by Judy Baer
“Because it’s the right thing to do.”
“You are the perfect example of living the ‘turn the other cheek’ philosophy.”
“It’s more than a philosophy, it’s scriptural.”
“See why we should be together? You keep me on the straight and narrow.” He flashed another of those devastating smiles of his at me and wound his fingers around mine as my hand rested on the table.
“You are incorrigible. Now quit playing with my mind or I’ll get my pad Thai to go.”
“No, you won’t. Things are just getting interesting.” His dark eyes began to sparkle.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“He’s going to be seated next to us.”
There goes the neighborhood.
Dr. Reynolds didn’t look any happier to see us than I was to see him.
Tony, however, appeared delighted.
“Will this do?” Louie asked the doctor, gesturing toward a narrow table only three feet from ours.
Dr. Reynolds glanced around the room, searching for another empty spot, but the room was full to overflowing. “Sure. Fine.”
The tables are so close that a private conversation is virtually impossible. Reynolds might as well be sitting at our table, I realized. Tony caught my eye and winked. My fingers twitched, aching to be around his neck, squeezing tightly.
Dr. Reynolds nodded briefly, acknowledging our presence. He’d likely just done rounds, and was dressed in camel trousers and a crisp navy jacket on which no lint would dare to land. His white shirt was heavy on starch and his tie a bit of silk art. Louie’s Bamboo Hut didn’t see much of this.
“Evening, sir,” Tony said politely. “I’m Tony DeMatteo and this is Molly Cassidy….”
“Yes, I know.” He smiled faintly, as if Tony should have expected that he’d have the names of everyone on staff memorized. The man oozed sophistication like Crest oozes toothpaste.
Fortunately, our meals arrived while the good doctor began to study his menu. As I observed him from the corner of my eye, an unexpected wave of sympathy washed over me. He looked not only out of his element, but very much alone.
Tony and I didn’t say much as we ate. Our conversations were often hospital talk and that was precluded by Dr. Reynolds’s presence. Finally, just to break the awkward silence, I leaned toward the other table. “The pad Thai is great. The chicken is excellent, but so is the shrimp.”
Reynolds looked up, startled.
“The mahi-mahi is good, too. If you like fish, I’d have that or the yellowfin tuna,” Tony added.
“Ah…thank you. I haven’t tried this place before so recommendations help.” Reynolds smiled briefly and his austere expression was replaced by something boyish and charming.
Tony caught it, too. Before I realized what he was doing, he added, “If you want to be alone, we understand, but if you’d like to join us, I’m sure Louie would shove our tables together. We come here a lot. It’s a pretty casual place.”
I could see Clay Reynolds muddling through the conundrum. To dine with his nemesis or ignore her and hope she’d go away? To consort with the help, like Tony? I don’t know Dr. Reynolds’s take on nurses. Some doctors have more respect for the profession than others. Tony had deftly managed to put him in an awkward position, and he’d done it on purpose, stinker that he is.
“Thank you. I’d be happy to join you.” He stood up, shoved the small table closer and sat down again.
Louie came by, nodded approvingly at our seating arrangement and took his order.
“The yellowfin tuna, please. Mr. DeMatteo recommends it.”
“Good choice.” Louie beamed at both of them. “Tony is a regular customer of ours, a good eater, too. He knows what to recommend.” Louie probably put one of his kids through college on Tony’s meal tab alone.
“How do you like Minneapolis-St. Paul?” Tony asked. “Quite a change from… Where was it? California?”
“I like it.” He relaxed against his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s a good, wholesome place. I visited my grandparents here often while I was growing up.”
“Are they still here?”
“They keep a home in the cities.” A flicker of amusement tweaked his already pleasing features as memories came racing back to him. “My grandfather is a deep-sea fisherman so they spend a lot of time in Florida. They often come to Minnesota during the summer, however. My grandmother refuses to ‘waste’ a perfectly good summer anywhere but here.” Reynolds turned intense blue eyes with long, dark lashes on Tony. “How about you? Where are you from?”
