Un-Dateable

by Alice Bello

  Suddenly there was another knock on the door. I slipped away from Gus and headed gratefully to the door. With Bess here Gus would leave. Bess would see to it.

  But it wasn’t Bess standing at my door, it was Dean.

  Shit!

  He let out a long low breath as he took in the sight of me. “Now that’s what I call a greeting.”

  I felt like crying. Suddenly Dean’s gaze moved further into the apartment and his head cocked. “Mr. Miller... what are you doing here?” He looked down to me as he said “here.”

  “Just needed to see Dana. We’ve got some —”

  “He just wanted to congratulate us,” I cut in.

  “Really?” Dean smiled awkwardly and looked up from me to Gus again.

  “No, just the opposite,” Dean said and I felt my stomach flip over. “I was just trying to talk her out of it.”

  “What?” Dean shook his head in disbelief.

  “Sorry doc, you’re just not the right man for her. She knows it, she’s just either too chicken shit to admit it, or she’s in denial.”

  “I... am... not... in... denial!” I turned and screamed at Gus. “Why does everyone think I’m in goddamn denial?”

  When I turned back to Dean he looked monumentally confused. “Who else thinks that?”

  “Nobody,” I snapped.

  He shook his head at me and looked back to Gus, who was now only a few feet behind me. “And why do you think I’m not the right man for her? Who, in your opinion, is?”

  Oh god, please make Gus stop. Maybe an anvil could fall through the roof from the apartment above? Maybe lightning could strike? Or maybe he could just keep his fool mouth shut!

  “Because she belongs with me.”

  Okay, he said it. Now could god at least make the floor beneath my feet turn to quicksand and swallow me whole before I had to look into Dean’s eyes again?

  While I was staring at the floor, wishing desperately for the quicksand, my apartment got really quiet.

  “Get the fuck out of here!” Dean roared.

  My head snapped upright in shock and I saw the fires of hatred burning in Dean’s eyes. Every nuance of his face had changed in the blink of an eye. His forehead had furrowed down to a scowl, his mouth was set, lips drawn back, exposing his teeth in a snarl. Even his usually beautiful complexion seemed to have lost its luster, his flesh now a sinister gray.

  “I didn’t hear Dana say that, buddy.” Gus said.

  “I want you to leave, Gus,” I said, not taking my eyes from Dean’s face.

  “But... If you think—”

  “Now, Gus...” my voice sounded so small to me.

  Gus took a hard, deep breath and let it out in an irritated sigh. Dean watched as Gus walked to the door, and Gus kept his eyes on me. But I looked at neither of them, only finally looking back at Dean when the door shut behind Gus.

  His eyes met mine and the anger in them seemed to quell. “You can’t treat him anymore. He’s obviously deranged.”

  “Dean ...”

  “I mean it. To just come to your apartment and say that crazy shit! He needs professional help.”

  “Dean, we need to talk.”

  His eyes locked on mine and his head cocked to the side, scrutinizing me with a feral glare. I suddenly felt like I couldn’t breathe, like my lunch — if I had eaten any — was going to hurl out my mouth, my heart probably coming up with it.

  “Talk to me about what?” His voice was tinged with anger.

  I forced myself to take a deep breath, looking down at Dean’s heaving chest. Focus, I kept telling myself. Just tell him what you’re feeling.

  Yeah, just tell him you’re not in love with him, that you’re infatuated with a man you hardly know, and that you agreed to his marriage proposal just to piss off said man. Yeah, that’ll go over great.

  When I looked back up into Dean’s face I couldn’t seem to focus, he seemed fuzzy, like in a dream, and as a dark curtain slowly closed over me, my body felt cold and still.

  ~*~

  When I opened my eyes next I was lying on the couch, Dean kneeling next to me with a stethoscope pressed against my chest, his hand gently holding onto my shoulder. A paramedic was pricking my finger — which didn’t seem to hurt — and started to take my blood sugar level.

  “What’s going on?” I felt like I was talking from the bottom of a well.

  “You passed out on me, babe,” Dean said slinging the stethoscope around his neck. “You’ve been out for about five minutes.”

