The waiter returned with a tray full of their hors d’oeuvres and drinks and for a while all they thought about was the deliciousness in front of them. “So I’m guessing your brother didn’t go after this girl and apologize for hitting her?” Tim asked after a while.
Craig shook his head. “I think he was too concerned about the rented car, which he ended up just buying from the guy. I also think he felt too guilty to actually look at the people he’d hurt. Fortunately, the driver of the car seemed perfectly okay.”
“Well, next time he’s in New York, you ought to introduce him to your new patient,” Doug suggested. “And maybe don’t even tell him who she is at first. Let it slowly sink in.”
Craig chuckled a little. “I don’t want to shame him for what happened. It was a stupid accident. But we’re not kids anymore. He knows he messed up.”
His friends nodded. “It’s a good thing he realizes,” Ashton said. “But it’s not cool that he decided to just leave and you’re left to pick up the pieces… Though it doesn’t seem like you mind it one bit.” He smiled at Craig.
Mainly, Craig didn’t mind helping Sandy because he knew he was perfectly capable and qualified to do so, but he of course also didn’t mind because she was so attractive. “Does it make me a bad person if I care even partially because she’s beautiful?” he asked his friends. “I never thought I could be so shallow…”
“It’s not shallow,” Doug said. “It’s natural. You’re drawn to her because you find her looks appealing, but it doesn’t mean you wouldn’t help her if she wasn’t pretty. Don’t second guess yourself. You’re a good person.”
Craig thought it was easy to tell himself this was true, but he wasn’t so sure. If the circumstances had been different, he might not have been thinking about her so much. And he felt awful about that. “I guess it’s good things turned out the way they did. I’ll just be grateful for my pretty new patient.”
After spending time with his friends in the club for a couple hours, he returned to his penthouse and fell asleep easily, dreaming about Sandy and performing surgery on her. Normally, he might be annoyed to dream of something he did so often during his waking hours, but this dream was pleasant with plenty of flirting. He’d never flirt so much in real life, especially not when a patient wanted his help and not necessarily his affection. Craig was always professional before anything else.
After work the following day, he took a cue from his brother and chartered a plane to go visit his parents. His mother seemed less surprised to see him this time, but she was still happy that he decided to stop by. “Hello again,” she said, giving him a warm hug as soon as he’d been ushered into the living room by the butler. “What prompted this unexpected visit?”
“Ah, Donnie made me feel bad about not visiting you more often,” Craig explained. “Especially because we live in the same state. I didn’t want him showing me up.”
His mom laughed and gestured for him to join her on the couch. “Sam, please send for my husband,” she said to the butler, who nodded and left the doorway. Once they were alone, she started pouring Craig a mug of coffee. “How’s work at the clinic treating you? We know you’re a busy man. Don’t let Donnie make you think we don’t understand. We’re proud of all of the hard work you’re doing.”
He felt a little embarrassed for bringing Donnie up now, though he wanted to talk to them about what had occurred the night of the accident – without actually mentioning the accident. That would definitely cast his brother in a bad light.
Craig didn’t get beyond thanking his mother before his father arrived in the room and he had to pause to greet him. “How have you been?” he asked his dad.
“Oh, I’ve been doing well. Retirement is great. Nice and relaxing,” his dad said as he reclined in one of the wing chairs, happily accepting some coffee from his wife. “Did you manage to take a load off when your brother was in town?”
“I did actually,” Craig answered with a smile, glad his dad brought the conversation right back on the track it had been on. “We toured the city and he met my friends. We also rented a car – well, he rented it – and we took it for a joyride at night where the traffic wasn’t so crazy.”
His parents blinked at him and for a moment he wondered if they knew what a joyride was. His mom stirred some more sugar into her fresh cup of coffee. “It sounds like you both had a lot of fun,” she said. “I’m glad you introduced him to your friends from the club. I wonder if he might be able to introduce you to any nice women the next time you visit him…”
Craig chuckled, shaking his head. This again. She never used to be so pushy about him being in a relationship, but he supposed he wasn’t getting any younger. “I guess this is always going to come up now, isn’t it?” he asked his mom playfully.
She smiled innocently at him as if there wasn’t anything odd about always bringing up his dating life. “I just want to make sure that you’re completely happy. A man your age shouldn’t always be working so hard with no one to share in your success.”
Craig wasn’t sure that he wanted someone to share his success with him. He felt quite content with the life he’d built for himself, and the friends he made along the way. He didn’t feel that he was in want of a companion, but he knew his parents didn’t want to hear that sort of thing. They weren’t going to back down either.
“As a matter of fact, Donnie did introduce me to a beautiful woman,” he said, a bit taken aback at himself for bringing Sandy into their little chat.
The excited looks on his parents’ faces told him all he needed to know. They were overjoyed to learn he’d spent some of the weekend with a woman. They didn’t need to know it had primarily been work-related, and that a lot of blood and tears were involved. Craig would spare them those kinds of details and instead, decided to just leave them believing he had a new potential girlfriend.
