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My first instinct is to answer, except I’m waiting for Prue to come out of a thigh lift surgery in the clinic where she works.
“Hey, Franny?” I lean over on the receptionist’s desk.
The raven-haired woman who couldn’t be much older than Prue smiles at me. It’s not flirtatious. She, like Prue, thinks I’m a better man than I really am because I walk over the hallway to spend a mere half an hour with Prue every day.
“Yes, Dr. Wentworth?”
“Theo.” I return her smile, though it doesn’t reach my eyes. The only person to pull those genuine grins out of me is the one in the operating room.
“Sure, it’s just…” she whispers in a conspiratorial voice. “You two give meGrey’s Anatomyvibes, and I freaking love that show.”
Although Franny must be around Prue’s age, she acts much younger than her. I can’t fault her for her youthfulness or for having romantic concepts other people her age have.
What nags at my mind incessantly is why Prue has the emotional maturity of a forty-year-old woman. I keep wondering what robbed her of easy laughter and how I can give it to her.
I’ll have my answers, and I’ll have them by next week.
“Yeah, fine. Anyway,” I hurry, not wanting to let Dana wait unnecessarily. She never calls unless it’s important. Abouthim. “Are they going to be held up?”
“Prue hasn’t notified me about any delays, so it’s safe to say she’ll be out here in ten minutes tops?”
“All right.” I don’t lament our shortened lunch break. First, because I’ll never get between Prue and her career. Second, I have tonight too. “Tell her I’m waiting for her on our bench, okay? I have to take this call.”
“Sure thing, Dr. Wentworth.” Franny turns back to her computer, and I swear that as I leave the clinic, I hear her murmur, “AKA, McSpicy.”
I shake my head at the nickname she explained yesterday was her take on McDreamy and McSteamy fromGrey’s Anatomy. With our lunch in one hand and phone in the other, I take the elevators and sit at our spot.
“Theo.” Dana, one of my former and wealthiest clients from back when I lived in San Francisco, doesn’t sound like her confident self. She’s whispering, confirming my suspicions.
“He’s been talking about me, hasn’t he?” I refer to Dr. Fox.
We both know it.
“Yes.” Her heels click, and there’s a faint echo of a car passing by. “I was having lunch with a friend and that pervert walked up to me, introduced himself, and started blabbering about his new clinic.”
It’s been years since I’ve given a fuck about what he says about me. I moved here because the piece of shit gave me a good excuse for a new start, but I’m not afraid of him. I care that he harasses my patients, old or not.
The lingering disappointment in myself for letting those women down long ago resurfaces. I clench the paper bag in my fist and say nothing.
Dana doesn’t wait for my response. “As if I didn’t know. I know everything and everyone’s business around here. You didn’t have to tell me he opened a clinic here. I smelled his stench a mile-freaking-away the minute he rented a space here. And I hated that he was the reason you left. Molesting bastard.”
She does know a lot. People are drawn to her influence, to her status, and she trades her friendship for information. That’s how she found out about whyImoved to San Francisco, even though it wasn’t in the papers or anywhere for that matter.
She was the first one to believe my story without me having to make my case. The one to convince a long list of her connections to switch their OB-GYN physician and become my patients, lifting my self-esteem after the hard blow it suffered.
“I told him, politely,” she continues, her tone turning into a furious one despite her hushed voice. “He can fuck right off. I’m seeing Dr. Rosalee Duval, the gynecologistyoureferred me to. Soon, everyone else will too. Because they’ll be personally warned by me.”
“Thank you.”
I stare straight ahead at the small patch of grass and the vast parking lot ahead. In the bustle of people walking in and out of our building, I imagine the asshole’s face when the svelte blond gave him a piece of her mind.
Eat shit, asshole.
“Dana, please don’t,” I say, despite wanting someone, anyone, to cause him some kind of harm. “I appreciate you, but you don’t have to stand up for me. I had a feeling he’d be stirring shit, and so here I am. I’m better off here.”
Much better off, considering I got Prue in the tradeoff.
“It’s not for you. Not entirely.” Someone calls her name in the background, and she replies, “Another glass of Sauvignon Blanc for me. I’ll be right there. Anyway, Theo, this isn’t about you or me enjoying rubbing it in his face. This is about his future patients. About human lives. I still don’t get how they let him off like that.”