“I grew up in St. Paul. My family still lives there. My dad was a blue-collar worker and my mom did babysitting out of her home. I grew up playing hockey on a lumpy homemade rink in our backyard. Doesn’t sound like much, but I still say I had a perfect childhood.”
“Hockey? Interesting.”
He turned to me and for the first time I felt the full brunt of his charm. With his complete attention on me, I felt like the only woman in the universe, his universe, at least. Charm, toughness, brilliance, passion, intensity and intelligence: this man had it all in spades. I felt myself being drawn into his orbit against my will.
“You like hockey?” Tony blurted. “Are you a Minnesota Wild fan? I heard…”
And Tony was lost to the world of pucks, sticks, icing and goalies. Reynolds went astray right along with him.
They’d covered every sport known to mankind except curling, badminton and ice dancing by the time the waiter came by to take our dessert order. I, at least, had had time for a nice nap while the play-by-play sports commentary was going on. That, and the pleasure of watching the enthusiasm these two shared for anything involving a ball or a stick. It made Dr. Reynolds seem a little more human.
“Until I moved here, I’ve always coached a team,” Reynolds said, a little wistfully. “I haven’t even had time to look into it here.”
“High school?”
Reynolds looked shocked. “Oh, no. I like the little guys, the beginners.”
“That takes a lot of patience,” Tony commented.
“I’ve got it—” Dr. Reynolds paused “—for them, at least.”
Then Louie arrived at our table.
“Coconut pie.” Tony ordered for both of us. “You’d better try it, Doc. It can’t be beat.”
So it was “Doc,” not “Dr. Reynolds” now? When had that happened? Somewhere between the 1991 World Series and Wayne Gretzky’s involvement with the Phoenix Coyotes, no doubt. At least, that’s about the time I fell into REM sleep. I like sports, but I don’t know when Gretzky played for the Kings or even the years Kirby Puckett spent with the Twins. At least Tony and Dr. Reynolds bonded. Maybe Tony could put in a good word for me next time I broached the doula question.
The pie and coffee came, and about the same time the men remembered that I was present at the table. I hadn’t minded much. I busied myself watching the play of expressions on Dr. Reynolds’s face, something I might not have the opportunity to do again without being observed. What an incredible-looking man.
“Have we been boring you?” Dr. Reynolds inquired solicitously.
I started a bit, hoping he couldn’t read minds. If he did, I should have been blushing.
“Did we talk too much about sports?” Tony asked. “Your eyes were glazing over. I’m sorry if we did. It’s not very often I find someone who is as much a sports buff as I am. Which reminds me, Doc, do you follow NASCAR?”
“Not as much as I once did. I did see the race on Sunday, though….”
Gentlemen, start your engines. And they were off again.
To entertain myself, I studied Dr. Reynolds’s tie. The tie with all the children’s faces was absent, but he did have an interesting tie tack, which, until I studied it closely, I didn’t realize was silver and made in the shape of a baby bottle. Another gift from his receptionist, perhaps? Curiouser and curiouser.
Dr. Reynolds glanced discreetly at his wristwatch. “I
lost track of time. If you’ll excuse me…” He flashed a smile that might have graced a magazine cover.
Neither Tony nor I noticed that Clay asked for our checks as well as his own until we went to the cash register to pay for our meals. Before we could thank him he’d managed to disappear.
On the way home Tony was elated. “He’s really a cool guy, Molly. He was on a rowing team in college and even played polo! Do you know how athletic you have to be to do that?”
“Rich men’s sports,” I commented. “Did he ever play pickup basketball on a school playground?”
“Don’t judge him too quickly. When you get to know him, maybe you’ll like him.”
That’s also what my mother said about cabbage and brussels sprouts.
Tony dropped me off at my front door. I could hear Hildegard woofing a welcome. She knows the sound of my car, Tony’s and Lissy’s. She also knows the UPS truck—the driver carries treats—the FedEx man, who is scared stiff of her, and that of several members of my family. Everyone else sends the fur on her back straight into the air and puts her on guard-dog status. She’s as good as a security alarm except she eats more and needs to be walked. And unlike Clay Reynolds, her bark is worse than her bite.
