Calm, Cool, and Adjusted (12 page)

“What does that mean?” I know I said Emma sees a lot and watches my patients like they were her own private reality show, but she’s wrong on this one. Simon does not see me that way.

“Jeff’s nurses just left. I imagine he’ll be over here any minute. I’m going to warm up my tea before he gets here.”

“We’re not your nightly entertainment, Emma.”

“Oh, but you are.”

I feel my heart pounding a bit harder thinking about my first date with an actual employed person in . . . well, in some time. The differences between us are huge and now’s as good a time as any to obsess about them. Jeff’s all about the exterior, but I’m about the interior. The daily cleansing of the heart, body, and soul. He just wants to suck it out and make the world look like Paris Hilton. I hate to admit it, but I take on a little air of superiority here and feel ready to meet him, as the bell jangles at my office. If I can survive this, I can survive anything Morgan’s wedding throws at me.

“Wow,” Jeff says, blinking several times. “You . . . look . . . great.”

Darn. Too much.
But you can’t trust the word of a plastic surgeon either. They get paid to lie to you.

“Thanks. So do you,” I say, pointing at his suit. “I don’t usually see your clothes. You’re always in that white jacket.”

“So this is a truce evening, right? No talk about work?”

“That’s a good idea.” Which begs the question,
What on earth will we talk about?
But I’m not going to say it.

Emma comes in and sits at her desk staring at both of us. “Emma, shouldn’t you be getting home?”

She just shakes her head and takes a sip of tea. I see her snap her fingers as if to say darn, she missed the show.

“Hi, Emma.” Jeff smiles before looking back at me. “I made reservations at a sushi restaurant. Do you do sushi?”

“I do,” I say.
Not my favorite
, I add silently. Jeff harbors an ability to make you believe you’re the only woman in the room when he speaks to you. I’m sure it’s a practiced art, but it’s effective. He can make my stomach tingle at the sound of his voice and I watch him with the same inquisitive skepticism I’d have for a childhood magician. As far as endorphins go, Jeff is as good as three miles or so. Which makes me wonder how truly shallow I am.

He’s the Tom Cruise in my life. For instance:

1. Tom Cruise jumped on Oprah’s couch like the ape in the Samsonite commercial.

2. I know Tom dumped two perfectly good wives to find himself. (I believe he’s still searching.)

3. I know he’s with a girl young enough to be his daughter.

4. I know he bought his own personal ultrasound machine upon learning of his young girlfriend’s pregnancy.

In other words, I
know
better than to find Tom Cruise attractive. Logic tells me to steer clear, to seek higher ground. But then, I see him in
Jerry Maguire
again on TBS at night, and I’m charmed senseless just like the next girl (Renee Zellweger in this case). I’m continuously reminded that I’m not superior, I am not free from his charms. Tom says, “You complete me.” And I don’t laugh at that ridiculous line. I cry—sob actually— falling for it every time.

And don’t even get me started on my illogical crush on Johnny Depp—especially dressed as a pirate. Not healthy, I’m certain.

I am average, one of the crowd, and Dr. Jeff Curran knows it.

My point is there are some people with entirely too much charisma, and Tom Cruise and Jeff Curran are two of them. Perhaps Jeff’s fake white smile sets you aback slightly, but when he flashes that grin, I feel myself smiling. Even though I know better!

“Bye, Emma.”

“Bye,” she waves, like a seventh grader about to write in her diary.

“Are you sure you’re all right with this?” Jeff asks me, sensing my pause at the doorstep.

I just nod. “Two associates having dinner, am I right?”

“So will you still hate me in the morning?” he asks.

I stumble for a moment. “I think so, yes.”

“Then we’re good.”

“Fantastic.” I smile at Emma before we exit my office. She appears duly entertained, so I guess we did our job.

Outside, Jeff opens the door to his Lexus convertible, and I nearly turn back to my office. This is normal for Silicon Valley; I understand that. I look the part, I can act the part, but what I find myself thinking is
Do I really have to get into this car?
It makes such a statement. I’m a snob. And not even in the right direction. I’m humiliated to get into a car that’s too nice, not too dumpy.

