NYC Angels: Making the Surgeon Smile

by Lynne Marshall

  Oh, God, he couldn’t do this again. He couldn’t bear the pain if anything happened to this baby … or Polly. He’d used up an entire life’s worth of pain and sadness already. He couldn’t spare one more …

  “Are you all right?”

  Polly’s gentle voice broke through his thoughts. Even when confessing her predicament, she’d put him first. Was he all right? What about her? Was she all right with him getting her pregnant? Of course not! Yet, trouper that she was, she’d come to tell him she was keeping their baby, whether he liked it or not.

  He tried to unclench his fists, to act as if he hadn’t just relived the worst day of his life. Unfortunately, his expression must have been a snapshot of his true feelings, and Polly was a solid people-reader. Perspiration moistened his upper lip. He rubbed it away.

  “Yes, I’m all right.” He took a deep breath, knowing it would be impossible to invest emotionally in this pregnancy. At least he could be a civilized man and offer financial support. Surely she couldn’t do this on her own without his monetary help. He ground his molars and lifted his eyes to meet her steady and earnest gaze. “How much do you think you’ll need?”

  His hands shook so badly he wasn’t even sure he’d be able to hold a pen if she agreed to let him write her a check. He held onto the desk rim to hide his shaking.

  He may as well have slapped her face by the way she flinched at his words. “Pardon?” Anger, like an offshore squall, gathered in those luminescent blue eyes. Her face tensed, incensed. “You think I came here to ask for money?” Her voice quivered with barely controlled rage. “You want to pay me because you knocked me up?”

  Of course she’d take it the wrong way. She didn’t have a clue what he’d been through, and he sure as hell didn’t have the strength to tell her now. He had to hold it together, to be the worst kind of bastard on earth in order to make it through this meeting. No matter what she thought of him, she at least deserved to be well taken care of.

  He tugged his earlobe. “That’s right.” His jaw was so tightly locked the words had to squeeze themselves out.

  Her obviously escalating fury forced her to stand. Her cheeks blushed red, her eyes looked wild. “You bastard!”

  It was her turn to verbally slap him. “This pregnancy isn’t some little problem you can clean up with cash. For me it’s sacred!” She stormed out of the room and slammed the door, leaving the glass and walls shaking as much as his hands.

  Ah, hell. He picked up his pen and tossed it across the desk. Could he have handled the situation any worse?

  Almost a week later Polly helped her favorite LVN, Darren, start an IV he’d accidentally dislodged. She sat at the hospital bedside with her IV kit prepared and in reach. Children were always a challenge, and the little boy had started screaming the moment he’d realized what the “lady nurse” was going to do to him. Darren firmly held the six-year-old’s arm to the bed, his other arm safely secured in a cast and sling. With Darren’s free hand he pressed against the boy’s knees to control the fidgeting legs.

  Starting an IV on a child that was freaking out was bad enough, but hitting a moving target was nearly impossible.

  She wiped the skin with disinfectant and slipped on gloves. His wails escalated.

  “Mikey, if you hold still for just a couple of seconds, this will go a lot quicker,” Darren said. “Then I’ll play Battle Star with you, I promise.”

  Fortunately, that morning the high school of performing arts had sent a troupe of street performers to their ward. A lanky kid in a fluorescent green shirt and a bright red beret appeared at the doorway, juggling neon yellow and blue bowling pins. He edged to the side of the bed, capturing the boy’s attention.

  The moment the child became distracted Polly slid the needle into the vein and anchored it with tape before Mikey’s delayed protest made him squirm again. His mouth gaped as the juggler pretended, in an exaggerated way, to almost drop a pin.

  “It’s all over,” Polly said. “Just need to tape it, Mikey.” She wasn’t even sure he was listening. “Then you can kick Darren’s patootie in Battle Star, okay?”

  The relieved child looked at his arm to make sure Polly hadn’t lied, just as the juggler migrated to the next room.

  Darren glanced at Polly, winked and smiled. She smiled back, then patted Mikey’s shoulder. Teamwork. It was the only way to survive in a hospital.

  Teamwork in a pregnancy was pretty darned important, too.

