Tooth and Nail

by Linda D. Dahl

  I couldn’t believe my ears. Did this successful, wealthy man want to be my friend because of the way I took care of him? This must be how my colleagues connected with important people, like chairmen and presidents of things. All my hard work and fending off pretentious attitudes were finally paying off. I had to say yes.

  “I would be happy to. Just give me a date, and I will make it work,” I said casually, like it happened all the time. I wasn’t about to repeat the mistake I had made with the designer and get too excited, but going out for lunch was tricky. My overbooked schedule didn’t allow for breaks. I barely had time to shove food in my mouth between patients. But, for this special occasion, I would make it happen. We planned a date for later that week.

  * * *

  “Are you feeling better?” I asked, sitting across from him at the restaurant. He had arrived before me and was already sipping on a glass of wine.

  “So much better. I can finally hear, and I don’t even need the pain meds anymore. Can I order a glass for you?” he asked, pointing at his. His face was flushed, which made me wonder if he had a wine allergy. But I reminded myself I was not a doctor today, I was a person. I was not allowed to diagnose.

  As a person, I wanted nothing more than to down some Pinot Grigio to calm my nerves, but I had to refuse. I still had to go back and see my afternoon patients. “No, I’ll just have some ice tea, thanks.”

  “So, Dr. Dahl, are you married? I didn’t notice a ring.” He shifted a little in his chair and flung his fingers toward my hands. It was a strange gesture, but I figured he was just trying to get to know me.

  “No, not anymore,” I said, before I could stop myself. I didn’t want him to judge me for my failed marriage, so I added, “I married my first boyfriend,” as a buffer. It also gave me an excuse for when he would undoubtedly ask what my ex-husband did for a living. I was surprised when he didn’t.

  “Ah, you’re lucky. Marriage isn’t easy. I’ve been married a long time—too long. Jane is great but, after a while, people just drift apart.” He looked sad. I appreciated that he was sharing this part of himself.

  “I know what you mean. I used to love spending time with my husband. But, as time went on, we just wanted different things.” It felt good to be able to speak openly. I was so tired of holding in all those feelings; it was a relief to have a real conversation about it.

  We continued, explaining how we had met our prospective spouses: both in college. He told me about his children (he had three), his hobbies (yoga and, of course, skiing), where he’d grown up (Vermont). Talking to him felt so good it made me realize how lonely I had become.

  “You seem to really get me,” he said, leaning in and touching my hand. “I don’t usually connect with people this way, not this quickly. I feel like I could tell you anything.”

  I froze. Had this friendship talk suddenly turned into something else? Was I reading into it or walking backwards into a land mine? I was being delusional. He couldn’t be hitting on me. He was married and spent most of the lunch talking about his family. He was obviously just being nice. How could someone like him want someone like me? I was nothing like his wife.

  I glanced at his watch, resting so near my wrist: it was time to get back to the office. I thanked him for lunch and left, laughing at myself for thinking such crazy thoughts.

  When he called the office the following week with the proposal that I become his mistress, I blamed myself.

  “She will never divorce me—well, we will never divorce each other. We have to stay together for the kids. But we haven’t been together for some time, if you know what I mean,” he said, explaining his situation in practical terms. Despite my horror at his request, I respected his honesty. He had clearly thought this through.

  “That is a predicament,” I said. I had never been in a situation like this, and I didn’t know what to do. He was still my patient, and I didn’t want to get in trouble with my bosses, so I tried to doctor him through his harassment of me.

  “Well, that’s where you come in. Even though my wife wants to stay married, there are parts she no longer wants. Parts I could share with you...”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. Why would he think I would want to be with a married man? Didn’t I deserve better than someone who would hide me, or be ashamed to be seen with me? And what about his poor wife?

  “Oh, uh, wow. That’s, wow. That’s something. I’m sorry, but no. You are my patient and, as your doctor, it’s really inappropriate,” I said, more furious that I was hiding behind my profession instead of telling him what I really thought of his proposition. My true sentiments would have definitely gotten me fired.