I wiggle into it like a sardine into a can.
This is so not comfortable.
Why would anyone spend an inordinate amount of money to be uncomfortable? It’s not like you can floor it on the freeway and feel any sense of freedom. There’s far too much traffic here. If anything, I would think having a powerful car would only frustrate a person. I will say that the cream, calfskin leather is nice and the car smells good—a mixture of new car and Jeff’s aftershave. But he’s got to be six foot two, and he looks ridiculous driving this well-constructed, finely appointed roadster.

“Tiny,” I say about the car.

“What?”

“The car. It’s tiny.”

“It’s a Lexus,” he reminds me. “Nothing about it is tiny.”

“You don’t think it’s too small for you? You’re a pretty big guy. It’s not good for your back to scrunch in this bittie car.”

“I thought we weren’t talking about work.”

“I’m not talking about work, just telling you that your spine gets a workout each day. When you go home, you should tuck your hands under your knees and roll your spine on the floor. It’s a self-massage that will keep you limber enough to drive this.”

“My spine will be fine, thanks for the professional opinion. These seats hold my back like a luxury glove. Besides, I like my car. Worked hard for it.” He looks over at me, and I figure another one of my opinions is not going over well. From here on out, I’m going to practice keeping my opinion to myself.

“It’s a beautiful car,” I admit.

There is a definite something between us. I close my eyes and try to focus on the energy aspect of this emotion I’m feeling and all the reasons I should know better. It’s amazing to me how someone completely wrong for you can stir your heart by the simple chemistry God created. This is where I don’t know how much brain to use and how much instinct. This is why I should date sensible men. Men who eat their oats, and don’t sow them.

“So, I miss your skirt.”

“No, you don’t.”

“You’re right. I was trying to be pleasant.”

At least I know he’s a terrible liar.

“So I’ve always wondered, does it have some sort of significance? Or is it just comfortable?”

“I have more than one.”

“Really?”

“They look alike,” I admit.

“I like them, actually. They’re very retro and antiestablishment. When you see women put together all day, it’s nice to see someone who feels at ease in comfort.”

“You’re saying I don’t look put together?” Granted, I may not, but do I need to hear it from him?

“No, I’m not saying that. I’m saying that you’re your own woman, and it shows. Fashion gets to be like a uniform. I admire your spirit, Poppy.”

“Is that so?”

“So what was so secretive about your dinner with your father? I’ve been in suspense all day.”

I can’t quite tell if Jeff is making fun of me. I suppose it’s all those years of being the odd man out at Stanford. I never really cared if someone made fun of me; I knew I was different. But this is a date. I didn’t come out to be ridiculed. It’s like signing up for the privilege.

“My father’s moving to Arizona,” I answer. “He’s leaving me the house in Santa Cruz.”

“You’re not going to commute, are you?” Jeff acts as if I’ve just told him I’m moving to Mars.

“It’s over the hill, Jeff. It’s not in Timbuktu.”

“It just doesn’t seem like your kind of place.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Now that is the first time someone ever told me that. Usually, people across the country would think it’s my kind of place. I grew up there.”

“I don’t know. I think crystals and moon worshiping. It doesn’t seem like your Christian heritage to me.”

“There are Christians in Santa Cruz!” I say, sort of offended.

“I’m just saying you don’t seem to fit there. Why are you getting so upset? I thought it was a compliment.”

I gasp. “Because obviously, I
do
fit there. My father seems to think I fit there. He handed me the keys himself.”

Jeff stays calm, which I credit him for. I’m clearly not doing as well. “Sometimes, Poppy, our parents don’t know who we are when we grow up. We’re still the colicky baby, or the child who couldn’t make friends with other children, to them. But you know, if you want to go back to Santa Cruz, I think you should. Maybe start your practice over there?”

“My father knows my passion for pushing the human body to its peak. He has always encouraged me in that, whether in track in high school or bowing out of medical school. But none of this is an issue, because I’m not moving.”

“Right. Of course you’re not. Wait a minute—you were in med school?”

I shake my head. “No, I was just accepted. I didn’t go.”

Jeff lowers his brows, and for a moment I want to tell him my whole sordid past and why I turned on the medical establishment, but I don’t, and for that I feel a brief moment of bliss. I don’t say anything anti-establishment or what Lilly might deem kooky. I just act as though it was the right choice for me. I am, for the first time, politically correct.
Call CNN!