  Leaving the room, she almost ran into John, who was holding a tiny patient and watching the juggler as he switched to multicolored balls. It had been a week since she’d told him she was pregnant and had stormed out of his office after he’d insulted her, and he hadn’t lifted a finger to contact her since. She yanked herself back before they made physical contact, as her heart nearly hurtled out of her chest. “Oh, sorry,” she said, by rote.

  He handed the tiny patient to the nearby nurse then steadied Polly by holding her arms. “My fault. Wasn’t watching where I was going.”

  She stared at his feet, rather than look at him, furious with him, the feel of his warm hands on her skin almost her undoing. What could she say that she hadn’t already confessed in his office, and he’d frozen her out, tried to pay her off, leaving her hurt beyond comprehension? She’d calmed down since then for her baby’s sake, and from now on her baby would be the only thing she cared about.

  She stepped back, removing her arms from his grasp. The last thing she needed was for anyone on staff to become suspicious about them, or find out about their predicament. Her predicament, as he’d have nothing to do with it. The pregnancy would be apparent to everyone soon enough.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked, under his breath.

  “Fine. Thank you.” She walked away, pretending her legs didn’t feel like noodles, holding her head high. She felt his eyes on her, but refused to turn round.

  “Dr. Griffin! Dr. Griffin!” a child’s voice cried out. “Will you make me an elephant?”

  “I’ll make you two elephants, if you’ll quit giving your physical therapist such a hard time, Nate.”

  Did he even give a damn about her?

  The boy laughed, and Polly could practically see John messing his hair and pretending to punch him in the arm with the cast. The man was a natural with kids, yet he’d chosen to ignore his own child.

  Later that day, when the opportunity came up to work a double shift, Polly jumped at the chance. She’d need to work lots of double shifts to earn as much money as possible while she could for her and the baby.

  The evening staff had a whole different feel from the day crew. Gossip seemed to be their favorite pastime, and Polly got an earful from another RN named Janetta, a large woman with a loud voice. When Janetta spoke, everyone listened.

  “You know that pretty new blonde doctor, Layla something or other?” Janetta said.

  “Dr. Woods?” Polly asked.

  “Mmm-hmm. That’s the one. She talks weird.”

  “She’s from Texas.”

  “That’s right, honey. That’s the one.” Janetta leaned forward and looked around. “Guess who she’s having an affair with.”

  Polly didn’t have a clue, neither did she want to know, but something told her Janetta was about to tell her anyway.

  “Dr. Dreamy himself. That hunk from Neuro, Dr. Rodriguez.”

  Come to think of it, Layla and Dr. Rodriguez would make a perfect couple, but Polly kept her thoughts to herself. “How do you know they’re having an affair?”

  “Everyone knows it. Where have you been? It’s the talk of the hospital. Goes way back. I heard from a good source that it broke up Dr. Woods’s marriage, too. It must be true, ‘cos she’s single.”

  The thought of her own and John’s personal business getting spread all over the hospital like poor Dr. Woods and Dr. Rodriguez made her skin prickle.

  From the corner of her eye she noticed John entering room number one. “Goodnight, Chloe and Sandra. Sleep tight. See you in the morning
light.”

  She’d never been here before for John’s nightly ritual.

  He zipped into the next room. “Jason and Brandon, don’t give your nurses a hard time or you’ll have to answer to me. Have a good night’s sleep and I’ll be back to check on you tomorrow.”

  How would John hold his head up at work if their affair became fodder for the hospital gossip mill?

  As for herself, she couldn’t wait to be a mother, single or not. Finally she’d have a baby to love and cherish and they’d be a family, just the two of them. She thought about Dr. Woods and wondered if she had a clue what was being said about her, and decided not to participate in this grapevine.

  She thought about telling Janetta that unless she knew for sure about something, she shouldn’t pass it along, but didn’t want to get on Janetta’s bad side. Instead, she nodded her head and let Janetta give her the rundown on several other people having affairs in the hospital, while listening to John enter each patient room and wishing the children a good night.

  Soon enough her name would be added to the jilted-lover list.