  “Oh.” I hadn’t caught up yet.

  “I didn’t hear anything wrong with your heart, but we’ll do tests when we get you to the hospital.”

  “Hospital?” I gasped. “I’m fine. I don’t need —”

  “I’m the doctor, so don’t argue.”

  “Her sugar’s only fifty nine,” the paramedic said.

  “Have you eaten today?” Dean said.

  “Not that I remember... I think Bess—”

  “What about me?” Bess said as she came through the door of my apartment, weighed down with three bags from China Moon and another brown bag from the liquor store a block down. Her face fell as she took in the sight of me lying on the couch, Dean looking all doctor-y by my side, and the paramedics getting the gurney ready to transport me. “Boy, you guys really know how to play doctor.”

  “She fainted,” Dean said.

  That sounded even worse than passing out. Fainting is what starlets do on the silver screen in comedies and romantic melodramas. “My sugar was low.”

  There was a silence in the air that was thick enough to choke on. I suddenly remembered what Dean and I were doing right before the big black out.

  “Damn,” Bess exclaimed. “And I have all this food... just a little too late.”

  “We’re taking her to the hospital first.” Dean said as he squirted a small tube of orange flavored glucose into my mouth. “That will bring up your sugar to normal. But I still want some tests run on you.”

  “She fainted,” Bess said, butting him out of her way. She gave me a hard look. “And besides looking wet, she seems fine.”

  “Bess, I’m a doctor —”

  “Yeah, but you’re not her doctor. Doctor Olivia is her GP, and I’ll take her there first thing in the morning. I swear.” And she made the Boy Scout hand signal.

  “No, she was out for almost five minutes.”

  Bess patted Dean’s handsome face. “And I have a degree in nursing. I’ll stay and keep an eye on her, you know, I’ll do the whole ‘observation’ thing.”

  Dean looked stunned. “You’re a nurse?” He looked to me after Bess nodded, and I nodded in turn.

  “That’s where Dana and I met, NYU. We were both in the same classes for the first year or two. She became a Physical Therapist, and I went into nursing.”

  “But you’re a real estate agent?”

  “Yeah... funny thing, I graduated, worked my ass off at the first hospital that took me, and two weeks later sat dumbstruck by the sight of my puny pay check. It’s not like nurses get paid near what they’re worth. So the next week I signed up for a real estate class, and two months later I was a retired RN.”

  Dean just shook his head.

  “Believe me,” Bess chortled, “Someday doctors won’t be making squat either. You’ll be giving me a call then.” And she winked.

  “I-I don’t —”

  “Just let me take care of this.” She pulled an afghan off the back of my couch and spread it out over me. I was still just wearing a towel.

  “Thanks.” I clutched it over my almost exposed breasts.

  Bess looked down at Dean with a deliberately cold stare. “So let’s move, gentlemen.”

  The paramedics were looking to Dean until Bess turned her icy gaze on them. They just threw their bags on top of the gurney and headed for the door. Dean stood slowly and then bent over me, his face lined with concern as he kissed me. There wasn’t a sign of the anger he’d had earlier.

  “I’ll c
ome with you to the doctor’s office tomorrow.”

  “Nonsense,” Bess said, shooing him toward the door. “Two grown women can make it to a doctor’s office across town all by themselves.” A couple beats later Bess had Dean out the door and the door dead bolted shut. “I thought they’d never leave.”

  Her eye brows knitted with concern. “You sure you’re okay? I can take you to the ER without all the hoopla. I used to fuck the charge nurse down at Sacred Heart.”

  I had to smile. Bess could make anything into a joke. “Really, I’m fine.” I looked over to the bags of food. “But I am starving!”

  “Well, thank god your best friend brought all this food.” She picked up the bag with the ice cream and alcohol. “I guess we should skip the booze. Want some chocolate milkshakes instead?”

  “That should get my sugar up again.”

