More Than a Kiss

by Layce Gardner

"Sure. Don't you?" Edison said, brushing a stray hair off Jordan’s shoulder. She straightened her collar.

  "Nope," Jordan said.

  "Nope?"

  "No." Jordan looked at herself in the mirror again. "I believe the concept of true love is just an illusion."

  Edison looked at Jordan's face, at her reflection in the mirror, then back to Jordan. She imitated Irma's accent, "Edison think one of you big fat liar."

  Happy Birthday to Me

  Jordan paced back and forth in the small room. There wasn't much to do or look at while she waited for Amy. The décor left a lot to be desired. One gurney-type rolling bed, one rolling stool, and a small desk holding some medical torture instruments. The desk was on wheels, too. What was it with doctors and rolly devices?

  There were two doors. One was the door that she had come in and the other door led to another room identical to this one. Jordan knew because she had peeked earlier.

  She stopped pacing long enough to study the poster that was taped to the wall. It depicted a cartoon boy holding his hands over a sink. There were bugs and worms crawling all over his hands. Cartoon germs. She moved to the next poster. It was a drawing of the male anatomy complete with latin-esque labels. Jordan leaned in close and studied the side view of the phallus. It was a sliced open view so you could see what the inside of the penis looked like. It looked all spongy. She reached out and touched it with one finger. It just felt like a poster.

  She wiped her unbandaged hand on the side of her shorts. Her palm was sweaty. It was a cold sweat. Nerves. She didn't like to admit it, but Amy made her nervous. Not like she was scared of her, but like she was scared of her. That didn't make sense unless you were Jordan. And it made perfect sense to her. She was scared of Amy, all right. Not scared of the physical person of Amy. More like scared of how Amy made her feel.

  The small room was giving her an acute case of claustrophobia. The walls were closing in, making her brain play tricks on itself. She swore the cartoon boy on the “Always wash your hands poster” was talking to her. Which was markedly better than the penis one talking to her. The cartoon boy told her she should wash her hands. Sweaty hands were germy hands and sing the Happy Birthday song because that was the specified length for optimum germ removal. She didn’t know whether she should believe him or not but she had an instant driving desire to rid her hands of sweat and potentially hazardous germs.

  She went to the sink, and turned on the hot water. She didn't want to shake hands with Amy and have a clammy, sweaty palm. That would be the death knell of any budding relationship. Almost as bad as kissing and slobbering on her face. She held her hand under the stream of water and sang the Happy Birthday song all the way through just like the cartoon boy in the poster told her to do.

  When she turned off the water, she heard a voice. No, two voices. They were coming from the room next door. One voice sounded like Amy’s. Jordan pressed her ear to the door that led to the room next door, closed her eyes and listened. There was a man’s voice, and Amy’s voice.

  Here is what she heard the voices say:

  “No! Don’t!” Amy said.

  “Why not? You want it. You know you do,” a man said.

  “I do not want it. Especially while I’m working.”

  “C’mon, this is the perfect place. That way if it makes you sick you’re already in a hospital.”

  “I don’t have time,” Amy said. “I have an appointment any minute now.”

  “I’ll be quick. Here.”

  “No!” Amy screeched. “Put that back where it belongs. I don’t want to even look at it.”

  “Aw. c’mon. Just put a little bit in your mouth.”

  Amy screamed. Metal clanged against metal and fell to the floor. There was a giant thud.

  Jordan immediately morphed into white knight mode. She bashed open the door and crashed into the room, hands held high in a karate move. She hai-yai’ed and did the whooping crane stance that The Karate Kid made famous.

  The frozen tableau she saw before her was this: Amy was in a corner. Jeremy was holding a bowl in one hand and a spoon in the other. He held the spoon, which had some type of green sludge in it, only an inch from Amy’s lips. A bedpan was on the floor, still spinning from its fall.

  “Unhand her,” Jordan said because she was still thinking like a knight and Amy was her damsel in distress.

  Jeremy clanked the spoon into the bowl and said, “Hey, you’re the lesbian hottie.”

