. At exactly 3:11pm a goose will land just outside your office building and lay an egg. Inside the egg, you will find a key and an address. When you travel there you will find a locker that the key will open. In that locker --"

"Andrew."

"Yeah?"

"How 'bout I give you my address and you come and pick me up?"

"Oh. Sure. Or that."

I wait until he has paper and relay my address to him.

"See you at eight then."

"Bye, Julep."

I hang up the phone and drum my fingers on my desk. It's not dinner, just drinks. I repeat and rationalize. Joel goes out to drinks all the time with colleagues. Em and I are friends and work associates and we go out for drinks tons. I let my head fall back. It's starting to hurt.

Luckily, I can't fret about it much more because Sarah calls me in for my next appointment.

After much between-patient debate, a full-on intervention from Em, and a quick call to Joel, I decide that I am fully able to stay in control and keep things casual tonight. I tell myself this over and over again as I decide what to wear after cleaning up my dinner dishes.

I put on some jeans, cute sandals, and a light flowy top. Keeping it casual. He might, very well be wearing a suit or something else fancy, but if I wear a dress it will without-a-doubt look like I'm expecting this to be a date. Right. Taking control.

Yep. Definitely not sweating a bunch or having another heart-beating-too-fast episode.

After five minutes of pacing around my living room, I decide to sit outside on my front porch. The sun is setting and I'm sure there'll be some cool air blowing in off the water that might be able to take me down a few degrees. Date or not, I don't want to be a sweaty mess when he comes to pick me up.

I grab my purse and a light scarf for when the sun actually does dip all the way down behind the mountains, and then I lock my door and kick back on the little blue outdoor loveseat that sits on my covered porch. After setting my feet up on my railing and taking a few deep breaths of the crisp air, I'm feeling so much better.

Until a dark grey Audi pulls up and Andrew gets out.

His one eye squints as he smiles over at me. Both mine squint as I smile back, especially after I see that he's wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Yes! Friends!

"Well, hello."

"Hello yourself." I stand, tip a fake top hat in his direction, and decide that I truly hate myself.

He chuckles and walks up my steps where I meet him at the top.

"Ready?" I ask.

He raises his eyebrows, making those three little creases form in between them. "Eager, huh?" He looks around me at my front door. "Hiding bodies in there or something?"

I tip my head to the side and snap my fingers. "What? How did you know? Darn. I guess we'll have to swing by the police once we're done with our drinks."

He smiles and steps aside, motioning for me to walk to the car. "I'll drive this time, if you don't mind. White Lightning had a little too much horse power for my taste."

"Alright, but only begrudgingly, sir."

He opens the passenger door for me and I skip around him all crazy so I make sure to maintain my set no-swooning-friend-radius. I get in, smiling to try to cover up the weirdness. Andrew shakes his head and closes the door behind me.

He starts up the engine and backs out. "Your first days went well?"

I nod as he pulls onto the main road. "Very. The customers sure do love Kaylee."

A smile seems to tug at the corner of his mouth, but only for a second. "The customers, but not you?"

Dammit. How does he read into everything I say? And correctly, at that.

"Her non-business related behaviors are a bit interesting."

He nods, seeming to agree, but also seeming to be waiting for me to elaborate.

"She's really into singing. And gluten. That is, when she's not adamant she shouldn't be eating gluten. She also seems really confused about where she used to live." I chuckle to myself, but notice Andrew's arm stiffen a bit as he grips the steering wheel.

And he doesn't really respond. Well, really isn't the word. It's more like at all. He's silent.

"Shit. Sorry. She's your... client. I shouldn't have said anything."

He puts a hand up. "No. It's fine. I'm just thinking of what I can do to help. She's just so much more work than usual and I --." He runs his hand over his face and goes back to watching the road.

I press my lips together. I'll admit that I'm not super knowledgeable about what job coaches do, but I do feel pretty confident that Andrew's doing a lot more than he should have to with Kaylee and as much as I still like seeing him, I feel like his job was kind done when she got hired. But, again, I already stuck my foot in my mouth, so I keep these thoughts to myself.

I change the subject to the weather (because I'm a master conversationalist) for the remaining minutes we're in the car, so when we pull into the restaurant/bar parking lot, I've officially drained all topics I thought we might talk about.