Wishing for Wonderful (Serendipity #3)(41)
As they worked Lindsay stood alongside him in an examination room, seizing every opportunity to inch a bit closer or allow his hand to brush against hers.
Lindsay knew she was in love. When she went to bed at night it took hours to fall asleep, because she couldn’t put the picture of Matthew out of her mind. When she finally slept, she dreamt of him. In some dreams they walked arm in arm through the park, or danced, or better yet kissed with a fervency that left beads of perspiration on her forehead when she awoke.
But there were also other dreams. Dreams where he turned away and strode into a room, closing the door behind him and leaving her on the outside. When that dream came Lindsay awoke with her heart banging against her chest, and it took several minutes before she could convince herself that it was only a dream.
Mixed in with all her happiness Lindsay held on to a tiny grain of doubt, a whisper of jealousy that reared its head whenever Barbara breezed by to spend the day with Matthew behind a closed door. Lindsay knew Barbara stood next to him just as she did, and she couldn’t help but wonder how many times their hands touched. When Barbara brushed against his shoulder, did she feel the same magic Lindsay felt or was it simply a jostle, a meaningless collision of bodies? On Thursdays when she sat alone at the reception desk, thoughts of Phillip returned and picked at her brain. She hadn’t suspected Phillip was cheating on her, and yet… Her thoughts continued to meander back to the day when the truth of Phillip surfaced. It came like the blast of a shotgun, quick, hard and with a near deadly force. Would it be the same with Matthew?
~
I know you’re thinking Lindsay is a foolish girl, but please realize these small bursts of doubt and jealousy are simply part of the mating dance. I assure you this situation will resolve itself—and, I might add, without any help from me.
~
On the second Thursday in November Barbara showed up forty-five minutes later than usual, and she didn’t barrel through the door to head for the back room. Instead she slogged into the reception room with tears running down her cheeks and a stream of muddy water dripping from her clothes.
“Are you okay?” Lindsay asked.
Barbara shook her head and continued to cry.
“What’s the matter?”
“My car…”
“Did you have an accident?”
Barbara shook her head a second time.
Lindsay found it virtually impossible to be envious of someone sobbing as Barbara was. She came from behind the reception desk and took the broken umbrella from the girl’s hands.
“Come on,” she said. “We’ve got to get you dried off.” She pushed Barbara toward the washroom. “Get cleaned up,” she instructed. “I’ll find you something to wear.”
When Lindsay returned she had a set of blue scrubs that belonged to Matthew. “Put these on. The pants are gonna be way too long, but just roll them up.”
Barbara did as she was told and as she stood there looking like a dwarf in a giant’s clothing, Lindsay noticed something she’d failed to notice before: a gold band circled the third finger of Barbara’s left hand.
She gasped. “You’re married?”
Barbara, who by now had stopped sobbing and cleaned most of the mud off her face, nodded. Once calmed down, she explained how her car had died on Route 70 and she’d had to walk the last half-mile to the office. On the way three trucks and a Mercedes had rumbled through puddles and drenched her with mud.
“It was horrible,” she said with a moan. “I was petrified walking so close to the highway and the wind from the trucks…”
Lindsay listened to the story, then brought Barbara a cup of steaming chamomile tea.
“This will calm you,” she said and stirred in two heaping teaspoons of sugar.
That morning the tumor removal on an aging bulldog didn’t start until eleven-thirty and when the surgery room door was closed, Lindsay oddly enough had no thoughts of Phillip. In fact, she was so energized that she completed two weeks of billing and sent out twenty-three overdue vaccination notices.
A month after they’d begun dating, Lindsay asked Eleanor and her father if she could invite Matthew for Thanksgiving dinner.
“A wonderful idea,” John said. He gave her a wide grin and added, “It’s high time I got to know this young man.”
Eleanor agreed and suggested they also invite Ray and Traci. A few minutes later she added Matthew’s dad to the list. “With Gracie gone, he’s all alone,” she said.
“We probably should also include Lorraine and Frank,” John said.
That prompted Eleanor to remember Matthew had a great uncle who lived in Rochelle Park with his third wife, and the neighbors two doors down whose children lived some place in Idaho. When the list was complete they had thirteen names but then Eleanor added in the elderly bachelor at the end of the street and made it fourteen.
“Oh dear,” Eleanor said. “We’ve only got twelve place settings.” She eyed the list again, but by then she’d already convinced herself that every single person on the list had to be invited.
“It wouldn’t be right for someone to have to spend Thanksgiving all alone,” she said, and everyone agreed.
Since the Macy’s in Philadelphia stocked her dinnerware pattern, Eleanor declared the best solution was for her to drive in on Saturday morning and pick up a few extra place settings.