Exquisite

by Ella Frank

  “Okay. You’re an idiot. For someone who is so smart, you, my friend, are an idiot.” Standing, Shelly smoothed her palms down her skirt. “Now. I’m going to get to work and you and I will continue this enlightening discussion later.”

  “No we won’t.”

  Shelly turned when she got to the door. “Yes we will, Dr. O’Donnell. See? You can’t get mad at me. I know your last name,” she said, sticking her tongue out like a ten-year-old as she ran out the door.

  Lena sat fuming at her friend’s back and cursing the fact that Shelly was exactly right. Then when those thoughts started to annoy her she called out, “Brandy!”

  Mason walked into the restaurant wearing dark blue designer jeans and a deep purple shirt. He had a bagel in his mouth and a tray of coffees in his hand. He made his way through the dining room, smiled at the cleaning crew, and then pushed his way past the double doors into the kitchen. He put the coffees down and waved at Wendy, who once again had her cell glued to her ear.

  Making his way down to the back fridge, he found Rachel in her favorite jeans, the ones that sported zippers all over the pockets, and a hot pink hoodie, taking inventory of the stock. Before he even said ‘hi,’ she spoke.

  “So come on, confess. How’d you run off the pantsuit in under thirty minutes?”

  She put the pencil behind her ear and turned to face him. Mason grinned and raised an eyebrow.

  “Pantsuit?”

  She nodded. “That’s what I’m calling her until I know otherwise.”

  “Ah ha.” He took a seat on a crate inside the large walk-in fridge, stretching his jeans-clad legs out in front of him as he leaned against the wall. “She got mad because I didn’t know her last name.”

  “Ha! I knew it. Come on, Mase, you should know better.”

  “I know. But in my own defense, she never stopped lobbing insults at me long enough to ask.” Rachel stared down at him as she squeezed a tomato gently.

  “So why on earth did you ask her out? It’s not like she’s exactly your type.”

  Mason grimaced. “I have a type?”

  “Yeah, stupid and stupider.”

  “That’s not nice.”

  “Well, it’s true. I never understood why you date those bimbos. You’re so much more than that.” She turned back to count the boxes of peaches for tonight. “I had hope for this one, Mason. You let me down.”

  Mason stood up and brushed his butt with his hands. “I’m so sorry to disappoint you.” He paused on his way out, thinking back to Lena’s comment about unintelligent women. “Hey? Why would she say there are thirty-three dumb women in Chicago?”

  Rachel snorted a very unfeminine laugh and turned to face him, twirling a pencil in her fingers.

  “Now I know I like her. She Googled you. That’s mentioned in an interview on the net.”

  “Dr. O’Donnell, there’s a patient out in the waiting room and his mother is asking to speak to you.”

  Lena looked at Sam, one of the nurses, who’d come to get her from exam room one. She’d been putting an order in for a patient who’d broken her toe while making a not-so-graceful landing from a piggyback ride. The little toe had swollen up so much that she couldn’t put a shoe on it. Finishing up the X-ray order, she hit ‘send’ and made her way down the walkway to the front waiting area. Lena looked at Brandy and she pointed out a young lady with an infant boy on her lap screaming his head off. Lena’s heart melted, knowing the baby didn’t understand what was wrong with him. It always made her wonder what they would tell her if they could. Considering that screaming loudly was how she felt inside, she couldn’t really blame him for making such a disturbance. Pushing her hands into her lab coat pockets, she walked over to the young mother.

  “Oh, Doctor,” she said, rocking the baby and gently cooing as she stood. “Thank you for coming out to see me.”

  “That’s no problem Miss—?”

  “Oh. I’m sorry, I’m Mrs. Tipton, and this here is Robbie.”

  Lena bent down and smiled at the screaming child. Reaching out, she placed her palm on his forehead and frowned. The little guy was burning up.

  “What seems to be the problem with little Robbie here?”

