Doctored (38 page)

“Are you hungry?  Do you want dinner?  I kinda feel like a steak,” she mentioned as they passed a Sizzler restaurant.

“We’ll have to wake them,” she indicated the children in the back seat.

“What if we left them and the dog inside?” Deanna joked.

“Could you imagine,” Madison giggled.

They shared a laugh.

“Why don’t you take us home?  I’ll put that tired doggie in the kitchen and I could make…” she began, but Deanna interrupted.

“You don’t have to cook, and I said I wanted a steak.  How about we take that Fluffy Fluffer…” she joked at the dog’s name, “…home and we all go out to eat?”

“You don’t have to….”

“But I want to….” 

They went back and forth for a while until Madison agreed to Deanna’s plan.  Madison felt leaving the dog for a few hours would be okay, it wasn’t really any different from when she had to go to work.  The dog woke up the crabby, tired children as Madison tried to get him out of the back seat, but when she explained that Deanna was taking them out to eat they perked up happily.  Eating out didn’t happen very often and it was usually a drive-thru at one of the fast food restaurants.  Hearing they were going to the Sizzler thrilled them; they had never been.

“Never?” Deanna teased as they set off to find one nearby.

“Nope,” Chloe confirmed and then turned to Deanna, “We haven’t, have we?”

“Nope,” she parroted her daughter’s tone.

They had a lovely dinner at the Sizzler, where they specialized in steaks and seafood.  The adults had delicious meals.  There was also a large buffet of fruits, vegetables, and desserts to choose from.  Madison would only let the children put as much on their plates as they could eat.  Anything they put on it, they
had
to eat, she told them.  As a result, they tried many things and got a delicious treat of ice cream for dessert.  They were stuffed and very sleepy after that full meal.  Deanna had to help Madison carry them from her SUV. 

“I think they will sleep well,” she teased as Madison struggled to unlock her front door.

“I think I will too,” she mumbled as she got the door open.

“Oh, you don’t want to go out dancing tonight?”

“I have to work in the morning.  I rarely get the whole weekend off,” she explained.

“I was wondering about that,” she admitted.

Madison led her to the children’s rooms and by the time she had Chloe dressed and ready for bed, Deanna had Conor stripped.  He was in his underwear and she was struggling to put pajamas on the poor, tired, little boy.

“Leave him as he is,” Madison whispered.

“Are you sure?   I almost got this,” she answered back in the same whisper.  She was struggling to get the relaxed child’s arms through his nightshirt.

“Yeah, leave him for this one night.”

Deanna tucked him in tight and leaned down to give him a peck on the cheek.  He was a sweet boy and she’d seen the bit of hero worship he had for her own son.  She gazed at him for a moment before she followed Madison out of the room.  She glanced back at the second twin bed where the little girl lay sleeping.  “Chloe okay?” she whispered, hearing the dog trying to get out of the children’s gate in the kitchen.

“She’s flat out.  Today was awesome.”

“I enjoyed it too,” she sighed mightily, stretching her back.  “I’m going to be busy furnishing the house and the rest of the clinic in the coming weeks,” she confided.

“It sounds daunting and yet exciting,” Madison admitted.  “Can I interest you in some hot chocolate?”

“Sounds wonderful,” she answered, not willing to call it a night and knowing there was more they could talk about…there was always more.  They never seemed to run out of things to talk about.

Madison soon had two steaming mugs of hot chocolate before them as they discussed the various stores that Deanna would shop in for furniture.  “Can’t you just see a cherry wood desk in that library?”

“I think maple would look better in there.  You have all that cherry in the kitchen,” she gave her opinion.  It went on and on and when the clock struck midnight they both jumped, not realizing the time.

“I better get going, I don’t have to work tomorrow, but you do,” Deanna said regretfully.  She didn’t want to go home.  She wanted to be invited to stay over, but they had yet to resolve many things.

Sighing deeply, Madison had to agree.  She had to be up in six hours and it wasn’t enough, she was a firm eight-hour sleeper.  She slowly walked Deanna to the front door.  Deanna turned and they shared a peck, but nothing like the passion of the past.  Madison worried about that the whole night through as she tossed and turned.  Deanna wondered if perhaps they were just not meant to be; it was always such a struggle.

Over the coming weeks they never saw each other.  They tried to talk on the phone, but with their schedules, it was nearly impossible.  Deanna showed time and again that she was technologically inept as she hung up on Madison repeatedly with her cell phone.  Sometimes it was impossible to get through, and then to have their conversations cut off mid-sentence was frustrating.  Texting was rare with Deanna’s technologically-challenged world, although she did
try
.

Madison wondered why Deanna hadn’t asked her to join her in Santa Barbara, or at least invited them up again.  Deanna wondered why Madison hadn’t asked to work with her up in Santa Barbara; she hadn’t indicated she would ever leave Los Angeles.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

The sign was professionally made, with a hand reaching out to pet a cat inside a big circle with a slash through it.  Below it read:

Notice regarding the cat:
  We are aware that the cat is frequently in the clinic and we do all we can to remove it, but it comes back at every opportunity.  Please do not touch the cat.  If you touch it, you do so at your OWN RISK.

Madison looked at it and read it twice to be sure what it said.  She glanced around the lobby and saw a big gray cat washing itself on one of the chairs.  Under the professionally made sign someone had written in handwritten letters, “If you are allergic,
stay out
.”  She laughed at the incongruity of it and made her way up to the counter.

“I’d like to see Doctor Cooper?”

“Who?” asked the receptionist behind the glass.  She looked curiously at the redhead.

Madison realized her mistake immediately and wondered at the slip of the lip.  “I’m sorry.  Doctor Kearney, please?”

