Clementine

by R. Jean Wilson

  “Addison, I think the person sitting here had to leave,” Dr. Taylor offered. His intense brown eyes held hers for a moment before quickly scanning down to the scoop neck of her dress, only briefly, before returning to her face. Addison almost didn’t notice because of how smoothly his gaze fell over her, but the smirk on his face confirmed her suspicions. His eyes held a playful expression as if he were aware of some secret she wasn’t privy to.

  Addison returned his smile, growing more confident under his intense gaze.

  “Well hopefully I can fill her shoes. Was she a friend of yours, Dr. Taylor?” Addison asked as she rounded the table to take the seat he had offered to her. Her tone came out a bit harsher than she had intended.

  “I see most of these people around the hospital. She’s a nurse on the same floor that I work on,” Dr. Taylor answered, oblivious to her jealous tone.

  Jack took the last vacant seat at the table and began making small talk with the guests on either side of him. Addison felt a pang of guilt at having so willingly brushed him aside. He seemed nice enough from their conversation, and if Dr. Taylor weren’t here, he’d be the best looking guest in attendance. However, she didn’t want Dr. Taylor to assume Jack was her date so it was probably best that they split up. Jack looked up from his conversation and gave Addison a shrug and an easy smile, eliciting the same response from her.

  In that same moment, Dr. Taylor turned his body toward Addison so that he was almost sitting sideways on his chair. The proximity of their bodies forced Addison to look down at her dress, or lack thereof, now that she was sitting down. She felt a blush creep up her neck as she subtly pulled her dress down to her mid thigh, crossing her legs.

  She looked up at Dr. Taylor, surprised to find him a boyish smile on his face. God, at least act as if you don’t know what I’m trying to do.

  Wanting to direct attention anywhere but her short hemline she willed herself to speak, “So you’re a resident here? What’s your specialty?”

  “Neurology and spine. My dad worked as a biomedical engineer making spinal implants for surgeries, so I sort of grew up knowing what specialty I wanted to go into.” He spoke softly as if his job wasn’t completely intimidating.

  “Oh, well my dad is a high school science teacher, sooo I grew up knowing I wanted to specialize in baking soda volcanoes.”

  Holden rewarded her playful sarcasm with a rich laugh.

  “Okay, I admit that sounds intense,” he feigned cringing, “but I assure you I’m a completely humble spinal surgeon.” He winked lightheartedly.

  “Hah… You’re sort of funny Dr. Taylor.”

  “You sound surprised?” he asked lightly.

  She clasped her lips shut and shrugged her shoulders, a small grin still managing to escape. His megawatt smile was impossible to miss as she reached for her wine.

  “In all seriousness, your specialty is both awesome and intimidating,” she said, challenging herself to looking directly at him.

  His ardent gaze never left her. “What do you want to study in grad school, Addison?”

  “If I end up getting into PA school I’d like to practice family medicine,” she replied, proud of her decision even though Dr. Taylor might not respect it as much as his specialty.

  “That’s a great field. In a state like Texas, the need for general preventative care in most areas is shameful,” Dr. Taylor spoke, surprising Addison with how endearing his tone was.

  Addison took a sip of her wine, giving herself a reprieve from meeting Dr. Taylor’s eyes, even if only for a moment. Hmm, not what I was expecting.

  “I couldn’t agree more,” she nodded.

  “I’m guessing you did your undergrad in Austin?”

  “Mhm, but I’m originally from Houston.”

  “Ah, same here. I haven’t made it back in some time though,” Dr. Taylor finished with a hint of a frown.

  Addison nodded thinking of how long it had been for her as well; school seemed to keep her preoccupied most weekends and she guessed work did the same for Dr. Taylor. Just as she was about to ask, Dr. Taylor looked up toward Jack and changed the subject abruptly.

  “So it looks like you’ve made a friend tonight?”

  Addison followed his gaze to Jack who was still wrapped up in conversation with the two other guests. Is he jealous?

  “I guess he didn’t have too many options,” Dr. Taylor added a beat later before she could answer.

