Good Morning Goth

Franklin walked through the door, flipping pages on the chart in his hand, not looking up until he reached the side of the bed. With his chart review was complete, he looked at the bed and saw it was empty. His eyebrows lifted, his mouth opened, and he turned to find out what had happened to the patient he had operated on thirty-six hours before.

When his eyes found the girl lacing up thigh-high black boots, he cleared his throat, “Um, where is Brielle Banders?”

Standing to her full height, with four-inch heels, she was almost eye to eye with Franklin when she reached out her hand, “I am Brielle Banders, Doctor Torlin. We spoke before you absconded with my appendix yesterday,” she quipped.

“Um,”

“You said I should be able to go in a day or two, and I feel great. Do I need you to sign anything, or can I go?”

“Um,” he looked at her hair, face, body, and feet; everything was black. His stare kept returning to her eyes, then her lips, then her eyes.

“Doctor, are you okay? I am ready to go if you would do whatever needs to be done.”

In fits and starts, “Um, usually, I check everything, yes, and then give the team the go-ahead,” those eyes, “to do your paperwork. I haven’t seen you since last night. We should spend more time, I mean together, not together-together, but?”

“Don’t you have my chart there in your hand?” She smiled.

“This, yes, but I want to look at you. Not look AT you. I mean, you look great; NO, I mean, you seem great; I just want to check you out before you go. Not check you out; I am a doctor; check out your incision, you know?”

With a giggle in her voice, “Excuse me, doctor, really, are you okay?” She walked toward him, the smile on her face widening, her pearly whites contrasting with her blackened lips, “Do you want to sit on the bed? Most people who have met me first, when I am not dressed up or made up, are quite surprised. It is a bit of a transformation.”

“Yes, just so,” Franklin wanted to die. He sat. He could not pull himself together. ‘Just so. Who says just so? Maybe the head of MI-6 when being debriefed about the latest findings on a terrorist group.’

“Do you need to see my incision before releasing me?”

“Yes. That is exactly what I need to do. Will you lay down for me?”

Her eyes widened. She looked at the bed and then at him.

“No. I didn’t mean that. I mean, lay down and lift your shirt a bit so I can see the incision.”

Laughing, “I know you didn’t. You are so serious. You seem so different than yesterday.”

“Huh, I seem different?” Sarcasm dripping, “I cannot imagine a way of proving you are the same person I met before surgery yesterday. YOU are different. How am I different?”

“I don’t know. Yesterday you were kind of a jerk?” She looked away.

“I was a jerk? I didn’t mean to be a jerk. I am just serious about what I do. I take my patients and their care very seriously. I didn’t know that made me seem like a jerk. I am very sorry if I was unkind. It was unintentional.”

“Maybe a jerk is wrong. You were just all bossy and efficient. I have no doubt you cared about the surgery. That’s not it. It just didn’t seem you cared about me. I was afraid. You didn’t seem like you even noticed me. Just needed to get it done. I don’t even think you ever looked me in the eye. Today, you seem so….so human. Like you would care. I am more used to people being kind to me when I am not dressed up, without makeup. When I look like this,” spinning around and raising her hands above her head and lowering them to the ground as a model might show off a particular ensemble, “most people ignore me or pretend not to notice me. I kind of like that usually.”

Scooting more towards the foot of the bed and patting the spot next to him, “Sit.”

As she moved closer, he jumped up, bumping into her, “Sorry. I don’t know what is wrong with me. I did not mean to sit on your bed. You sit on your bed. That’s why it’s called your bed. If I were supposed to sit on it, it would be called my bed,” he tried to laugh but felt like he was having a heart attack.

Almost unable to hold her laughter, “Doctor Torlin, I am so sorry to have shocked you so much. You really seem taken aback by the change. I am glad I didn’t have enough time to put in all my piercings. That might have put you over the edge.”

“Piercings? You have piercings? How many piercings? Where?”

For the first time, a little peeved, “Did you look at me at all yesterday?”

She got up and grabbed her purse. Setting it on the end of the bed, she first pulled out four small stainless steel rods and slid them through the jet-black browline above her eyes. Then she retrieved what looked like a simple silver band and rotated it through the opening in the cartilage of her nose. Back to her purse, she pulled out an assortment of rods, rings, and studs and put them in her ears, the sides of her nose, cheeks, and tongue, finally lifting the front of her shirt, “This one could not have been six-inches from where you cut me open,” as she placed the final bar above her belly button. You should have seen the hole, not to mention the ones all over my face.”

He could see that her demeanor had changed. She was offended. He was; he didn’t know what he was, “I am so sorry, Brielle.”

“Well at least you know my name after cutting into me,” and she started to cry.

“No, no. Please don’t cry. I don’t know how to make this better. I am not good at this. I am going to get another doctor to examine and release you.”

Her head spun away from him as if he had slapped her, “That’s great. Well, I guess the shock of the crazy girl is over, and you are back to your uncaring nature of yesterday. I’m not worth it if it might take some effort or a little extra of your valuable time. I am just a surgery to you. Yesterday, I wanted you to be nice. When you couldn’t, I thought, well, at least he seems focused on taking care of me. Today, I see that you weren’t just serious about what you do; you really are a jerk.”

