Calm, Cool, and Adjusted (23 page)
I’m about halfway to the door, next to the marble bust of perfect womanhood, when I realize it. I’m all about energy— if you give off good energy, it passes on, but bad energy kills people’s emotions. And as I’m next to the marble figure beside me, I realize that’s what I’ve just done. I’ve taken my eviction notice and passed it onto Plastic Girl. I mean, Dr. Jeff’s assistant.
“I’ll be sure and tell him,” she calls out.
“What’s your name?” I turn to ask her.
“Alicia.”
“Well, Alicia, I have a big wedding coming up where I’m a bridesmaid. Maybe you could help me then.”
“Sure,” she says.
Of course, I have no intention of spending a fortune on plastic surgery makeup, but I can’t stand the idea that I’ve tried to crush Alicia’s day, either, just because I’m mad at her boss. I catch a glimpse of myself on the way out and see my eyes are red at the rims. Maybe I’m being a little hasty on the no-makeup thing.
Jeff opens a door to the back and appears before me. I’d like to say my first reaction is extreme disdain, because that would be the smart girl’s reaction. Apparently, I’m not all that bright, because my first reaction is that I’m happy to see him in a friendly sort of way. And he’s as handsome as ever. And even he makes more sense than Simon right now. At least to my well-addled brain.
“Poppy? I thought I heard your voice. Come on back.”
“I thought you had a consultation.”
He looks at Alicia and then to me. “Right, right. On the phone. I had a consultation. Very in-depth consultation. I’m done now.”
I stifle my laughter and follow him to his office, where he shuts the door. “You’re a terrible liar.”
“I’m a Christian, so I take that as a compliment. I’ve been on the phone since seven this morning—”
“What is this?” I interrupt him and hold up the eviction notice.
He grabs it and peruses it with those deep blue eyes of his. “It looks like an eviction notice.” Then he brings his gaze back to mine. “I got one too.”
“You know, you don’t even— What? What did you say?”
“The landlord is breaking all of our leases, Poppy. Yours, mine, the Greek café, the gym, everything. No one in government is at work yet, so what a time I’ve had getting as much information as I have.”
“Did you know about this?”
“Of course I didn’t know about this. I’ve been on the phone all morning with lawyers trying to figure out my next step.”
“Why aren’t you flustered? I thought you were planning to take over the entire building.”
Jeff shrugs and gets up to put a book on the shelf. “Because legally he can’t do that, and we can all file a classaction suit. He’s planning to fill the building with a high-tech startup that has an extraordinary amount of cash. But I’m torn because maybe this is my sign to get my own building built.” Jeff shrugs. “Either way, he’s not kicking me out without a fight, and I can afford a better lawyer than him,” he says with a laugh.
“Well, what good will a class-action suit do me if I’m going to be sent packing anyway?”
He lets out a long, haggard sigh. “Do you really think I’m going to kick you out if you don’t have a new and better place for your practice, Poppy? Do you know me at all? You’re the one who agreed to look elsewhere.”
“Do you think I want to be next to a plastic surgeon?”
“You have this anger that simmers just at the surface, but you always manage to control it. You always manage to keep your emotions in check unless it’s about some natural diuretic you’ve just discovered. Or me.”
“This has nothing to do with us, or our differences. I just don’t want to get involved in a lawsuit. I don’t want to spend my life in strife. Maybe I want the peace that comes from above, and so I choose to focus on all that’s good rather than what’s bad.”
“Maybe.” He lifts an eyebrow as though he doesn’t believe me.
“What does that mean?”
“You’re angry, Poppy. You don’t see it, but you are angry. And it plays out in little passive-aggressive garbage like taking my parking spot and coming over here and giving me an earful. You’re not mad at me; you’re mad at something deep.” Jeff sits back in his chair and waits for me to react, which I’m not giving him the satisfaction of doing.
“What is this, your pop psychology? Do your patients get that for free?”
He crosses his arms. “Why do you run?”
“I like to run. As I don’t plan any liposculpture in my future, that’s probably a good thing.”
“See? Passive-aggressive. You have never missed an opportunity to put down what I do, and I think if you’re really comfortable with what you do, you shouldn’t worry about me. So tell me.” He leans in on the desk. “I think it’s great you’ll never need liposuction. I also think it’s a blessing to women who’ve had children, watched men leave, and have lost all sense of self-worth. I think it’s great for them. What do you advise—should I just avoid my calling because you think it’s wrong?”
