Flirting With Trouble

by Leandra Logan

  Alone with Brett in the file room, Amanda leaned against him. “Shoot me now.”

  He pressed a consolatory hand to her back. “It isn’t that bad.”

  “How can you lie like that?”

  “Charlotte will get used to you.”

  “I should live that long.”

  “I do admit she’ll probably outlive us all.”

  “I want you to know I’m not accustomed to being pushed around this way! People generally…look up to me.”

  She watched him struggle for a comeback. “Well, you really skunked her by learning her nutty file system.”

  “Wowee.” She tipped her face to his. “You know, I have the feeling I could find a more pleasant job along Main Street.”

  He tapped her nose. “You could. But then you wouldn’t get to spend the day close to me.”

  “O-oh, you’re one clever healer.” Amanda glanced at the first name on her list. “Geringer. He a patient of yours or Jack’s?”

  “Jack’s.” Brett watched her move to Jack’s bank of files. “Care to go out for lunch today, just the two of us?”

  Amanda opened a drawer and thumbed through the file tabs. “Sounds wonderful. But Beatrice is dropping by the clinic. We’re going to work a little on the book.”

  “But you were working on it last night, as well.”

  “Only for a few hours.”

  “Primetime hours. I normally count on Beatrice to be in the living room to vote on HBO’s Sunday lineup along with Della and me. Frank and Colonel Geoff voted for the History Channel and won a tie breaker on the flip of a coin.” Brett rolled his eyes. “How many times can a man enjoy black-and-white footage of soldiers invading Normandy?”

  “I’m afraid I’m having too much fun with Beatrice to stop the creative flow now.” The excuse popped out of Amanda’s mouth before she could censor it. Upon reflection, she discovered she really meant it.

  “All right. But with my luck you two will write a bestseller, go on tour, sell the movie rights and never be seen again.”

  She touched the collar of his lab coat. “Would that trouble you, Doc?”

  “Well, sure. There is my HBO to consider.”

  Amanda gasped in mock outrage. “Aren’t you in a joking mood today?”

  Brett pulled her out of view to give her a quick kiss. “We’re no joke and I know it,” he said softly.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll do my best to outwit, outlast and out-play Charlotte on the front lines.”

  “My sweet, brave girl.” He kissed her again. Longer.

  Charlotte eventually stuck her head in the door. “How cutesy. I’ll just tell Professor Geringer all about it as he sits out front nursing his kidney stones, waiting to check in. Without his file at the ready.”

  Meekly, Amanda held out the man’s file. Charlotte marched over, grabbed it and left.

  Beatrice hustled into the clinic about noon with a tote slung over her shoulder, wearing a floral shirtwaist, one of her dozen or so similar library frocks. The staff was just assembling in the waiting room to take off for lunch. To Amanda’s chagrin, Rochelle Owens was the designated person to stay behind to handle any emergencies. She’d forgotten Rochelle and Beatrice were cousins, until Beatrice asked after Rochelle’s parents, currently vacationing in Hawaii. The pair giggled over Rochelle’s report on her mother’s embarrassing first hula lesson, at which she’d accidentally wiggled out of her sarong, and her father’s snorkeling adventure that turned wild when some fish that might have been a tuna started chasing him.

  Amanda didn’t want to see a softer side to the rock-hearted Rochelle. But plainly it existed, and it made the nurse seem more fragile, more human.

  Rochelle did turn back to stone minutes later, however, as she addressed her. “Are you going to work at the Lego table where you and Brett like to lunch? Or in back? I want to be near the phones and intend to eat behind Charlotte’s counter.”

  Amanda could see that Beatrice was rather upset by Rochelle’s rudeness, so she made light of it. “Those darn building blocks are too big a distraction. We’ll go back in the break room. C’mon, Beatrice.”

  As the pair seated themselves at a small wooden table, Beatrice opened her tote bag and unloaded a notebook bearing the working title City Girl on the cover, pens, and a sack containing two buns wrapped in cellophane and some homemade cookies.

  Hungry, Amanda eagerly took a sandwich. “Looks like Della’s work.”

