Chapter 21

If there was one place in the world in which Dan thought a young man his age did not belong, then that place had to be the waiting room of a gynecologist. Just the thought of why the women were there was enough to cause him to turn red with embarrassment. There were little brochures describing medical problems scattered around the tables. Every time he looked at one, he was reminded once again that he didn’t belong there. He shifted around in his seat, fidgeted, and tried not to look at any of the women in there.

A middle aged woman was seated next to him. Seeing his nervousness, she asked, “Is your wife expecting a baby?”

Dan squeaked, “I’m not married.”

“Oh,” the woman said.

He looked at the door leading to the doctor’s offices thinking that he’d rather wait for his sister outside. The front door opened and, much to his horror, one of the women from the restaurant walked into the office. It was Kim, the biggest gossip in the restaurant. His hope that mutual embarrassment would have them staring at the floor and ignoring each other was immediately dashed.

Upon spotting him, Kim said, “Hi, Dan! What are you doing here?”

Not wanting to get into a big discussion there, Dan answered, “I brought my sister in for her appointment.”

Kim sat down next to Dan and smiled at him. She said, “That’s so nice of you.”

“It’s my sister,” Dan said hoping to end the conversation.

Kim looked at the woman on the other side of Dan. The woman had watched the conversation. Going into full gossip mode, Kim said, “Dan is one of the better catches out there. When his old girlfriend came into where we worked to see if any of us would like to take care of him when she went off to school, I considered doing it. Of course, I knew that this young stud wouldn’t want anything to do with a woman fifteen years older than him.”

Doing his best to sink into his seat, Dan covered his eyes. He kept thinking, ‘I want to turn invisible now. Please God. Turn me invisible.’ Either God wasn’t listening to his pleas or God was having too much fun at Dan’s expense. Dan suspected that it was the latter.

The woman on the other side of Dan asked, “Do you mean to tell me that his girlfriend tried to set him up with another woman?”

“Oh, yes. She was a cute little thing, too. It was really sweet the way that she was so serious about making sure that someone would take care of him,” Kim answered. She punctuated each phrase with the appropriate hand gestures.

“It sounds to me like she was trying to get rid of him.”

Kim waved a hand dismissively and said, “No. Dan is a real sweetheart. He’s so polite and well mannered. He’s always doing nice things for us at the restaurant where we work. A woman would have to be crazy to want to get rid of him. I mean, he drove his sister here and is waiting to drive her home. How many brothers would do that for their sister?”

“Not many,” the woman answered, “It’s hard enough getting a husband to do it. I’m supposed to call my husband to come pick me up.”

“I know what you mean,” Kim said. She leaned across Dan and said, “They told me that I wouldn’t be able to drive after my procedure today. So I’m stuck taking a taxi home. That just isn’t right.”

“You don’t have anyone to take you home?” the woman asked with a frown.

“I work nights and all my friends work days. Most of them can’t rub two nickels together. They just can’t afford to take some time off to carry me around,” Kim said shaking her head sadly.

It wasn’t that Dan didn’t like Kim, but she wasn’t one of his favorite people. He kept the relationship at the acquaintance level rather than trying to develop a friendship with her. Usually when she went into gossip mode at work, he would tell her that he had work to do and leave. It was impossible for Dan to ignore the conversation taking place. He was seated right between the two women.

No matter his feelings for her, there was no way he would allow Kim to take a taxi home after a medical procedure.

Fully convinced that he would regret it, he said, “I’ll take you home.”

“Why, thank you, Dan. You are such a sweetheart,” Kim said. She looked at the woman on the other side of Dan and said, “Do you see what I mean?”

“That’s real nice of him,” the woman said.

“I tell you, his current girlfriend is such a lucky woman. If I didn’t like Sue so much and if I was ten years younger, I’d really try to take him away from her,” Kim said.

“Sue and I are just friends,” Dan said.

“Where there’s smoke there’s fire. I see the way that Sue Adams looks at you. Don’t deny it. Everyone knows that she wants to become Sue Parker,” Kim said as if it was a well established and widely known fact.

Another woman in the waiting room looked up and asked, “Are you talking about Sue Adams, the painter?”

“From what I heard, she’s some sort of really famous painter. I don’t believe it, though. I mean, why would a famous painter work in a restaurant during the graveyard shift?” Kim answered. It didn’t matter to her that Sue had quit to return to her career as an artist. As far as she was concerned, Sue was a waitress, and had probably quit to work someplace else.

The woman stared at Dan for a minute feeling sorry for him. She could see that he was really uncomfortable being there. There was nothing worse than being the subject of gossip, and listening to people talk about you as if you weren’t even there. She watched Dan try to sink into his seat and disappear.

It seemed like hours, but it was actually only ten minutes before the woman seated next to Dan was called into the examination area. Kim prattled on for another five minutes, and then it was her turn to leave. Dan sank back in his chair and said, “Thank God.”

Several of the women laughed at the expression of obvious relief on his face. One woman asked, “Are you really going to take her home?”

“Yes,” Dan answered.

