by Naomi Niles
I saw her eyebrows rise infinitesimally and I knew she was caught off guard by the suggestion. I wondered why I had offered to buy coffee. It was not the type of conversation that required it, but I was hoping not to rush things. I wanted her to understand where I was coming from, and I wanted her to be comfortable.
“Ok,” she said. “I can spare a few minutes… I suppose.”
I could understand why she seemed hesitant. She had no idea what I was about to say to her. We took the elevator down to the ground floor, and I led her to the large and beautifully spaced cafeteria all the doctors used. We had a small range of food, but they served pretty decent cups of coffee.
“Why don’t you sit down?” I suggested, pulling out a chair for her at the closest table I could find. “I’ll get us some coffee.”
She nodded and sat down, looking around as though she were intimidated by her surroundings.
“How do you like your coffee?” I asked.
“With milk and sugar please.”
“Sure,” I nodded and headed to the coffee counter where Sabrina was on duty. She was a young girl trying to put herself through college by working as many odd jobs as she could. She gave me a huge smile as I approached.
“Hi, Doctor Burbank,” she said, as she leaned on the counter in front of her slightly.
She started fiddling with the edge of her ponytail, a habit she seemed to develop every time I was around. “Hello, Sabrina,” I nodded. “How are you today?”
“Fab,” she replied, shortening the word, as she so often liked to do. “And you?”
“Good,” I nodded. “Can I have two cups of coffee, please? One black coffee and one with milk and sugar.”
“Two cups?” she asked, batting her eyelashes at me. “For you and Danny?”
“For me and a patient,” I replied, glancing behind me at Kami.
“Oh.” Her smile seemed to falter a little. “Like a date?”
I laughed only because I was so surprised by the question. “Of course not,” I said. “Strictly professional.”
Sabrina’s smile got a little brighter. “Here’s your coffee,” she said, putting the two mugs on a tray and pushing it towards me.
“Thanks,” I nodded. I walked back to the table Kami was sitting at and set the tray down between us. Then, I sat down in front of her.
“The coffee here is quite decent,” I said, trying to ease the tense hunch of Kami’s shoulders.
She took a tentative sip and nodded. “It is good.”
“So, Ms. Delouch,” I started. “I’ve done a lot of different operations for a lot of different patients…and I’ve never had this conversation with any of them.”
Kami raised her eyebrows. “You’re starting to frighten me now, Doctor,” she admitted.
“Please, don’t be nervous,” I said. “I just want you to know that in my honest and professional opinion, you don’t need surgery.”
She looked shocked by my words, so I let them sit a little so that they could sink in.
“I…don’t need…surgery?” she repeated.
“It’s very rare that I pass up the opportunity to operate on a patient,” I continued. “Especially one who seeks me out. But the fact is my conscience wouldn’t allow me to let you leave today without telling you that. You don’t need surgery, Ms. Delouch. You don’t need any of the work that you’re asking for.”
I paused slightly, trying to make sure that I could get my point across without offending her or coming off like I had ulterior motives.
“I’ve seen a lot of women walk through my door. And over the years, I have developed a sense of what real beauty is. The fact is, you’re a very beautiful woman, and I’d hate to see you mar that beauty with a bunch of unnecessary and costly surgeries. Please understand that I’m not hitting on you, I just… I felt I needed to tell you that and save you the trouble of setting up an appointment with me in the future.”
She listened carefully, and I saw her expression change slightly as I spoke and she realized what I was trying to tell her. After I finished speaking, she just sat there for a moment, looking lost in thought.
After a full minute of silence, I started to wonder if I had indeed offended her. “Ms. Delouch?” I said, and she glanced up at me. “The decision is yours, and I will of course do the surgery for you, but only if you’re one hundred percent certain that it is what you want and will make you happy.”
She looked at me for a moment, her hazel eyes bored into mine. “Thank you, Doctor,” she said, in a small voice. “It’s been a long time since anyone’s said anything like that to me.”
She got up abruptly and gathered up her things. When she was done, she looked at me. “Thank you for your time,” she said. “But I won’t be getting the surgery.”
Then she turned around and walked away, leaving me sitting there, gawking after her like an idiot. I wasn’t exactly sure what had happened. She had thanked me, but the way she had left had been…strange. Had she really appreciated what I had said to her, or was she just masking annoyance? Had she been offended by my unsolicited advice, or had she really taken it on board when she’d told me she wouldn’t get the surgery?
As a doctor, I had learned to read people to a certain extent, but women were enigmatic creatures, and sometimes I got it wrong. Still, Kami was so different from the kind of woman I usually worked on that I was completely lost trying to decipher her emotions.
I looked down at my half drunk coffee and sighed. Then I pushed myself away from the table and headed upstairs to my office. Danny was sitting in my chair, twirling around like a ten-year-old.
“Comfortable, are we?” I asked, rolling my eyes at him and trying to shake off my conversation with Kami.
“Man, it’s nice to sit in the big chair,” Danny said, completely unconcerned about being caught behind my desk. “Makes you feel like a big man in town.”