  Jordan relaxed, deflating from the whooping crane stance to one of an embarrassed penguin. “And you’re Amy’s boyfriend. Who’s trying to spoon feed her.”

  Amy laughed and slapped Jeremy’s chest with the back of her hand. “He’s not my boyfriend. He’s my butthole roommate. Who’s trying to make me eat my other roommate’s experiment.”

  “Um, okay,” Jordan said. “I’ll just be right over there. In the next room. Waiting.” She held up her injured hand. “Stitches, you know.” She saluted them. “Carry on.”

  Jordan backed out the door, smiling so big her face hurt. She closed the door and banged her head against it, muttering, “Dumb, dumb, dumb.” She went back to the sink, turned on the water and washed her face with her one good hand while humming Happy Birthday.

  "Is it your birthday?"

  Jordan gasped and turned. It was Amy. She turned off the faucet and looked around for a paper towel. "No, it's not my birthday. I was just singing it because the cartoon boy told me to."

  "Cartoon boy?" Amy asked. She tilted her head to one side. She squinted like she was trying to figure out if Jordan had gone bonkers.

  Jordan gestured at the poster.

  Amy studied the poster. She looked worried. "That boy in the poster talked to you? You know he's not alive, right?" Amy handed her a paper towel.

  "No!" Jordan said. "I mean, yes, I know that. I meant the bubble over his head said to sing…well you know." She took the paper towel and dried her hands.

  Amy laughed. "I was just kidding."

  Jordan breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh. That was funny. You had me going there for a minute." There was an awkward pause while she wiped her face with the paper towel. “Um, sorry about bursting in on you like that. It sounded like, you know…”

  “Yeah, I know,” Amy said. “But it wasn’t what you think. And he’s not what you think.”

  Jordan nodded. She nodded too much. It was like she couldn’t stop nodding. She felt like one of those toy Chihuahua dogs people put on the dashboard of their car.

  "You're nervous, huh?" Amy asked.

  Jordan nodded about three hundred more times quickly.

  "No need to be. Getting stitches taken out doesn't hurt at all. Have a seat." Amy looked over her paperwork on her clipboard and jotted down some notes.

  Jordan sat on the gurney-bed. She could feel the coarse paper laid across the top sticking to the back of her sweaty thighs. Great. She was so nervous that she was sweating all over now. Amy was going to think she had some kind of sweating disorder.

  Jordan closed her eyes and took three deep breaths. She couldn't ask Amy out. There was no way this brilliant, busy, probably straight doctor would go out with her. Jordan was certain she would just make a fool of herself by asking, and Amy was so nice that she'd have to make up an excuse and then they'd both know she was lying and that would make everything really awkward and tense and then she'd have to tell Edison about how stupid she'd been and she'd feel embarrassed about it for months or maybe even years.

  "One down," Amy said.

  Jordan opened her eyes. Amy was smiling and holding one tiny little black piece of thread stuff in some tweezers.

  "That didn't hurt, did it?" Amy asked.

  Jordan shook her head. She'd been so wrapped up in the conversation with herself that she hadn’t known when Amy had unwrapped her hand and taken out a stitch.

  God, this woman was delectable. If she asked Amy to kiss it and make it better, would she? That was a wicked thought. Wickedly delicious, that is. Wasn't tha
t the jingle for Lucky Charms? No, that was magically delicious. Jordan closed her eyes again and thought of sex. She had learned this trick while going to the dentist. Thinking about sex made having people poke and prod in your mouth much more tolerable. Now, she had Amy to think of having sex with. She knew she shouldn’t go there, but she went there anyway.

  "Done," Amy pronounced.

  Jordan opened her eyes again and gaped at Amy. She had taken all the stitches out in less time than she could sing the Lucky Charms jingle.

  "Wow," Jordan said for lack of anything better to say.

  "Your hand is healing nicely. Now let's see how it functions. "

  "You made it bionic, right? 'Cause I always wanted a bionic hand."

  Amy laughed. "Let's just see if you can open and close it first."

  Jordan slowly made a fist while making bionic sounds. A sudden shot of pain made her stop and gasp. "Ouch." She looked at Amy. "That hurt."

