by Jamie Knight
Really, I could lose my entire practice. And as much as I liked Anne, it just wasn’t worth losing everything for the sake of a date that I wasn’t even sure would go anywhere, as much fun as it had been, and as much as I sure was hoping it would go further.
Just the fact that I was doing this showed me how much I liked her. I was risking everything to see her again.
I found her number online but didn’t get an answer when I called her. It went straight to voicemail after ringing a few times. I left a message and hung up. I figured that I could wait for her to call me back. I didn’t want to seem too clingy or stalker-ish.
In the message, I told her that I’d had lots of fun on our date and that I would love to see her again. All of it was true.
“Ted,” came a snarky, nasally comment from the other side of the room.
It was Dr. Thomas, one of the other doctors in the practice. I clutched my chest, surprised by his presence that seemed to come out of nowhere.
“Jim, hi,” I said, my heart racing. “I didn’t even notice that you were sitting there. You should warn someone next time.”
“What? And miss the chance to scare you half to death? Never.”
He laughed loudly.
“How long have you been sitting here?” I asked, looking around to see if anyone else had overheard my conversation.
“Long enough,” he said, shortly. “What has you all doe eyed and cheery today? You look like you’re up to no good.”
My heart sank to the bottom of my shoes.
Had he heard my conversation?
Was there any way that he could figure out that the person I had been calling was Anne, a patient?
Of course, I didn’t see how he could easily know who I had been trying to get a hold of. But I decided to lie about the purpose of my call, just in case.
“Oh, you know me,” I said, attempting to sound as nonchalant as possible. “I’m always just so happy and eager to help out our patients. As you know, we are a lot of these patient’s first and last chance at having a family. Being a single guy myself, I know what it’s like to want children and not have them for many reasons. I’m smiling because I kind of feel like a superhero when I’m helping my patients. That’s all.”
Jim eyed me suspiciously. He and I had known each other from medical school. It seemed like he had always had some sort of rivalry with me and I really didn’t care for him much myself. But he was very good at what he did and he came highly recommended, so I had put my personal views about him to the side and had decided to work with him.
Now, I was starting to wonder if I had made the right decision.
“You’re lying,” he said, pointing a finger at me. “Your giddiness that rivals the level of a schoolgirl’s has nothing to do with our practice.”
I almost laughed when he called it ours because he often made it a point to tell people that he only worked for the “my” practice and that it wasn’t his responsibility.
“What am I lying about?” I asked, trying to sound as calm as possible.
“I think that you’re lying about being happy because of this practice. I don’t think that you smiling and skipping around here has anything to do with the practice at all. I think that you are happy about the date that you went on last night.”
I froze.
Jim smiled, seeing the color drain from my face.
It was as if he somehow knew.
“Yeah, I bet you thought that nobody would find out about it. But, I did.”
I kicked myself for not being more careful. I guess I did leave myself open for this, having the date in a completely public place where anyone could have seen us. Knowing Jim, he was probably hiding in the bushes somewhere following me. But I wasn’t about to give myself away.
“Who told you about my date?” I asked, starting to get nervous.
“Who needs to tell anyone anything?” he asked me right back.
I just looked at him, blank faced, seriously wondering what he meant, until he continued.
“When I showed up at the restaurant for the reservation that I had made weeks ago and I find out that the restaurant has been reserved for a special event, it was obvious,” he finally said.
Shit.
“Everyone knows what your oversized limo looks like and it was parked right in front of the restaurant,” Jim continued. “I tried to come in anyway, but you must have paid your gang of thugs well to keep me away. Any way, your secret is out. But I have a question. What makes you so high and mighty that you think that you can cancel other peoples’ dinner reservations? You aren’t the only one in town who likes to eat there, you know.”
I decided to just start apologizing, hoping that things wouldn’t go further. I still wasn’t sure how much he knew about the date, and it didn’t seem as if he knew it was with a patient or I was certain he wouldn’t hesitate to dangle that information above my head, as well, but I really didn’t want to risk him reporting me to the ethics board out of spite because he couldn’t have his favorite pasta.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “That was very selfish of me. It won’t happen again. I hope that you can forgive me and that we can put this behind us.”
I waited silently for his answer.
“If you do it again, I’ll surely find some way to report you,” he said gruffly, walking away in a huff. “Doctors should care about other peoples’ time and feelings; we shouldn’t be heartless assholes.”
His words scared me. And I believed him about the reporting threat. If there was some way for Jim to get me in trouble, I knew that he would figure out how.
All it would take was a little sniffing around and, if he found out that my date had been with a patient, that would be all that he would need to have me reported, have my license taken away, and even have my practice shut down.
Jim didn’t care enough about our other patients or doctors to think about anything. If he had the chance to put a nail in my coffin, he would.
I knew that I had to do something.
Fast.
I walked back to the front desk and talked to Sheila.