He tried to sit on the bed, then stepped back, unsure of what to do or what to say, “I don’t want to leave you. I mean, I wanted another doctor because…”

Without looking back at him, “Then get another doctor, and you can go make your circles.”

With a chuckle, “There called rounds, not circles.”

“I don’t care what they are called. I thought you were being nice to me. But you’re a jerk. Please go away and have someone come in and get me released.”

“Of course. It doesn’t matter what they’re called.”

“No, it doesn’t,” turning on her side and pulling her knees and feet into a fetal position, she winced.

“Hey, hey,” he put the chart down, and with a gentle touch, he placed his hands on her arm and her back, “lay back, don’t move your legs like that. You are using your stomach muscles, and it’s going to hurt.”

Releasing her legs back down the bed, she rolled onto her back.

“Can I look at your incision?”

Pouting, with makeup starting to meander down her cheek, “I thought you wanted to get out of here.”

Franklin grabbed a tissue from the box above her head, “I would wipe those tears away myself if that were appropriate, but I know it isn’t,” and handed it to her.

“I don’t understand. Are you a nice guy or a jerk? Cuz I am having a hard time figuring you out.”

“I think, by nature, I’m not really a nice guy or a jerk. I think all I have cared about for the last fifteen years is learning how to be a great surgeon and then being one. If I am being completely honest, I have been told more than once that my bedside manner is a little dry, and I may have heard that I should be a little more sensitive. I guess, I don’t know, I just thought if I did the best job as a surgeon, no one really cared about me or how I acted. And, until, well, I don’t think, I’m your doctor, I don’t think I am supposed to say what I feel right now.”

“You said you are being completely honest. I am giving you my permission to say whatever you would say if you weren’t my doctor.”

“Well, I think that’s okay. But normally I would check with human resources before doing something like that.”

Her tears having turned to laughter, “I don’t know what it is about you. My head says a whole lot is going on in your head that I don’t want to know about. You definitely have some issues. But something else inside me is making me want to know exactly what is going on in your head. If you don’t ruin it with the next sentence that comes out of your mouth, I will listen to whatever you have to say.”

“Um, I want to check your incision.”

As she started to get up to leave, “You just couldn’t be human, could you?”

“Hold on, let me finish.”

“I wanted to check your incision because it would settle me. Doctoring is what I am good at. I thought it would give me a minute to figure out the rest of what I wanted to say.”

Without speaking a word, Brielle laid back down and pulled her shirt up just enough to reveal the bandaged incision.

Peeling back the surgical tape that secured the gauze covering, Franklin examined the incision, poked and jabbed the surrounding areas, and then applied adhesive strips to secure a new bandage.

A nurse walked in, “Oh hi, Dr. Torlin, I see you made it. Do you need anything?”

“No. All done. She is all set. Everything looks good. I will stop by the desk and sign the order.”

With a hesitation, aware that something was off, “Okay……,” looking first at Dr. Torlin, then at Brielle, “Is there anything else?”

They both said no, and she left with a final glance at both on the way out.

Brielle sat without speaking or moving. Waiting for him.

After a moment, “When I first saw you, today, not yesterday, I was, I don’t know how to say things like this,” pausing, he looked at her. She continued to wait. Not helping him a bit.

“I was, you are, so beautiful. I am so sorry if that is wrong for a doctor to say. I realize now, that had I spent more time with you as a person yesterday rather than as an appendix removal, I would have seen it then. However, I might not have been able to do my job very well. As you can see, I can’t even carry on a conversation with you now. And, I know you think I am a jerk, and maybe I am, but, if you didn’t think that, I wish, well, I wish I could have met you in a situation where I didn’t make you think that. Because, if I did, if there wasn’t the whole doctor-patient thing, I think, well, maybe, I would like to have asked you to have a coffee, or dinner, or whatever you wanted, to maybe get to know each other better. Maybe. I don’t know,” looking back at the chart shaking in his hands, “That’s what I was thinking when I said I could have someone else come take care of you. That maybe, if I wasn’t your doctor anymore, maybe, I could wait for you outside and ask you that. Not like a stalker or anything. But I probably would have chickened out.”

Enjoying every minute of his very endearing discomfort, “That’s what you were thinking, huh?” She sat up and thought for a moment.

“Were you thinking like coffee or dinner in the cafeteria or at a real place?”

“Oh! Definitely a real place. I mean, if you would go to dinner, like a nice restaurant. Or really, wherever you would like. I don’t care where. The only thing I care about is going with you.”

“Well Dr. Torlin, if you think as my doctor, I am ready to leave the hospital and it won’t hurt my recovery, I would love to go to dinner with you. Give me your phone.”

His eyes went from googly orbs to arched brows of shock, “What?”

With a flirty smile, “I hope I don’t regret this, but I was going to put my contact info in your phone.”

As he handed her his phone, “I wish I would have spent all those years in school learning how to do this stuff instead of being a doctor.”

After putting her number in his phone, she leaned in and kissed his cheek, “Don’t worry, I’ll teach you for free.”