“Listen, I don’t think this is going well. You’re establishing motive in my comments,” Jeff accuses, like a lawyer. “I didn’t mean anything by my Santa Cruz comment. I was just trying to be supportive. If you want to go to Santa Cruz, I think you should.”

“What about Hawaii? Do you think I’m the Hawaiian sort?”

He shakes his head. “Nah, I think you’re too obsessive for Hawaii.”

“Obsessive?” I squeal. I’m not liking the word
obsessive
. Sure, I’m motivated. I’m ambitious. But obsessive?

“I mean detail-oriented,” he corrects.

I look at his profile, which is lit by the dwindling sunlight and I’ll say one thing for him, if he’s not sincere, he does a really good job of pretending. His deep brow is furrowed, and though I know better, something deep within is thinking that making this guy mad is a little hot.

“My mother died in the house,” I explain, unable to fathom why I’ve overshared this with him.

Jeff stops the car at an intersection; he has no idea where to go with this information. His expression is just like my cat Safflower when she got caught up the tree with nowhere to go. “That’s awful. I’m sorry about that.”

I shrug. “It was a long time ago. But that’s just one reason why I’m not going back.”

“Right. Right.”

I’m afraid my Zen personality has sort of left me momentarily because even though I know I should just shut up, I find the need to explain. “She didn’t really die in the house. She went into a diabetic coma. She died later at the hospital. But it feels the same.”

“Right.”

“I was thirteen. Things had been bad since I was nine, though; that was just the culmination.”
Shut up, Poppy. Shut up!
There is absolutely no hope for me. I’ve brought up my mother’s death before we’ve even made it to the restaurant. That’s worse than calculating my biological clock for him.

No wonder Morgan fears me at her wedding. Not only am I an oddity of the peacenik, health sort, but somewhere along the line I’ve become a full-on train wreck of a conversationalist. It’s like I’m on the
Oprah
show reliving all my nightmares in this moving truth-serum mobile.
Maybe it’s the leather off-gassing from the seats
, I try to rationalize.

“You probably should go back. Maybe you never really had time to grieve. I won’t operate on patients if they haven’t dealt with some of the emotional things in their history.”

“I’m not looking for plastic surgery, Jeff.” Maybe it’s my paranoia, but Jeff seems awfully interested in where I live.

He laughs. “No, I know that, Poppy. But you asked me about Hawaii, and . . . I don’t know—I just thought if you’re still upset about your mother and the house . . . maybe . . .”

I just smile at this. He’s trying to understand my manic behavior, but I’m sure he’s over there thinking, “
Fatal Attraction II, here she is!
”

“I can’t have you being high maintenance, you know,” Jeff guns the motor and we take off from the stop sign with a start. “That’s what I deal with all day. What happens if you suddenly start becoming self-absorbed and stop trying to prove to me my Lexus is a waste of my existence? You can’t upset that balance. I need you to be the stable one, Poppy.”

Jeff makes me laugh. Even though I don’t have pearly whites the color of tic tacs, he still makes me grin. His boyish charm is undeniable. Of course, I’m more than curious why he’s asking me out for any reason, neighborly or otherwise. But I remember this is about Morgan’s wedding, and if I can do this, I am ready. Well, I mean, I just screwed up big time here, so I don’t have to do it at the wedding.

“I would think a plastic surgeon likes a high-maintenance girl. It keeps you on your toes and provides insight into your patients.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t think I want any more insight into that or I’ll never get married.”

“That’s a bit cynical.”

“I know you think I waste my days, but if you had crooked teeth and braces would fix them, would you do it?”

“Not if it meant slicing me open, no.”

“Well, what if you’d been sliced open a few times for a cesarean birth, and the results left your stomach looking like a minefield?”

“We’re not supposed to be talking about work. But I don’t think I’m ever going to have children.” Yeah, me and the procreation thing—not happening. But I’ve already brought up my childhood nightmares; why not go right into baby making?
Ugh.

“You’re like Mother Earth herself. You mother everyone, and you’re telling me you don’t have aspirations for motherhood.” He stops to laugh. “And you expect me to believe it.”