  Addison flinched slightly at his comment, unsure of how to take his insult. What’s that supposed to mean?

  “Yeah, well, you seemed to be corralling all the other young female attention, so someone had to keep him company,” she replied haughtily, dropping her voice to make sure Dr. Taylor was the only guest privy to her accusation. She normally wasn’t so forward but something about Dr. Taylor seemed to peel away all of her usual reserve.

  “Ah, pity he had to choose you. I thought you might have come to chat sooner,” Dr. Taylor admitted with a wolfish grin that hit her like a wrecking ball. His intensity was hard to match as he insulted her one minute, and then seemed to be flirting with her the next. She could hardly keep up with his unpredictable manner.

  She stared at his unwavering gaze with her lips slightly parted, at a complete loss of words. What the hell do I say to that? He was leaning in close enough for his scent to invade her senses and she could just make out what she thought to be amber and cardamom, with a hint of body wash. The overall effect was intoxicating and she sat still, trying to assimilate everything going on around her. Before she had a chance to speak again, however, she heard Stacy speak up from across the table.

  “It was so good running into you at the coffee shop the other day, Dr. Taylor.”

  They both looked up to find Stacy smiling seductively in Dr. Taylor’s direction. Addison almost welcomed the reprieve away from his full attention. He had a way of making her feel completely out of her depth.

  “I didn’t realize you knew Addison?” she asked, her smile not quite reaching her eyes.

  Addison acknowledged the somewhat degrading tone Stacy had used when asking her question, but chose to ignore it. It was clear Stacy had a crush on Dr. Taylor, but she certainly had nothing to worry about concerning Addison. She should’ve seen the girls flocking around him earlier.

  “Dr. Fischer introduced us earlier,” Dr. Taylor answered, offering a kind smile in Addison’s direction.

  Does he smile to other women like that? Maybe he’s just a charming person and doesn’t realize the effect he has on the female gender.

  “Ohhh, I see,” Stacy responded flatly. “Will you be on-call this week, Dr. Taylor?” She was half way across the table she was leaning so far over and Addison tried to look in every direction other than Stacy’s obvious cleavage staring Dr. Taylor in the face. Don’t worry he seems ‘em, Stacy. Addison looked down at her hands, suddenly worried she might have already been a few months too late. I wonder if they already have something going on? Oh right, I’m 100 miles from his league so I shouldn’t care anyway.

  “I haven’t looked at the hours posted, I think I’ll be in and out of the hospital every day.”

  Just as he had finished answering her question and begun to turn back to Addison, Stacy spoke up again. Oh, c’mon.

  “Oh how great, we’ll have to meet up for lunch one of those days,” Stacy offered with another seductive smile.

  Feeling like she wanted to crawl through the floors as the conversation between Stacy and Dr. Taylor continued, Addison seized the opportunity when she saw Jack begin to stand. Hallelujah.

  “Oh Jack, hold on,” She pleaded in his direction. He paused and offered an inquisitive look.

  “I was just going to head out…” he answered, his eyes darting between her and Dr. Taylor. Don’t worry; he’s too busy with Stacy to care if I leave with you.

  “Oh, perfect. So am I.” She gave him an appreciative smile before she reached below her chair to grab her clutch she’d placed there. She almost jumped when Dr. Ta
ylor leaned down closer to her.

  “You’re leaving already? Let me walk you out,” he offered solemnly, starting to stand.

  Say yes, say yes, say yes.

  Not wanting to aim any more of Stacy’s jealousy in her direction, Addison decided to decline his offer. She looked up and met his dark brown eyes, sad to be leaving them so soon.

  “No worries, I’ll just have Jack walk me...” she muttered, letting her gaze dip down to his tantalizing lips only for a moment. Why am I not kissing him right now? Oh right, this isn’t real life and he is just a gorgeous dream

  He nodded slowly looking toward Jack with a glare as if he wasn’t quite resigned to the idea. Addison noted what could have been a bit of annoyance flashing across his face.