  I got up, teetering on my feet for a beat, then got my legs back under me. Padding into the bedroom I thought of how messed up things had gotten. It was crazy. One day everything’s fine, the next you’re engaged, torn about which guy you really should be with, and then you pass out right before all hell breaks loose... which guarantees that that hell is waiting on you just around the bend, ready to explode.

  I pulled on some panties and a baggy old t-shirt that came down to just above my knees. When I came back out to the living room Bess already had a pitcher of chocolate shakes on the coffee table, plates and silverware, and the boxes of Indian food open. She even had my favorite Julia Roberts’ flick on: “My Best Friend’s Wedding” the little bridesmaids and the faux bride were singing the song about wishing and hoping and praying...

  “Don’t you wish your problems were so simple?” She said with an arched eye brow.

  I sat down and helped myself to chocolate shake and General Tso’s. When Julia and Rupert started talking about the wedding pact, that’s when Bess asked, “So what the hell happened?”

  “Gus showed up.”

  “Christ!”

  “Then Dean showed up.”

  “Could it get any worse?”

  I nodded as Julia’s glowing smile turned to a woeful scowl, remembering she was the exact age of the marriage pact. “Gus told Dean he wasn’t the right man for me.”

  “Ah huh... so did he offer any replacement fiancés?”

  “Yeah, him.”

  “I’m sure that went well,” Bess looked around the apartment. “Don’t see any blood or signs of a fight.”

  “I told Gus to leave, and he did. Then I was about to tell Dean...” my voice trailed off.

  “Tell Dean what?”

  Shaking my head, “I don’t really know.” Tears filled my eyes and Bess ran a hand through my still damp hair.

  “It’ll be okay, cupcake. There’s no rush.”

  ~*~

  “Pregnant?” Bess shrieked at nine a.m. the next morning.

  “She said, ‘pregnancy test’,” I scolded. “She said she wanted to run a pregnancy test.” I turned to my doctor and felt a desperate edge run through my guts, percolating in my blood. “You did say just a test, right?”

  Doctor Olivia smiled. “Don’t worry, it’s just a precaution. Any of my patients of childbearing years who faint always have a pregnancy test performed. It’s my standard practice.” She sifted through some paperwork. “Dr. Coulter faxed me that you fainted while standing, and that you were out for approximately five minutes.”

  Oh my god, Dean faxed her?

  “He also said your glucose level was only fifty-nine. Let me guess; you didn’t eat anything yesterday.”

  “I was really nervous,” I said.

  “All hell broke loose yesterday,” Bess added.

  I shot Bess a scathing look.

  “So,” Doctor Olivia went on. “It was a high stress day.”

  “Yes—”

  “Doctor Coulter asked her to marry him yesterday. The thing is... OUCH! Jesus Christ!”

  I’d stamped my foot down on Bess’ toes, leaving her not only in pain, but her Manolo Blahniks smudged.

  Doctor Olivia looked at us with a plainly worried expression on her face.

  “But I feel great now.” I tried to beam happiness at her. “Right as rain.”

  There was a knock at the door and a nurse walked in and handed me a cup and some sterile wipes. I was really going to have to take a pregnancy test. What if it was positive? What if I had the baby and married Dean, forgot about Gus and started to live someone else’s life?

  My head felt all warm and fuzzy, and then it started to feel kind of cold.

  “Dana, are you alright?” Doctor Olivia asked. “You suddenly look pale.”

  I took a deep breath and willed myself not to pass out. One, two, three... just breathe... four, five, six... push that fucking dark curtain back... breathe.

  As the dark cold subsided I turned to look to the doctor. “This is another of those stressful days.”

  If I’m not pregnant, then I have to face Dean, and that means I have to figure out what’s going on with him and me and Gus.

  I tried to shake it off again as I stood to go to the bathroom to pee in my cup, but suddenly the world lurched out from under me, and that fucking dark curtain fell over me, cold and heavy.

  Chapter 26

  “Did she hit her head?” Doctor Olivia was saying—her voice sounding like I was in some kind of echo chamber.

  “No,” Bess said. “I caught her on the way down.”

  I could suddenly feel that I was laying on Bess, and she had her arms wrapped around me.

  “Good catch,” I said.

