As the afternoon wore on, she prepared a teenage soccer player for surgery on his left knee and right shoulder. She’d given him his pre-op medicine and shot and stayed close by until the transportation clerk could take him to the operating room. As his eyelids grew heavy and he dozed off, she thought about John and his sexy blue silk tie and that off-balance but charming smile. Did she really want to play games with him? He’d asked her to dinner, had seemed sincere enough, and she had no reason not to go, so why stand him up?
The man had been to hell and back over the past twelve years. Here he was getting a little sparkle in his eyes again, and the last thing she should do was give him a hard time. It wasn’t in her nature to play games with men anyway. Besides, in her dating life the guys had always been much better at game-playing than she could ever compete with.
No, after work she’d take her time and freshen up then walk over to Giovanni’s for another dinner with John. Memories of what had happened after the last time they’d eaten there made her lose her step but not stumble. She’d make sure it didn’t happen again, and maybe she’d ask him to drive her home, just to make sure. Besides, lately the fumes in the subway made her feel nauseous.
To her surprise, John was already there, waiting, when she arrived. He’d ordered bottled water instead of Chianti, too, which was sitting on the table. He stood when he saw her, and the smile he gave was definitely genuine. So was the warm feeling inside when she smiled back at him. Without his doctor’s jacket she could see his solid, football-player physique, and it spawned a quick flash of being naked in his arms and near bliss.
“If you like shrimp, I recommend the scampi,” he said, sitting down after she’d shaken the sexy thought from her mind and taken her seat.
“So much for idle conversation. You say dinner. You mean dinner.” She picked up the menu and scanned the specials.
“I’m sorry, is there something you’d like to talk about?”
She screwed up her face. “No. It’s just, well, customary when meeting someone for dinner to start off with small talk like ‘Hi, how was your day?’ or something before getting right down to ordering.”
“Sorry. I have an administrative meeting at seven.”
“On a Friday night?” There went her chance for a ride home. “So why’d you invite me here, then?” If he wanted to get right down to business, so could she.
He poured both of them a glass of the sparkling bottled water then took a drink of his. “I want you to move in with me.”
She almost spit her water right into his face, but instead she swallowed it wrong and coughed. He patted her back, looking concerned. She coughed and hacked for several more seconds, eyes bugging out, feeling embarrassed about how she must look. He looked on, earnestly trying to figure out how to help her. After she settled down she said, “You what?”
“You heard me right. I’ve been thinking about this and as we’re having this baby together, it’s the least I can do.”
That warm something or other she’d felt momentarily when she’d first walked in and seen him smiling at her turned to ice. “The least you can do? Well, how kind of you, sir. Thank you for the magnanimous crumb.” She stood, fully intending to leave. “As far as I’m concerned, you can take that crumb and shove it!” With the room melting down to nothing as her anger overtook every cell in her body, she stomped towards the exit. Before she made it to the street, a big, strong hand grabbed her arm.
“Hold on, hothead.”
She yanked back her arm and kept moving, now outside the restaurant. He followed close behind. “Leave me alone. You’re a jerk.”
He managed to get in front of her, planted both hands on her arms and forced her to stop and look at him. “I know I’m a jerk. I can’t figure out how not to be a jerk or how to handle this thing. Give me a break, will you? I’m trying. I want to do what’s right, okay?”
The fury rumbling through her chest lost strength with each of his sentences. The man was being painfully honest, how refreshing, and she could see it in his tense yet imploring eyes. She blinked then glanced at the darkening sky. She’d made a point to never depend on anyone after the day she’d turned eighteen. Being a child at the mercy of uninterested aunts and uncles had been the most painful part of her life. She couldn’t allow herself to depend on John, though she sure could use his help for a while.
Was it wise to get more deeply involved with someone she barely knew? No. Especially since she’d had a fierce crush on John until everything had gone to hell in a handbasket with this surprise pregnancy.