  “You’ve got her Jack?”

  What? Does he have me? I managed to get to this event just fine before I met either of you. She bit her tongue, though, choosing to let the men treat her as a damsel.

  Jack nodded quickly, obviously a bit intimated by Dr. Taylor’s sudden glower, before taking a few steps toward her. “Ready, Addison?”

  “Yeah, I think so. Bye everyone, it was nice meeting you,” she said, expecting Stacy to stand up to hug her goodbye. Instead she was only met with a cold smile from her classmate. Alrighty… class should be fun on Monday…

  “It was a pleasure, Addison,” Dr. Taylor said, drawing her stare toward him one last time. She tried to memorize the way his dark grey dress shirt clung to his perfect shoulders, the way his tanned forearms offered a glimpse of everything else she was missing. She couldn’t help but imagine how his chest would look underneath his shirt; she had a feeling it’d be peppered with the same dark hair that fell so perfectly on his head.

  The way he was watching her walk away sent tingles down her spine. His attention placed solely on her was one of the best feelings in the world and she found herself hoping they’d meet again soon.

  Chapter 3

  The weekend ended too quickly for Addison; she enjoyed her lazy Sundays when she was allowed to catch up on reading and pretended she knew what she was doing with her life. Monday morning forced her back to reality where she was currently working to restock all of the exam rooms at work. She’d almost finished putting new gowns into each room and day-dreaming away when she suddenly remembered Dr. Fischer mentioning a new resident was starting today. Her mind immediately jumped to Dr. Taylor. Could it be him? He didn’t say anything about coming to her office, but Dr. Fischer had been talking to him on Saturday. She let her hopes start to build, forgetting that a resident with a spine specialty wouldn’t really find a need to rotate through a women’s health clinic. He’s going to have to come to the office every day for a couple of weeks at least. That means I’ll get to see him on most of those days…

  She was finishing preparing the exam room for their first patient when she heard the front door open. Her heart immediately dropped. Their first patient wasn’t due for another hour, so she knew the resident had arrived. She fidgeted in the exam rooms a few more seconds before walking out into the hallway expecting to be greeted by Dr. Taylor in all his glory. She slowly turned the corner out of the room, not wanting to look overly keen. I would have to go out into the hallway even if he hadn’t just arrived. Suddenly, she heard Dr. Fischer’s low chuckle, and another male’s voice coming from his office. Damn, how did they get back there so fast? She knew she wouldn’t be able to wait to find out if the resident was Dr. Taylor or not. She grabbed a file off the shelf for a patient that was due to come in that morning and headed back to Dr. Fischer’s office, trying to come up with a question to ask about the appointment.

  She took a deep breath and lightly tapped on the door before pushing it open a few inches.

  “Ah, Addison, can I help you?” Dr. Fischer spoke when he saw her begin to open the door.

  She took two steps inside the office and quickly glanced toward the figure sitting across from Dr. Fischer. You’ve gotta be kidding me.

  “Um, yes... I...” Addison began awkwardly, trying to pull a sentence out of thin air before Dr. Fischer cut her off.

  “Oh, let me introduce you to Dr. Rivera,” he motioned to the man who began to stand to greet her.

  He was at least three inches shorter than her, with so much gel in his hair she figured he’d been collecting it slowly for years. Definitely not Dr. Taylor.

  “Hi, I’m Addison, it’s a pleasure,” she smiled politely, pulling herself together. She shook his hand before exiting Dr. Ward’s office without even bothering to ask her made up question. Oops.

  Slightly defeated, she made her way up to Alicia’s desk, shaking her head at how ridiculous she had just been.

  “I just barged into Dr. Fischer’s office hoping Dr. Taylor was the new resident,” she huffed.

  Alicia stopped filing charts into the cabinet and let out a laugh.

  “You mean Dr. Rivera wasn’t quite what you were expecting?” Alicia asked sarcastically.

  “Eh, we’ll see. Considering I’ll never actually see Dr. Taylor again, he may be my best option,” she joked pitifully.