“Hey, Sheila,” I said, as casually as possible. “I’m a little swamped with all our new patients coming in after the Brooklyn Fertility Clinic closed down and started referring them to us. Is there a way that I can get you to pull up my roster and have a few patients moved over to Amy’s roster?”
“Sure,” she said, typing into the computer. “Any patients in particular or just random ones?”
“Actually, yes, if you could move Anne McAllister, Polly Sims, and Rebecca Jones, that would be great. They’re not high risk patients.”
I just pulled some other names out of thin air so that it wouldn’t seem so suspicious, and I correctly stated that those didn’t have urgent issues. All of them were trying to get pregnant for their first time and didn’t have a history of negative outcomes.
It seemed to work. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for me to have Amy, another doctor, help me with my workload, especially with the easier patients who didn’t require my expertise, since Amy was newer and worked under me.
It was a pretty common practice. And with all of the new patients that we just picked up, it wouldn’t look suspicious. Or at least that was what I had hoped.
This way, if it ever came out that I had taken Anne on a date, at least I could truthfully say that it wasn’t with one of my current patients.
Chapter Ten
Anne
Listening to Judy go on and on about how amazingly her date had gone made me angry, not because I didn’t want her to have a good date, but because days had gone by and I still hadn’t heard from Ted. I felt happy for her, but sad – even enraged – for myself.
“I really think this guy might be the one,” Judy droned on. “He has everything that I’m looking for and he’s just so incredibly sweet.”
Everyone in the office was hanging on to every word as she told her story about what happened on the date.
Everyone except
me.
Sure, I did listen to how he had brought flowers and opened the door for her and took her to a place that had sushi because she had listed it as one of her favorite foods on her Match.com profile. (Oh, how I hated Match.com and how glad I was to have sworn it off forever ages ago – I would never be going back there!)
And I told her that it sounded like a great date, which was true. But I tried to tune her out and focus on my work. I had finally gotten the judge’s decision in the case I had been waiting to hear back on, and it went favorably for my client, but the other side had immediately filed an appeal, so I had to prepare an answer.
I had also managed to help Judy pull off a win in the case she had with Drake Masterson, but that was only a discovery dispute, and now we had to get ready for trial, which she had told Masterson I needed to do with her, because of how we had aced the brief we had done together. He had allowed it, but only because that client paid handsomely and it would bring in more money to the firm if both of us were working on the case. I was glad that Judy and I had impressed him – a notoriously difficult partner to work with, around here – but the good result meant more work on my plate.
You would think I would be so busy at work that I would be able to forget about Ted, but you’d be wrong. I had thought that, myself – maybe self consciously I was burying myself in work as a coping mechanism, which was something that was a habit of mine – but I was definitely wrong.
I tried not to focus on Judy’s minute-by-minute retelling of the date she had gone on, so that I didn’t snap at her out of selfishness. But our co-workers were a different story. All of them were interested in Judy’s love life and of course I always wanted to be a supportive friend, but I wasn’t in the mood for it today.
“Men are pigs,” I said, almost spitting my words as I spoke.
I had finally had enough of hearing about how great some of them could be. Thanks to our colleagues’ interest in the subject matter, Judy had been droning on for over half an hour and I guess I just couldn’t take it anymore.
“Whoa, what’s got your panties in a bunch?” asked Judy.
“Nothing,” I told her, and got up and left the room before I made even more of an ass out of myself in front of my co-workers.
I knew it wasn’t Judy’s fault. She was entitled to be happy about a good date, and to tell everyone who wanted to listen. I just couldn’t one of those people right now.
I went to the gym that is on the twentieth floor of our office building and tried to get my frustration out by hitting the punching bag and running on the treadmill. After a shower, I returned to work, but first I stopped by Judy’s office on my way back to mine.
She was the only one in there now, and everyone else had gone back to work. I wasn’t sure if it was because of my outburst, or if they had finally tired of hearing the details, or maybe they just didn’t want to get in trouble for not working enough, which would be a reasonable assumption to make, but I was still a bit surprised, because I thought they would hang on her every word, forever.
“Hey Judy,” I told her, knocking softly on her door. “I’m sorry about earlier. I was out of line. I meant what I said about being happy that you had a good date.”
“No problem, girl,” she said, with a shrug and a smile. “I get the frustration. You’ve told me you swore off dating and I totally get it. I should have thought better about bragging about my own great date when you are no longer going on them.”
“Well, I know I said that…” I began, and she winked at me and said, “Okay, Missy. Your turn to dish!”
“I didn’t mean to break my promise to stop dating but everything happened so fast. I went out with this…”
I trailed off, not wanting to admit the name or circumstances, since it was all so crazy and I really should have known better. But then, after seeing the patient yet curious look on Judy’s face, I continued.
