CHAPTER NINE
“What a hottie,” said the newest addition to the nursing staff. She was nowhere near the O.R., and didn’t hear the surgeon’s angry outburst either, as she and her colleagues were on the far end of the fourth floor, at the nurses station, inputting data into computers and gossiping as they did.
At least that was what her colleagues were doing.
But the new nurse was just standing there waiting.
She’d just received word that the big operation was over and that Dr. Keating was notifying the family of its success.
Then he would get dressed and head out. It would be her first in-person look at him.
Which meant, she told the other nurses, that she would finally get a chance to see for herself what all the fuss was about.
“What fuss?” asked the charge nurse.
“That fuss.” The young, toothy blonde nurse pointed to the huge pictures of the hospital brass that hung on the wall in front of them. There were six in total, but they all knew which one she meant. “Edmund Keating, M.D. Chief of Surgery. Chief of Cardiology. What a hottie!”
Then she curbed her enthusiasm. “At least he’s hot in that photograph. He might look like Jabba the Hutt in person. But I heard that photo didn’t do him justice. What do you think?” she asked her supervisor.
“I’m a married woman,” the charge nurse said. “Does it look like I care what that man looks like in person or otherwise? They’re all rich, obnoxious doctors to me. No more. No less. I stay in my lane.”
“Well I’m breaking out of my lane,” the young nurse said with a grin. “I’m busting loose if he’s all that! I want me one of them rich, obnoxious doctors for myself. But he’s got to be hot. I am not settling for less than total hot.”
Then she looked toward the double doors again. “Has he come out yet? I didn’t miss him, did I?”
“Miss who?” another nurse said, causing the others at the station to laugh.
“Y’all know who,” the nurse said and they laughed at that too. “Keep laughing. Y’all think I’m joking. But watch and see. I’m gonna reel in a big fish this time.”
The exhausted charge nurse, who was trying to input patient stats into the computer, looked impatiently at her much-younger charge. “You are truly wasting your time with that one,” she said.
“And why is that? He’s cute. I’m cute. He’s single. I’m single. What’s the problem?”
“You’re young enough to be his daughter,” said another nurse. “That’s the problem!”
“That’s what they love about me. My youth. These doctors don’t want some stuffy old lady their age. They want somebody my age. And since I’m the only young nurse around here, and by far the hottest if I may say so myself, I know I stand a chance.”
“Not with that one, you don’t,” said the charge nurse. “He doesn’t groove like that.”
“Like what? Even the married doctors around here have sidepieces.”
“Yes they most certainly do. But he’s not like that. He’s the chief of surgery. He’s a serious surgeon. He comes, he operates, he goes back to his office. Or he leaves the hospital and goes wherever. He’s a very private man. He’s not about to fool around with you.”
“If he’s so private, how do you know who he fools around with?”
“I could be wrong. But I don’t think I am. He doesn’t chase these nurses like the rest of these doctors do.”
“So what are you saying? He’s gay? He doesn’t like women?”
“Oh for crying out loud!”
“Then what are you talking about? Every straight man in Baltimore is fooling around with somebody. Are you telling me he’s a one-woman man and he already has that woman?”
“I’m telling you I don’t know,” said the even more-exhausted charge nurse.
Why did she even entertain this child with this nonsense?
“He doesn’t allow us to get all up in his business like that.
That’s why I’ll say now and I’ll say forevermore that he’s never going to be fooling around with some young hot nurse like the stereotype. Not Doctor No-nonsense.”
“Doctor who?”
“There’s Doctor Who. And there’s Doctor No. But he’s Doctor No-nonsense.” The other nurses laughed. “And his no-nonsense comes with a lot of arrogance thrown in. In his eyes, we’re beneath him. He doesn’t have time for nurses.”
“For real,” said another one of the nurses.
“He’ll have time for me after I rock his world,” the younger nurse said with a grin, and they all laughed. Not with her. But at her.
“She’ll see,” said yet another nurse.
“Here he comes!”
Everybody looked toward the flapping double doors as Edmund Keating walked through, no longer in scrubs but pristinely-dressed in his Valentino suit, and he did not break his stride. Nor did he speak to a single lady at the nurses station as he walked right by.
But the young nurse couldn’t resist. She’d heard so much about him. She wasn’t about to let this opportunity pass her by. “Good morning, Dr. Keating!”
He ignored her. But she refused to give up. She began hurrying toward him. The charge nurse tried to pull her back. “Don’t do it,” she warned her.
But the young lady wasn’t listening. She jerked away from her supervisor and hurried up behind him. “Doctor?”
He reluctantly stopped. Then he turned around. When he saw her body first, and then her face, she was a good looking sight to see alright. But so were all those other nurses that wanted to bag themselves a surgeon. And besides, she was nowhere near his type.
But the young nurse seemed mesmerized when he first turned around and looked at her. The nurses behind the counter nudged each other. They knew she’d freeze up when she got up close and personal with the very distinguished, and very sexy chief of surgery.
But the young lady surprised them and kept her composure. “Didn’t you hear me speak to you?” she asked him.
“I heard you.”
She didn’t expect that response. “Then why didn’t you speak back?”
“I didn’t care to.”
She didn’t expect that response either. She just stood there confused. Was he playing mind games with her?
But Edmund wasn’t playing with her at all. His impatience was already thin. “Young lady, what do you want?”
When he said young lady, her courage returned. And she smiled. “A hello will do nicely.”
“Hello. Better?”
She smiled even grander. “Much better.” Now she was full of herself. “How about dinner tonight, Doctor Keating?”
Edmund didn’t miss a beat. “I’d rather eat a porcupine,” he said. “Good day, Nurse.” And then he turned and kept on walking.
The other nurses laughed. The younger nurse was crushed.
But Edmund wouldn’t know how she looked or felt because he didn’t bother to look back to see.
“You’re incorrigible, Edmund,” said another doctor as he had just come out of his patient’s room just as the young nurse had approached his colleague. He joined up with Edmund and they began walking toward the exit. “You didn’t have to be so cruel to the kid.”
“She brought it on herself,” Edmund said.
“She did come onto you, didn’t she?” said the smiling doctor as he glanced back at the young nurse. “But you have to admit she’s cute.”
“What is she?” Edmund asked. “Twenty-two, twenty-three? She’s my daughter’s age. What am I going to do with that?”
His colleague grinned. “Oh I can think of quite a few things I could do with that.”
Edmund smiled. “And you call me incorrigible,” he said, and his colleague laughed.
“How about I set you up with my cousin? She’s more your speed. She’s an ophthalmologist. And a gorgeous one to boot.”
“No thank you.”
“Why not, Edmund? You need a woman.”
“Um. That’s news to me.”
“You know what I mean! You need to get out of that mausoleum and live a little. She may be just what the doctor ordered.”
“No thank you.”
“You’ve got to put the effort in man! You’ve got to get out there and meet people. The woman of your dreams is not going to just pop up at your front door. You’ve got to get out there and find her.”
Edmund’s private life was so private that even his colleagues thought he lived the life of a eunuch. When nothing could be further from the truth.
“You heard me, Edmund? You’ve got to get out there and find her,” his colleague said again.
“Since I didn’t lose her,” said Edmund, “I’m not interested in finding her. Have a good evening, Markie.”
And then Edmund walked on ahead of his colleague, and out of the exit doors.
What an asshole of assholes, Markie said not unlike the young surgeon before him had also said. But he was supposedly Edmund’s friend. They grew up together. He didn’t yell it out, like the surgeon had done, but he said it inwardly. Privately. And meant every word.