  “She was so happy to hear about our brainstorming lunch, she whipped this up.” Beatrice’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I think part of it is that she knows you probably can’t afford a lunch. And today Doc wouldn’t have the chance to buy you one.”

  Amanda hated this part of the charade, pretending she couldn’t afford things. But for the time being she was trapped in her own lies.

  Beatrice opened their fat, dog-eared notebook. “So, Mandy, have you given any thought to my character of Stanley, our city girl’s sexy but quite inappropriate neighbor?”

  “Yes. I suggest we call him Stefan however. The name Stanley is sort of old-fashioned.”

  “But he is fiftyish, with gray at the temples. I’ve always found the name of Stanley quite appealing. Went to the prom with a Stanley.”

  Amanda smiled patiently, thinking how short a time Beatrice would last in the brash newsroom of her father’s Manhattan Monitor with her delicate sensibilities. “The thief is international, though, right? The name Stefan suggests a continental background—more so than Stanley, anyway.”

  Beatrice bit the tip of her pen, flipping to the character’s information page. “Perhaps you’re right. My Stanley did end up working in the hardware store. As fond as I still am of him, he doesn’t conjure up the necessary exotic image.” She studiously changed his name in her notes.

  “If Stefan were closer to thirty, he could still easily manage second-story work.”

  “Yes!” Beatrice beamed, changing his age, crossing out his gray temples. “That might be a nice subplot. Stefan is still stealing jewels. Maybe he wants to steal our heroine’s jewels.”

  “Or steal a jewel for her. One that her family lost during a bankruptcy.”

  “Brilliant!” Beatrice flipped back to her outline and scribbled.

  Amanda realized with the jewel reference she was stealing a bit from Ivy’s predicament with her jeweler family, but it was her understanding that novelists stole bits and pieces from real life all the time.

  “So have you considered my offer, Mandy? We hash out all the details. Then I do the first draft and you polish it up afterward?”

  “Sounds fair to me.”

  “Have you given our heroine’s name further thought? We can’t call her City Girl forever.”

  “Have you come up with any possible names?”

  “I think Laverne sounds rather exotic. It’s Rochelle’s mother’s name.”

  Amanda frowned at the mention of the nurse. “Rochelle already has problems with me. I’d rather not upset her by using that name. How about the name Leah instead? It’s timeless.”

  “Very well.” Beatrice scribbled it down. “I’m sorry to see that you and Rochelle aren’t hitting it off.”

  “I didn’t do anything to her!” Amanda said a bit more sharply than she meant to.

  “I’m sure you didn’t. It’s Brett’s feelings for you that makes her angry.”

  Amanda rose from her chair and went to the small refrigerator to get them drinks. Finding only diet cola, she brought back two bottles. “This all right?”

  “Yes, thanks.” Beatrice busily opened her bottle. “Everyone knows that Brett isn’t a match for my cousin. In a way, I’m glad you came along. Maybe now she’ll stop dreaming about him and look for someone else.”

  “Are you looking for yourself?” Amanda couldn’t help asking.

  “Me? I’m fifty-one and chubby. No, Rochelle is much younger and quite lovely when she smiles. She still has what it takes to make a dream relationship come true.”

  “Yo
u are beautiful, too, Beatrice.”

  Beatrice blushed. “I can see you are suited to writing fiction.” But plainly, she was flattered.

  “BRETT!” Jack Graham barged into his partner’s office Wednesday afternoon, his face lit up like a boy’s. “It’s all happening! Right now!”

  Seated behind his desk, Brett gazed up from the medical journal he was studying. “We on fire?”

  “Yes, man, we are.” Jack beckoned for Brett to follow and shot off.

  Brett followed Jack through the maze of corridors to the front office space, where Rochelle and Kaitlyn were crouched in the nook used to prepare patient preliminaries. Taking their fingers pressed to their lips as a signal for silence, he eased into the nook along with Jack. From their vantage point they had a clear view of the counter, as well as Charlotte and Mandy.

  “I don’t know about this. I just don’t know.”

  “Charlotte, this is your own doing.”