“…this guy, the other night, and he promised me that he would call me. Now, here we are a few days later and still no call. Don’t be stupid and fall for a line from a guy like I did. I should have known that he was too good to be true. Carriage rides and shutting down restaurants. Ha. I’m telling you, Judy. Don’t get your hopes up too high because these guys will make you think that they are perfect and will be lying the whole time. Just don’t trust them.”
Judy raised her eyebrows behind me, and I turn around to see that some of our looky-loo colleagues had gathered back around, to hear the dirt on my date this time.
But they all fell silent and everyone seemed to scatter after my last comment. Or perhaps it was because I was shooting them a death glare, and so was Judy.
Some of them looked at each other with raised eyebrows and said, “Carriage rides?” as they all dispersed and went back to their own offices or cubicles.
Oops.
I guess when I said “carriage rides,” they failed to see what the problem was.
I realized I had no right to be complaining after the perfect date, but I was just mad that he hadn’t called so that we could go on another date as he’d promised.
Judy motioned me over to a client chair on the side of her desk, which was scattered with briefs, as, unlike me, she was not a very organized person – she was more of a creative genius who worked on the fly – and told me to sit down.
First, I closed her office door, so that no one else could eavesdrop again. I guess no one at this firm had any real work to do. Not that I could talk, since here I was, well, talking to Judy instead of working. It wasn’t like me, but I had to get this off my chest.
I had been trying to keep myself busy with work so that I could distract my mind from the deep disappointment that I felt at being lied to and used. But clearly I needed to vent and face my feelings.
“First, you gotta tell me who this guy is,” she said, as if she somehow knew. I mean, Judy was a smart woman and I’m sure she realized this wasn’t just any run of the mill guy. “You swore off dating but broke that commitment to yourself for this guy – and I noticed your hesitancy to tell me who he is – so he must be something special. Some big shot, I’m guessing.”
I just looked at her for a minute, not sure if I should say anything.
“Is he a professional athlete?” she asked, after a few second passed and I had remained silent.
At this, I scrunched up my nose.
I had always hated sports. Gym was my least favorite subject, not only because the other girls teased me in the locker room for being overweight, but also because I had absolutely no hand-eye coordination. When we played dodge ball, I tried to get hit first so that I could just sit back down on the bench.
“A politician?” she asked. “Don’t tell me he’s married. What a scandal. You’d be like his secret mistress but it would come out down the road and be blasted all over the media. It’s a good thing he isn’t calling you back.”
“No,” I laughed, thinking it funny how Judy’s imagination could run away with her. “I would never be with a married man.”
“So, who is it?” she asked again. “Out with it. Please! I’m dying to know.”
“You’re never going to guess,” I told her.
“That much has been made clear. So just tell me.”
“Okay,” I told her, with a resigned sigh. “But you’re going to be very surprised.”
Her eyes were practically bugging out of her head by this point, and I decided to put her out of her misery by letting it out.
“It’s, um, Ted Roberts,” I told her.
Her face looked confused, as if she was trying to think of who that was. Then it lit up as if a lightbulb had gone off.
“The one from the article I sent you?” she exclaimed.
“Yep, that one,” I told her, and I couldn’t help but smile at how crazy it was, even though I knew it should never have happened.
“Woah, nice taste!” she said. “He’s absolutely loaded!”
“I know,” I told her. “With a face like a model’s. And you should see
his six pack abs…”
“Woah!” she exclaimed again. “So you… did everything with him?”
“Yes,” I said, my cheeks reddening.
“Good job!” she said, but I felt a bit embarrassed.
“I know I shouldn’t have hooked up with my fertility doctor, but it just seemed like there was such a chemistry between us. It seemed like it was meant to be, as silly as that sounds,” I admitted. “I just don’t understand why he hasn’t called, because I think he felt the connection too. But I guess he really is just a player, and I was naïve to think otherwise.”
“Well, I know you wouldn’t have done it if it didn’t feel right. There must really be something there for you to un-swear off dating, and especially in this kind of circumstance. You know, this might be a completely stupid question, but have you tried calling him?” asked Judy.
“Calling him?” I asked, shocked by the question. “Calling him and saying what? ‘Why did you lie and say that you were going to call me?’ What am I calling him for? That just seems really unladylike and needy.”
“Oh, stop it,” said Judy, waving a hand in my direction. “It’s not the 1950s, you know. In our day and age, it’s totally fine for the woman to make the first move.”
I thought that she was crazy. After making such a huge gesture and considering the fact that I had lost my virginity to him, calling him wouldn't be making the first move.
But it was time to make a follow-up appointment at the clinic and that would be a good excuse to see him. I could ask him then why he hadn’t called me. I wondered if it would be better to wait before or after the fertilization attempt to give him the third degree.
“I’ll call him,” I told Judy.
It took me a few more minutes to finally work up enough nerve to call the clinic. When I did, I was shocked to learn that my file – and my care – had been transferred to another doctor.
“Are you sure?” I asked the receptionist.
