“I mean, does she think that’s a good look for her? She’s knows she’s going to be on TV, right?”
“She should’ve just taken this week off. No one asked for her to rush back if she was hurt.”
“I heard they wrote it into the sketch so she would still be on the show. I don’t know why they encourage her so much.”
Sandy sat there in complete shock at what she heard. She recognized the voices – Brent and one of the show’s writers, Stuart. Brent was the sort of person who liked to stir the pot, but it surprised her to hear one of the writers bad-mouthing her. Had she really made a mistake getting back to work as soon as she could? Her friends encouraged her because they liked having her on the show with them, but it seemed not everyone did…
She bit her lip, willing herself not to cry or make a scene. It would be wise to pretend I didn’t overhear what they said, she thought. Carry on like usual, because it doesn’t matter what they think.
Except it mattered what Stuart thought. As a writer, he got to decide which scenes worked and which scenes needed to be reworked or cut out altogether. And Sandy had a real fear he was going to decide to trim down her sketches for the week because… because she looked like she’d been injured. She never thought a comedy writer would care so much about looks!
Soon after this disheartening event, the stage managers announced it was time for everyone to get on the main stage for their blocking run-through. Sandy left her dressing room with less of a bounce in her step than when she first entered it. She felt like one of those kids in the movies who comes back to school with a cast, hoping her classmates might sign it, only for the bully to write something hurtful in big, black letters across it. She clenched her jaw. The difference, of course, was she had the upper-hand. No one knew she’d heard what she heard. She had the power to ignore it and go ahead and prove them wrong.
She also had an ace in her back pocket in the form of a business card to a certain doctor’s clinic.
The rehearsal went well without any real hitches. The director also seemed a bit surprised to see her there, as if she would just not turn up for the show. “I wouldn’t miss being here for the world,” Sandy assured him. “And, if I had to miss a show, do you really think I wouldn’t call to tell you so? Come on now. I’ve never even been late, unlike some people.”
She cast a quick glance in Brent’s direction and a few of her cast mates laughed. He shot a look back at her, but then he laughed along with everyone else.
“Well, I guess as long as you feel ready,” the director said.
“I do,” Sandy said with a determined nod.
Having her wrist in a cast wouldn’t be too big of a deal for her to manage, but she knew more people would talk about her face. Even if she saw Dr. Lucas tomorrow, her face would still be bruised and swollen… In fact, she’d be even more noticeably hurt if she saw him tomorrow. If this gets me attention in the press, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing, she thought. Especially if it’s more positive than negative, like it is with my friends and cast mates here…
She hated to admit it, but a rhinoplasty seemed like the best way to get people to stop focusing on her appearance. And there was a way for her to get it done without having to miss work and become even more conspicuous.
As soon as she got home from work in the early evening, Sandy sat down and called the number on the card. She wasn’t surprised to find the clinic was closed. It wasn’t an emergency room, so why would it be open at all hours? She cleared her throat and left a good message for Craig Lucas’s receptionist. “Hello, my name is Sandra Davenport. I’d like to schedule an appointment for Monday, the earlier the better.”
She could have the surgery done and then get back to work. Sure, she would look rough again in rehearsals, and probably on the show, but she had a plan to make things better. When she looked at her reflection in her bathroom mirror, she saw the bump on the bridge of her nose. I look like the Wicked Witch of the West, she thought, gingerly touching the bump in the hopes of it going away on its own, as if it was full of air.
The following morning, Sandy awoke to her cell phone’s ringtone. It was an unknown caller, but she suspected she actually knew who it was, so she answered. “Hello?”
“Hi, this is Christy from Dr. Lucas’s clinic,” a cheery female voice said. “You left a message about making an appointment. The doctor is available to see you for a consultation at one pm or four fourty-five pm. If you come in at one, he actually has a window to perform the procedure right afterwards.”
Sandy sat up in bed. It was time for her to choose a time for plastic surgery. She was feeling nervous about it now. It was going to be real and she wouldn’t be able to take it back.
“One pm would be great,” she said even as her brain told her to take the latest time available. I should grab the bull by the horns and just get it over with, she thought. Even if it’s scary and even if it doesn’t help as much as I want it to.
She was comforted in the knowledge that she already knew Craig a little. It was him who’d gotten her into this mess, so he would be the one to hopefully get her out of it.
Chapter Seven
Craig was quite pleased when he looked at the sheet of upcoming appointments and saw Sandy Davenport’s name there. He hadn’t been trying to pressure her into getting a rhinoplasty, but he was relieved to see she’d taken his suggestion. He was confident he could make her nose look just like it used to, or perhaps even a little better if she asked him to. He only wished he’d had the chance to talk to her over the phone when she called rather than her talking to his administrative assistant. Still, Craig looked forward to seeing Sandy again.
The day of Sandy’s slated surgery arrived and Craig made sure to look his best even though his suit was under his white lab coat and she was going to be under anesthesia anyway. The surgery would end and then she might see him… It never hurts to look your best, he thought, smiling a little just thinking about seeing her again.
