Calm, Cool, and Adjusted (2 page)

“Poppy, you are the most peaceful woman I know. I come in here and there are scented candles burning, soft music playing, a water fountain. So tell me, how is it you’re so peaceful . . .” He pauses. “ . . . to everyone else? Why must I endure your wrath? What makes me so special?”

That’s a good question, and the simple answer is that I don’t like him, and I don’t like what he does for a living. Feeding off the insecurities of women. Hmm . . . I suppose I believe I must be his voice of reason. Oscar has Felix, SpongeBob has Squidward, and Dr. Jeff has me. It’s the natural course of life.

Since I didn’t answer him, Jeff continues. “Since we must share office space, would you mind keeping your clients’ cars from my side of the parking lot? It’s closer for them, anyway. I think the more convenient we make it for our clients, the better—” He swallows abruptly. “—doctors—” He chokes on the word. “The better doctors we’ll both be. Certainly we can agree on that much.”

I hate to be patronized. For all intents and purposes, I’ve been an adult since I was thirteen. At thirty, I hardly need someone to dumb it down for me. “I can’t exactly go outside and direct traffic. I have a business to run here. Besides, maybe if your clients walk more, they’ll need less liposuction,” I say.

He stands over me menacingly, and I have to admit, he is prettier than me. He’s like a work of art, and I find myself getting lost in his baby blues, which hold no sparkle at the moment. Even angry, they’re beautiful. “You’re sabotaging my practice, Poppy, and I know you wouldn’t do that on purpose.” Again with the patronization. “My clients see the beaters your patients drive and worry that I’m a hack surgeon. They need to trust me with the knife, and part of that is creating an environment they trust. Like your Zen spa space here.”

“Red is the color of energy. My clients should leave here energized and ready to face the world, not relaxed.” Somehow, that seems different to me than judging a surgeon by the cars in the parking lot, but what do I know of his world?

He gazes up at the wall. “Whatever. Listen, when I have my own surgical center in a few years, I won’t be here. So let’s do our best to coexist, shall we?” He moves a hanging leaf away from his face. “After that, your jungle can reclaim its own and you can go back to smoking incense or whatever it is you do over here.”

“Jeff, you park your car in front of
my
office. Granted, I understand you don’t want your beloved Lexus scratched, but it makes it look like I’m here for the money. Just like you don’t want the beaters in front of your office, I don’t want the status symbol in front of mine. It says that I value the wrong things in life.”

“Status symbol? I beg your pardon, but I drive a very practical car and the space in front of your office is bigger. No door dings, as you pointed out.”

“It really bothers you this is a free country, doesn’t it? All these people running around with wrinkles and fat you can’t suck out. It’s just criminal that God makes you deal with the riffraff, but I’m afraid that’s the way it is. I park there because I want my patients to trust me. It’s the same difference.”

“Uh, no, it’s not. I’m not charging them seventy-five bucks a pop for voodoo. My clients actually get what they pay for. I promise and I deliver. With you, it’s just the luck of the draw.”

I gasp audibly at his true belief in my practice. “I beg your pardon. Chinese medicine has been around longer than your rudimentary surgery skills. Which will, I’m sure, be out of date with the next brilliant procedure that plasters the skin tighter to the bone. I cure the whole body, not just focus on the superficial.”

He looks around my office and at the water feature in particular. “I’m doing important work over there. I’m not just creating an ambiance.”

Just as he says this, a woman with lips the size of inflated tires comes through the door. “Oh, thorry,” she lisps. “Thought thith wath the exit.” She quickly retreats, and I have to cover my giggle. I’m not sure where plumping lips the size of life preservers comes in on the importance scale, but that’s his problem, not mine.

“Your lips thin when you get older, Ms. Clayton. Someday you too may want injections and just so you know there’re no hard feelings, I’ll be happy to plump them up the first time for free.”

“If you’re hoping I’ll give free adjustments for oversized implants and their effects on the back, I’m afraid I won’t return the favor.”

“I don’t do implants for cosmetic reasons, and you know that.”

I’ve heard him make a point of that, and as much as the rest of his work disgusts me, I can respect that. But we rarely give each other the benefit of the doubt. It’s part of our insane and ludicrous mutual attraction, I suppose.