  "It will for a while. You did sever a tendon, you know. Practice opening and closing, making a fist, squeezing." Amy demonstrated the motion with her own hand. She looked like she was milking a cow. "You'll have to do some physical therapy in order to regain full use of your hand."

  Jordan's world brightened a little. "I get to come here and do therapy with you?"

  "No, you can do it yourself. At home."

  "Oh," Jordan said when what she really wanted to say was "Damn." She'd had a little ray of hope there for a minute. Hope that she'd get to come to Amy's office and practice squeezing things. Whoops, there were those magically delicious thoughts again.

  Amy rolled her chair over to the desk, opened a drawer and rummaged around inside. When she rolled back over, she handed Jordan a little yellow rubber ball. "Squeeze on that ball. Carry it around with you and when you have a spare moment, squeeze it. In a few weeks, you'll have complete use of your hand again."

  Jordan gave it a try. She could barely make a dent in the ball.

  "Keep at it. You'll see."

  She stowed the ball in the side pocket of her shorts. Amy rolled away to the desk.

  I want one of those rolling stools, Jordan thought. I could get all around my house and never have to stand at all.

  When Amy rolled back, she handed Jordan a stack of books. Jordan accepted them with her good hand and was shocked when she saw they were the books she'd written.

  "These are mine," Jordan said. "I mean, they belong to you, obviously, but I wrote them."

  "I bought them the other day. I was wondering if you'd do me the honor of autographing them?"

  "Yeah, sure. Of course I will," Jordan said. She'd never been asked for her autograph before.

  Amy handed her a pen.

  Jordan opened the first book to the title page and had a sudden thought. "Who should I make it out to?"

  "Me," Amy said.

  Jordan bent over the page and wrote: Amy, will you go to lunch with me? Jordan March.

  Jordan nervously handed it over. She watched as Amy read it and looked up at her.

  "I'd love to," Amy said. "When?"

  "Now?"

  "Right now?"

  "Do you not want to?" Jordan asked, her heart racing. Thank God, Amy didn’t have her stethoscope with her - she might admit her to the cardiac unit for observation.

  "No, it's the suddenness of it that startled me."

  "We could do it tomorrow. Or next week. Or some evening."

  Amy shook her head, saying, "We can't do it in the evening."

  "Um, okay, I understand. You already have plans and –"

  Amy interrupted her, "No, I mean you wrote 'lunch' so we can't do lunch in the evening."

  Jordan quickly wrote in the next book: Or dinner?

  Amy read it and laughed. "What are you going to write in the third book?"

  Jordan shrugged. "Depends on how well lunch goes. When would you like to go?"

  "Now?"

  "Right now?"

  "Isn't that what you said? You wanted to do it right now?"

  Jordan shook her head. "I'm confused. Are we still talking about lunch?"

  Amy giggled. Jordan liked it when Amy giggled.

  "How about if I meet you out front in five minutes?"

  "That'd be great," Jordan said. “See you then!” She hurried into the hall and headed to the elevator. She felt like skipping. She felt like skipping and singing and laughing all at the same time.

  Three’s Company

  Jordan exited the sliding glass doors of the hospital and did a touchdown victory dance that looked a cross between clogging and disco.

  "Does this mean the date is on?"

  Jordan jumped. "My God! Don't sneak up behind me like that!"

  "I didn't sneak. I walked like a normal person,” Edison said. “If you weren't so busy spazzing out, you'd have seen me," Edison said.

  Jordan went back to her jubilant state, hopping from foot to foot. "She said yes. She said yes. She said yes!"

  "So when’s the big day?"

  "Today. Now.”

  "Right now?"

  "Yes, right now. She's meeting me out here in a few minutes."

  Edison looked at her watch. "Okay. I guess I can do lunch."

  "Not you," Jordan said. "It's a date. That usually means only two people. You know, The whole ‘three’s a crowd’ saying."

  “I thought it was ‘three’s company.’”

  “That was the TV show, not the saying.”

  “I liked that show. I had a crush on the brunette. What was her name?”