  “I need hazard pay next time I take you to the doctor’s office.”

  Doctor Olivia cut in. “I’m sending you to the hospital by ambulance for some more tests, things I can’t test for in the office.”

  “Ambulance? Hospital? Ah, no... I don’t need —”

  The look on Doctor Olivia’s face made me stop talking. She looked like Mother for a moment... or maybe my freshman gym teacher... I was scared shitless of her.

  “As I was saying, you’re going to the hospital by ambulance for testing, and that’s the end of this little conversation. Got it?”

  I nodded. “Yes ma’am.”

  Her face brightened and she was smiling Doctor Olivia once more. “Good. Anyways, we don’t want your friend here to have to break your fall again, do we?”

  As she walked back to her desk and phoned her staff to call an ambulance. Bess let out a slow, low whistle. “I’m glad she wasn’t my mom.”

  ~*~

  Doctor Olivia didn’t send me to my hospital, thank god, but she did send me to Dean’s. He met us at the door to the ER, worry etched all over his handsome face.

  “I knew I should have taken you here last night.” Dean was jogging beside the gurney as they wheeled me through the twin, squealing automatic glass doors. The sounds of the city didn’t disappear as they usually did when you walked into a building. Instead, they were intensified to a harsh sharp blare. The paint on the walls was worn and faded, and the place reeked of body odor and other things I didn’t want to know about.

  “She just fainted again,” Bess said. “But I caught her.”

  Dean rounded on her, barking, “You’re an idiot! Thank god you’re not in the medical field anymore!”

  Bess looked stunned, more hurt than I’d ever seen her.

  “Don’t yell at her!” I grabbed his arm from the gurney and pulled him away from her. “She was just doing what I wanted. If you’re going to blame someone, blame me.”

  His anger evaporated immediately and he looked dazed and confused as we all headed down the hall to a room. “I could never be angry with you.”

  The moment I heard him say it I knew I was going to make him eat those words, that yes indeed, he’d end up hating me by the time the day was over.

  Two nurses worked on me, taking vitals, taking blood, calling x-ray, even stripping me out of my clothes and making me put on one of those hideous hospital gowns. Just wearing it mad
e my skin crawl.

  Get a grip, I told myself. You work in a hospital, for heaven’s sake. But working in the Physical Therapy department and being a patient in the Emergency Room were totally different things.

  Bess and Dean came in when the nurses had finished, and they stood on either side of me, Dean looked not only nervous but like he couldn’t stand not being able to help. The ER resident was treating me under Doctor Olivia’s instructions. Bess had my hand and I could feel her shaking, no matter how brave and confident she looked.

  “You don’t have to stay,” I told Dean. “Bess will stay with me.”

  Dean glowered at Bess, and then shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Suddenly one of the nurses came back in. “I need to collect a urine sample.” She came to the side of the bed Dean was standing on and smiled at me. “I’ll help you to the restroom.”

  “Urine test?” Dean said.

  I felt my insides churn, and Bess’ grip on my hand tightened.

  “A pregnancy test is just routine when the patient has fainted.”

  Again with that goddamn word! I fucking hated it.

  But then I saw the stunned, happy look on Dean’s face.

  Bess let go of my hand as the nurse pulled me into the restroom to make my deposit. She handed me a wet wipe as she placed a sterile urine catcher on the toilet, locking it in place with the toilet lid. I looked at her as if to say, I can take it from here.

  “I can’t leave you in here alone... you fainted,” she said.

  That word! I hate, hate, hate that motherfucking word!

  I dropped my shorts and felt the room spin as I sank down onto the toilet. I tried to pee, but nothing came. I must be pee shy. “Sorry, I can’t go,” I said.

  The nurse nodded and then turned on the water faucet. “Old nurse trick.” About ten seconds later I was peeing up a storm. I must’ve had half my body weight in my kidneys.

  As I stood back up and the nurse poured the pee into the little plastic cup until it was full, I started thinking. “I can’t be pregnant,” I said, sitting back down on the toilet, feeling a little wobbly. “We used condoms every time.”