His nurse Kenitha went out and called for Miss Davenport and then there she was in Craig’s office, looking as beautiful and scared as he remembered from the night he first saw her. His heart immediately went out to her. “Hello again, Miss Davenport,” he said to her, taking a seat on a blue-cushioned stool next to her chair. “How’ve you been?”
She looked at him with sadness in her blue eyes, smiling at him vaguely. “I’ve been better,” she said. “People at work have been real jerks to me about the healing process and my changed appearance.”
Craig frowned slightly. “I’m sorry to hear that. Well, lucky for you, you’re in the right place. What I think the goal is in your case – and correct me if I’m wrong – is you want your nose to look the way it did before the accident, i.e. no bump on the bridge, no noticeable change in the shape. So what I’m going to do first is to have some pictures taken of your face and then we’re going to play around a little with them on the computer until we’ve got your look exactly how you expect it. And then we’ll go from there, all right? So no needles or scalpels will touch you until you’re satisfied with the end goal.”
Sandy’s smile became a fraction more genuine. “Okay,” she agreed, nodding her head. He could tell she was nervous, but it was perfectly normal to be nervous. Surgery was a big deal; Craig understood.
He stood up from the stool and carefully wheeled it out of the way, towards the little desk in the room. He picked up a camera and took some pictures of Sandy’s nose from several angles, so they could have a clear idea of what she would look like after the surgery. “This will help keep our expectations clear,” he told her with a smile.
He plugged the camera into the laptop on the small desk and uploaded the images onto his computer so he could edit them. Sandy sat up a bit in her chair, watching in fascination as he moved the pointer around her nose and worked his digital magic. “You can make the bridge of my nose that straight?” she asked him, amazed. “It’s never been so perfect.”
Craig chuckled and nodde
d. “I can, if you want me to. It will change your appearance more than I initially planned, but if it’s what you want…”
Sandy raised her eyebrows, thinking it over. “I guess I should just get it fixed back to the way it used to be,” she said after a few moments. “I don’t want to go too crazy. How much is this going to cost anyway?”
He smiled at her. “For you, I’m doing it pro bono. You don’t have to pay me anything. It’s my brother’s fault, so what kind of monster would I be…?”
She stared at him. “You’re serious?”
Craig nodded. “Very. Think of this as my way of trying to make it up to you. I know I can’t take it all back, but I can at least make you look like there was never an accident.”
Sandy leaned back in her chair, completely surprised by this. She bit her lip a bit and he could see her chin slightly quivering. He hoped she wasn’t going to start crying. It would be awfully hard to perform surgery on her nose if it was runny…
“Thank you,” she said to him once she’d composed herself enough to speak.
“Of course,” Craig said, still smiling at her. “Did you come with someone who can take you home and make sure you’re okay with the anesthesia?”
Sandy nodded. “Yeah, my friend Trish is in the waiting room. She was the one who told me I should take you up on your offer. She might come back here for herself if this goes well.” She laughed softly.
“It’ll go well,” he assured her.
She relaxed in her chair and his nurse gave her some local anesthetic so she’d be nice and numb for the surgery. Craig made sure to carefully look over the photos of her nose on his laptop again, so he could remember exactly what she expected. Her nose wasn’t going to look like it did in the altered photos for a while as it was a healing process, but overtime with any luck she’d be able to start seeing the results. Craig hoped she wouldn’t rush back into his office a year from now, asking for him to fix it. He’d never had someone complain about his work before, but since he’d grown so fond of her, he worried he’d somehow mess things up.
He carefully worked to move things around inside her nose, getting her bones and cartilage set in the way they were supposed to be, not just in a way that allowed her to breathe like the doctor at the hospital had done. This surgery was more for Sandy’s emotional and psychological well-being than for any physiological reason. Craig was sure she was glad to be able to breathe after the broken nose, but it didn’t mean she was happy with her altered appearance. He was in the business of making people look the way they wanted to look, so he was sure he would do a good job.
About two and a half hours later, Craig set his tools down and admired his work. Sandy’s nose appeared to be back to the way she wanted. Of course, it was going to swell for a long time and it was going to have to be bandaged and set with a splint again, but the end result would be well worth it all. “All done,” he informed her, patting her gently on the shoulder. “You did a great job.”
“You did a great job,” Sandy said, pointing at him and smiling. She was still slightly loopy from the IV twilight sedation she’d been given, but she wasn’t going to be as loopy as she could have been if they’d given her traditional general anesthesia.
She’s lucky that it was only her nose, he thought. He felt lucky as well because Donnie could have really wracked her up in the accident. Craig wouldn’t have been able to live with himself if anything more serious had happened to her.
He helped her out of the chair and she took his arm as he slowly walked her back out into the waiting room. A tall and flashy young woman stood up immediately and came over to Sandy. “Aww, look at you!” she said. “You look… like you did a week ago.” She laughed a bit and Craig was relieved when Sandy laughed as well.
“What can I say? I’m addicted to gauze,” she quipped.