“You are a Saint,” the woman said shaking her head. She had felt sorry for him.

“Not really,” Dan said.

Diana came out and waved a prescription at Dan. Smiling, she said, “I got it. Can we stop by the pharmacy on the way home?”

“We have to wait a bit. I promised a woman that I work with that I’d take her home after she’s done with the doctor,” Dan said with a sigh.

“Oh,” Diana said taking a seat next to him. She said, “You don’t look very happy about it.”

“I’m just tired and cranky,” Dan said shrugging his shoulders. He looked down at his watch and thought that he would normally be in bed still.

“Sorry,” she said.

“It’s not your fault. This is the middle of the night for me, and I’m missing my sleep,” Dan said. He covered his mouth and yawned. Just the reminder that he should be in bed was enough to trigger a yawn.

“Why don’t you take a little nap? I’ll wake you when your friend comes out,” Diana suggested.

Dan tilted his head back and closed his eyes. He mumbled, “That’s not a bad idea.”

Staring out the window of the car as Dan drove through the dark streets towards home, Diana said, “It’s really sad.”

“I know,” Dan said. The sun had set an hour earlier and they were just returning home from Kim’s apartment.

“She has nothing,” Diana said dismayed by what they had discovered when they had taken Kim home. Kim’s apartment had been totally bare. In the bedroom, she had a mattress on the floor. The living room contained a single chair and a TV tray. There wasn’t a television or a radio in the room. It was as if no one was actually living there.

“I noticed that,” Dan said.

“Did you know that before today?” Diana asked.

“No. She never talks about herself. All she ever does is gossip. She’s always talking about other people,” Dan answered. He stopped the car at the curb in front of their home.

Diana said, “I don’t think she has a life of her own. She’s living through other people.”

“I suspect that you’re right,” Dan said turning off the engine. He turned off the headlights and the car was immediately darker.

“Can you help her?”

Shrugging his shoulders, he answered, “I don’t know. She makes enough money to live a lot better than that. I don’t know why she lives that way. The fact is that I don’t know anything about her.”

Diana was quiet for a moment and then said, “I’m glad that we stayed to make sure that she was okay. I’d hate to think of her sitting there alone after her procedure.”

The nurse had told them that someone should watch Kim for the first couple of hours in case there was any bleeding. Dan said, “I am not looking forward to explaining to Mom and Dad why you missed the rest of the day at school.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Diana said dismissively.

“I could have taken you back to school and then gone back to her place,” Dan said. He knew that it would have been a rather lame idea even as he said it. He had fallen asleep on the floor after he and Diana had helped Kim into her apartment.

Diana looked at him as if he was an idiot. With sarcasm evident in her voice, she said, “Riiight.”

“I know. That was dumb.”

“Don’t worry about Mom. She’ll understand why we did it. Dad will cover his ears when he hears the word gynecologist and run the other way.”

“You think she’ll understand?” Dan asked.

“She would have done exactly the same thing we did. We wouldn’t have been able to live with ourselves if we had just dropped her off, and she had bled to death because no one was there to look after her,” Diana said opening the car door. The overhead light came on illuminating the paper bag with Diana’s prescription in it.

“You’re right.”

As they walked up to the front door, Diana asked, “What are you thinking?”

Shaking his head, Dan said, “I wonder which facts of life Kim ignored to end up in this situation.”

“I don’t know, and she probably couldn’t tell you,” Diana answered. She looked at him and said, “You might give her a copy of those articles.”

“You can’t change the character of another person,” Dan said making reference to the last fact of life on the list.

“That doesn’t mean that you can’t give them advice,” Diana countered.

“I’ll think about it,” Dan said. For all he knew, she could end up getting mad at him for meddling in her life.

The little adventure at the gynecologist appeared to catapult Dan’s reputation at work from being a nice guy into a shining knight on a white horse. It took a little time for that to occur. On the night of the adventure, Dan hadn’t mentioned anything about the visit to the doctor’s office. All he wanted was to put it behind him. Kim was at home recovering from her procedure.

Dan didn’t work the next night, so he was completely unaware of the stories being told about him. Kim had described how he had talked to her before the procedure to keep her mind off her fears of what was going to happen to her. In a true heroic fashion, he had single-handedly carried her poor pain-filled body to his car and then into her apartment. She told how he had brought his sister along to watch over her and protect her modesty. She described how he had made some soup and spoon fed her as she lay weak upon the bed.

His protests that Kim’s version of events was highly exaggerated and that he had done what anyone would do in similar circumstances fell upon deaf ears. Fortunately for Dan, he spent most of the evening in the kitchen.

Jimmy watched the waitresses fuss over Dan for about three hours before he said, “Boy, I don’t know what you did, but if you could bottle it I’d buy a dozen. Those waitresses are all over you like vultures on road kill.”

“It’s going to be a long night,” Dan said.

He looked over at the three glasses of iced tea lined up on the counter. The waitresses had brought them to him just in case he was thirsty from working in the hot kitchen.

“With just a few words it could be a long morning, too,” Jimmy said with a laugh.