“Poppy.” He lowers his voice to that sexy purr he possesses. “Does it
really
bother you that I park there?”

I pause for a moment to really ponder the question because he sounds as if he’s really interested. “No,” I admit.
Just your very presence in my building annoys me
, I think with regret for my own control tendencies.

As much as this man drives me crazy, he’s a very warm spirit. He’s gentle and kind, just incredibly misguided. And Lord forgive me, there’s something within me that wants to set him on the path to righteousness on a daily basis. If I wasn’t visited weekly by people who had destroyed their health over something cosmetic or unnecessary, I wouldn’t have this attitude. I really wouldn’t.

“My patients just don’t want to get old before their time. I know we disagree on methods, but—”

I interrupt him. “How can you perpetuate the myth that it’s about nothing more than being an ornament?”

“I don’t perpetuate that myth, as you put it. But it seems selfish that you would stop women from trying to improve themselves. It’s a choice, you know, and most women aren’t blessed with your looks or that body.”

“Is that a professional opinion?” I ask him. I have no idea why I love to see him squirm, but I apparently live for it. I see his eyes fall on my figure and quickly come to my eyes as if he hasn’t noticed a thing.

“As I was saying . . .” I see him visibly swallow and for some reason, this gives me a small thrill. “Clients seek my help when they aren’t given what nature has been so generous with for you. I would think being beautiful—”

I look down. I’m above this. I know better than to fall for smooth talking, but as I meet his gaze I realize I’m only human.

“And don’t play coy as if you don’t know it, Poppy. Women know the power beauty yields them, and you’re no different. As I was saying, I think you’d have a little more mercy on your fellow woman.”

Dang, he knows how to make me feel small.
I want people to know the power that healthy living can bring them; I want them to know they hold the gift of God’s creation right at their fingertips. But I stumble and become so very human when Jeff calls me beautiful. I am so petty. So vain in my own way. “I won’t park in your beloved space, all right? Are we done now?”

“I appreciate that.” He flashes those teeth once more and retreats into his world of Botox and silicone. Plastic surgery. Even the name drives me insane. Everything about it says fake, facade, industrial, when we, as doctors, should be teaching the world all things natural: eating habits, renewable resources, exercise. If he wasn’t so Neanderthal, he would see that. But I hold out little hope for him as he slinks back to where he came from.

“I don’t know why he annoys you so much,” Emma says, staring at the closed door our offices share. “He’s always nice to you. He tries, Poppy—you have to give him that.”

“He’s really not that kind, Emma. You’re just charmed by him. Like a snake in his basket. He plays a tune, and we all follow blindly.” I click my tongue, “And I’m no different.”

“Maybe I am charmed, but so what? Does everyone have think like you?”

“Of course not, but it would help if my office staff did. Do you know how many people I see sick from all the environmental triggers in the air? That man deliberately injects people with botulism for vanity’s sake. It’s his entire world-view I have trouble with. Not him, per se.”

“It’s not like he’s forcing it on people. He’s not at a loss for clients. That place is like Grand Central over there, and have you seen they’re carrying that really good mineral makeup at the medical spa?”

I look at her with my naked face. “No, I hadn’t noticed.”

One thing about Emma, what she lacks in ambition she more than makes up for in opinion. “What makes you think you have any right to change him, Poppy?”

“Don’t you see, Hollywood is forcing it—people have an unnatural desire to be youthful. It’s so important to maintain balance in all areas of your life. If you don’t want to age, you should live a healthy lifestyle.”

“Remember that Grape Nuts guy did that, and he still died. Besides, it’s not all about health; it’s about looking good too. No one wants to go through life with 9 percent body fat and the face of a troll, am I right?” Emma asks.

“How can the body work against those poisons he injects, Emma?” I shake my head. “He just wakes up wrong every day. We can’t all age like Cher. We shouldn’t. It isn’t natural.”

“Of course it isn’t natural. That’s why it’s called
plastic surgery
. Plastic, not so natural. Surgery, not natural. What does that have to do with you taking his parking space everyday?” Emma asks.

“It just makes me feel better, all right? Sort of my own way of balancing him out. I’m the yin to his yang. I bring balance to his world.”