“Thanks for a great evening,” Tony said, giving me a hug. “I had fun.”
You and Dr. Reynolds had fun, I wanted to correct him, but I didn’t. That would sound too much like sour grapes.
It wasn’t until Tony had driven away, Hildy had laved my face with her tongue and I’d brushed my teeth and crawled into bed that I realized that even after an entire evening of listening to Dr. Reynolds converse with Tony, I had learned nothing about the man. Oh, the rowing and polo thing, I guess, but he’d managed to keep the conversation totally impersonal yet charm Tony’s socks off while doing so.
Dr. Reynolds is smooth, that’s for sure, and careful to divulge nothing of himself.
Chapter Eight
Lord, I ask for Your hand in this day. Bless my mothers and their babies. Make me Your servant and give me patience. Lots and lots of patience…
I put my Bible and devotional on the coffee table and stared out the window at the birds feeding on the deck. Some people watch the food channel to get recipes. Me? I watch nature programs in order to get my birds’ diets just right. When I’m successful, I have a beautiful color show—the Ziegfeld Follies of birdies—right outside my window. I feed sunflower hearts and grape jelly for the orioles, meal worms for the indigo buntings, thistle for the goldfinches and suet for the red-bellied and pileated woodpeckers.
Bird brain that I am, lately I’ve been making my own suet with peanut butter, oatmeal, cornmeal, raisins, ground unsalted peanuts and, of course, lard which is rendered fat. Lissy says I could be making her chocolate-chip cookies with macadamia nuts for the cost of the suet ingredients. She, however, does not perch on the birdfeeder outside my window and look cute, so I’ve declined her request.
Hildy loves the birds, too. She and Geri sit in front of the picture window for hours, staring at their feathery antics. My brothers Hugh and Liam are birdwatchers, as well. I’m planning to give them each ten pounds of homemade suet for Christmas.
The Cassidys always make each other gifts at Christmas. My family thinks it is more personal and sentimental to give these kinds of gifts, and it is—if one gets choked up over lard, peanut butter and sunflower seeds, that is. Usually our gifts are a disaster, because I’m the only crafty one in the bunch. At least I can paint and knit. One year I got five pounds of inedible fudge, a Popsicle stick bird-house and a collage made out of dryer lint and buttons. A coupon for an oil change from Hugh was the best gift I received that year. I’ve blocked the others from my memory as a survival mechanism. Otherwise it would be difficult to face another family Christmas.
Of course, what we lack in gift giving, we make up with food. As well as ham and turkey, there is always a Christmas goose and a steamed Irish pudding made with currants, raisins, dates, prunes, dried cherries and a hard sauce. Even my family refers to the pudding as a “gut bomb,” but Mother makes it anyway and we all eat it, digestive issues or not.
I pulled my peripatetic mind back to the issues at hand.
I had two mothers “on deck,” so to speak, in the final countdown to delivery. My young mom, Mandie, needs lots of TLC. That I can handle. The other mom, a woman named Hillary Perceval, is a bigger concern.
“I was forced to fire my previous doula,” Hillary told me the first time we spoke.
“You fired her?”
“Insubordination,” she said. “Very upsetting.”
A noncompliant doula is an oxymoron in my book. Doulas do everything they can to ease a mom through childbirth.
Doulas Do. Maybe that should be my new slogan.
When I’d asked exactly what the problem with the former doula had been, the woman had broken into tears. She was desperate, she said, and I had come highly recommended. She planned to give birth at Bradshaw Medical Center and would I please take her on. Dr. Clay Reynolds was her physician.
If I’d had two brain cells to rub together, I would have said no immediately, but I hesitated for an instant and Hillary jumped on my uncertainty like a fox on a hen.
“You’ll do it, then? I’m very busy, so we’ll have to talk by phone. I don’t have time to fit you in right now. I’d like to tell you what I expect….”
I hope she has time to fit the baby into that schedule.
By the time she was done with her list, I envied the fired doula. But perhaps I shouldn’t be so negative. I went to bed visualizing a perfect—and short—labor and delivery for Hillary.
