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Extremely tall and buff, Lucien had the ebony skin and dangerous cheekbones of Grace Jones. He also sported a fabulous British accent, which I suspected might be fake. “Fantastic to meet you,” he said stonily. He grimaced as he pulled the elastic out of my ponytail, running an elegant hand through my heavy hair. “Better change, duckie. We’ll be here all day.”
Well, that’s what I was here for, after all. Cut and color, makeup and manicure. I had turned down the pedicure, embarrassed at the thought of someone else cutting my toenails. As I pulled on the chic black robe, I could hear my pals discussing my situation with Lucien.
“She’s set her cap for a man,” Mitchell said in his trademark 1940s lingo.
“Who hasn’t?” sighed Lucien. “Save the two of you, of course.”
“She’s going for a whole new look,” Curtis volunteered. “Professional but interesting and youthful. She’s a doctor.” Here I smiled at the pride in my pal’s voice. No friend like an old friend.
“Right, Cinderella!” barked Lucien. “Why don’t we start with the facial? I’ll need to work from the bottom up on this one. Let’s see if we can do something about that wretched winter skin.”
THREE HOURS LATER, I had been highlighted, brushed, teased, shorn, pumiced, waxed, detoxified, moisturized, astringentized and practically spanked. My cuticles throbbed from the orange stick abuse. My face still stung from the punishing, acidic toner. Scalp tingled, burned and itched from the hair color. Eyebrows screamed from waxing. Could they be bleeding? People really did this willingly? The boys wouldn’t let me see how I looked…. They’d draped a sheet over the mirror so we could do the “reveal.” I tried to remind myself that this was all for a greater good, but even picturing Joe’s perfect face didn’t make me feel better.
As the foiled highlights set in my hair, Lucien escorted me to the makeup area. “Time to fix that face!” he announced. Sitting me down, he began to apply cotton ball after cotton ball of paste-like foundation over my still-suffering skin.
“That color seems a little light,” I commented as he opened another bottle.
“Just sit back, love, and we’ll choose for you.” Clearly, my opinion mattered not one bit. I let Lucien scrub my face with a rough sponge, coughing as he poofed powder onto my cheeks. “There’s simply no cheekbone visible, is there?” he sighed. “Well, we’ll have to fake it.”
“I’ve always tried…” I began.
“Darling, don’t speak. Just sit back and let me work. Mitch, precious, tilt that light just a tad? Brilliant. Now, Millie, is it? You’re going to love me for this.”
As Lucien applied every makeup item known to mankind, Curtis and Mitch began to look a little…concerned.
“Do I look okay?” I asked, trying not to move my lips as Lucien dabbed Product Number Four upon them.
“Ah…” began Mitch. Lucien shot them a heated glance.
“It’s very…dramatic,” Curtis attempted.
“Well, what did you want? Boring?” demanded Lucien. “I thought we’d done boring.”
“I’m sure it’s great,” I soothed. “And you’re right. I’ve done boring. Time for a little flair.”
“See?” hissed Lucien. “Right-o, we’re done here. Back to the sink.” He began removing the foil wraps from my hair and rinsed my head. I yelped as the hot water hit my tormented scalp.
“Sorry!” Lucien sang out cheerfully. He adjusted the faucet so that the water turned ice-cold. Back at the cutting area, though, he settled in, brushing and drying my hair with a dexterity I knew I could never achieve.
“Ready?” he finally purred. Curtis and Mitch exchanged worried glances. With a quick, smooth move, Lucien tore the sheet from the mirror.
The first thing I saw was my eyebrows, or rather, the lack thereof. Granted, they were a bit unruly before, but now they were no longer recognizable as human eyebrows, so thin they looked like they were one hair thick or drawn on with a very, very sharp pencil. The skin around them was puffy from the waxing, and even the grotesque amount of makeup Lucien had applied couldn’t quite mask the redness.
