by Connie Cox
From the corner of his eye, he saw Dr. Veracruz sit back in her chair, obviously giving him the spotlight.
Mark had to do some quick thinking to phrase the other symptoms the same way.
“If you feel nauseous and it’s not from overindulgence in the French Quarter, go to the emergency room. You might be having a heart attack.
“If you feel upper abdominal indigestion, don’t even try to blame it on that spicy Creole dish your sister-in-law made, go to the emergency room. You might be having a heart attack.”
He paused, going blank as the remaining symptoms blinked on the monitors.
Dr. Veracruz gave him a quick glance then sat forward, giving a subtle off-camera sign to the camera operator, who pulled back to get both of them in the shot.
Smiling, she said, “If your back muscles are in spasm, as if you’ve spent all night dancing the tango and you haven’t even lifted a teacup, go to the emergency room. You might be having a heart attack.”
She gave him a conspiratorial look, as if they’d planned this out ahead of time as she finished off the list.
“And the classic symptom. If you feel like an elephant is sitting on your chest, go to the emergency room. You might be having a heart attack.”
Mark nodded toward her, silently telling her he’d take it from there. “At the first signs of a heart attack, chew an aspirin. Crush it with your teeth as you may not be able to swallow it.”
Dr. Veracruz dovetailed with her own comment. “And after you take that aspirin, go to the hospital. Because...”
She pointed to the audience, who all called out in sync, “You might be having a heart attack.”
Mark steepled his hands and gave the camera a dead-serious stare, wanting to make his point as strongly as he could. “The second biggest problem with women having heart attacks is that they don’t want to bother anyone just because they’re not feeling well. Take a lesson from the boys, ladies. You’re important enough to bother people. Even if it’s a false alarm, you’re worth the bother. Your family would rather have you alive and embarrassed about a bit of gas than dead because you tried to not be a bother. So, at the first signs of a heart attack, go immediately to the emergency room.”
Eva gave the camera an equally serious stare. “And remember. Don’t drive yourself. If you do, you’ll put everyone on the road in danger. Call for emergency transport. Right, Dr. O’Donnell?”
“Right,” he said on cue. No one would ever accuse him of not being a team player.
Eva gave Mark an affirmative nod of her head. “And now a word from our sponsor.”
As they cut the microphones, Eva looked over at her guest with a very revised opinion of him.
“Nice job. We didn’t have a chance to introduce ourselves.” Not able to resist the jibe about his lateness, she held out her hand. “Eva Veracruz.”
“Mark. Sorry to be late. I had an emergency right before I left.”
“Since you work in E.R., I’m thinking that’s a typical job hazard, right?”
“Yes, it is.” He put a hand on the leg of his scrubs. “This time it required a wardrobe change. That’s a suit I’ll never wear again. I didn’t think you’d want me showing up wearing blood and guts.”
“You’re right. Scrubs are a better choice.” Again, she had to revise her opinion of him upwards. If he kept this up, she might actually end up liking him. “We have a short question-and-answer session with the audience and then we’re done. Maybe we could—”
Before she could set up a coffee date he cut her off. “How can you answer medical questions without being a real doctor?”
“Not a real doctor? What do you mean?” But Eva knew what he meant. She’d heard it from too many people before.
She didn’t look like most people’s typical stereotype of a doctor and the studio make-up and hair department didn’t help, playing up her sexuality for the ratings.
But, then, why should she have to de-emphasize her femininity? Wasn’t it about time for women to stop having to prove they could have both brains and bosoms?
Her producer waved his hand for her attention. “Live in...” He made finger motions for five, four, three, two and then pointed at her.
Gesturing for Mark to stand, she did the same, self-conscious that the skirt of her clingy dress could use a straightening tug where it had crept up her legs. Usually, her lab coat covered problems like that. But adjusting her skirt length now would only draw attention to the problem.
Microphone in hand, she said to the camera, “Ask the Doc is back and ready for our live audience’s questions. If you would like to be a member of our audience, send an email to the address now on your screen. We’d love to answer your questions in person, too.”
This was the tricky part of the show and required great time management from her.
The producers saved it to the end so they could adjust the time if the guest speakers went long—which they had with Mark’s inventive way of presenting heart attack symptoms. But he’d made a dry list of symptoms memorable and that’s all that counted for such a frightening and deadly medical emergency. The audience would be wildly receptive to him and have many questions for such an approachable man.
But there was always at least one, often more than one, in the audience who got too personal for public television. That same person usually rambled, hanging on to the spotlight as long as possible. Eva’s job was to divert them while seeming sympathetic. Some days this worked better than others.
This was the only part about her job she would avoid if she could.
She walked toward the audience, feeling Mark right behind her, obviously not needing her cue to move center stage. “Now, who has questions?”