  “Hey, what about Jack? I left you guys alone so you could talk. Have I taught you nothing?”

  “Well a girl from my class showed up a few minutes after you left and made us go over to the table where Dr. Taylor was sitting with his friends... I basically ignored Jack until it was time to leave. He was nice enough to walk me to my car, but nothing came from it,” she paused as she picked up some papers to file. “I’m sure everyone, including Jack, was aware of my hopeless pining over Dr. Taylor.”

  Alicia shook her head, looking down at the file in her hand, “I agree with your taste, but he seems like he’d already have a girlfriend or something...” Alicia casually warned.

  “Let’s hope so. That way I can stop daydreaming about how good he looked on Saturday night,” she smiled to her friend, only half kidding herself. “Alicia...” she began as she folded herself down onto one of the office chairs, “he was lick-ably cute. Seriously. I sat by him for a while and we had a conversation; a real conversation even though I could barely form complete thoughts in his presence.”

  “Lick-ably cute? I don’t even know what that means, crazy.”

  “It means exactly what you think it means,” Addison winked playfully.

  Addison worked tirelessly Monday and Tuesday. She tried to push away the resentment she felt toward Dr. Rivera being in the office rather than Dr. Taylor, but every time she ran into him in the hallway or the office kitchen, the same wave of bitterness rose over her. Luckily, her organic chemistry final was Friday, so after work she went straight home to study and was able to forget about everything else for a couple of hours… or so she had to keep reminding herself. It wasn’t until lunch on Wednesday that she remembered her first day of volunteering at the hospital was that night.

  She rushed home from work, leaving herself enough time to change out of her scrubs and into the mandatory volunteer uniform: jeans and a dark blue polo shirt inscribed with ‘Hyde Park Hospital Volunteer’ over a small breast pocket. She glimpsed herself in the mirror smiling at how young she felt in her uniform. At least the jeans were from her own collection so they flattered her slim figure, but the polo was definitely not her usual style. Whatever, no one’s going to care what I look like.

  Addison arrived at the hospital with five minutes to spare to find the hospital gift shop. Four minutes and two wrong turns later she stepped through the double set of white doors and into the lively shop. Since she was one of the first to arrive she was given the choice between a few tasks. She decided on delivering flowers to various patients whose family and friends had ordered them. Addison was excited at the prospect of making people’s days with the deliveries but silently kicked herself at not becoming more familiar with the hospital layout before starting her first day of volunteering. She hoped the simple hospital map she picked up from the main desk would be helpful enough.

  “Your first delivery is two dozen long-stemmed
roses for room 223 in L and D... and then it looks like you’ll be going to room 201 in General Care,” the volunteer coordinator directed, pushing a small cart toward Addison with a few bouquets placed on top. Some were romantic and simple, like the long stem roses, while others were animated with small balloons exclaiming ‘It’s a boy!’

  “The rest of your orders are written on this form, and don’t forget to stop in the cafeteria before you leave for your free volunteer’s dinner!” the small, robust woman commanded before she turned to another new volunteer. Addison realized that was all the instruction she’d receive as she took the paper from her coordinator. Feeling slightly overwhelmed, she skimmed over the list of deliveries she had to make. “Sounds great, see you in a bit,” she said to a distracted audience. Maybe some of the bouquets are for the same person? Yeah, right.

  Most of patients were awake, eagerly waiting for their dinner to be delivered when Addison entered the rooms. She loved the way the patients’ faces lit up when they saw the flower bouquet in her hand and she found herself stopping and chatting with a couple of them. One elderly woman politely touched Addison’s hair as she placed the women’s bouquet of roses on her night stand.

  “I had hair just like this at your age. It used to drive the boys crazy... do me a favor and keep it long like that.” The woman smiled kindly at Addison before taking the card placed among the flowers. Addison smiled, instantly warming to the beautiful old woman. She had her white hair cut short and curly and it framed her heart-shaped face perfectly.

  “Thanks, my mom has the same color hair. I think she’d disown me if I cut it,” she beamed.