Chapter Six
After the stranger left her hospital room, Sandy didn’t really know what to think. She appreciated him wanting to help with her current situation, but she didn’t believe a plastic surgeon could really ‘fix’ what had happened. She might be able to get her nose back to the way it was, but she couldn’t get her dad back into town. She couldn’t make up the time that was lost. She was a sentimental person. Of course she cared about how she looked; she was an actress who had to appear back on TV in just a few days. She was going to call him for the surgery to fix her nose, but she didn’t appreciate that he acted as if he was somehow her superhero.
If he was really a superhero, he would’ve stopped his brother from driving so recklessly, she thought.
Thankfully, Sandy didn’t have long to stew about Dr. Lucas and his God complex. Her friends from the show reappeared in her room, and they brought pizza this time! She thought it was bizarre that it took an accident in order to feel closer to them. She supposed she really ought to stop skipping their after-show parties. I hope it’s not too late to make up for all the times I declined their invites.
“Hey babe, it seems like something’s on your mind,” Trish said before biting into a slice of sausage and mushroom pizza. “Did something happen when we weren’t here?”
“The doctor didn’t say anything bad, did he?” Annie asked her, looking at her with large, nervous eyes.
Sandy smiled and shook her head. “No, it’s nothing like that. I was just paid a visit by a very high-and-mighty plastic surgeon,” she told them. She may have been judging him a bit too harshly, but she was peeved. She was allowed to be peeved. “He told me he could fix my nose, after confessing to being in the other car in the accident.”
Her friends gasped. She was delighted that they understood where she was coming from. She’d started to worry if she had been mean to someone who only wanted to help her, but it did seem suspicious to her. He might have only been interested in cleaning up his brother’s mess.
“Did he at least apologize?” Annie asked, incredulous.
“I think he should do more than apologize,” Desmond
said. “And it sounds like all he’s interested in is drumming up more business.”
Sandy shook her head. “Oh no, I don’t think he only wanted business. He did seem sincere in his apology. He apologized before anything else. Before he told me he wanted to help.”
“So he’s somewhat of a decent person,” Trish said, placing her paper plate down on the bed so she could emphatically cross her arms in front of her chest. “I told you a plastic surgeon could help you, but it doesn’t have to be him.”
“He was riding in the car,” Desmond said suspiciously. “So who was driving?”
Sandy took a bite of her slice of the pizza. She took time to enjoy it before responding. “Apparently his brother was driving,” she told her friends, giving a slight shrug. “I never met him. The only one of them who checked in on me was the plastic surgeon.” She gestured over to her nightstand, where the business card still sat untouched. “He left me his card so I can reach him when I get out of here.”
Trish hastened over to the table to pick up the card and give it a once-over. “Wow, hey, I’ve heard of Dr. Lucas,” she said, sounding vaguely impressed if still annoyed. “He’s got ads all over the city, but I’ve also heard a lot of good things about him.”
Sandy nodded. “Yeah, I have too. I haven’t actually talked to anyone who seemed to need his services though.”
Her friends looked at her and tried not to laugh, but Desmond couldn’t help himself and cracked up a little. “Oh you sweet angel,” Annie said to her. “Almost everyone who’s been a guest on our show has had some work done.”
Sandy couldn’t help feeling like she’d literally become the dumb blonde character she played so often on The Banana Peel. The feeling wasn’t great. She raised her chin a bit in defiance. “I’m not the type of person who assumes,” she said. “That doesn’t mean I’m naïve.”
“No one said you’re naïve,” Desmond said, still smiling at her with laughter in his dark eyes. “Your innocence is refreshing, especially because it’s not like you just fell off the turnip truck here. You’ve lived in the city for a while.”
Sandy took another bite of the pizza. She was starting to feel like being alone, but she didn’t want to ask her friends to leave. She got so bored and lonely in her hospital room so she wanted to hang onto the company as long as she could. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing he’s good at the job he’s offered to do for me,” she said. “I don’t have to worry about him screwing up and making me look worse.”
“You don’t look bad,” Trish said. “You don’t look like you even need surgery. But if you want to have it done, you could probably do worse than Dr. Lucas. Maybe he’ll even consider it a favor to you instead of making you pay. I’d love to get some work done if it was free.”
Sandy scoffed slightly. “You don’t need any work done. You already look great.”
Trish smiled genuinely. “Aww, thanks. Well anyway, if you decide to go see Dr. Lucas, let me know what you think of him.”
The friends spent the rest of their time together, munching on pizza and making each other laugh with their ideas for the show and just in general because they were funny people. Sandy appreciated having them there with her, but she was still glad to have time alone once they were gone. She was an introverted extrovert, and she had a lot to think about now.
Sandy rested her head back on her pillow, thinking about how she was going home the following day. She was ready to be out of this place, but she was also nervous about how the rest of the week might play out. Her friends were kind to tell her she didn’t need plastic surgery, but she couldn’t help feeling like she was deformed. She looked different and everyone was sure to notice. They always say people don’t pay attention to you as much as you think they do, but she knew people. They were going to pay attention to her bruised and swollen face. Just because the doctor had set her nose back into place didn’t mean she wasn’t going to have a bump on the bridge or any other noticeable changes. As an actress, Sandy was always careful to avoid drastic changes in her appearance without calculating it first. Breaking her nose wasn’t the same as dyeing her hair or getting a tattoo. Maybe I really should go see that doctor, she thought miserably. What other choice do I have?
