I didn’t want to hate my job. If you’d asked me what my specialty would be back at the beginning of medical school, I don’t know what I would have told you, but I do know it wouldn’t have had anything to do with vaginas that wasn’t recreational.
Still, I felt like it fit, like I had something to contribute—like life wasn’t the kind of thing you could live on a plan for a reason.
I felt like I had a way of understanding women, and, as much as I grumbled about her, I probably had my mother to thank for that. She was always open and honest about menstruation and sexuality in a way that made me comfortable enough to see the people behind the reproductive system.
I cared about these women—my patients.
And I didn’t want some trumped-up version of a documentary about me and everything I tried to achieve to ruin what I was actually trying to do—to negate the difference I was trying to make.
“Shit,” I muttered to myself. I’d forgotten my mug up in the break room, which was just behind the front desk. I’d been so focused on escaping the impending shitstorm and predicting the consequences, I hadn’t thought to grab it on my way. And I needed coffee.
Dropping my briefcase and the picture on top of my desk, I headed straight back down the hall toward the front.
Melissa’s and Beth’s once-again exuberant voices caught my attention just as I moved to step through the door to the break room.
“I know!” Beth agreed to something enthusiastically.
For some insane reason, one I immediately wished I’d ignored, I stopped to listen to their conversation.
“With how good of a flirt he is, I’m just glad he’s never tried it on me. I’d have my panties down and my legs open so fast—”
Involuntarily, my body moved, back out the door and around the corner to the space just behind their chairs. I moved almost silently, and truthfully, I didn’t even really feel like I was in control of my own body. It was as if my gut instinct engaged at the barest hint that they were talking about me.
“Oh my God. Speaking of opening your legs… Did you hear what he said about the vagina being a beacon of—”
I cleared my throat in shock and recognition—now knowing they were talking about me—and Beth almost fell out of her chair trying to get Melissa’s attention and make her stop talking. “Shh!”
Melissa’s face flushed and dropped to ease her focus on the carpet as she addressed me. “Oh. Hey, Dr. Cummings.”
Fucking great. I guess the office wasn’t going to be a safe place after all.
“Hi again, ladies. Just forgot my coffee cup. I hope you’re having a lovely day.” My teeth were gritted, but fuck me, it sure as hell wouldn’t help to curse them out. Mentally, sure, but not professionally. I had to work with these people day in and day out. As much as I’d have liked to be, I wasn’t made of money.
They tittered a little, surprised not only by my presence but also the casual and kind way I addressed them, and the teasing, knowing smiles slipped from their faces and melted into embarrassment.
“Um, you too, Dr. Cummings,” Melissa muttered. Beth, on the other hand, had once again gone mute.
“I’ll be ready for the first patient in about ten minutes or so.”
Melissa nodded.
“Marlene,” I called, and she jumped from her spot in the corner. She hadn’t been avidly participating, at least not at that particular moment, but she’d been listening intently. She just hadn’t thought I’d be including her in this awkward little tête-à-tête.
“Get the room ready, please.”
“Of course, Dr. Cummings.”
I nodded with a smile and turned to leave. Then, and only then, did I turn back, my voice soft and smooth like butter. “For the record…” They all jumped at the sound of my voice again. “I didn’t say the vagina was a beacon of anything. That was a forty-minute speech on fertility that they spliced together for a fifteen-second clip of nonsense. So let’s get back to work, okay?”
Aggravated that I had to explain myself to people who’d been working with me for years, I stormed back to my office—stopping briefly to get my goddamn mug—slammed the switch for the coffeepot on and listened raptly as it started to brew. I needed to take my ten minutes, have my coffee, and get my shit together before I went out there and started seeing patients.
The last thing they needed was a doctor whose head wasn’t in the game. My priority was their health. Period.
I tucked the picture of Julia back into my briefcase and checked my phone one last time before setting it to silent and shutting it inside of my drawer.
There was only one message, from Thatch no less, so I figured now wasn’t the time to read it. Not when I was trying to calm myself down.
Thatcher Kelly was a goddamn incendiary device.
I pulled off my suit coat and hung it on the hook in the corner, and then I pulled out my chair to sit down and look through patient files. I liked to get a jump on the day by reminding myself of their history before they even darkened our door. Once the day was rolling, I’d barely have any time at all, and patient care was at least fifty percent knowledge.
Each person needed and expected different things, and I tried my best to give it to them.
It didn’t take me long to let go of my personal troubles and take on the burdens of my patients. Whether it was fertility issues, a cancer scare, or endometriosis, each of them had something they needed my help with. Something they came to me to make better, bearable, or even just offer some support.
A knock on the doorframe of my office pulled my attention from the file I was studying and up to Marlene.
I lifted my eyebrows in question.
“Just brought your first patient back, Dr. Cummings.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
She jerked her chin and turned to leave, but I called her back. “Oh, and Marlene?”
She stepped back into the door and listened. “I’m going to be expecting more from you going forward. You’ve been here long enough, and you’re experienced enough, to know that someone needs to hold down the fort, keep the rumor mill under control, and make sure that patients are the first priority. That someone should be you. It should be all of you, but you should know better than anyone.”
She ground her jaw, but she didn’t talk back. Perhaps a first for Marlene. “Is that all?”
I smiled, an attempt to smooth the water under our bridge, but when she turned without waiting for me to answer, I knew I’d probably be paying for that little speech for quite a while. I was technically the boss, but according to the Life and Times of Marlene Donahue, no one was her boss but herself.
I sure hoped someone packed my life jacket.
Three raps on the door to exam room one later, my first patient called out for me to come in.
I stepped through the door and moved to the counter, where Marlene had already run a urinalysis that indicated, as designated by the birth control note on her file, the patient lying on my exam table with nothing more than a paper gown on was maintaining her preferred status of not pregnant.