“Exercise helps endorphins, and a woman can lose weight.”
“But she can’t lose the skin. You’re just not going to give in, are you?”
“Why should I? I’m right.”
“So what?” Jeff asks. “What if life isn’t about being right?”
His question stops me cold.
Life
is
about being right. Isn’t it?
I can feel the cortisone rising in my system as he continues to glare at me. My heart is racing, and I feel nothing but anxiety and the immediate desire to run it off. “I’m going running before my patients get in.”
He stands up and blocks the door. “You can’t do it without running it off, can you? We’re getting evicted, the world is eating Big Macs, there are thousands of SUVs where there should be hybrids. What does that make you feel?”
I can’t tell him that it makes my heart pound and my teeth clench, but if I’m honest, that’s exactly what I’m thinking.
“Negative feelings are related to high blood pressure and heart disease,” Jeff adds. “Toxic emotions, I believe you call them.”
“I’ll be in my office. Let me know what your lawyer says.” I put my hand on the doorknob, but he doesn’t move. “Are you trapping me in your office, Dr. Curran?”
He blinks slowly several times, and then he moves aside.
“Thank you,” I tell him.
“You’re welcome. I’ll be in touch.”
When I get out of his office, I’m like a gorilla let loose on the city. I’m just enraged that he has the nerve to say I’m angry. Who is he kidding? I’m not angry. Come and feel the positive vibe in my office, please.
I get into my office and rub my forehead, trying to shake the last ten minutes from my system. Emma is at her desk, nibbling on a whole-grain bar and downing green tea, her favorite snack. And it’s only eight a.m.
“I see the new table came,” Emma says.
“I have to run, Emma.”
“No, no. You can’t run. You’re backed up this morning. You’ve got three people waiting already. Alan is in exam room one and Karen and Jason are in the adjustment room. Alan’s first.”
“Emma, I have to run.”
“No, you have to
work
. Didn’t you already swim?”
“I did,” I sheepishly admit. “But I didn’t get my full time in.”
“I don’t think Karen, Jason, or Alan really care. Oh, and your dad called. They’re in Arizona and wanted to know if you found everything you wanted.”
“All right, thanks.”
I finish with my patients, taking special care with a sciatica case and a pregnant Karen, but I can’t remember actually talking to any of them during the treatment.
God is in control
, I keep reminding myself.
How dare Jeff try to get me off kilter. It’s my business day; what is he thinking?
While I’m contemplating his incredibly bad manners, I trip over the new massage table and find myself splayed on the floor, looking at the ceiling.
This probably would have been a lot more feminine in my mother’s skirt.
“Poppy?” Emma stands over me.
“I’m getting up,” I say, laughing it off. “Just call me Grace.” But as I go to stand on my left foot, I can’t do it and crumple onto the floor again.
“Grace, let me go get Jeff.”
“No!” I shout. “If I need a doctor, I’ll find a good one.” My patients are looking at me oddly. “Not that he isn’t a great plastic surgeon, but I think I need an orthopedic guy.”
I stand up again, and this time it’s better. My left foot has been aching for a while, and I’ve just ignored it, but I’m at the point where I can’t ignore it any longer. I go to my office to find my doctor’s number while Emma moves the table from its precarious spot.
“Brian!” I call out. “I need help with the X-ray machine. I think I may have a problem,” I yell. It dawns on me for a split second that Jeff is right about me being slightly angry. And maybe there’s something to what Simon said about me avoiding him. But the thoughts quickly dissipate into the ridiculous notions they are. I’m a girl of thirty whose best friends are leaving me for the stability of marriage while I try to convince the world to give up hydrogenated oils and Teflon. So yeah, I have a few issues. Who doesn’t?
Y
ou twisted your ankle,” Dr. Hopkins tells me in his monotone voice. Is it any wonder people don’t like doctors? I mean, would it kill them to throw a little personality into their routine? It’s not like he’s diagnosing me with a terminal illness here. I was klutzy. I fell and sprained my ankle. It’s the perfect segue to a joke. Doesn’t he get that? The energy in here could kill a man.
“That’s what I figured,” I say, but I know there’s more. Brian wasn’t around to help me with the X rays and it was his stupid table I tripped over. My foot has a constant dull ache, with the stabbing pain every now and again, made worse when I run. Which is why the run on the beach was such a gift to my soul. Since Hopkins missed whatever’s going on, I imagine I’m going to have to do it myself and wait for Brian’s availability or get Emma to drop her crunch bar long enough to help out.
