Let's Be Frank (2 page)

Now, there’s another obstacle, though. I need Dr. Reitman’s referral for my enrollment paperwork. Right now, I’m not comfortable enough around her to ask. And I’m pissed at myself for creating such an unsavory situation.

After I give her the spiel about Harry Webster, the doctor comes to the exact conclusion I predicted she would, then says abruptly, “Hey. Are things going to be… awkward… now? Between us?” She flaps her hand over the desk, like the piece of furniture is the issue.

Sweat breaks out under my arms. I shift Harry’s file from one arm to the other, then tug on my earlobe. The folder slips and almost falls, but I catch it at the last second, and stutter, “Um… n-no. Uh, why would they be?”

She smiles at my obtuseness and rapidly clicks her pen, leaning back and rocking in her chair. “You know, because of…”

I clear my throat. “Oh. No. I mean, it was nothing personal, you know?”

“Exactly!
I
do know that.”

“It’s just… it’s a big commitment—at least,
I
think it is, and it… It didn’t feel right.”

“You were absolutely right to go with your gut.”

My shoulders relax. “Really? So… your feelings aren’t hurt?”

She laughs. “No! Good grief! I received an offer from someone else later that same night. Don’t worry about it.” Sitting up and resting her elbows on the glass-topped surface in front of her, she adds, “Another buyer and I negotiated back and forth a few times but eventually came to an agreement. We close in a couple of weeks.”

Relief regarding the neat resolution to our recent failed real estate transaction renders me giddy. “Whew! I’m so glad everything worked out. It’s an awesome house; just not what I was looking for.”

That’s putting it mildly. Her house was
all
wrong for me, from the wall-to-wall carpeting to the in-ground pool in the backyard, everything was too… perfect. Perfect for teenagers’ parties and swanky soirées with crudités-crunching doctors, that is. But it held no potential for me to put my own stamp on it. It was already exactly the way it should be, fit for two middle-aged professionals with the perfect—or so it seemed—family with a busy lifestyle.

Plus, it was huge. Four bedrooms, four bathrooms, and a cabana? No way. It was priced to sell quickly, so I could have afforded it, but… just because I could doesn’t mean I wanted to.

“And I hear you found a place, too?” she queries pleasantly.

“Yeah. I moved in last weekend.”

She smiles warmly. “See? No worries.”

Ultra-conscious of the time passing and worried I’m keeping the Websters waiting, I nevertheless expound, “It’s, uh, in my brother’s neighborhood, but I decided to overlook that major fault.”

The medical community here in Green Bay is a relatively small one, so she knows my older brother, thoracic surgeon, Dr. Nicholas Bingham. I can tell she’s trying to keep a straight face when she remarks, “Oooh! That’s a pretty fancy neighborhood.”

I roll my eyes to let her know I know it’s trendy as hell and don’t necessarily approve, but at the same time, the house I ultimately purchased is perfect for me. Fairly new, all modern amenities, hardwood floors (that I’ve covered with area rugs, since hardwood is nice to look at but notoriously hard on one’s joints), and plenty of possibilities for customizing to my own specs. I spend a lot of weekends staining and painting, but I have nothing else to do, so DIY is a good way to pass the time.

“I have a serf’s cottage on the outskirts,” I reveal. “A lot smaller than his house. And yours. You know, your house was too big for one person,” I feel beholden to explain, then immediately regret saying.

She shuffles papers around on her desk. “Yep. That’s why I sold it.”

Way to step in it, Nate,
I berate myself.
Why don’t you spout some interesting statistics about the negative health effects of divorce on the average fifty-something-year-old professional woman? Just in case this isn’t weird enough…

“Anyway,” she segues smoothly, “I wanted to make sure you knew I wasn’t upset. You’ve seemed tense since the showing, and it only occurred to me the other day—when you stopped talking about your new house to Lynette after I walked into the room—what the problem might be.”