“Get out of my seat,” I said, shaking my head at him.
Danny sighed, but he did as he was told. He walked around the desk and sat down in one of the two chairs there. “Where did you rush off to?”
“What’s our schedule like for the rest of the day?” I asked, without answering his question.
He looked through the file sitting on the desk between us. “We have three consultations.”
“You sound disappointed?”
“I just want to see some action.”
I smiled. “With you, that could mean anything. But if you’re talking about surgeries, then we have one scheduled for tomorrow morning. And, you’re going to assist me.”
Danny’s face brightened instantly. “Seriously?”
“Seriously,” I nodded.
“What’s the surgery?” he asked excitedly.
“It’s going to be a nose job,” I said. “Does that dampen your enthusiasm a little?”
“Not at all,” she said, shaking his head. “It’s no boob job, and it’s definitely not a hand job…but I’ll take it.”
I laughed. “How the hell did you become a doctor?”
“I have rich parents,” he said, with a wink. “And, I put out easily.”
“Why am I not surprised?” I said, shaking my head at him. “Now come on, we need to prepare for the next consultation.”
We had a few more client appointments that filled up my afternoon. Daniel may have been a joker, but he was nothing but professional when a patient was in the room and within earshot. The only time he fooled around was when he was certain he wouldn’t be caught. He did a good job distracting me, but I still found my mind consumed with thoughts of Kami.
It was strange that the one patient had made such a strong impression. It had happened before, but never quite like this. This was different because it wasn’t about a surgery or a problem. It was about the person.
There was something about Kami Delouch that was intriguing. I wanted to know why she had felt the need to make an appointment in the first place. I wanted to know what had brought her to my office. I wanted to know w
hy she thought she wasn’t beautiful. It baffled me to the point of distraction.
I headed home after a long day of work, still preoccupied with thoughts that oscillated between Kami and my mother. I still hadn’t told Peter that I’d found her; mostly because I was embarrassed by how unprepared I had been when I had seen her. I kept re-living that moment when she had stepped out of her pretty little house and walked towards her car.
She had looked like my mother. She had all the mannerisms of the woman who had raised me. And yet, she was a stranger. There were lines on her face that were new. There was a history there that no longer included my brothers or me.
I thought about my father and wondered what he would think about my search. I had a tattoo on my back with his death date on it: all five of us did. It was our small tribute to him after his passing.
I got to the small one bedroom apartment I’d rented out and collapsed onto the sofa without bothering to turn on the lights. I closed my eyes and saw my mother’s face. It was not the face from my childhood memories, though. It was the new face, the face that had developed in our absence.
After a moment, her face changed. It morphed into something different. And suddenly I wasn’t seeing my mother anymore. I was seeing Kami.
Chapter Eight
Kami
I opened the door to the apartment as quietly as I could manage. It was only nine-fifteen, so I was fairly certain that Haley would still be asleep. At least that was what I was hoping, considering I didn’t want her to know where I had been.
I tiptoed through to my room, looking out for any signs of Haley. As I passed the bathroom, I realized that the door was wide open. I froze as I realized there was a man standing over the toilet, peeing into the bowl. He looked like he was in his late thirties or early forties. He was blond and completely naked.
He turned his head towards me, and our eyes met. He didn’t seem in the slightest shocked or embarrassed. Instead, he gave me a small nod and a wink. I turned my eyebrows down in disgust and walked directly to my room, forgetting in my annoyance to be quiet as I closed my bedroom door.
It was just another one of Haley’s one-night stands. I had grown used to running into strange men in the apartment, but that didn’t mean I was comfortable with it.
In fact, it turned my stomach to see the type of men Haley chose to invite into her bed. Some of them looked like they had questionable pasts, but it wasn’t in her nature to care about that. Her only criteria for bringing home men depended on how good they were at kissing and how good they were in bed. The rest, she claimed, wasn’t any of her business.
There was a part of me that applauded her modern day attitude towards sex and men, but another part was just plain scared that she would invite in a man who could possibly be a danger to us.
I collapsed onto my bed and thought back to the appointment I had just had with Doctor Burbank. As embarrassed as I had been by how I had reacted to his touch, I still couldn’t deny the fact that I craved the feeling. I had never been that turned on before. It almost seemed abnormal to me.
He had told me I was beautiful. I re-lived that moment over and over again and I knew instinctively that I would never grow sick of it. He was the first man who had ever said that to me. He was the only man who had looked me in the eye, said the words, and expected nothing in return. It was like a breath of fresh air and even though I didn’t wholly believe him, I appreciated the beauty of those words.
I knew I had to forget about Doctor Burbank now, however. It would have to be one of those perfect, untainted moments in life that would have to be left in the past. As much as I wanted to know more about him, I was also aware of the fact that he was way out of my league. Besides, he probably had a girlfriend or a wife. Even if he didn’t, his interest in me could only be strictly professional.