Now that Sandy was safely with her friend, Craig had to get back to work even though he really didn’t want to. He told himself to switch off the part of his brain related to Sandy and focus for the remainder of the workday. There’d be plenty of opportunities for him to think about her later.
He worked hard for the rest of the day and then took his leave to go meet his friends at The Executive. As he was riding in his hired car through traffic, Craig noticed some greeting cards in a shop window and asked his driver to stop. I don’t know her address, but I’m sure my receptionist took it down when she made the appointment, he thought. He got out of the car and walked into the shop. It was a general store akin to CVS but not. The card selection didn’t disappoint, which was a relief because he often opined the demise of Hallmark stores. Greeting cards could actually be found in a lot of places, he just didn’t often have a reason to purchase one.
He waffled back and forth between a ‘Get Well Soon’ card and a ‘Thinking of You’ card before finally deciding the ‘Get Well’ card was more appropriate given the circumstances. Then, bag in hand, Craig went back into the car and rode the rest of the way to his social club.
“Oh, did you bring me a present?” Tim jokingly asked him.
Craig grinned and shook his head, sitting down in the chair left vacant for him. “Not this time.”
“He’s buying his girlfriend greeting cards now,” Doug said, opening his mouth in pretend shock. “An expensive nose job by one of the best plastic surgeons in the country wasn’t enough for her?”
Craig’s friends all smiled at him. He knew they were just teasing him. “As a matter of fact, I gave it to her for free,” he told them. “I wasn’t going to make her spend a cent on a problem I caused.”
“Well, to be fair, you didn’t cause it,” Ashton pointed out. “Your brother did.”
That was true, but Craig didn’t want to blame Donnie too much either. “I’m just grateful it’s all going to be okay now. It could have been a lot worse.”
They ordered drinks when the waiter came by and they all clinked their glasses together as soon as they had them.
“So are you going to try to see her again?” Tim asked. “Or is it a farewell card in the bag?” Tim looked at him as if to say he already knew the answer.
Craig shook his head and then realized his gesture could be misread, so he turned it into an awkward sort of nod. “It’s a ‘Get Well Soon’ card. I’m hoping she might want to see me again, once she’s healed and things have gone back to normal for her. I know she’s feeling pressure from her job. The poor girl even said they made fun of her there.”
His friends frowned now. “What line of work is she in again?” Doug asked.
“She’s a comedian. Well, an actress but in comedy,” Craig said. “I don’t know where I’ve seen her though. There are so many actors and theaters around…”
His friends drank their drinks and ate the hor d’oeuvres that arrived next, deep in thought. Craig was convinced they had better things to concern themselves with than the happiness of Miss Davenport. “I guess anything can be fuel for a comedian,” Ashton said after some time.
Craig nodded. “I just hope this surgery will help her feel normal again. I know she’s not thrilled to have to take time off from work, but it’s for the best.”
“And you said she was pretty,” Tim said. “So it’s not like she came in looking like Quasimodo or anything.” He tisked and shook his head. “Show business types, I swear.”
“I know,” Craig said. “I was so taken aback when she told me about what happened.”
He decided the subject should be dropped now. He didn’t wish to hog the spotlight when his friends all had exciting lives to talk about. He also didn’t want to get too ahead of himself, talking about seeing her again, seeing as it entirely depended on her reaction to the card he was going to send her.
As soon as he got home to his penthouse apartment later in the evening, Craig went to his desk in his office and brought out the greeting card. He grabbed a pen, tapping one end of it against his lips as he looked down at the blank paper and thought about what to say.
Dear Sandy,
I hope you think I can be your friend now. I also hope you’re recovering comfortably from your surgery. Please give me a call if you need anything else or have any questions or concerns now you’re in the healing stage.
If it’s not too weird or uncomfortable for you, I would like to see you sometime outside of a hospital or a clinic. You don’t have to answer right away. I know the healing process takes time and I wouldn’t dream of making you come out with me before you feel ready. I just know I haven’t been able to get you off of my mind.
Get well soon & show those coworkers what for!
All the best,
Craig
He went to work the next morning with the card in hand and asked his receptionist for Sandy’s address.
“I didn’t take down her address because she wasn’t billed, sir,” she told him.
Oh darn. That makes sense. “May I have her number then? Thank you.” His receptionist hastily wrote down the number from her computer screen and handed it over to him. Craig went into his office and sat down at his desk with both the number and the card in front of him. He had time to make a call before his first clients came in, but now he was wondering if he should ask for her address or just ask her out over the phone. He didn’t want to rush things…
“Hi, Sandy?” he asked into the phone as soon as she answered. “This is Craig – Dr. Lucas. How are you?”
“Hi,” she said, sounding startled. “I’m doing okay. Resting for the most part. How are you?”
It was nice of her to ask; most people didn’t ask doctors how they were doing. “I’m doing well, thanks for asking,” he said. “I don’t mean to bother you, but I was hoping I could have your address. I have something to send along to you.”
He knew how weird it was to be sending something to a patient. She probably assumed he’d be sending her ads now. How could she know that he thought of her as more than just another of his patients?
Billionaire Hearts Club- The Complete Series Collection Page 18