“Do you have an appointment?” she asked, almost by rote.  It was obvious she asked the question all the time.

“No, I don’t.  If she has a minute, could you tell her Madison MacGregor is here?

“MacGregor?” she asked to confirm and at Madison’s nod, she indicated a chair in the waiting room.  “I’ll ask.”

Madison looked around, wondering if she should sit anywhere near the cat who was now looking at her suspiciously, probably wondering if she was here to remove it.  She decided to sit on the other side of the waiting room.  She looked at the décor before she sat down.

One of the posters read:

Deadliest animals:

Shark 10 people killed per year

Lion 100 people killed per year

Elephant 100 people killed per year

Hippopotamus 500 people killed per year

Crocodile 1,000 people killed per year

Tapeworm 2,000 people killed per year

Dog 40,000 people killed per year *Rabies

Snake 50,000 people killed per year

Roundworm (intestinal parasites) 60,000 people killed per year

Human 474,000 people killed per year

Mosquito 725,000 people killed per year

What can we do for you today?

Madison laughed at that.  Those facts were rather alarming.  With Deanna being an infectious disease specialist and allowing for alternative forms of healing, she wondered at the patients the clinic was fielding.  She knew from the phone calls they had exchanged that she was already quite busy.  She’d hired a professional marketing company and they’d made up brochures and even had cute little commercials airing, advertising the clinic and alternative medicine.  Deanna was well on her way and she’d already hired two more doctors who agreed with her style of doctoring.  They already had plans to have the other side of the duplex turned into an extension of the clinic.

“Madison?” a familiar voice was calling to her from the doorway.

“Hello, Deanna.  I figured I should get up here on my first available day while the kids were still in school.”  She spread her hands to show she was holding nothing, gesturing wide.  “And here I am!”

“Yes, you are.  Come on,” she gestured her inside to the inner sanctum of the clinic.  “I wish you had told me you were coming so I could have made more time….”

“Well, I’ll observe if nothing else,” Madison told her.

Deanna was really pleased to see Madison.  The weeks had stretched out and she couldn’t believe how busy they were.  It was exactly as she had envisioned.  She explained what each room was for.  It was a far cry from the casual conversation they’d had about the clinic before she opened.  She now used many of the techniques she had wanted to try in L.A., but had been hung up by bureaucracy.  Things like
maggot debridement therapy were not sneered at here.  She also had bee sting therapy, which helped arthritis sufferers immensely.

“People actually come in here to get stung by bees?” Madison asked, surprised.

“You’d be amazed how healthy it is to receive bee venom.  It’s especially helpful with rheumatoid arthritis, swollen joints, and a host of other ailments.  There is a theory it can prevent adjuvant arthritis, but that needs more research before a paper can be written on it,” she enthused.  “It helps enormously when your body produces those chemicals in response to the venom.  Of course, we have to watch out for patients who could go into anaphylactic shock from the stings.  A good background check and careful observation is a must.”

“Ah, Doctor Lee,” she introduced the doctor to her
friend
, Madison.  “I’m still learning so much from him,” she explained when they were out of earshot.  “He has an amazing set of books on alternative healing and medicine from China that his father translated from Putonghua or Mandarin into French,” she explained.  “He is now translating that into English.  It’s amazing!”

“So, anyone losing weight with larvae here?” she teased and saw Deanna look a bit angry.

“No, we won’t be practicing irresponsible medicine here,” she assured her.

Madison was very impressed with the clinic.  Alternative medicine, often thought of as weird or extreme in the face of modern medicines, really did have merits and she was sold on it herself.  Too often patients relied on modern technology and medicine, to the point that it defeated its original purpose.  She’d like to work in this environment and wondered how to broach the subject to Deanna.

Deanna had a patient and gave Madison a doctor’s coat to make her look ‘official’ to the patient.  Deanna introduced her as a visiting colleague and the patient was satisfied with that explanation for her presence.

Madison observed how professional, caring, and knowledgeable Deanna was and she thought about how often she had observed that in her friend.  From Mamadu, Africa to Los Angeles, California, she’d always been the same thorough doctor that Madison had admired.  In addition to that, she was a good friend and lover.  Madison had thought about that night so many times since it happened, she wondered if she was going over it again and again to memorize it.

After seeing three patients, Deanna took off her sterile gloves for the last time and said, “What say you we play hooky the rest of the afternoon?”

“What about your patients?  I can only stay until three.  I have to get home and there is bound to be traffic,” she cautioned.

“I have only one consult that, fortunately, canceled and my paperwork can wait until tomorrow.  Come on, let me tell my staff then you and I take off.”

In short order Deanna was ready to go and they headed out in her Rover.   “I’m going to have to trade this thing in soon if I continue to put so many miles on it,” she said as she caressed the dashboard.

“I hear you.  I’m always crossing my fingers that the van will start,” Madison tried to relate, but knew that she couldn’t really compare a ten-year-old minivan to a fairly new Rover that probably cost ten times what her van did.

“How about I show you how the house is coming together after all these weeks?” Deanna asked.

“Sounds good,” Madison replied with a smile.  She had heard about the shopping expeditions, the returns, the pieces that just didn’t work out, and some of the lovely finds that Deanna got to brag about.  She lived vicariously through their phone calls about Deanna’s purchases.  She was also envious to a degree as she had to watch every dime.  She wasn’t kidding about the van.

The house was lovely.  The pieces showed Deanna’s good taste.  She hadn’t just lived in the Los Angeles home because it was part of her family’s properties.  She had been raised in luxurious surroundings and the pieces she had chosen were warm and rich and expensive.