He reluctantly stopped. Then he turned around. When he saw her body first, and then her face, she was a good looking sight to see alright. But so were all those other nurses that wanted to bag themselves a surgeon. And besides, she was nowhere near his type.
But the young nurse seemed mesmerized when he first turned around and looked at her. The nurses behind the counter nudged each other. They knew she’d freeze up when she got up close and personal with the very distinguished, and very sexy chief of surgery.
But the young lady surprised them and kept her composure. “Didn’t you hear me speak to you?” she asked him.
“I heard you.”
She didn’t expect that response. “Then why didn’t you speak back?”
“I didn’t care to.”
She didn’t expect that response either. She just stood there confused. Was he playing mind games with her?
But Edmund wasn’t playing with her at all. His impatience was already thin. “Young lady, what do you want?”
When he said young lady, her courage returned. And she smiled. “A hello will do nicely.”
“Hello.Better?”
She smiled even grander. “Much better.” Now she was full of herself. “How about dinner tonight, Doctor Keating?”
Edmund didn’t miss a beat. “I’d rather eat a porcupine,” he said. “Good day, Nurse.” And then he turned and kept on walking.
The other nurses laughed. The younger nurse was crushed.
But Edmund wouldn’t know how she looked or felt because he didn’t bother to look back to see.
“You’re incorrigible, Edmund,” said another doctor as he had just come out of his patient’s room just as the young nurse had approached his colleague. He joined up with Edmund and they began walking toward the exit. “You didn’t have to be so cruel to the kid.”
“She brought it on herself,” Edmund said.
“She did come onto you, didn’t she?” said the smiling doctor as he glanced back at the young nurse. “But you have to admit she’s cute.”
“What is she?” Edmund asked. “Twenty-two, twenty-three? She’s my daughter’s age. What am I going to do with that?”
His colleague grinned. “Oh I can think of quite a few things I could do with that.”
Edmund smiled. “And you call me incorrigible,” he said, and his colleague laughed.
“How about I set you up with my cousin? She’s more your speed. She’s an ophthalmologist. And a gorgeous one to boot.”
“No thank you.”
“Why not, Edmund? You need a woman.”
“Um. That’s news to me.”
“You know what I mean! You need to get out of that mausoleum and live a little. She may be just what the doctor ordered.”
“No thank you.”
“You’ve got to put the effort in man! You’ve got to get out there and meet people. The woman of your dreams is not going to just pop up at your front door. You’ve got to get out there and find her.”
Edmund’s private life was so private that even his colleagues thought he lived the life of a eunuch. When nothing could be further from the truth.
“You heard me, Edmund? You’ve got to get out there and find her,” his colleague said again.
“Since I didn’t lose her,” said Edmund, “I’m not interested in finding her. Have a good evening, Markie.”