It was late afternoon when the telephone rang even before I’d made coffee—an inauspicious beginning to my day.
“Molly?” said a quavery voice on the other end of the line. “It’s Hillary. We’re on our way to the hospital.”
The last night’s staccato-sharp delivery of a woman accustomed to being in charge was gone. A stock broker, Hillary was singularly self-assured and very intimidating when she chose to be, but there was none of that in her voice now.
“I feel strange, Molly. This isn’t like anything I’ve ever felt before. I’m dizzy and it came on so quickly…”
“I’ll start out right now and meet you there.”
“Something’s not right, Molly. The baby and I are going to be okay, aren’t we?”
“You’ve got one of the best doctors in the city,” I told her. I didn’t have to like Reynolds to respect him.
“I’ve got to go, Molly. I feel sick, my head aches…”
I’m no doctor, but I’ve been around enough pregnant women to wonder if Hillary was suffering from pregnancy-induced hypertension.
In a quick change of attitude, I breathed a prayer of thanks that Dr. Reynolds was Hillary’s doctor.
Unfortunately, he tested that gratitude to its breaking point.
I arrived at the hospital at the same time as Hillary and her husband, Jim.
“I’m so glad you’re here.” Hillary was pale as the white sweater she was wearing and there was sweat on her brow. “Dr. Reynolds told Jim he suspects preeclampsia and wanted me here now.” She looked imploringly at me. “What does that mean, exactly?”
Elevated blood pressure and excess protein in the urine. I bit my lip. “I’m sure Dr. Reynolds will be able to tell you.”
I hiked my bag of tricks higher on my shoulder. “Push faster,” I told the nurse guiding Hillary’s wheelchair.
Dr. Reynolds was pacing the hallway when we got to the obstetrics floor. His face convulsed with concern, his own blood pressure obviously rising. To give him credit, when he saw us coming, it was as if he pulled a mask down over her face, a facade of smiling, relaxed features and a comforting smile.
With Hillary’s wheelchair in the lead and Dr. Reynolds close behind, we walked into the birthing room. Or at least they did. Dr. Reynolds turned around and stopped me at the threshold. “You can’t be here,” he said icily. The statement brook
ed no discussion.
He lowered his voice so only I could hear. “This may not be a fluffy, feel-good delivery and I don’t want you and your relaxation CDs and essential oils anywhere near this mother. Got it?”
Clear as a bell.
“I’ll have to tell Hillary.”
“I’ll tell her.” He walked inside, and the door closed in my face.
Inside the room, I heard a plaintive voice say, “I want Molly. Where’s Molly?”
“Don’t get upset, honey,” Hillary’s long-suffering husband said. “She’ll be along. Won’t she, Dr. Reynolds?”
The silence inside the room was deadly. I wanted to slink away and hide in a linen closet somewhere, but no such luck.
“I don’t think we need Molly right now, Hillary. You have elevated blood pressure. We may have to consider…”
“I want Molly.”
I’d known Hillary was going to cause trouble somehow. I was mightily relieved that it was Dr. Reynolds’s trouble and not mine.
The nurse, an ex of Tony’s—as most of the single nurses are—stuck her head out of the room and beckoned me in.
“He says to stay in the corner and keep out of the way. You aren’t to move or to say a word.” Her eyes were wide. “Sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.” I was amazed to be brought inside the room at all.
I trailed into the room and saw a look of relief flood Hillary’s features. The look on Reynolds’s face, however, was its antithesis.
The next few minutes were a blur. I stood helplessly by as Dr. Reynolds determined that an emergency C-section was required.
In the hallway, as Hillary was being taken to surgery, he spun to face me. “I don’t want to see you here when Hillary gets out of the operating room. This is not the time or place for nonprofessionals. You are excess baggage and I’m just thankful you didn’t cause any harm. I don’t approve of your touchy-feely nonsense. It can be a detriment to the birthing process if not outright dangerous in cases like this.”
Excess baggage? A detriment to the birthing process? Dangerous?
The kick I felt in my gut nearly sent me reeling. Clay had delivered it with black-belt precision and not looked back.