  Charlotte whisked a nylon scarf over her head only to whisk it off again. “This is the first time I’ve ever gone to the beauty parlor on a weekday during business hours.”

  “I didn’t tell you to make the appointment.”

  “Nor would I have listened to you if you had. It was my pesky grandson, hinting that my dye job of Tuesday night hasn’t given my hair its usual golden tones.” Charlotte pulled a hand mirror out of her purse. “Come back to the rest room with me and help me get a better look at the back of my head.”

  Mandy stood her ground. “I refuse to go through that again. You keep saying the mirror’s too small and the lighting inferior.”

  “You’ve been no help at all. None of you office girls have.”

  “If you can’t leave your post to fix the problem, so be it.”

  Charlotte thrust a finger at her. “Aha! So you admit I have a hair problem!”

  “It might be a little uneven in places. I’m no judge.”

  “Appears so, with that funny hair color you use.” Mandy gasped, but Charlotte didn’t even seem to notice. “I should be gone a total of two hours at most. Still, that is a long time for a rookie to be on her own.” She surveyed her protégé with a click of her tongue.

  “Hey, I know,” Mandy said brightly. “I simply won’t do a thing while you’re gone. I won’t check in patients or answer the phone. I’ll save it all for you. Until you return with the right color hair.”

  Charlotte flashed her a deadly smile. “If you weren’t the doc’s squeeze, I’d be sorely tempted to drop you to the mat right here and now.”

  Mandy smiled. “Then you’d be late for your appointment, because I’d put up a heck of a struggle.”

  “All right then. Must admit you don’t seem to have a case of nerves or anything. You should do nicely.” Charlotte took her purse off the counter. “Just don’t let the power go to your head.” With a huff, she was out the door.

  Brett wasn’t surprised when the staff in the nook began to exchange quiet high-fives and soft cheers.

  “We did it!”

  “Charlotte actually left someone else at the helm.”

  Jack nudged Brett with an elbow. “Mandy played her perfectly.”

  “Let’s hope she can deliver now,” Rochelle said.

  The foursome remained motionless as Jacob Sanderson walked in the door. Brett so badly wanted Mandy to make him proud. His pulse jumped as she sat at Charlotte’s chair, reached for his file, on the top of the afternoon stack, and noted that Jacob was in for an allergy shot. They all sighed in relief as she efficiently buzzed the lab to let them know they had a patient waiting and directed Jacob to take a seat.

  Four minutes or so passed and the telephone rang. They watched as she picked it up.

  “Fairlane Clinic. Yes, Mrs. Bloom is still here. All right, I’ll tell her.” She deposited the receiver back on its cradle and peered into the waiting area where a few patients sat reading magazines. “Mrs. Bloom, that was the pharmacy,” she called out in a very Charlotte-like bellow. “Your ointment for that armpit rash is ready for pickup!”

  With sagging mouths the foursome watched Mrs. Bloom launch herself out of her chair and over to the desk. “Of all the nerve! That sort of grandstand play was uncalled for, Miss Smythe.”

  “But I—”

  “Now everyone will figure out that I sprayed shoe deodorizer on myself in the dark by mistake!” With that she stormed out.

  Before Brett could think, react properly, his colleagues were nearly rolling out of the nook with laughter. He could only follow them to the counter. And watch a startled Mandy take her hits.

  Rochelle was the first to speak between gulps of laughter. “Good grief, Mandy!” was all she could say before her funny bone was struck again.

  With hands on hips, Mandy scanned them all. “What is the matter with that patient? With all of you?”

  Jack cleared his throat. “Mandy, you are following in Charlotte’s footsteps a little closer than we expected. A little too close.”

  “There is certain protocol that should be followed,” Kaitlyn attempted to explain. “That Charlotte has always ignored.”

  Brett saw his own doom coming the moment Mandy’s innocent eyes locked with his. He tried hard, ever so hard, to keep a straight face. But in the end he couldn’t. He began to crack up, too. Laughter bubbled forth from his gut until it ached.

  “What am I doing wrong?” she shouted.

  Attempting to control his mirth by biting his tongue, Brett took her back to his private office to tell her.