And speaking of makeup…my skin was now pasty-white except for angry slashes of brown (“cheekbones”). I looked like I had just drunk deeply and satisfyingly from the neck of a wayward virgin, thanks to the arterial red on my lips. My eyes, tightened by the minimizer/astringent therapy, looked tiny, ringed in thick black. I glanced in alarm to Curtis, who had the honesty to look away, ashamed for his part in this fiasco.
“What do you think?” cooed Lucien the Nazi.
“I…I…” I had no answer. My brain reeled.
“Your hair is lovely,” Mitch said kindly, apologetically.
I forced my gaze north of those eyebrows, and…oh. My hair—thick, heavy, somewhat schizophrenic—looked fabulous! Now, layered, chic, at least eight inches shorter, it was lighter, too, a vibrant, glowing mahogany. Shiny waves floated about my face, sophisticated but casual. I loved it, thank God.
“Wonderful,” I said to Lucien. Curtis smiled in relief, knowing he had been granted reprieve from certain execution. The makeup, after all, could be washed off. The eyebrows…well, eyebrow pencils had been invented for a reason, right? But hair was critical to good looks. You couldn’t be adorable if you had bad hair, and I now had great hair.
A short time later, I walked down the street, having parted with an ungodly sum to pay for my degradation, wondering how to grow my eyebrows back while avoiding unsightly stubble. Once in my car, I checked myself out in the rearview mirror. Eyebrows still bald. Skin still shockingly white, lips still blood-drenched. My previously wonderful hair had been ravished by the salty Provincetown wind. The carelessly sophisticated look was gone, never to be completely reproduced, soundly replaced with the fourth-grader-asleep-on-the-bus look.
There was no singing along with the radio on the way home.
CHAPTER FIVE
FEELING THE NEED TO SHIELD myself from the stares I knew my naked eyebrows would evoke, I stayed home as much as possible for the next week, working diligently on sanding my deck. My sweet (though not very bright) dog followed me everywhere with energetic wags of his whip-like tail. He took to my house and yard immediately and had yet to stray, bounding immediately when called. His only flaw seemed to be a nervous stomach. He pooped at least five times a day, sometimes in the house. Luckily, I was well-armed with multiple cleaning products.
I enjoyed myself in my new home with kooky little Digger. Sure I did. The problem was, there was no one to admire my adorable, sparkling house, no one to ask “Do you like this chair here?” or “What do you feel like for dinner?” There was no one to care about how my day had been, no one to put me first. I wanted to be adored. I wanted to snuggle. I wanted to get laid.
I had dated a little, here and there. In college, dating wasn’t really dating. It was more like go to a party, flirt with someone, go back to his/your room and make out. There were no dinners in restaurants, no phone calls, no gifties. Maybe an e-mail. Maybe you’d walk back from the dining hall together. Catch the movie on Saturday night, him, you and ten or twelve other pals. I might have had a boyfriend in college, but it was hard to tell.
The time I’d felt most desirable was the semester I’d spent in Scotland, the latter half of my junior year. I went to a remote school in the Highlands, took four easy classes and developed muscular calves from the startling hills. For some reason, the Scots found my American-ness very hot, and I was loath to disappoint. They weren’t so hung up on skinny, perfect-toothed, androgynous Calvin Klein beauty, and I found myself making out in the back of pubs with Ians and Ewans and even an Angus, happily not understanding a rolling word out of their manly mouths, but who cared! I was popular! Of course, the lads all expected me to put out in the great American tradition of casual sex, and I had to send the majority of them back to the sheep meadow, their big burly hearts a wee bit broken. Once word spread that I wasn’t easy, it was almost time for me to go back to the States, anyway. My brief popularity in the Highlands had been pretty damn wonderful. I missed those brawny Scots.
Back at home, there was the romance of medical school. What romance of medical school, you ask? Excellent question. We were all so busy learning so much in so short a time that it was impossible to have a date. Once, in panicky desperation born of fatigue, terror and caffeine, I ended up in bed with a classmate, only to pretend the next day that it had never happened. And we were so stressed and tired, it practically didn’t happen.