As fate would have it, though, there wasn’t enough time for Sandy to go to the plastic surgeon before that week’s show. She really needed to get back into the swing of things so she could be on the show that week – she wouldn’t dream of taking a ‘sick’ day when she was perfectly fine. She was even excited to be in the sketches she and her friends had written while in her hospital room, though she was nervous about the reactions to her appearance.
I’m kind of glad I’m a small enough ‘star’ to avoid the kind of scrutiny someone like Jennifer Aniston might get.
She left the hospital and went back into her cozy, tiny apartment. It seemed less cozy and even tinier now that her dad was gone. He’d been thoughtful enough to put the futon back into its sofa position, but for some reason it only made her sadder. She sat on it and started crying, wishing she could have him there with her again and feeling homesick in a way she didn’t normally feel. They’d see each other again soon; they’d made a tentative raincheck plan, but it didn’t fully prevent her from feeling lousy.
When she went to the refrigerator, she realized the groceries she’d picked up from the store were neatly placed in there – at least the ones that had survived the crash. The eggs were goners, but everything else seemed to have made it. Sandy cried a little more when she looked at the groceries, but at least her tears had become more amused and surprised than sad and lonely. She didn’t know how the Lyft driver had managed to get them to her apartment, but she believed it had something to do with her kind-hearted father.
She made herself a sloppy BLT for lunch – no easy task one-handed – and then got herself ready to go to rehearsals for the show. She put on some dark jeans and a green baby doll shirt, looking as much like a hippy as she could. A hippy that wore shoes, though. She would never walk barefoot around the sidewalks of New York. Running a brush through her long, blonde hair, Sandy looked at her reflection and examined the bruises and swelling on her face. She wasn’t sure if was true or if she was just telling herself things in order to feel better, but she thought she looked fine. Like her friends and dad had told her, she was very lucky to have come out of a car accident with only minor injuries. Carefully, she put on some makeup so she could look even more like she was treating everything as normal. She thought if she acted fine, everyone else would treat her like she was fine.
As soon as she was ready to go, Sandy grabbed her purse and left her apartment, locking up behind her and heading downstairs. She thought about catching a taxi, but she was nervous about being in another car so soon after her accident. She’d walked home from the hospital for the same reason, grateful that NYC was such a walkable city. Taking a deep breath, she set off towards the studio building.
Sandy came out of the elevator when she reached the show’s floor, heading down the hallway and into the meeting room where the cast performed their rehearsal read-throughs of the sketches they’d come up with. “Hello everyone!” she greeted the assembled members of the cast with a smile.
Annie, Desmond, and Trish looked over and smiled back at her. “Hey,” they cheerfully replied.
“How have you been?” Sam, another member of the cast, asked her. He was looking at her with sympathy, which she didn’t think was so bad. At least he wasn’t looking at her like there was something wrong with her appearance. “We’ve missed you the past few days.”
“I’ve been fine,” Sandy said, nodding a little as if to reaffirm her statement. She took a seat at the table next to Annie and picked up her stapled stack of paper, eager to get started reading over their script for the next show.
The two missing cast members, Brent and Clara, finally bustled in through the doorway and swiftly took their seats. “Sorry we’re late,” Brent said, giving eye contact to everyone around the table in t
urn. When his eyes fell on Sandy’s, he did a weird double-blink. “Hey, I’m surprised to see you back so soon.”
Uh oh.
All eyes were on her now. Was she really going to have to plead her case as to why she should be on the show this week? “I broke two bones,” Sandy said in a calm, even tone. “I don’t think it’s going to keep me from being able to perform.”
“Yeah,” Desmond said to Brent. “What, does she need a doctor’s note?”
There were some nervous laughs around the table. She was relieved when Brent relented, shrugged his shoulders and picked up his script so they could get to work. Since they were all there, they began their read-through and everything was fine. Sandy was a little embarrassed when she found her voice came out much more nasally than usual, but it was to be expected. At least I can talk. And breathe, she thought with a small smile to herself. The lines she read – the jokes anyway – got laughs which mattered more to her than whether or not she sounded weird.
She felt much better about things after the successful read-through. Once things were over in the meeting room, Sandy took her script back with her into her dressing room, where she sat down and read over her lines again, a smile on her face. She read over some of the lines she’d written for other people as well, pleased with her ability to write as well as act. She’d been so nervous about getting back to work after her injuries, but now she couldn’t wait to perform the show in front of cameras and a live audience!
The cast was going to head out to the stage to do a run-through rehearsal of the sketches and make sure they had all of the blocking down, so Sandy left her door open so she could hear when they were supposed to all fan out and head down there. Suddenly, she heard some footfalls near her door and she started up from her chair, only to slowly sink back down into it.
Billionaire Hearts Club- The Complete Series Collection Page 17