  Polly kept her thoughts to herself and to avoid John went back to caring for her patients, thankful that visiting hours made the floor busier and noisier than usual. The chaos still wasn’t enough to keep her from thinking about her own situation, though.

  She’d have to get used to the evening staff as she planned to work at least two extra shifts a month from now until she went on maternity leave. She would have to in order to make ends meet, and there was no way she’d let John pay her for getting her pregnant. She’d never take his guilt money.

  Thankfully, she’d get medical coverage through Angel’s hospital after her probationary two months. She’d have to hold tight until then to have her first prenatal appointment. Since she didn’t have a clue how to find a good obstetrician in town, she’d have to be discreet about getting a name without alerting the rest of the staff to her situation.

  During her dinner break Janetta and someone Polly had never seen before joined her at the only table in the nurses’ lounge.

  “This here is Vickie. She’s the receptionist up in hospital Administration offices.”

  Polly greeted her, but wondered what she was doing hanging around the hospital after hours. The look on Vickie’s face made Polly think she was bursting with something to say.

  “I thought we were going to be alone,” Vickie said to Janetta.

  “Oh, you can trust Polly. Now, spill. What’s the big news you have for me?”

  Vickie licked her lips as excitement widened her eyes. “You’ll never believe what happened today.”

  “Go on, go on.” Janetta practically rubbed her hands together with glee.

  “Okay. Well, Dr. Woods got called up to the offices today. She showed up all solemn-faced and nervous. When they buzzed me and I told her to go inside, girl, she looked scared.” Vickie took a big bite of bread and chewed quickly.

  Janetta impatiently gobbled some of her dinner, as if not wanting to miss a single syllable. Polly wished she could disappear, but knew if she walked out Janetta would peg her as someone she couldn’t trust with good old-fashioned gossip, which would make Polly an enemy, so she stayed in her chair, quietly nibbling at her meal.

  Vickie’s eyes brightened. “Okay, so a couple minutes after Dr. Woods is in the room, guess who comes barreling through the office doors?”

  “Tell me, oh, tell me. Not …”

  “Yes. Dr. R., and before the door can close I hear him say ‘I insist Dr. Woods’s name be cleared’.”

  “Cleared from what?” Janetta looked like she was sitting around a campfire hearing a famous urban legend being retold.

  “I think this has to do with some surgery on a kid back in Los Angeles that they got sued for. But get this. I sort of got out of my chair and went over by the door so I could hear better. He says, ‘She’s a gifted doctor with much to offer our hospital, and she shouldn’t have her name dragged through the media because of a surgery I agreed to perform’.” Vickie put on a horrible accent, and Polly’s stomach twisted with guilt, listening. “‘I was the person who was charged in that malpractice suit, not Dr. Woods, and I was cleared.’ He went on to say that he knew the surgery would be high risk, and if they wanted to lay the blame on anyone, it should be him.”

  “Oh, my God, this is something.”

  “Yeah, so next thing I know, Dr. Woods rushes out of the offices and out the door and Dr. Rodriguez keeps yelling at them. The last thing I heard was, ‘No, you listen to me. The verdict was no malpractice. Make it public, then!’”

  Janetta was practically salivating over this news. Polly sat silent, watching the two women live vicariously through someone else’s drama. It just didn’t seem right.

  Later, while exiting her patient’s room, she noticed the nurses’ station had gone quiet. She glanced up and spotted across the ward the very doctor Janetta and Vickie had been talking about at dinner. Polly waved and rushed to her side, not caring how it looked to her co-workers.

  “Hi,” Dr. Woods said with a genuine glad-to-see-you smile.

  “Hi. I wanted to thank you for arranging my test, and ask another question if you don’t mind?”

  “Of course not. What’s up?”

  Polly guided Dr. Woods to a more private spot, noticing Janetta’s eagle eyes watching. She lowered her voice. “I was wondering if you could recommend an obstetrician who is close by the hospital.”

  Layla raised a perfectly arched brow. “So the test was positive,” she whispered.

  Polly gave one solemn nod.

  Layla patted her forearm. “Let me ask around, since I’m kind of new in town myself, and I’ll get back to you, ‘kay?”

  “Thank you so much.”