I sighed deeply, allowing myself a single moment of self-pity before I started undressing. I was standing by my bed in my underwear when the door flew open and Haley walked in. With a gasp, I grabbed my bed sheet to try to cover up the felt marks lining my body. She narrowed her eyes at me and I knew she hadn’t missed a thing.
“What the hell is all over you?” she demanded.
She was wearing pink underwear and a tight white tank top that left little to the imagination. She walked into the room without an invitation and eyed me closely.
“I really need to get a lock on that door,” I sighed.
“I’ll just find a way around that,” Haley said, with a shrug. “Now what is that on your body?”
She tried to tug at my sheet, but I wrapped it firmly around my body. “It’s nothing,” I said.
“Bullshit,” she said, shaking her head. “Are you in some sort of cult?”
“Of course not!”
“Have you started taking drugs?”
“No.”
“Are you into some weird kinky shit?” she continued. “Because if it’s that last one, I wholeheartedly approve.”
I rolled my eyes at her. “You have a friend outside,” I reminded her.
“He’s a fuck buddy,” she corrected. “Not a friend. And, he should be leaving shortly. Now, spill.”
I sighed and sat down on the edge of my bed. “I made an appointment this morning to meet with a plastic surgeon.”
Haley’s eyes went wide with shock. “Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“I think I would have been happier if you were on drugs,” she said, only half joking.
I smiled. “It was just a consultation to see what I could change.”
“Oh, Kami!” Her tone was far from judgmental. She was just concerned, and I understood that.
“I decided not to go through with it, if that makes any difference,” I said quickly, looking down at my fingers.
Haley was quiet for a moment. Then she walked over to me and sat down beside me. “Kami, you know you don’t need plastic surgery.”
“I don’t know that,” I said. “But I decided not to go through with it, anyway.”
“Do you know how many girls would kill for a body like yours?” my sister demanded. “And a face like yours, for that matter?”
“You’re just saying that.”
“Have I ever lied to you before?”
“You might have,” I said. “My blind trust does not mean you haven’t lied to me.”
Haley rolled her eyes at me. “Listen to me, little sister,” she said seriously. “I know how insecure you are about your body. But that’s because you let that fucker get into your head.”
“This isn’t about Stuart,” I said quickly.
“Actually, it is completely about Stuart,” she contradicted firmly. “He messed with your head to such an extent that you actually ended up believing the nonsense he was spewing at you. You know what he was really playing at, don’t you? He was trying to make you feel like no other man would have you just so that he could keep you for himself. His motives were completely self-serving.”
“I don’t think that’s why he said those things to me.”
“His reasons don’t matter,” Haley insisted. “The fact that he said them at all proves that he’s a useless fucking asshole who deserves to rot in hell for the rest of eternity. You need to forget him, Kami; you need to get him out of your head.”
“That’s easier said than done,” I sighed.
“I know it is,” she said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “But try. You’re a gorgeous woman and the sooner you start seeing that, the happier you’ll be.”
I sighed. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll try.”
“Okay,” Haley nodded, with a small smile. “Now, how did the appointment go?”
“It was…good.”
“Good?”
“The doctor was…not what I expected.”
“How so?” she asked. “Did he turn out to be a pervert?”
“No,” I shook my head. “The exact opposite, actually. He was a complete gentleman. He made me feel really comfortable – at least as comfortable as
it was possible for me to be in that situation. And he was…”
“Yes?”
“Young,” I said, clearing my throat a little. “And good looking. I mean, really good looking.”
“Was he?” Haley said, perking up immediately. “How interesting. What did he look like?”
“Like he belonged on the cover of a magazine,” I said. “He had hazel eyes, dark hair, at least six feet tall, and broad shouldered.”
“Was he cut?”
“I couldn’t tell,” I admitted. “He was all covered up. But it certainly seemed that way to me.”
“Hmm… Maybe I should set up an appointment with him, too,” Haley said, with a wink.
“There was one thing…”
“Yeah?”
“He examined me,” I said. “I had to take off my clothes and wear this flimsy gown thing. Then he came in and made the markings depending on what I wanted done.”
“Okay?”
“Every time he touched me, I got…aroused,” I admitted, coloring slightly at the memory.
“Really?” Haley asked, with wide eyes.
“It was so weird,” I said. “It was like I couldn’t control my body. Every time he touched me it was like…a storm down there.”
“Whoa,” she said, in amazement. “He must be some doctor.”
“I don’t know,” I sighed. “It has been a while since I’ve had sex. Maybe my body was just starved for some physical contact.”
“Maybe,” she said thoughtfully. “What’s the doctor’s name?”
“Burbank,” I said. “I think his first name is John.”
“A good, strong name,” Haley said approvingly. “I’ll have to look up this doctor with the miracle hands.”
“He told me I didn’t need surgery,” I admitted. “He told me that it was unnecessary.” I left out the part where he had told me I was beautiful. For some reason, I selfishly wanted to keep that information to myself.
“Well, he’s right about that,” Haley nodded.
“That means I won’t see him again.”
She smiled. “You can always just bump into him. It’s not like you don’t know where he works.”