I turned my full attention to her. “Have you ever read the story about the boy who cried wolf?”
It took her a moment to grasp my meaning. “My stomach really does hurt.”
“Take some bismuth subsalicylate, it’s the pink medicine. Have a little soup and maybe a few crackers. If it continues, we can arrange to have a sample of your bowel movement brought in and tested,” I said, mostly to figure out how real this stomach ailment was. Anyone willing to gather a sample of their shit to bring in was likely feeling poorly.
She made a face. I suspected the next time she came in, it wouldn’t be for a stomach issue. She held her hand out so I’d help her down from the exam table. Since I was a gentleman, I did. And as usual, she jumped down in such a way as she bumped into me.
“Oh, sorry,” she said, her coy eyes showing she wasn’t sorry at all.
I gave a short nod as I stepped back. “Have a good day, Ms. Maynard.” I started to leave.
“Dr. Foster?”
I looked over my shoulder. “Yes.”
r /> She bit her lip. “Maybe we could get together sometime.”
“I’ve got to get to work.”
Instead of getting to work though, I headed to the lounge. I laughed inwardly as I poured myself a cup of coffee for a mid-morning pick-me-up. I wondered how long before Joyce would get the hint or give up. I wasn’t interested in her. Even if Joyce wasn’t annoying in her attempts to come on to me, I wouldn’t be interested her. Not that I didn’t like women, because I did. A lot. I tended to like down-to-earth woman, over store bought, although I had to admit, Joyce got her money's worth on those implants.
Maybe a few years ago, I might have taken her up on her offer if it wasn’t already unethical for me to do so since she was a patient. Today, I was more discriminating in my women. In a small town like this, a young bachelor is a target of every mother wanting to marry off her daughter. But I’d found that the women who are more interested in my perceived wealth (I’m paid pretty well, but I’ve got student loans up the wazoo) or small-town prestige, aren’t very interesting. Oh sure, they’re quite agreeable, but so much so that they’re boring.
The few women who were interesting got annoyed at me quickly when I was called away to work. As a small town doctor, I’m on call a lot. Sometimes I’m called in when I’m not on call if one of the other few doctors here can’t make it. Other times, it’s clear they’re looking for a husband. I had nothing against marriage. At one time, I’d considered asking a woman to marry me. She was the proverbial “one that got away.” She was probably why I had trouble with relationships now.
Despite the fact that our relationship didn’t make it, she was the one that all women were compared to intellectually, personality-wise, and even physically. She was the woman I conjured up if the woman I was with wasn’t going to get me off. She was the woman in my fantasies when I was home alone with my hand to jerk me off.
Mia chose a life as a big-city lawyer in Los Angeles instead of returning to our childhood home with me after we finished our advanced degrees. Her brother, Eli, was here in Goldrush Lake, running the family’s outdoor store. He’d been my best friend growing up and in college. Now he hated me. He hadn’t taken it well when he learned about my more-than-friendly relationship with Mia. The fact that I’d loved her didn’t matter. I’d fucked her and he found that to be a betrayal.
Their mother, Jane Parker, had been the woman who died in the car accident just over a year ago. I hadn’t treated her, because she was like family to me. But I was with her while she was in the emergency room. She’d made me promise to look after her husband, Jim, who’d been diagnosed with Parkinson’s the year before. She’d known, as did her husband, that I’d been in a relationship with Mia, but didn’t hold it against me like Eli did. She and Mr. Parker had been like a second set of parents to me. More so when my own parents retired and decided to leave cold winters behind and moved to San Diego.
In some ways, I was like another son. I hadn’t treated Jane when she was brought into the emergency room after her accident, but I’d held her hand in the hospital as we waited for Jim and Eli to arrive. She was wheeled into surgery before they got there. She died on the operating table. Eli blamed me for that as well, even though I wasn’t her doctor.
I shook my head at the memory. It was so fucking sad, and made me wonder why medicine could fall so short. But thinking of Mia, Eli and Jane reminded me that I should check in with Jim. Because Eli hated me still, my friendship with Jim was on the downlow, but we did get together at times to play chess or I’d take him fishing.
“Did Joyce succeed in getting a date?” Peggy Shoals, an emergency room nurse asked, getting a cup of coffee after me.
I laughed. “Not with me.”
“Do you think her insurance has raised her deductible for all the trips she makes here?” Peggy sat with me at the table.
“Not so much that she stops coming.” I sat at one of the three tables to relax for a few minutes.
“What are you going to do when she comes in worried about a lump in her breast?”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m going to have Alice examine her,” I said of Dr. Alice Kramer.
“That’ll teach her,” Peggy laughed.
I finished my coffee, and rose from my chair to rinse my cup out. “Back to work.”
“I’ll be right behind you.”
I walked out of the lounge and headed back to the emergency area. Before I could reach the corner, Dick Waterson, the hospital administrator walked around the corner. Following him, a woman also rounded the corner. I stopped in my tracks and my heart made a hard thump in my chest.
She stopped, too, and stared at me.
“Ah, Dr. Foster,” Dick said to me. “I’m glad we caught you. I’d like to introduce you to the new hospital lawyer, Mia Parker.”