  “He’s been crying like this for the past eight hours. Finally when nothing, not Tylenol or a lukewarm bath would calm him down, I decided to bring him in and I’ve been waiting and waiting and he gets louder and—”

  Lena grinned quickly before it then fell away. “Yes, I can see he has a loud voice, don’t you, little man? Anyway, let’s get him into a room right away and see what he’s trying to tell us.”

  Mrs. Tipton had tears welling in her eyes and Lena felt her heart clench. “It’s okay. We’ll find out what’s wrong with your little guy.”

  “Thank you,” Mrs. Tipton whispered, clutching him tighter.

  Lena turned around and faced Sam. “Put them in exam room two. I’ll be in there in just a second.”

  Mason was in the process of interviewing a new dining room hostess. Cindy, his head girl up front, had told him her boyfriend was moving to London and had asked her to go and there you have it, he was down a hostess.

  He was seated in his office—or as he now referred to it, the scene of the crime’—and his mind kept wandering back to Lena. Had he done the right thing kicking her out? He’d gone into the date knowing she was prickly, grouchy, and more guarded than a castle under a full-blown attack. However, somewhere in the middle of flinging insults, he’d started feel the need to make her smile. The doctor was absolutely breathtaking when she smiled. It completely changed her appearance; that smile added softness to all that smart. He had recognized from the beginning she was smart. The fact she was a doctor was the first clue but her quick wit and the humor that lurked just beneath the surface made her a beautiful challenge that he wasn’t sure he should have let go of.

  She’d been mean and completely insulting but she fascinated him more than anyone he could think of did and he wanted to be under that pantsuit so bad he could feel it. What would it be like to have her melt for him? There was a small knock on the door and a petite redhead poked her head around the door, having just arrived for her interview.

  “Mr. Langley?”

  Mason motioned for her to come in and decided, then and there, that before the day was over he would know Lena’s last name and he would hear her call him ‘Langley’ again.

  Twelve long hours later, Robert Tipton had been admitted to the hospital. They couldn’t get young Robbie’s fever down and after running all the blood work and labs under the sun, some answers had finally appeared. Lena gritted her teeth, hating this part of her job. She walked into the small room where Mrs. Tipton sat next to a window with Robbie finally asleep, and stopped at the foot of the cot. Mrs. Tipton looked at her and Lena could see the dark rings around her eyes and knew they were only going to get worse in the following weeks and months.

  “Mrs. Tipton.”

  “Please call me Becky,” she replied as she stood and moved closer.

  Lena nodded then made a move toward her. She stopped and looked back at little Robbie, and then turned to his mother. “Is there someone who can come down here and be with you?”

  Automatically she saw Becky’s body tense up and she bit her lip to keep it from trembling.

  “His father. He’s been at work today and was going to come by if he needed to. I just thought he had an ear infection,” she said, and then sniffled as a tear leaked down her eye. “So I told him not to bo-th-ther.” Pausing, she looked from Robbie and then back to Lena. “Should I call him?”

  Lena reached out and took her hand. “Yes, you really should.”

  Becky gasped softly and sat down on the chair almost as though her legs wouldn’t hold her, dropping Lena’s hand. Lena squatted down and reached out, squeezing Becky’s fingers tightly because she knew the news she was about to deliver was going to be like a knife to the gut.

  “Robbie’s blood tests came back with a very high white blood cell cou
nt and he’s also suffering from anemia. That added to the fever and the fact you told us he’s been sick a lot over the past few months all indicates to me a high chance of childhood leukemia.”

  Becky sobbed openly now. Lena forged on, knowing it wouldn’t get easier. “I’ve sent a request to have the peds oncologist come up here and talk to you about what needs to happen from here, but Becky, I think you need to call your husband.”

  She nodded, looking up at Lena through glassy wet eyes. “Okay. Thank you, Dr. O’Donnell.”

  Lena shook her head. “Don’t thank me for that news. Becky,” she said and paused, standing tall. “You thank me when he’s well enough to go home and we’re victorious because we found it early, you hear me?”

  Becky nodded, reaching for her cell phone as Lena stepped back and walked to the door. Leaving the room and taking a deep breath, she gave Becky some privacy. Standing on the other side of the closed door, she looked up at the ceiling and asked softly, “Why are you so greedy? Why, when they’re so young?”