  “Darlin’, it’s my pleasure. We girls gotta to stick together. You know?”

  Overwhelmed by the doctor’s care and genuine concern, once their hushed conversation had ended, Polly decided that regardless of the hospital gossip about Dr. Woods having had an affair with the head of Neurosurgery while she was still married, Polly would be Layla Woods’s number one fan.

  Polly could barely breathe when on the following Thursday the case involving Dr. Woods and Rodriguez went public at Angel’s. She read the memo addressed to the hospital staff about a boy named Jamie Kilpatrick and a high-risk neurosurgery that Dr. Woods had recommended to Dr. Rodriguez. One thing stood out beyond everything else: Dr. Rodriguez had valiantly taken full responsibility for the boy’s death.

  One major question crossed Polly’s mind. Why would Dr. Rodriguez put his career and reputation on the line to protect Dr. Woods? She didn’t need to think for long. The man was obviously in love with her, just like Janetta had said. Wow, what must it feel like to have someone love you that much?

  That night Polly combed the aisles of her local market, hunting for healthy food. Her routine in the mornings had always been to buy a couple of pieces of fresh fruit from one of the street carts near the hospital. She’d bring a yogurt from home for morning break, then a sandwich for lunch, usually tuna, and eat the second piece of fruit. Now she worried she wasn’t getting enough vitamins. She grabbed a bag of baby spinach, deciding to sauté it with oil and garlic and serve it for dinner over the chicken breast she’d just picked up. Eating for two was a big responsibility, and she wanted her baby to have the best opportunity possible at a healthy start.

  Eyeing a package of her favorite cookies, she steered away. This pregnancy business would be harder than anything she’d done in her life, but she was determined to have a successful pregnancy.

  The thought of a healthy baby brought back the need to see an obstetrician in the next couple of weeks. With fingers crossed that Dr. Woods would come through for her, she paid for her groceries and headed home.

  John stood over his six-burner state-of-the-art stove, grilling salmon. He’d gutted the old-fashioned kitchen when his parents had sold him their condo at a steal before moving to Florida. Now he had a kitchen th
at connected to the flow of the house, instead of hidden behind a wall. The 56th Street, near Sutton Place address was perfectly situated for work, plus he had the East River within walking distance whenever he felt like taking a jog. With two bedrooms and baths, a living room, which he’d expanded by breaking down a small third bedroom wall, and the new roomier kitchen, he lived comfortably for a New York City bachelor.

  Tri-colored squash sautéed in a small pan and the brown rice steamed in another. He loved to cook and wasn’t shy about letting people know. While cooking, he wondered if Polly was taking good care of herself, and how she might enjoy this meal. Flipping the fish, he realized he didn’t have a clue what she liked to eat beyond cheese pizza. For all he knew, she hated fish.

  She was carrying his baby. Every time he thought about it, the breath squeezed from his lungs.

  With everything under control dinner-wise, and Polly solidly implanted in his mind, he dug out his cell phone and called a forgotten friend. “Geoff, it’s John.”

  The old medical school colleagues went through a required, though brief catch-up time, then John broached the true reason for his call. “I was wondering if you’d do me a favor. One of my ortho nurses just found out she’s pregnant, and she needs a good OB guy. I told her I knew the best. Any chance you could squeeze her in?”

  Geoff asked John to hold while he flipped through his calendar and, taking this opportunity, John checked the salmon and veggies, then opened his kitchen catch-all drawer, hunting for a pad of paper and a pen. Soon Geoff was back on the line with an appointment date and time.

  “Fantastic. Thanks so much.” He tugged his earlobe. “Oh, by the way, send me the bill.”

  By the brief silence on the other end before Geoff agreed, John figured he hadn’t pulled the wool over his old classmate’s eyes. Yes. John Griffin had knocked up a nurse. His nurse. Polly.

  On Friday afternoon Polly was in the middle of hanging intravenous antibiotics for her newest post-op patient when John appeared at her side. Her hand trembled as she placed the small bottle of potent medicine on the hook and opened the drip regulator. She got mad at herself for letting him have that much power over her and hoped he hadn’t noticed. He was in his OR scrubs, having followed the surgical patient back to the ward.