“Well?” John said, confusion with a touch of impatience in his stare.
“I’m thinking. Can’t you give me a minute?” She glanced at him, reinforcing his jerk status, then went back to staring at the sky. She didn’t know what the heck she wanted from John, yet he was offering to open his home to her. It wasn’t all about herself any more. Nope. She had a baby to think about. Was there anything wrong with testing the waters where John was concerned? She wouldn’t dare get her hopes up or anything, but maybe for a while staying with John in a strictly platonic way could be useful for both her and her baby.
“Okay.”
He lightened his hold. “Okay what? You’ll give me a break?”
“I’ll move in.” Why mess around with pretenses. She was knocked up. He was the father. She hated where she lived, and he’d just offered her a room in his homey condo—a beautiful apartment in a gorgeous part of the city. Why be coy?
“Just like that, you change your mind. You’re ready to move in?”
“Yes. I’ll try it out for a week, see how things go. It will depend on whether or not we’re compatible. In a strictly platonic way. Got it?”
His shocked expression quickly turned to happy, then ricocheted to suspicious. “Whatever you say, dumpling.”
She slowly shook her head. Even if it was a crumb, he’d offered to help, and though she’d been prepared to make it through this pregnancy on her own, she appreciated his gesture, knowing it was way out of his comfort zone. How often in her life had she been invited into a home? Why not take advantage of a win-win situation? A nice place to live. Good food prepared in a kitchen without grease stains everywhere. A roomy bathroom without leaky faucets, mildew, and cracked tile. She could walk to work. Take walks by the East River in the evenings. If she got sick there’d be a doctor in the house.
He tugged on his earlobe, a combination of relief and shock registering on his face. “Okay, then. It’s settled. One week with the option to make it longer, okay?”
“Sweet.”
“Now will you have the scampi?”
Against her will a laugh escaped her lips. “Sure, why not?” He guided her back into the restaurant. “It isn’t every day a girl gets a proposition she can’t refuse, plus a shrimp dinner.”
He ran his hand over his short hair. “Yeah, well, it didn’t come out the way I’d practiced.”
She sputtered another laugh. “You practiced that?”
“Like I said …” He pulled out the chair so she could sit back down.
It did her heart good to see a grown man and skilled orthopedic surgeon, department head like John Griffin fumble and stumble over his words and actions because of her. Maybe she and the baby did mean something to him. Don’t let yourself go there. He’s got a lot of proving to do first.
She sat down and took another sip of water. There was only one way to find out if the man cared about her or not, and under these challenging and unusual circumstances she’d made a snap decision to find out.
By moving in for a week.
Saturday afternoon, John helped Polly move out of her tiny rented room and managed to fit everything in the trunk and back seat of his car. She’d decided to bring everything so she wouldn’t have to keep running back to the old place for this or that as the need arose. Besides, there wasn’t that much and why leave anything for Mrs. Goldman to snoop through while she was gone?
When she assessed all her worldly belo
ngings, it made her heart feel a little heavier in her chest. The only precious item was a small cherry-wood jewelry box that had belonged to her mother. In it was a delicate gold locket with an enameled cover. It was heart shaped and opened to her mother’s picture on one side and Polly’s on the other. Thinking about her single cherished item from twenty-one years ago made her wonder what object John still treasured from Lisa.
Back at the apartment, she would set the boundaries right off—she intended to stay in his guest room rather than share his bed. Until he could move on from his past, there was no point in trying for a real relationship with John. It kind of hurt her feelings when he didn’t put up a fight about their sleeping arrangements, but she let those thoughts pass.
For a reputed grumpy old department head, John had been polite and helpful the whole weekend, and she began to see the balloon-twisting, cast-signing side of him. The man all the kids on the orthopedic ward adored. He made coffee in the morning and breakfast after that. Before she could offer to make lunch, he beat her to it. Being in his home, he was more relaxed and extremely considerate about making her feel welcome. If only the rest of the staff could see through his shield, but children seemed to have that special gift of looking into the true heart of a person. As for her, she was happy for the new glimpse of him.