  “Maryanne, I think.”

  “No, that was the brunette on Gilligan’s Island.”

  “Aha! I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to divert my attention so you can go on my date with me. But it won’t work because her name was Janet,” Jordan said.

  "I'll drive you, that's all. I won't sit at your table or anything."

  "You're going to stare at us. I know you. You're going to sit and stare and eavesdrop. I won't be able to concentrate."

  "I will not! Besides, it's my car. I drove you here. How will you get home if I don't go and take you home after? And you don’t want her to see where you live until the house is finished. Your house will make you seem like you never finish a project. I read a book once that had this psychological test where people went into dorm rooms and did a personality profile on the person based on what they saw. It was spot on. That’s why if you’re checking out a person you should go to their place and see what it looks like, then you’ll know if you want to date them."

  Jordan was horrified. “The state of the house is your fault.”

  “Ah, but you let me do it,” Edison said.

  Amy appeared behind them. "I'm ready."

  Edison and Jordan jumped. Edison said, "My God! Don't sneak up on us like that!"

  Amy laughed. "Yep, that's me. Miss Sneaky Pants."

  “Edison is going to be our chauffeur. She'll be driving us to lunch. If that’s all right."

  "Great!" Amy said. “I left my car at the dealer.”

  “Is something wrong with it?” Edison asked, her I-can-fix-it-myself proclivity starting to quiver with anticipation.

  Jordan was certain if Edison ever got hold of Amy’s car it would end up being Chitty Chitty Bang Bang – except it wouldn’t be able to float or fly. Or even drive.

  “No, they’re giving it the once over so I can pick up my new car after work.”

  “New car?” Jordan asked. “What kind?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “Are you going to show me the surprise sometime or will I always have to wonder?” Jordan asked.

  “We’ll see how lunch goes,” Amy said, smiling mischievously.

  "I'll go get my car," Edison said, giving Jordan the evil eye as she walked to the parking lot.

  Jordan watched her go, thinking having Edison as a best friend was like having a cold sore – she never went away and as long as she was around, Jordan would never get kissed.

  Date or Date-Date?


  As Jordan sat scrunched in the back seat, listening to Edison and Amy chatter, she began to wonder if this was a real date in the conventional sense that the word “date” implied. Meaning: two people sharing a meal, a couple of hours together, with romantic intentions. Maybe Amy didn't know it was a date. Maybe she thought it was friends going to lunch together. Maybe she thought they were going to talk about girl things and tandem eat sandwiches. How could Jordan let Amy know that she considered their mutual sandwich eating a date-date and not just a date without scaring her off? Then again, if it did scare Amy off didn't that mean she didn't want to date-date? And wouldn't it be better to find that out on the date before it became a date-date?

  Jordan was working herself into a headache. This was exactly why she didn't date-date. Irma was so much easier. She wished she had taken Amy up on that Vicoden offer. Then she could pop one right now and relax.

  Edison scored a parking spot right in front of The Original Dinerant which was a miracle in itself. Jordan even had enough change to plug the parking meter for two hours. Another miracle. They got a table right away, a window seat, yet another miracle.

  “Wow. This place is really cool. It’s like retro,” Amy said. She pointed to the staircase. Where does that go?”

  Jordan and Edison looked around as if seeing it for the first time. They always ate here so they no longer realized the grooviness of the place.

  “There’s a lounge upstairs with couches and a floating fireplace. It’s pretty awesome,” Edison said.

  Edison led the way upstairs, giving a tour of the couches and floating fireplace like she was the owner of the place. Jordan sat at a table and studied the menu while Edison chatted up her date. She hoped Amy couldn’t see her seething behind the menu.

  Ten minutes later, Jordan and Amy had both ordered a turkey sandwich with baked chips and extra pickles. Jordan took their turkey symbiosis to be an omen of their compatibility. She was silently pleased that Edison ordered breakfast.

  Jordan caught Edison's eye and made head motions away from the table. Finally, Edison figured out what Jordan was trying to communicate in charades. She stood and said, "Well, ladies, if you'll excuse me now."