On to the exotic sexiness of internship. If any resident I knew had time to burn flirting, kissing or shagging, he or she would have vastly preferred to spend it weeping in a closet somewhere or maniacally studying the question they’d botched during rounds. We hung in there grimly, learning, watching, assisting, guessing, chanting to ourselves, “Someday this will all be worth it.”
By my third year of residency, I had a little more time to date. I even had a six-week relationship with a very nice neurologist. But then he accepted a position with a Cleveland practice, and that was it. I didn’t really mind, to tell you the truth. We’d liked each other, and he was funny and cute enough, but it was nothing like what I felt for Joe.
But now I was ready to start life with the man who epitomized my every romantic dream. Thanks to my years of research, I was convinced that Joe would find what he’d wanted all of his life, too…the love of a good woman. Me. Joe’s looks could distract a person, to say the least. It would be like dating Brad Pitt. But thanks to my years of stalking, I knew the true, secret heart of Joe Carpenter.
I knew about the time Joe, quietly and anonymously, had fixed old Mrs. Garrison’s railing after she’d fallen and broken her hip. Thanks to an eavesdropped conversation at the post office a few years ago, I knew that he gave money to his sister on a regular basis to help make ends meet. I knew about his three-legged dog who hopped after him everywhere, adoration written all over his doggy face. How many times had I revisited The Time, replaying in slow motion that act of innate kindness on the school bus so many years ago? Of course I loved him!
And soon he would love me back.
As part of my Dalai Lama/Richard Gere relationship with Dr. Whitaker, I would be seeing his nursing-home patients once a week. The Outer Cape Senior Center, or OCSC, was located just a mile down the road from my house. Every Thursday, I was to visit Dr. Whitaker’s patients and treat them as necessary. And the joy was that, in addition to the obvious benefit of gaining medical experience, I would also see Joe Carpenter, who had been hired to put on a new wing.
I spent an entire sixty minutes showering, applying makeup and fixing my schizophrenic hair into a semblance of the style I’d paid a week’s wages for. Dressed in black gabardine pants, a loose-fitting pink sweater and pink flowery earrings, I bid Digger farewell, ignoring his imploring howls as I got into the Honda, hoping he wouldn’t soil the floor again.
The raw March wind tried to shove my little car off the twisting road to the OCSC as I mentally rehearsed what I would say when I “ran into” Joe. Something casual yet charming. Something that would stick in his brain. I had to remember to feign surprise that he was working here. “Oh, hey, Joe! What are you doing here? Me? Oh, I’m going to be covering for Dr. Whitaker here on Thursdays.” Hence, I would impress Joe with my credentials, inform him that I would be a regular visitor and get to see him without having to create a coincidence.
As I turned into the OCSC, my heart leaped. Joe’s truck, a worn, maroon Chevy Cheyenne with Joe Carpenter the Carpenter stenciled in white on both doors, was in the nearly empty parking lot. I girded my loins, if a woman could do that, and prepared to insert my funny, kind, generous and more attractive self into Joe’s radar. The minute I stepped out of the car, the wind began ravishing my hair, but having learned about the effects of salt air and my new cut, I clamped my hands over my head and ran to the front door.
The familiar, not unpleasant (to me) smell of a health-care institution greeted me…low-salt food, disinfectant and that indefinable medical odor. I peeked down the empty hallways that led off the foyer. No Joe. There was no one at the front desk, either, so I walked over to the large common room on the left, noting the automatic locking doors at the entrance that would prevent anyone from leaving without notice. Ah, here was life! Clustered around a huge TV that showed Judge Judy in alarming detail, a dozen or so seniors, some in wheelchairs, sat mesmerized by Her Honor’s shrill opinions.
One woman managed to tear herself away from the show. She wore scrubs, and I guessed her to be an aide of some kind, the type of person who does all the dirty work in a place like this. She approached and gave me a cool once-over.
“Yes?” she asked, hands on her hips, looking a little ticked that I had interrupted the good judge.
“Hi, I’m Dr. Barnes. I’m covering for Dr. Whitaker,” I answered with a smile.