  “Of course I know it’s silly—stupid, even—to shout out personal business.” She paced in agitation.

  “Have you ever been in a clinic where it happens?”

  “Well, no.”

  “I told you from the start that confidentiality is paramount.”

  “You said nothing leaves this clinic. Even Charlotte supported that statement. I just thought this hollering practice was some sort of small-town peculiarity.” She glared at him. “The least you could have done was to have been totally honest about why you were trying to replace her. If I’d have known it was because her manners are offensive, I wouldn’t have repeated her mistakes.”

  “That was our quandary. You deserved to have the whole picture, but given it we feared you’d chicken out.”

  She nodded knowingly. “Like the rookies before me. I heard from her own lips how she managed to scare off each and every one.”

  “With her awful reputation, you can see why we tapped you, an innocent newcomer. Without Charlotte’s reputation to intimidate you, we figured you’d have a better chance of matching wits with her. And it worked!” Brett grinned.

  “All this trickery. I wonder if any of it is fair to Charlotte. She is brassy, but she is also sincere.”

  “Don’t ever worry about that old gal. Our larger goal has been to gradually ease someone into her receptionist seat, then in time, offer her an entirely different job with the billing department, make it out as a promotion, which in fact it will be. As it is, we farm out that work and would prefer to have it done in-house. It would be a better deal for her, with shorter hours, more pay and no contact with patients concerning their medical conditions. With you ready and capable to take over, we expect she will soon cooperate.”

  “It would have been nice to survive the test with my dignity.”

  “Oh, c’mon, we were just having some fun. And Mrs. Bloom’s ailment wasn’t highly personal or sensitive. I intend to have a word with her—”

  “I’ll do that myself. And set the blame where it belongs!”

  “You should try and laugh at yourself more, Mandy.”

  She tilted her chin. “I’m not accustomed to doing that.”

  “Give it a try anyway.”

  “Give me a break. You couldn’t even chuckle over Ivy allowing Tess to paint you in polka-dot boxers.”

  Brett bit his lip. “I guess we both could learn to relax a bit more.”

  There was a knock on the door and Kaitlyn popped in. “Sorry to int
errupt, but it’s time for my break. We need you out front again, Mandy. If you don’t mind.”

  She looked at Kaitlyn’s sweet merry face, then Brett’s, and gave in to her own laughter.

  Kaitlyn held the door open for her. “Don’t let Rochelle bother you. I think she’s going to ride this for all it’s worth.”

  Brett wasn’t surprised when Mandy swiveled on her heel to level a significant stare at him. “Doc Hanson has been planning to have a word with her about a lot of things. Haven’t you, Doc?”

  “Yes.” He spoke up to confirm, “Let her know I’d like to see her when she’s free.”

  Brett would have rather had a cavity filled than have The Talk with Rochelle. But judging by her recent treatment of Mandy, it had become necessary to set her straight on their relationship.

  The lanky redhead was quite cheery as she entered his office without knocking. “Wasn’t that scene priceless?”

  “Sit down a minute, Rochelle.” Brett was leaning against the front of his desk, as he had been during his meeting with Mandy, but he was standing taller now.

  Rochelle took a chair and leaned forward alertly. “What is it? Something the matter?”

  “Well…” He sighed deeply.

  “I think I get it. Mandy’s singled me out for laughing at her.”

  Brett rubbed his chin. “Mandy herself has decided to see the humor in what happened. And I must say, Jack and I are mostly to blame for not telling her in the first place what parts of Charlotte’s training might be wrong.”

  “But any fool—”

  “Cut it short right there.” His curt tone startled her into silence. “When you berate Mandy, you are not only berating a fellow employee, but also somebody I care deeply about.”

  She extended her lower lip in a pout. “Oh, I see.”

  “I wouldn’t be making this so personal between us if you weren’t suddenly pushing so hard.”

  “Why, I never!”

  “Rochelle, you’ve always been pretty territorial where I’m concerned.”

  “We’re good friends!”

  “Yes. Friends but never lovers. There is a very distinct line there that I’ve always known I’d never cross. As friendly as I’ve been, I really believe I’ve never given you false encouragement.”