  When it was apparent there would be no answer, she pushed off the door and made her way back to her office.

  Sitting down in her chair, Lena turned to face the window and stared out at the night sky. It was a beautiful clear night tonight. She often thought to herself, what right do I have even to enjoy such a beautiful night after all that I’ve done? Today being no different, telling a mother her child was going to have to fight for his little life for the next few years, and then having that mother thank her? No, something was terribly wrong with that picture. Not to mention how she felt about her sister Carly. Why had she been allowed to go on, be successful, and live out life when she’d been responsible for driving the car that had ended Carly’s? Memories aren’t your friends—just cruel reminders of your past and what you need to make up for before you die. The phone jostled her out of her thoughts. She turned back to her desk and picked it up.

  “Dr. O’Donnell.”

  “Hello, dear,” she heard her mother say over the phone. Lena winced and then picked up the Post-it notes again for the third time today, hoping to finally sort through them.

  “Hi Mom. How are you?”

  “We’re good, love. How are you doing?” she asked almost warily at the other end of the phone.

  “I’m okay. I just had a really tough day today, but other than that I’m doing okay.”

  “Lena, honey,” her mother said and paused. “Did you eat something healthy today?”

  Lena thought back to what she ate then smiled as she saw a telephone message from Shelly.

  Memo:

  We’re not done yet. Ext 531

  “Ahh, I had some tomato soup.”

  “That’s it? In how many hours?”

  Lena sighed deeply. Her mother the meddler. “In about thirteen hours.”

  “Magdalena O’Donnell, please look after yourself,” her mother told her, sounding concerned.

  Lena smiled and asked softly, “Is that why you called? To grumble at me?”

  “No I called to see if—”

  “Yes, I got the flowers,” she answered quickly, but instead of the heart-piercing pain she expected to feel, she felt just a tingle of warmth thinking of the deliveryman. Pushing that aside, she noticed one yellow Post-it stuck to the bottom of a folder and pulled it out.

  “I didn’t go Mom. I just can’t bear to think of her in the cold ground. Perhaps I’ll go in the summer.”

  She heard her mother sigh and then say softly, “You’ve been saying that for the past nine summers, my girl. You’ll go when you’re ready, I suppose.”

  “And you’ll keep trying to find out when that is.”

  “Your father and I love you, Lena.”

  She swallowed back tears and squeezed her eyes tight. “I know, Mom, I know.”

  “All right, I’ll let you go. Please eat something,” her mother reiterated.

  “Will do,” she replied, rocking forward on her chair to place the phone back. Glancing down, she opened her fist to glance at the yellow Post-it that had been stuck to it.

  Memo:

  Dr. O’Donnell,

  It’s amazing what one can find out on Google.

  Langley.

  And just like that, Lena found herself smiling. Smug bastard.

  Chapter Six

  Friday night came around more quickly than Lena expected. Although her days were long, she was finding they were flying by, and before she knew it, Shelly was calling her to meet up at O’Malley’s, a small Irish pub just down the street from the hospital. Picking up her bag, she checked her makeup in the small mirror by the door and walked out. It was nice out tonight and as she walked briskly down the sidewalk, she could feel her cheeks redden from the slight exertion. She pulled her black mid-thigh coat tight and tied it around the waist as she walked, tucking her silk blue chiffon scarf into the neckline, all the while hustling it through the crowds as she headed toward O’Malley’s. When she got there around nine p.m., the pub was jammed with locals. They had a house band playing tonight and it was clear everyone was ready for the weekend. Lena scanned the crowd and found Shelly sitting by the bar laughing with Liam, the owner. She pushed her way through the sea of people to the spot that was saved and vacant for her, and then hitched herself onto the stool.

  “Well, look who’s here. How you doing tonight, young Maggie?” Liam asked with his usual warm smile.

  Lena smiled at the older man. “It’s been a long week but I’m happy to be here about to drink one of your fine ales.”

