Fools Rush in(13)

Back at home, there was the romance of medical school. What romance of medical school, you ask? Excellent question. We were all so busy learning so much in so short a time that it was impossible to have a date. Once, in panicky desperation born of fatigue, terror and caffeine, I ended up in bed with a classmate, only to pretend the next day that it had never happened. And we were so stressed and tired, it practically didn’t happen.

On to the exotic sexiness of internship. If any resident I knew had time to burn flirting, kissing or shagging, he or she would have vastly preferred to spend it weeping in a closet somewhere or maniacally studying the question they’d botched during rounds. We hung in there grimly, learning, watching, assisting, guessing, chanting to ourselves, “Someday this will all be worth it.”

By my third year of residency, I had a little more time to date. I even had a six-week relationship with a very nice neurologist. But then he accepted a position with a Cleveland practice, and that was it. I didn’t really mind, to tell you the truth. We’d liked each other, and he was funny and cute enough, but it was nothing like what I felt for Joe.

But now I was ready to start life with the man who epitomized my every romantic dream. Thanks to my years of research, I was convinced that Joe would find what he’d wanted all of his life, too…the love of a good woman. Me. Joe’s looks could distract a person, to say the least. It would be like dating Brad Pitt. But thanks to my years of stalking, I knew the true, secret heart of Joe Carpenter.

I knew about the time Joe, quietly and anonymously, had fixed old Mrs. Garrison’s railing after she’d fallen and broken her hip. Thanks to an eavesdropped conversation at the post office a few years ago, I knew that he gave money to his sister on a regular basis to help make ends meet. I knew about his three-legged dog who hopped after him everywhere, adoration written all over his doggy face. How many times had I revisited The Time, replaying in slow motion that act of innate kindness on the school bus so many years ago? Of course I loved him!

And soon he would love me back.

As part of my Dalai Lama/Richard Gere relationship with Dr. Whitaker, I would be seeing his nursing-home patients once a week. The Outer Cape Senior Center, or OCSC, was located just a mile down the road from my house. Every Thursday, I was to visit Dr. Whitaker’s patients and treat them as necessary. And the joy was that, in addition to the obvious benefit of gaining medical experience, I would also see Joe Carpenter, who had been hired to put on a new wing.

I spent an entire sixty minutes showering, applying makeup and fixing my schizophrenic hair into a semblance of the style I’d paid a week’s wages for. Dressed in black gabardine pants, a loose-fitting pink sweater and pink flowery earrings, I bid Digger farewell, ignoring his imploring howls as I got into the Honda, hoping he wouldn’t soil the floor again.

The raw March wind tried to shove my little car off the twisting road to the OCSC as I mentally rehearsed what I would say when I “ran into” Joe. Something casual yet charming. Something that would stick in his brain. I had to remember to feign surprise that he was working here. “Oh, hey, Joe! What are you doing here? Me? Oh, I’m going to be covering for Dr. Whitaker here on Thursdays.” Hence, I would impress Joe with my credentials, inform him that I would be a regular visitor and get to see him without having to create a coincidence.

As I turned into the OCSC, my heart leaped. Joe’s truck, a worn, maroon Chevy Cheyenne with Joe Carpenter the Carpenter stenciled in white on both doors, was in the nearly empty parking lot. I girded my loins, if a woman could do that, and prepared to insert my funny, kind, generous and more attractive self into Joe’s radar. The minute I stepped out of the car, the wind began ravishing my hair, but having learned about the effects of salt air and my new cut, I clamped my hands over my head and ran to the front door.

The familiar, not unpleasant (to me) smell of a health-care institution greeted me…low-salt food, disinfectant and that indefinable medical odor. I peeked down the empty hallways that led off the foyer. No Joe. There was no one at the front desk, either, so I walked over to the large common room on the left, noting the automatic locking doors at the entrance that would prevent anyone from leaving without notice. Ah, here was life! Clustered around a huge TV that showed Judge Judy in alarming detail, a dozen or so seniors, some in wheelchairs, sat mesmerized by Her Honor’s shrill opinions.

One woman managed to tear herself away from the show. She wore scrubs, and I guessed her to be an aide of some kind, the type of person who does all the dirty work in a place like this. She approached and gave me a cool once-over.

“Yes?” she asked, hands on her hips, looking a little ticked that I had interrupted the good judge.

“Hi, I’m Dr. Barnes. I’m covering for Dr. Whitaker,” I answered with a smile.

“Millie Barnes?” asked the aide. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“Yes.”

“You don’t recognize me, do you?” asked the aide sourly. Thin, chin-length blond hair with an inch and a half of black roots framed a plain, worn-looking face. She had a truck driver’s build—beer belly, big, strong-looking arms and pink-rimmed eyes.

“Uh, no, sorry…you look familiar, but I can’t think of your name,” I said awkwardly.

“Stephanie Petrucelli,” she answered, irritated that I hadn’t placed her. “We went to Nauset High together.”