On Sunday afternoon John took her on a walking tour of his neighborhood, which was another way of making her feel welcome. Delighted to find a yarn shop, she talked him into letting her go inside. Not in the least bit interested, he waited outside, chatting with a neighbor he’d run into, and she made her purchase quickly, embarrassed to let him see what she’d bought. It was silly, she knew, but she hadn’t knitted in a long time and, well, she was pregnant! She kept the items in a brown bag and his lack of interest made it easy to drop the subject so on they walked through the amazing and upscale neighbourhood of Sutton Place.
They ended the tour on a bench at a small park overlooking the East River. How different this part of town was from the Lower East Side. From a money standpoint, John lived a charmed life, but she knew the whole story—he was alone and hurting. Terribly alone. Even though it seemed he was the one with all the advantages, she knew she could bring something sorely missing into his life. Maybe, with this pregnancy, she could help him experience joy again.
As she stared at the Queensboro Bridge arching across the river, she hoped for any tiny miracle that could open John’s heart again. If an unexpected pregnancy was what it would take to shake some life back into him, so be it.
Deep in thought, she jumped when he took her hand. “What do you say we head for home?”
Home? Did she really and finally have a home?
“I thought I’d make pasta for dinner tonight.”
So far he’d cooked all the meals. “Why don’t you let me cook tonight?”
“Let me take care of you.”
Polly couldn’t let herself dream too much. All the years she’d never let herself get too comfortable wherever she was staying had trained her to take nothing for granted. If she got swept up in this little fantasy of having a home, it would hurt that much more when reality kicked in, and in her life reality always stepped in.
“Besides, you’re my guest. It’s my job to make you feel at home.”
So she was just a guest. She really needed to keep that in mind. She may as well let him wait on her, and while he made the spaghetti sauce she’d start her knitting project.
By Monday, Polly didn’t know how the hospital radar had picked it up so fast but she’d noticed odd glances and hushed conversations that stopped abruptly whenever she got near. It wasn’t in her nature to be paranoid, but she was beginning to wonder if someone had been spying on her and John over the weekend.
During lunch, while eating another carefully prepared meal by John, she cornered Darren and grilled him. “Is something going on I don’t know about?”
“I think I should be asking you that,” he said, taking a huge bite of an Italian lunchmeat sandwich.
“What’s everyone whispering about?” She decided to continue to play dumb.
“We’re all wondering exactly when you and Dr. Griffin found the time to become a couple. That’s all.”
“We’re not a couple.”
“You’re not. A couple.”
She thinned her lips and shook her head.
“Who made that lunch for you?” He used his sandwich to point at her wholewheat bread, sliced chicken with avocado and sprouts sandwich.
She thought about lying but that wasn’t in her nature. “John—I mean Dr. Griffin did.” She didn’t want to come clean until she cleared it with John.
“And who’d you walk into work with this morning?
In a month or two it would be apparent enough that she was pregnant, but until then why rush to tell everyone? “I got kicked out of my apartment and Dr. Griffin said I could use his guest room until I found something else.” Okay, it was a half-lie, but she didn’t have to spill the beans about being pregnant just yet.
Darren leveled her with a you-can’t-fool-me glare. “His guest room. Uh-huh.”
She leaned forward and got in his face. “Yes, uh-huh, his guest room. And I’d appreciate it if you kept everything I’ve told you to yourself, Darren.”
He stared into her eyes, as if assessing how serious she was, then seemed to make his decision. “My lips are sealed,” he said, immediately taking another huge bite of sandwich.
Realizing her personal business would sooner or later become a juicy story for workplace gossip made her feel queasy. She’d only managed to eat half of her own sandwich but had already lost her appetite.