Now, I realize how ridiculous I must have seemed to her and sweat for a completely different reason. Dr. Reitman has never been anything but professional and friendly and fair to me, in my six years working here. Even that time I accidentally shot blood across the room when I forgot to release the tourniquet before removing the needle during a blood draw. She took the situation in stride… as she stepped over the kid’s passed-out mom to help me restore order to the room. (Hey, I was new!)

“It was dumb for me to even view your place.”

“I thought I made it clear that you weren’t under any obligation—”

“You did!” I hasten to interject. Closing my eyes, I swallow and explain, “But it occurred to me that a house with so much… history… would take on a life and personality of its own and become more than a structure. And when I realized it wasn’t for me, I worried you thought I was rejecting everything that was important to you.” When that soliloquy meets silence, I open my eyes.

She blinks at me and tilts her head.

I laugh nervously at her shocked, almost alarmed, expression. “Uh… my parents are psychiatrists. Sometimes stuff like that kind of…” I make a hand gesture to simulate something we see happen often around here. “…spews out.”

Looking away, she says quietly, “Well, that observation was very… astute. And sensitive. But you presumed a bit much.”

“I’m sorry!” I quickly respond to what feels like a rebuke.

With a chuckle, she shakes her head at me. “Forget it. Nate…” She seems to think better of finishing whatever she was going to say and merely smiles after a deep breath through her nose. “I’m glad we cleared this up. Now, we have a full patient load this afternoon. Let’s get back to that.”

I nod and edge toward the door, reaching behind me for the doorknob. My fingers brush against the smooth metal. A welcome cool draft rushes in when I pull open the door. “Right. Thanks.”

Her attention officially away from me and on her computer monitor, she murmurs, “Mmm-hmm.”

With that overt dismissal, I slip into the hallway, feeling oddly lighter and heavier at the same time. So she’s not offended I didn’t buy her house, but I questioned her professionalism by worrying she might have been offended. Geez. If I had more time to obsess about this right now, I’d be in trouble.

As it is, I don’t have time. I rush to the supply room and gather the materials I’ll need to perform Harry’s promised strep test. Back in the exam room, I glove up, apologize for keeping Harry and his mom waiting, and swab the boy’s throat. After sealing the swabs in a plastic tube and tossing my gloves in the trash, I give Mrs. Webster the name of the ear, nose, and throat clinic she can expect to hear from in the next few days.

To Harry, I direct while tapping the sealed swab tube against my palm, “Stop licking doorknobs, alright, Bud? Didn’t we talk about this last time?”

He manages to giggle while holding onto his neck and rasps, “I didn’t lick any doorknobs.”

“Riiiiight. Well, after you get your tonsils out, the doorknobs will shock your tongue. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” When he seems to take me seriously, I wink, and he relaxes, making me wonder if he really
does
have a habit of licking door hardware.

Again, with no time to contemplate the odd proclivities of young boys, I let it drop and simply wish them a good afternoon. After they’ve departed for the reception area, I do a five-count and jog in the same direction, toward the front office, where I hold out Harry’s handwritten referral to Lynette, one of the receptionists.

She stares at it but doesn’t take it from me. “What’s the diagnosis?”

“Haven’t done the culture yet, but I’m sure it’s strep.” I subtly shake the piece of paper, the international sign for
Take it already
. “Can you input this, please? I’m so behind.”

“Yeah, I know,” she acknowledges, finally pinching the slip between her fingers and squinting at my bad handwriting. “The patients are piled up out there, and parents are getting antsy.”

“Well, I’m not thrilled about it, either. I have that thing tonight.”

Again, I receive a blank stare from her. Then she blinks and fake-startles. “Oh! That
thing
. What thing?”

Smiling tightly, I back away from her and snatch the next patient folder from the tray by the waiting room door. “You know… my blind date.”

“Right… What’s her name again?”