  “Well, if you reconsider, you know where to find me,” he said before hanging up, unfazed and still hopeful.

  I thought that would be the last I heard from him, but it wasn’t. He still made appointments and, because I was too embarrassed to explain to my colleagues what had happened, I kept seeing him. With each visit, I navigated around his impudence like it was my fault. I figured I was to blame for the supposed misunderstanding because I’d had lunch with him.

  I wish I could say he was the only wealthy married man who propositioned me, but the Upper East Side had an epidemic. There was the hedge-fund manager who asked me to be his girlfriend, even though his wife was also my patient, then fired me when I refused. And the real-estate mogul who wanted me to be his lover, when his wife and other girlfriend were away, but first I had to refill his Viagra prescription. There was the plastic surgeon whose personal space shrank to fractions of an inch when he saw me, whispering patient referrals into my ear with hot breath. And the octogenarian diplomat who tried to caress my behind with his bony fingers, while I was checking his throat. It seemed like the more money these men accumulated, the less need they had for decency. Everything was a commodity, including me. The irony was that, after spending most of my life as an untouchable, I finally had more male attention than I could handle. But it was the kind that disgusted me. I would have given anything to go back to being invisible.

  * * *

  “Have you always been in private practice?” I asked Dr. Marsh one day. He had invited me into his office, as he often did, to listen to a new song he liked.

  “No. I worked for the hospital right out of fellowship. It was a great way to start out because of the internal referral system,” he said.

  “So, why did you leave?”

  “You want to know the truth? I loved working there, but the department chair made the call schedule a living hell. The workload was ridiculous for what they were paying me.” He sighed, scrolling through his playlist. “Did you ever consider working for a hospital?”

  “Not really. The job security is nice, but I’m terrible at politics. I don’t think anyone in my residency program was sad to see me go,” I said, referring to my exceedingly short temper when it came to bureaucracy.

  “You just have to learn how to play the game, that’s all. Listen to this.” A slow song with twangy guitar and moody vocals drizzled out of his computer. “The chair is retiring. Have you heard? I wonder how they’ll handle that.”

  “Would you ever consider going back?” I asked.

  “To the hospital? Never. That would be like selling my soul to the devil.” He closed his eyes and swung his head from side to side, lost in the song.

  I wanted so badly to tell him about the boxing thing, but I kept it to myself. It was my dirty little secret and so at odds with the image he had painstakingly created for the practice that I knew he would fire me if he ever found out. But even at the risk of losing my day job, I wouldn’t give up boxing. The rebel in me loved the potential of his discovering it almost as much as the obedient student feared it. But there was no way he would find out. No one ever noticed the fight doctors.

  * * *

  “I want to introduce you to some people,” the Chairman said, greeting me as I wa
lked through the door of the Hammerstein Ballroom.

  He had given me my second fight assignment in close succession to the first, which was a good sign. When I got there, the venue was still empty, and the crews were setting up the ring. He led me past the empty seats to a group of men standing near the entrance to the backstage area.

  “This must be the famous Dr. Dahl,” one of the men said. He was young, with a scruffy beard that outlined his pleasant face. He wore a brown suit and a shirt that was unbuttoned at the top.

  “Why am I famous?” I asked, assuming he meant infamous. The Chairman had probably been sharing stories about how hard I was trying not to look stupid at the last fight.

  “We hear you’re a very successful doctor in Manhattan,” said another, older man. He said the middle a in Manhattan with such a wide open mouth his tongue didn’t come forward enough to enunciate the ts. He wore a black turtleneck made of tightly knit merino wool and black pants that were held up with a thin belt. He was shorter than the other men. “I’m Sal, by the way. I run some things. And this, over here, is Seth.” He gestured to the younger man. “His family owns Everlast. You know ’em? The boxing-gear company.” Of course I had heard of Everlast. Their logo was everywhere, even on the gloves.