“And,” Dr. Hopkins continues, “You have a hairline fracture in your metatarsals. Haven’t you noticed it hurt?”
His words are a crushing blow. I knew it was something to that effect, but his saying so means I have to actually pay attention. “I have noticed, but I’m training for a triathlon.”
“Not anymore you’re not. You can swim, but there will be no running for you for at least a month. No bike riding—too dangerous with a cast.”
I just sort of laugh the idea of a cast off, wondering what type of shoes I can get where I wouldn’t feel my toes. They have to be out there because I am not going to miss my run. “Thanks, Doctor.”
“Don’t write this off, Poppy. You’ll do permanent damage to those bones if you don’t give them a rest. As a chiropractor, there’s no reason for me to be telling you such an obvious thing. You either stop running now, or you’ll stop running forever. What’s it going to be?”
His words sober me, mostly because I know they’re true. I preach whole-body health on a daily basis, and yet I haven’t listened to my own body for some time now. The irony is not lost on me. Nor is the fact that I don’t feel the pain. I just stuff it somewhere deep and focus on the scent of the eucalyptus or the stars guiding me or even the crest of the waves. Anything but the pain. The pain eases, but if I miss my run, I feel it for a week.
“You’ve been on this fracture for some time now. I can tell.” Dr. Hopkins says to me, and though I’d like to write him off as the typical quack I think all MDs are, I know this time he’s for real, because I would never let a patient of my own run under these circumstances.
“Fine, no running for a while. When will it be fixed?”
“You need to be pain free for at least three weeks when you start up again, and even then, you take it slow.”
“Three weeks from pain? My run is in little more than a month. On Oahu.”
He ignores me and looks at my chart. “Take Tylenol for pain, and I’m going to give you a permanent cast. I could give you a removable sort, but I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you.”
“A cast? I’m in a wedding soon. The bride won’t want me wearing a cast.”
“Do you want a wood-soled shoe instead?”
“Doc, I can’t do this right now.”
“You’ve already done this right now. And Poppy, you have no one to blame but yourself. You, of all people, who worked in this office once upon a time, who has come in here and told me countless times of all the evil medicine represents—you, of all people, should have listened to your body. You’ll get no sympathy from me.” He rips off a prescription for a stronger pain reliever, which he knows I won’t fill, and another order for a cast to be placed. “I’ll have a wheelchair take you to casting.”
I’m not missing my triathlon. I don’t care what he says. With a little time off, I can be on this foot again in no time. I’m definitely not heading to casting. I’ll just wrap it in the office. It will have the same effect, and I can be back quicker.
“By the way, when’s the last time you replaced your running shoes?” Doctor Hopkins asked.
“I don’t remember. They’re expensive.”
“Not as expensive as a stress fracture.” He closes my file and leaves me in the office to dress. I’ll admit, I mumble through the entire process. When I’m finished I look out the doorway and head to Sarah, the front desk girl I worked with for three years before I decided this was not my path in life.
“I’m leaving. Shh. What do I owe you?”
“You know he’d never charge you. It says here you’re supposed to get a cast.”
“I’m in a wedding. I’m just going to wrap it until after the nuptials. You know what it’s like.”
Sarah shakes her head. “You are so stubborn, Poppy. If you end up a cripple, don’t call here. We don’t need your malpractice suit.” She slams my folder shut.
“Sarah, that’s not funny.” I laugh with her, except she’s not joining me.
“It’s not meant to be funny. You know, I put up with it when you worked here—how you would just ignore everything Jerry said—but he’s been a doctor longer than you’ve been alive. He’s learned a few things along the way and you can’t even give him the respect he deserves. I mean it, Poppy. Don’t come here anymore.”
Now Sarah is like Dr. Jerry Hopkins’ biggest cheerleader. She would take you down rather than see him hurt in any way. In some ways, she knows the old man better than his wife does. But that doesn’t mean she’s right here. Technically speaking, I need a cast, but realistically, I just don’t see how it’s going to work out. I’ve been training for months for the Tinman Triathlon with the hope that I’ll eventually run the Ironman with a full marathon at the end. This is not just inconvenient. This is the end of a dream. I just close my eyes right there in the office. But when I step down on my left foot, reality shoots through my nervous system.