Fully aware I’m giving her information she already knows, I nevertheless answer, “Frankie. Frankie Lipton.”

She giggles, crushing her hand against her mouth and muffling, “So many jokes. Can I just make
one
about tea-bagging?”

“No!” I look around us, paranoid someone impressionable may hear her. “No, you may not! Shhh!”

With an exaggerated sigh, she lowers her hand. “Fine. Hmmm… Now, you’re sure this is a
woman
you’re being set up with?”

I narrow my eyes at her but don’t dignify her question with a response, partly because I’ve triple-checked the same thing with my friend, whose friend-of-a-friend works with my mystery date at Quimby-Rex, a pharmaceutical supplier headquartered here in town.

My reaction only elicits a louder laugh from her. Then she seems to take pity on me and says, “It’ll be fine. And if it’s not, you’ll have a great story to tell us on Monday. Now, get movin’.” She turns away from me and peers at the form I’ve handed her, tutting. “Sheesh… are you
sure
you weren’t supposed to be a doctor, like your brother?”

I also don’t dignify that question with a response but open the waiting room door to call the next patient.

“Yo, Niles! Ooh, that looks like a nasty boo-boo.” As he and his dad walk past me, I lean down and say, “Just so you know, your neck is not a pencil holder. Let’s get that taken care of, Bud.”

Chapter Two

Crashing and cursing through my front door nearly three hours later, I kick off my shoes and peel off my Buzz Lightyear scrubs as I rush down the hallway to my bedroom. The afternoon patient load was relentless, so not only am I home late, resulting in very little time to prepare for my date with Frankie, but my bladder’s about to explode. This is how people get bladder infections and kidney stones, you know? Well, maybe
you
don’t know, but
I
do.

In the bathroom, I run the water in the shower while I stand in front of the toilet, moaning as if experiencing a completely different kind of release. “Better than sex,” I try to convince myself, shaking off the last drops and flushing without thinking. Damn. Now I’ll have to wait for the water to return to below skin-searing temperatures.

Rushing naked into my bedroom, I stand in front of my closet and fret over my pathetic wardrobe. Not many people can say they wear glorified pajamas to work, and something tells me my first date in… well… a long time… warrants wearing pants with a zipper and button. And possibly even a belt. Although drawstrings do lend a bit of whimsy to any outfit…

Outfit?! Whimsy?!

Ay-yi-yi… Maybe I should lay off the chick lit for a while. Next, I’ll be calling my clothes ensembles, with the true French pronunciation.

If memory serves (and I have to think way further back than I’d like to admit), the semi-casual first date—which I’ve been assured this is—calls for khakis and an Oxford shirt. And nice shoes. Not tennis shoes. And no tie.

Gosh, when
was
my last date? It must have been sometime fairly soon after… Oh. Right. Well, I won’t be thinking about
that
tonight. No siree. Tonight is about the present, not the past. Anyway, that was a depressingly long time ago. Like, I might qualify for born-again V-card status.

I throw what appear to be the only date-worthy clothes from my closet onto the foot of my bed and sink down next to them. My shoulders slumped, I let my hands dangle between my knees like Cro-Magnon man and stare into space, wondering if tonight will be just another bad date or the beginning of something I’ve almost stopped daring to hope will happen.

This house is proof my
Leave it to Beaver
fantasy is dying faster than a skin cell in winter. When the dream was alive and well, only a few short years ago, I determined I’d do things in the right order… wife, house, kids. Well, I’m a grownup (most days) and grew tired of renting, so I’ve put the house before the wife. And as happy as I am with my new place, it’s still just a house, and it sucks that age is requiring me to manage my expectations.

Not that thirty-two is old, by any stretch, no matter what Harry Webster thinks. Sure, my parents were married, well-established in their private psychiatry practice, and had both Nick and me by the time they were my age, but times are different now. Nowadays, we’re not in as much of a hurry. We take time to figure out who we are and what we want out of life before we settle down.