  “The practice I work for is really great, but I’m not a partner or anything,” I said, confessing my status. I had no idea why they thought so highly of me. Even though I had been through a lot, every advancement had the paradoxical effect of making me feel more worthless.

  “You are too humble, Dr. Dahl. You’ve accomplished so much at such a young age.” It was the Chairman now. How could these men, who were obviously successful and connected, have such high regard for me? Due to my history, I was cautious in accepting their compliments. I didn’t want the extra burden of having to meet expectations that simply weren’t true.

  “Well, you’re the first woman I’ve met who has the balls—uh, excuse me—the guts to be a fight doctor. You should be proud of yourself,” Sal said. His words made me realize that, of all the emotions I had felt, pride was one of the more elusive ones. But here I was, surrounded by men who were finally showing me some respect. I couldn’t help but accept it.

  Our conversation was interrupted by one of the officials. He leaned into the Chairman, whispering something about gloves.

  “Let’s go, Dr. Dahl. We have to check something out in the back with one of the managers. Gentlemen,” he said, nodding to the men to bid them leave. They nodded back in wordless understanding.

  The Chairman was silent until we reached one of the dressing rooms. Through the open door, I saw an inspector holding a pair of red boxing gloves and speaking to another man in Spanish. I didn’t understand their words, but their flailing fingers and exasperated expressions seemed to indicate some kind of disagreement.

  “¿Cómo estás?” the Chairman asked after him. Even he knew Spanish. I knew only a few medical phrases, but saca la lengua wasn’t so useful in everyday conversation, when you weren’t asking someone to stick out their tongue.

  “I try to ’splain, los gloves, they are siempre the same as ultima fight.” The manager was speaking his best Spanglish, that mix of Spanish and English that spawned words like jamberger and made any English word sound Spanish by putting an el or los in front of it. He continued his argument, explaining that “el parking esta berry bad” and “no hay tiempo to change los gloves.”

  “Miguel, we have limits on how much the gloves are allowed to weigh in New York state. I know these gloves were fine at the last fight, but that’s because it was in Puerto Rico.” The Chairman spoke very loudly, articulating each word with the assumption that Miguel would better understand him with more volume. But, judging by Miguel’s focused eyes, it was clear that, although he was trying very hard, he had no idea what the Chairman was saying.

  The inspector, taking his rightful place in the conversation, let out a flurry of rolled rs and sharp ss that made the Chairman’s point clear in real Spanish. Miguel threw up his hands and turned his head to the side in defeat.

  “Well, that’s one less fight for tonight,” the Chairman said. “Linda, you know why we weigh the gloves, right? Because sometimes they put pieces of metal or other objects in there that can really hurt the other guy.” He was so calm in his delivery, it was like he was Yoda to my Luke Skywalker. We walked down the stairs back to the main area, almost bumping into Dr. Gonzalez.

  “Hey, guys, anyone back there?” He seemed to have just arrived, which was confusing because the Chairman had told me to come thirty minutes earlier.

  “Yeah, there are some fighters in the back. Victor’s manager brought the wrong gloves. Joey’s trying to get him another pair, but it looks like the fight’s gonna be cancelled. You can take Dr. Dahl with you,” he said, turning abruptly and leaving.

  “Hey, you know who’s downstairs?” Dr. Gonzalez asked, excitedly. “That guy whose family owns Everlast. I’ve been trying to talk to him for years, and I finally met him at the last fight. Hopefully he’ll remember me tonight. And that dude with him, Sal. He’s a big deal. His company sponsors all the fights in the city.” He was talking about the men I had met downstairs.

  For some reason, the Chairman was taking me under his wing. Finally, a powerful man wasn’t trying to sleep with me. He was making me his protégée.

  * * *

  Although my gender didn’t go unheeded, I continued to be impressed by the way men treated me in the world of boxing. It was old-school male behavior, something I was groomed to reject. But, after being treated like a notch on the proverbial bedpost of the Upper East Side, I now appreciated the chivalry. Doors were held open, men stepped aside as I passed and I was rarely called by my first name. Being a female fight doctor meant I was both revered and protected. I got all the benefits of being the so-called weaker sex without any of the oppression.