“Millie Barnes?” asked the aide. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“Yes.”
“You don’t recognize me, do you?” asked the aide sourly. Thin, chin-length blond hair with an inch and a half of black roots framed a plain, worn-looking face. She had a truck driver’s build—beer belly, big, strong-looking arms and pink-rimmed eyes.
“Uh, no, sorry…you look familiar, but I can’t think of your name,” I said awkwardly.
“Stephanie Petrucelli,” she answered, irritated that I hadn’t placed her. “We went to Nauset High together.”
Oh, yes! One of the rougher girls in my class, tattooed, bullying, large-pored. An image of freshman Spanish class came to me, Stephanie snickering loudly as I tried gamely to imitate our teacher’s accent. Memories of her waiting ominously for me in the bus line. Mocking me at the tenth-grade dance. Laughing as I barfed on the bus. Though she had never actually made good on her threats to beat me up, she had terrorized me nonetheless. Stephanie had been one of those less-gifted students who had hated everyone smarter than she was. And that was a lot of people.
“I remember now,” I said, neutrally assessing her appearance. The years had not been kind.
“I heard you were a doctor,” she said, sneering.
“That’s right.”
“So what are you doing here? Dr. Whitaker’s our doc.”
“I think I’ve already told you,” I answered snippily—amazing how quickly old resentments flare up. “I’ll be covering for him on Thursdays.”
“Oh. So. What do you want?”
“How about the charts on his patients?” I asked.
“Fine. Go down that hall to the nurses’ station. The charts are all there.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Enjoy your show.” She scowled, and I hid a smile.
I walked down the hall, aware again that Joe Carpenter was somewhere in the building, and discreetly fluffed the chronically flat part of my hair. At the nurses’ station, I introduced myself to the other staffers, only one of whom was a nurse, and spent about an hour going over charts. Most of the patients suffered from fairly standard senior-citizen complaints: coronary or vascular disease, Alzheimer’s, stroke, diabetes.
Dr. Whitaker examined each patient at least twice a month, some as often as once a week. He was meticulous in his notes, his handwriting uncharacteristically neat. He’d left a list of patients to examine today and had given me some background information on each of them, which I appreciated immensely.
The first patient was Mrs. Delmonico, who suffered from morbid obesity and insulin-dependent diabetes. I chatted with her for a few minutes before starting the exam, congratulating her on her newest great-grandchild. She had a shallow ulcer as a result of her poor circulation, and I changed the dressing and wrote orders for whirlpool therapy. Next came Mrs. Walker, a dementia patient who was nonverbal and thin but otherwise seemed to be in good health. I checked her Aricept dose and asked the nurse about art or pet therapy for her, something that seemed to work well with Alzheimer’s patients. Mr. Hughes, the father of one of my childhood friends, was ornery, itching to go home after a long recovery from peritonitis resulting from a ruptured appendix. I told him that I would talk with Dr. Whitaker about discharge and asked after Sandy, his daughter. He then apologized sheepishly for his bad temper and told me he couldn’t believe I was old enough to be a doctor.
It was wonderful. This was exactly what I wanted to do with my life. And then came Mr. Glover…
Stephanie helped him down the hall to the tiny exam room. Only slightly stooped, he looked pretty hale, actually. Rather dashing in a way, with a white mustache and nicely ironed cotton shirt under a blue cardigan.
“Hi, Mr. Glover,” I said with a smile.
“This is Dr. Barnes,” Stephanie said in a clear, precise voice. “She’s helping Dr. Whitaker. Is it okay if she checks you out?”
Mr. Glover looked at me, nodded and got onto the exam table without too much difficulty.
“Great!” Stephanie smiled as she left. I guess I’d been too harsh on her before. She clearly had a way with the old folks, and as for the work she did, well, you couldn’t pay her enough.