“I don’t know. I like him. He’s always very complimentary of you.” Emma looks at the door, like a retriever waiting for its owner to return. “You don’t have to agree with each other to share office space.” She shrugs. “What do you say to each other at church when you attend?”

“Nothing. And he’s complimentary of everyone, Emma. It’s how he makes his money. ‘Oh, you’re beautiful, dahlink!’ Let me flash my fake smile at you as an exclamation point. He’s a used car salesman with a knife. No wait, that’s too unkind to the car salesman!”

“I just think you could work a little harder to be neighborly. Love thy neighbor as thyself, and all that.”

“I am being neighborly. I’m showing him that his neighbor is valuable even in an American vehicle.”

“No, you’re being motherly. Like you always are—you think you’re Mother Earth and you can parent the rest of us so much better than we can handle our own lives.” Emma grabs up her purse, which is weighted down with foodstuffs. She gnaws constantly, like a chipmunk, usually on some grain, and has such a high metabolism she even makes the scales nervous. “Want something from next door?”

I shake my head. There’s a café next door. It’s a tiny, Greek place with wonderful delicacies like hummus and grape-leaf sandwiches, but my encounter with Dr. Nip/Tuck has left me without an appetite. “I have a full schedule this afternoon. I want to keep the patients moving through, and I think I’ll just run for a while. I need to clear my head.”

“You already ran this morning. You’re going to look like one of those Hollywood starlets with the stick figure and a big balloon head perched on the shoulders. Is that what you want?”

“I’m just going a mile. I won’t be ten minutes. I’ll eat something fattening when I get back, all right?”

As Emma shuts the door for the lunch break, I allow my body to fall and mold into my ergonomic chair, made especially for my spine. Who wants to be loved for her beauty anyway? Anyone can be beautiful. If they’re not by nature, Jeff seems to be able to boil just such a brew next door.

This morning’s situation makes me anxious about the wedding all over again. Why should I bow down to society’s whims? I don’t believe in plastic surgery; that’s easily explained. So why isn’t it just as easy that I don’t want a date for Morgan’s wedding? This is my second best friend to get married within six months. I don’t want to go with just anyone. Of course, if I go alone, people take pictures, and I get to remember I was alone during the day. It’s just not a history I care to relive either way. Is that so wrong?

The way I see it, I have two choices: first, I can tell Morgan and Lilly, my best friends and Spa Girls, that I already have a date for Morgan’s wedding. This would involve lying and I’m a terrible liar. I’d never get away with it. Lilly’s got the eagle eye for truth.

My second option is that I can act as though the wedding means nothing to me and lure some unsuspecting male friend into being my escort. The wedding of course involves two full months of festivities. There’s the couples’ shower, the dinners with out-of-town guests, and, naturally, the rehearsal dinner and wedding. Where am I going to find a date to fill two months of drudgery? Between thoughts of the first shower and the final wave from the “Just Married” limo, my head starts to hurt.

I haven’t had a boyfriend that lasted for two months in, well, I don’t want to say. A long time. Statistically, my chances of holding onto a boyfriend for two months are not pretty, especially since I have no current prospects. Okay, technically, I have no future prospects at the moment, either, but I’m not about to admit that. I must seek out a different avenue in telling my best friends that I’m right on this one.

It wouldn’t be a big deal that I was dateless in San Francisco if I didn’t know Lilly and Morgan were looming with someone to fill the vacancy. Friends always think they know best in terms of your dating options, and let’s just say I’d let them pick me an entire wardrobe before I let them find me my wedding date.

I look up at the clock and realize my running time is quickly dwindling. “I’m just going to call Morgan and Lilly and tell them I’m coming alone.”

The phone rings. And rings. Emma has obviously left for lunch already—and why wouldn’t she? It’s 11:30 and it’s been at least ten minutes since her last snack.

“Dr. Poppy’s office,” I answer.

“Poppy, it’s Lilly.”

My stomach twirls a bit as I think about my next move. “Hey, Lilly, how’s everything coming for the couples’ shower?” I ask.

“What? Oh, fine, fine. Morgan and George are going to love it. I’ve got the invitations all set. And hey, did you get the times and gift suggestions prepared for the Round-the-Clock shower? I’m going to need those soon.”