  “Is that right?”

  Smiling Lena nodded. “That’s right. Start me off with the usual, please, Liam.”

  He winked at her and squeezed Shelly’s hand before walking down to the end of the bar. Shelly turned to her, all smiles, and asked, “So how are you tonight, Maggie?”

  Rolling her eyes at her friend, Lena reached out for some of the nuts in front of her. “Don’t call me that. I only let him do it because he is sweet and old.”

  “And Irish!” she heard Liam yell from down the bar in an over-the-top, completely exaggerated Irish accent.

  Grinning, she crunched down on some peanuts and nodded once. “Yes, and Irish.”

  Shelly laughed and then picked up her martini, taking a sip before putting it back down. “Really though, how was your week?”

  “Pretty awful. I had the lovely task of telling a lady her child has leukemia.”

  Shelly grimaced and sighed. “See, that right there is exactly why I couldn’t work with children.”

  Lena reached forward for some more nuts and was about to pop them in her mouth when she heard Shelly say softly, “Holy shit.”

  Frowning at her friend, Lena turned to look behind her and asked, “What?”

  That question was answered the minute her eyes landed on the front door of the pub, right where Mason Langley was standing. Lena spun back around on her chair and hissed at Shelly. “What’s he doing here?”

  Picking up her drink, Shelly took a quick sip. “How am I supposed to know?”

  “Don’t play that innocent shit with me. It won’t work. How would he know to come here?”

  Shelly placed her glass down and admitted softly, “He called me.”

  Lena’s mouth fell open and she sat staring at her friend with nothing to say. Then she gathered her wits and asked softly, “What do you mean he called you? For a date?”

  Looking appalled, Shelly shook her head. “No! He called and asked for your number and when I told him no, he may have asked me to get you to meet him here tonight. I didn’t think he would actually show,” she finished lamely.

  Groaning, Lena shook her head and took a gulp from the beer Liam had left in front of her. She had just started to accept the fact that maybe, just maybe, she’d been a little more obnoxious the other night than she had intended and she’d been leaning toward going back and apologizing to Mason. It would have also been a good excuse to see him again, but to be ambushed? Now that was something she was not ready fo
r. Just as she was trying to think of a good excuse to get up and leave, without killing her friend, she noticed Shelly’s eyes widen as she turned toward her and suddenly Lena could feel the warmth of somebody, him, right behind her.

  Mason had known Lena was going to be mad. When he’d called Dr. Shelly Monroe, she’d warned him how annoyed Lena would be. Even from across the room he could almost see steam coming out her ears. It had been three days since he’d called and left the message for her about Googling her last name and he hadn’t been able to get her out of his head. He didn’t know what that said about him but something about her had crawled under his skin and refused to go away. He pushed through the crowd and stopped behind her. He watched as she physically stiffened and when it was clear that she wasn’t about to turn around, he leaned over right by her ear.

  “It’s so nice to see you again, Dr. O’Donnell.” He saw Shelly stifle a giggle and straightened up, winking at her. “You too, Dr. Monroe.”

  “Oh, call me Shelly.”

  He heard Lena sigh, so he turned and signaled the bartender down. He took the stool next to her and rested an elbow on the bar top. “So this is a nice surprise.”

  Finally, she turned to face him and when their knees bumped, she quickly shifted back. “It’s hardly a surprise when you’re stalking me,” she stated bluntly.

  Instead of acting offended, he looked at Liam. “I’ll have a Guinness, please.”

  When Mason turned back, he noticed she was glaring right at him. Her green eyes were twinkling under the light, and although she was in fact glaring at him, she didn’t seem as pissed off as usual. “It was the only way I knew you’d see me.”

  “By ambushing me?” she asked incredulously.

  “By going through your friend,” he countered. “Thanks for that, Shelly.”

  Shelly took that moment to stand. “Ahh, you can leave me out of this, thanks. I’m going to go over . . .” She waved behind her at nothing. “There for a bit.”

  Lena shook her head. “Shelly. I’m revoking your friend card.”