“I’m just going to listen to your heart, okay, Mr. Glover?” I asked. He didn’t answer, but smiled sweetly. I pressed the stethoscope against his chest and listened to the blood rushing through his ventricles. Faint but regular. Blood pressure excellent. I tapped on his back to auscultate his lungs, then checked his pupils for reactivity.
“Everything seems great,” I said. “How are you feeling, Mr. Glover? Any complaints?”
“I feel rather hard,” he said, gazing at me with a lovely smile.
“Pardon me?” I asked.
“I’m rather hard,” he repeated.
I glanced at his lap, not quite sure if that was the hardness he meant. It was.
“Um…” I stalled, not sure if he was giving me a real complaint. After all, involuntary tumescence was a legitimate medical—
“Care to take a look?” he asked pleasantly. His gaze dropped to my chest, and he casually reached for my breast, arthritic fingers outstretched.
“Hey! No! None of that, Mr. Glover!” I stepped back quickly, bumping into the scale. “Uh, I think you might want to talk to Dr. Whitaker if you think—” Sometimes dementia results in inappropriate sexual impulses, my brain recited. It would have been nice if Dr. Whitaker had mentioned this in his meticulous notes—
Suddenly, Mr. Glover grabbed me by the waist and yanked me closer, wrapping his skinny legs around mine, pinning my arms at my sides, and lay his head on my chest.
“No, Mr. Glover! Please let go!” I tried to sound authoritative. It had no effect. I wriggled a little, trying to free my arms. He gave a happy moan and rubbed against me.
“Hey! Stop it!” I said, more loudly. “Mr. Glover, please!” Though he weighed no more than one hundred and fifty pounds, he was wiry. And humming. “Mr. Glover, please let go. Right now. This is very inappropriate.” I tried to twist away, which only seemed to excite him more. He giggled. Shit! I was the doctor, which meant I couldn’t exactly knee him in the groin. “Mr. Glover!” My mind raced furiously, trying to think of how we’d been taught to handle this sort of thing in med school. Call Security was the best I could come up with.
My patient began to sing softly. “I saw her today at the recep-tion…”
“Mr. Glover, stop this right now! I mean it!” I managed to liberate my left arm, and gave him a tentative shove, trying to extricate myself without breaking his brittle bones. He didn’t notice. Wincing, I tentatively pulled on a wispy strand of his thin white hair. The Hippocratic oath echoed in my mind. First, do no harm. Mr. Glover didn’t notice, his song continuing, “At her feet was…a footloose ma-an…”
There was drool on my new sweater. Enough! “Excuse me!” I yelled. “I need some help in here!”
I heard footsteps squeaking down the corridor, and in came Stephanie, looking ever so pleased to see me in Mr. Glover’s python grip. And right behind her stood Joe Carpenter. Of course.
“Is there a problem, Doctor?” Stephanie asked innocently.
“You can’t always get what you wa-ant,” Mr. Glover crooned.
“Give me a hand here,” I ground out.
“Oh, Mr. Glover, you know you shouldn’t be doing that,” Stephanie said calmly. She pried his hands off me and calmly unwound him from my waist. I took a step back and tried not to shudder. Straightening my sweater, knowing my face was beet-red, I retrieved my stethoscope, which had fallen during the unorthodox exam. Joe looked on in amusement.
“Hey, Millie. You okay?” he said, not unkindly.
“Oh, sure, you know, just getting to know the clients here,” I babbled. “Quite intimately, in fact.” Not too bad for a woman with an octogenarian’s saliva on her chest. Joe smiled.
“So sorry, Dr. Barnes,” Stephanie said smirking as she helped Mr. Glover off the table. “Are you all finished here?”
“Um, yes. Thanks, Stephanie.” She gave me an evil smile and led Mr. Glover from the room.
“Goodbye, my dear,” he said, waving. “Thank you!”
“Uh, bye, Mr. Glover,” I answered. To Joe I said, “To think, I get to do this every week.”
“Oh, yeah? Are you working here?” Joe asked with his accident-causing smile. Finally, the reality of his presence rocketed into my nervous system, and warmth filled my body. God, his golden lashes were so long.