The first hand up was from a staff member the producer had planted in the audience. He set the tone of intelligent yet brief questions. Eva wasn’t too thrilled about her producer’s subterfuge, but show management wasn’t her job, as they often reminded her. She was the expert—the talking head—not the boss. And her paycheck paid many bills, including her grandmother’s nursing-home supplements and her huge student-loan debts.
A frazzled woman in the third row began jumping up and down in her seat with that certain body language that said, I’m here to tell you my whole life’s medical history on television and I dare you to try and stop me. Eva took care to avoid eye contact.
Looking past the woman’s raised and waving hand, she pointed to her undercover staff assistant.
But before she could reach the assistant with the microphone, Mark thrust his own microphone into the jumping woman’s face.
He put his arm around her shoulders to still her fidgeting as the camera moved in close. “How can I help you today?”
Eva thought the woman would swoon right then and there. All they needed was someone to faint on set to lose those sponsors who were hanging in there for them.
Instead, the woman grabbed the microphone and held it close to her mouth to speak into it.
From the corner of her eye Eva saw the alarm on her sound engineer’s face as he shoved slide knobs to lower the volume before the woman’s voice blasted everyone’s television speakers into mush.
But Mark purposely covered the woman’s hand and pulled the microphone away to the proper distance.
Eva was beginning to suspect he’d done this kind of work before.
The woman cleared her throat. She was now red in the face. “Ever since I was a little girl...” She stopped talking as she teared up.
Mark patted her on the shoulder. “Deep breath.”
The woman gave him a watery smile. “When I get excited, I can feel my heart try to beat out of my chest, then it just seems to stop and I feel dizzy.”
Mark raised his eyebrows as he wrapped his arm more securely around her. “Are you feeling that way now? Have you ever pa
ssed out?”
“Once or twice.”
“Please, have a seat.” Mark helped her into her chair and whipped out his stethoscope. With a shiny white smile, Mark asked, “May I listen to your heart?”
Starry-eyed, the woman nodded.
The man had charisma, no doubt about it. But that bit about her not being a real doctor still stung. Being pretty—or in his case extraordinarily handsome—couldn’t make up for being mean.
As Mark took the time to listen to the woman’s heart, the producer instructed a camera to zoom in on Eva, expecting her to fill in the dead air space. So much for thinking Mark had live studio experience.
To the camera, she said, “When a doctor listens to your heart, she is listening for several things, including a steady rhythm.”
Of course, everyone in the world already knew that, but at this point in the show Eva would spout anything that came to mind to keep the action moving along. With Mark doing personal examinations in her public forum, her only hope of making this part of the show work was to avoid a silent studio. Any intelligent information she could pass on to her audience was a bonus.
Wrestling control of her show away from her guest, she looked out towards the crowd. “While Dr. O’Donnell is performing his examination, does anyone else have questions?”
Without being called on, a young man in front of her stood up. “My son has recently developed the same symptoms as that woman. His doctor has diagnosed a congenital heart murmur and is requiring a series of tests before he’ll sign off for my son to play football. He’s played sports all his life. To tell you the truth, playing sports is the only thing that keeps him interested in school. How can I tell a high-energy teenager he can’t play a sport he loves when he’s never had any problems before?”
It was one of those questions, the kind that had no happy answer. She knew, first hand, how hard it was to keep some teenagers in school. Eva hid her sigh.
Mark startled her by answering from across the studio. “Playing sports with a congenital medical condition, particularly a heart murmur, is a topic that is under fierce discussion in the medical community. Many of us doctors know the value of sports in our children’s development. Make sure you have a doctor who will do whatever he can to keep your son on the playing field.”
Nope. Not the right answer. Eva signaled for a close-up. “You’ll notice Dr. O’Donnell said there is much discussion over this topic. I, for one, would not put my child’s life at risk over a school sport.
“But I completely understand your concern. It is very difficult to walk the line between keeping our children safe and letting them live a fulfilling life and developing the skills they need to become well-rounded adults. It is often a choice we have to make as parents.”
Right there in front of her, ducked down below the camera lens, her producer was pointing to his watch and making a dramatic cut sign. Eva snuck a glance at the studio clock.
How had that happened? She had never run this long before.
“And that’s a question each parent must answer for their children. Remember, moms, you can’t take care of your children if you don’t take care of yourselves first. So if you think you are having a heart attack, go to the emergency room.”
She went into her sign-off. “Thanks for watching Ask the Doc. If you have questions, we have your answers. See you tomorrow.”
She thought she’d done rather well at turning back to their topic of the day. Why, then, was her producer grimacing?
A closer look at the clock explained it—a minute over. The little red lights on the cameras went dark as Eva wondered which commercial they had cut. There would be an angry sponsor to answer to. They would have to offer them an extra slot to make up for it even though the show needed all the sponsors they could get. If they received any more production budget cuts, they’d have to start shooting the show with their camera phones.
Turning to Mark O’Donnell, Eva braced herself for saying the polite thing, even though he’d caused her show to be more topsy-turvy than a cheerleader doing backflips.
