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“Spill, girlfriend.” Faith Abrams swiveled around in her office chair and wheeled over to where I sat filling out papers. She pumped some vanilla scented hand sanitizer from a little bottle on my desk. It was better than the industrial stuff that came out of the dispensers on the wall all around the clinic.
I spent three hours on Saturday mornings volunteering at an inner city health center that catered to women and children. Visits ranged from pregnancy to ear infections and everything in between. In July, I’d been looking for something to fill my extra time after Chris left for Plebe Summer at the Naval Academy, and this had certainly done it. The place was in desperate need of help, overrun with patients wanting the free or low-cost services, and being a nurse practitioner, I could write prescriptions like a doctor while not requiring one to be on staff at all times. It helped keep costs down and the budget was thin.
We were in the central office where nurses and doctors worked on charts, filled out paperwork, updated online records. Two hallways of exam rooms were on either side. I'd finished the cases that had been scheduled in advance, but others were wrapping up drop-ins and I was on standby for prescriptions if needed.
“The party was fun. Christy was beautiful. The dress I told you about looked great.” I glanced up at her briefly before back at the script I was writing. I ripped it off the pad, placed it on top of the chart it went with.
“Any cute guys?” she asked.
I hid my flushed cheeks by turning to the next chart in the pile. I’d spent the night thinking about Gray, reliving my ridiculous behavior over and over. I’d tossed and turned, even swore at myself in my empty bedroom, angry I wasn’t flashier and sexier. Hell, I would have settled for not being a bumbling fool. I’d assumed Gray to be a jerk or worse, actually dangerous, but spending only a few minutes with him had me thinking otherwise. Besides being a dumbass—one of Chris' terms I still clung to—I was also judgmental. Bob/Bill had looked clean cut and nice while I'd labeled Gray a bad boy. I hadn't ruled that out yet, but at least he was nice. Definitely a gentleman.
I’d gotten confirmation about his character when I’d said my goodbyes to Paul and Christy. Paul had given me quick reassurance that the man was a really good guy, which only made me feel even worse. Gray was the first guy in eons…no ever, to make me lust. Yes, it was pure lust because as I'd thought of him in my dark bedroom, I'd envisioned unbuttoning his shirt, no, ripping those buttons right off, to feel his soft skin and the hard muscles beneath. I longed to know what his long fingers could do, whether the stubble on his jaw would be rough against my inner thighs. He’d reduced me to a puddle of hormones and I'd put my vibrator to good use using him as mental fantasy.
When the alarm went off at five, I’d been ready to burn off the anger and frustration at myself out on the water. After rowing for two hours, I went home to shower, then on to the clinic. Now, at noon and just before closing, I was wiped.
“I'm waiting,” Faith added.
I glanced up and rolled my eyes at her, leaned my forearms on the desk. “There was an auditor from Social Security.”
Her pink scrub-clad shoulders slumped and she pouted. “That’s no fun.”
“You’re telling me,” I grumbled, remembering how Bob/Bill had belittled my job. “He thought a nurse practitioner was a candy striper.”
She sighed and shook her head. “Girlfriend, you worked hard for that title. I bet that auditor doesn’t have a master’s degree or do what you do. He's a jackass.” She humphed in indignation.
As for Gray, I wasn’t saying a word. I was embarrassed enough just thinking about it and couldn’t fathom mentioning how stupid I’d been to anyone else. If I told her how I’d acted, she’d probably smack me. I just wanted to go back to bed and toss the covers over my head. For the next week.
“Hey, Em.” Another nurse, Samantha, filled the open doorway, clipboard in hand.
I looked up. Smiled. “What’s up?” She was in her early thirties, brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, blue scrubs.
“The kid in room three. Okay for his vaccine?”
The clinic was her full time job and knew the ins and outs of the place better than most, but she still had to get approval for any kind of injection or drug.
I nodded. “Sure. Bring a lollipop in with you.”
The woman pulled one from the jar on the counter, switched papers around. “Carrie in room two. Next appointment?”
I thought of the woman who was three-months pregnant. “One month. Give her a pack of the pre-natal vitamin samples. She hasn’t taken any before.”
“One more.” The woman sighed as she rotated her charts in her arm. “Then we can all head home. Alice Watkins. Wants a refill on her pain meds.”
I thought about the woman, her case. Broken rib, short-term pain meds. Glancing at Faith for her take, she shook her head. She had ten years on me and was even more cynical than I was. While I'd become jaded by an asshole ex-husband, hers came from growing up in the worst sections of town. Inner city Baltimore was rough. What she'd seen on the streets was what I treated in the ER. While I could understand the cases that came through the door, I was just a white woman who'd lived in the suburbs while married to a rich lawyer. Faith knew the streets, knew the people.
“No,” I said to Samantha. “She can’t have any more. Second time she’s gotten it refilled. If she’s still having pain, she can take ibuprofen but if that doesn't cut it, she needs to be seen again.”
I wasn't conservative about doling out pain meds. Some patients needed them. Some were being abused and came in for falling down the stairs or walking into a door, which was doubtful. Their pain wasn't. I'd learned long ago t
hat a woman needed to want help—the clinic offered options to get out of abusive relationships—before anyone could truly give it to her. In the meantime, I could at least make them comfortable. But I wasn't an enabler either. Alice Watkins' injury was such that she didn't need Oxy or Vicodin any longer. I wasn't going to help her become addicted.
“Got it. Thanks.” Samantha left to wrap up those loose-end patients.
“That’s it? Just an auditor?” Faith asked, returning to our conversation. “I need to live through your dating life.”
I swiveled my chair around to face her. “What dating life?”
She gave me a pointed look over the edge of her reading glasses. She let them drop to dangle from the thin chain around her neck. “Exactly.”