  Between rounds, when I had to go into the ring to check a fighter, I was taken by the hand and helped up the stairs. If a fighter was bleeding, the corner men moved out of the way, saying “Mira, mira, mami. Look the cuts,” which was in distinct contrast to my male counterparts, who were barely allowed a glimpse.

  As Frank once explained, “Usually, when the doctor goes up there, the cut men won’t let him in to get a look. They cover up the boxer so the doctor won’t disqualify him. With you, it’s like carte blanche. They practically give you a welcome party!”

  The cut men even gave me pointers and showed me tricks of their trade. At one fight, a boxer got knocked in the face so hard, he had a split brow and bloody nose. With only sixty seconds to stop the bleeding, his team descended on him. I watched as his cut man pulled out the largest rectal swab I had ever seen and shoved it up the boxer’s nose, compressing his nostrils against it. I cringed, horrified but impressed at his using something meant for a much larger hole to control bleeding in such a small one.

  Leaving the swab in place, he then dipped a piece of gauze in clear liquid and pressed it above the boxer’s brow with such pressure the boxer had to forcefully push back to prevent whiplash. Within seconds, the bleeding stopped.

  I leaned in to examine the clean, and now dry, laceration. “What was that liquid?” I asked, amazed, and certain he would lie and tell me it was saline.

  “Epinephrine,” he whispered. “Don’t tell no one. We’re not supposed to use it. I’m training to be a scrub nurse, so I get from the hospital.”

  “What about the swab? How did you figure that out?” I asked, pointing at the wooden stick that still extended from the boxer’s nostril.

  “Oh,” he laughed. “The secret is Vaseline.”

  * * *

  I got to meet boxing greats, who stopped everything to take pictures with the Lady Fight Doctor. I met George Foreman and Lennox Lewis when they were announcing. Bernard Hopkins posed for a picture with me before ducking away from other fans. I was even invited to a private dinner with
Sultan Ibragimov, whose father warned me not to “squeeze the Charmin” as we posed for a picture. For the first time, being a woman made my job easier instead of harder.

  “Everyone is so nice. I can’t believe I am getting trained so quickly. And the Chairman is so supportive,” I told Dr. Roy one day. I felt so happy. I was finally getting the respect I deserved, and I wasn’t taking any of it for granted.

  “Yes, about that—” He stopped himself midthought and considered before continuing. “You know what? I’m just gonna let you see for yourself. And I’ll leave it at that.” His cryptic warning left me feeling uneasy, but I didn’t want to press him. I wanted this fantasy to last as long as possible. And if his warning was going to break the spell, I didn’t want to know.

  * * *

  “He’s on my schedule? How did that happen? Do you know who he is?” I asked the secretary. She shrugged and twisted a curl of orange hair between her fingers.

  “I don’t know. Some designer dude?” She pursed her lips together and lifted her full upper lip so high it almost touched the edge of her nostrils. She was so bored with my excitement I didn’t bother to explain.

  It had been months since that ill-fated phone call, and I had given up on ever seeing him again. But now that my self-esteem was inching higher because of boxing, I was hopeful. This could be my chance to recover what I had originally messed up. I collected myself, remembering Lennox and George, and walked into the room.

  “Hi! I’m Dr. Dahl. So nice to finally meet you in person,” I said. To my surprise and sadness, the man sitting on the exam chair bore little resemblance to the one I remembered from the pages of glossy magazines.

  Swirled into an unkempt mess, hair sprang from his head like he had just crawled out of bed. His graying beard cast a gloom over sagging cheeks. He wore a sour look and pants that could only be referred to as high-waters, fully exposing his lace-up shoes and lack of socks. Although he shared similar characteristics with the man I had admired, this person could not possibly be him. I could barely hide my disappointment.