Trying to ignore the sexy way his shoulders filled out his lab coat, she said, “Thank you for—”
“You weren’t serious, were you?”
What did he mean? “I’m sure I was. I always am.”
Her husband had always encouraged her to lighten up, but it wasn’t in her nature.
Her husband.
Finally, she could think about him without that tearing pain to her heart. If she could only find absolution for herself in her soul.
“What, in particular, were you referring to, Dr. O’Donnell?”
Maybe she’d had enough of his grandstanding in front of her audience, or maybe she was lashing out at him because of the hurt she still carried for her husband, but either way she lost her temper.
Gesturing off stage, she said, “Maybe you’re talking about the way you came in an hour late and didn’t have time for a pre-show briefing. Or the way you began to ad lib your presentation instead of following the bullet points. That could have ended up disastrously if either of our imaginations had failed us. Or how about that remark about me not being a real doctor?”
She took a breath, feeling her heart pound in her ears as well as in her chest.
“Or maybe you thought I wasn’t serious when you decided to perform an examination on an audience member, while we all sat around and waited for you to listen to her heart beat. I’m sure our television audience enjoyed that stimulating bit of action. Or how about telling that father to go ahead and let his son do whatever he wanted despite the boy’s doctor’s advice. How dare you?”
Mark quirked his lips at her. “How dare I?”
“How dare you?” She was so angry she could feel the heat radiate off her body. “How dare you undermine another doctor?”
“Somehow, I’m sure the boy’s doctor won’t mind.”
“And you know that how?”
This time the man had the audacity to give her a full-on smile. “Because I’m him.”
“What?”
“I’m the boy’s doctor.” Mark shrugged his massive shoulders. “I asked my friend to show up, you know, for moral support. He said if he saw the show faltering he’d ask a question and he did. Now I owe him a beer.”
Eva stared, for once in her life without words. Her rage had burnt them all to cinders.
“It sounds like I owe you a beer, too, Eva. I didn’t realize I was being such a screw-up.”
“You are the last person I would consider sharing a beer with.”
“Ouch.” He gave her a laughing wince. “I guess that means, no, thanks.”
“No, it doesn’t mean, no, thanks. It means not in your lifetime, buddy.”
“Alrighty, then.” He looked at his watch. “Gotta run. It’s been— I had thought this was fun, but it seems I was mistaken.”
Was he expecting her to reassure him? She glared, daring him to blink first.
He didn’t. Again there was that quirky twist of his lips, although this time they were tight instead of laughing. “It’s been an experience.”
As he turned to leave he stopped and raised an eyebrow, oh, so condescendingly. “You do pretty well for a TV doc.”
CHAPTER TWO
“YOU’VE GOT TO be kidding me.” Eva paced round the conference table, earrings swinging as her agent cringed and her producer looked anywhere but in her eyes.
Stan, the show’s executive producer, glared at her, too used to working with drama queens to be bothered by her display of temper, which made Eva even angrier. “A three-week series on high-school athletics to get the ratings up and get our audience used to field experience, then, if the ratings are high enough, you get your drug-abuse series. You’ve been asking for this and now you’re complaining?”
“I didn’t
ask to work with someone I’m so obviously not compatible with, though.”
“That’s not what our audience surveys are saying. They loved Dr. O’Donnell and they loved the two of you together.”
“Together.” Eva stopped pacing to stare into Stan’s eyes, gaining the slightest satisfaction that in her heels she towered over him. “I’ve worked hard for you. I’ve proved myself time and time again. O’Donnell waltzes onto the set, flashes a sexy grin and you beg him to take on a field assignment when I’ve been trying to negotiate one for the last two contracts?”
Phil, her daily producer and usually her ally, gathered up his courage to try to soothe her. “With sponsors pulling out, none of us have a lot of room for negotiation. We have to do something big to make up for cutting back our on-air schedule from five days to three.”
“What? They’re cutting our schedule?”
Phil seemed to shrink in on himself. “You didn’t know?”
Both the producer and the executive producer stared at her agent as if her lack of easy agreement was all his fault.
She couldn’t throw her kind-hearted agent under the bus.
“Henry’s not to blame. I had to cancel our meeting yesterday.” Her grandmother had been having a bad day, confused and agitated with all her caregivers. The sweet little lady who had raised her would never have raised her voice if she had been in her right mind. Dementia was a terrible disease.
And an expensive one to try to manage, too.
She needed this job. She had to remember that.
The money she could make by going back into clinical practice would easily take care of all her grandmother’s needs with plenty left over. But she couldn’t. She just couldn’t. Not even for her abuelita.
“Talk to her,” Stan demanded.
Henry sent them all a firm, noncommittal look. “Give us a moment.”
Once the room was cleared, Eva leaned back in her chair, a feeling of unease building in the back of her neck. “What else haven’t you told me?”