The next morning Polly moaned over the bathroom toilet, experiencing her first full-fledged bout of morning sickness. Lord, how would she be able to go to work feeling as though she stood on the ledge of losing it all, just waiting for someone or something to nudge her over?
“Breakfast is ready!” John called from the kitchen.
Oh, God, that was all it took. She hurled.
“I’m not hungry.” She’d come up for air and managed to call back between bouts.
A few seconds later determined footsteps down the hardwood hallway grew closer. He tapped on the bathroom door. “You okay?”
“If you call being sick to your stomach okay, then I’m peachy.”
“Morning sickness?”
She moaned instead of replied.
He waited outside while she cleaned up, rinsed out her mouth and opened the bathroom door. “I think if you eat some dry cereal or saltine crackers before you get out of bed tomorrow, it might help.”
The thought of eating anything made her stomach clench in preparation for losing more of its contents. She twitched her nose and put her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry, but your cologne is making me more nauseous.”
“I’ll wash it off,” he said, without giving it a second thought.
A few minutes later he was at her bedroom door with a plastic bag in his hand. “You might think this is crazy, but it used to help Lisa.” He handed her the bag filled with lemon slices. “It helps to smell citrus or suck on peppermint if odors set off your nausea.” He handed her a roll of peppermints. “You can squeeze the lemon into water, too. Oh, and I can get some bottled fruit juice and make popsicles for you to suck on so you won’t get dehydrated.”
She wanted more than anything to be grateful for the sweet gesture, but everything he said had to do with eating, and her nausea grew worse and worse. She walked backwards toward the bathroom, listening to him and bobbing her head, then quickly closed the door.
“I’ll tell Brooke you’re not coming in today. You can’t go to work like this.”
“I don’t have sick leave yet. I won’t get paid.”
“That’s the last thing you need to worry about. I’ll handle it,” he said, walking way.
And handle it he did. From the bathroom she could hear him all the way down the hall.
“Brooke? It’s Dr. Griffin. Li
sten, Polly is having morning sickness and needs to miss work today. How do I know?”
Obviously, John hadn’t thought through all the ramifications of him calling in sick on Polly’s behalf. Now what would he do?
“Well, uh. Listen, this is strictly confidential. She’s staying with me for now. Just keep that between you and me, okay?”
Polly moaned. Didn’t he have a clue? The effect of his innocent honesty showed how out of touch he was with his own staff, and the phone call, coupled with what she’d already let slip with Darren, was nothing short of a department-wide gossip memo announcing they now lived together and she was pregnant with his baby.
So much for keeping the cat in the bag a bit longer.
As if feeling sick to her stomach wasn’t enough, the realization that soon everyone at work would know her personal business sent her head right back into the bowl.
John wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to the quick glances and whispers whenever he did rounds on the orthopedic ward, so he chose to ignore them. He did, however, have to admit that never in a million years would he expect his name to be linked to a sweet small-town girl like Polly Seymour.
Having her living with him hadn’t taken nearly as much getting used to as he’d assumed he’d need. She was quiet and calm, and sometimes he barely knew she was there, especially when she went to her room and did whatever she did after dinner until she went to bed. He wished she’d come out of her room more often and spend time with him.
He sensed she didn’t want to be any more of an imposition than she assumed she was. Truth was, she wasn’t an imposition at all. He liked having her there, having someone to cook for and look after. Someone to talk things over with. He liked her gentle, sunny nature, too. He even got a kick out of the twangy country music she liked to listen to on the radio in her room.
His apartment had never seemed more like a home.
John walked toward a fourteen-year-old boy’s room to talk with the mother about Thursday’s scheduled knee and ankle repair. The young teen, named Eric Caldera, had injured it playing in the dark at summer camp in Maine. It would be a long procedure and involve pins and plates and possibly even a bone graft. He wouldn’t know exactly how extensive the repair would be until he started surgery.
NYC Angels: Making the Surgeon Smile Page 11
