"Okay, I’m coming with it," the younger woman answered, picking up the tray that she had just finished arranging. Her lips curled up at the corners of her mouth as she made her way to Garrett’s bedroom. "I never thought that I would be serving my ‘amazon’ breakfast in bed," she muttered to herself. ‘Heck, I never thought that we would lose that softball game to the Physicians. Well, not until I saw her play ball,’ she mused. ‘Who would have guessed that she had so many skills?’
The physician plumped her pillows aligning them against the headboard of the bed. She gracefully slipped under the covers and smoothed them around her long legs, waiting for her reward.
The sound of footsteps approaching caused the raven-haired woman to look over at the door as it opened into the mutely lit room. Soft rays of sunlight fell gently on the form carrying the tray giving it a warm golden glow. A friendly smile accompanied the hopeful look in the radiant green eyes as she entered the room. "I hope you like scrambled eggs and sausage."
"I do if they are real," the surgeon joked. Her blues eyes looked into the green veil of the small woman’s soul and immediately knew that she was blessed with a glimpse of the true spirit of this heaven-sent being. She gazed for as long as she dared before letting the lopsided grin come to her face in acknowledgement of the shared moment.
Danni sat the tray down across the surgeon’s lap. Beautifully arranged were the scrambled eggs with sausage links garnished with a sprig of parsley and a thinly sliced orange round that was cut and twisted. A glass of orange juice and toast positioned on the tray with the utensils. Off to one corner was a small bud vase with the most delicate pink rose and bud in it. Garrett looked over the array of food and nodded to Danni her approval. Picking up the napkin to place on her lap the surgeon stopped and looked over at the woman watching her intently.
"What?" Garrett was puzzled by the look of her friend.
"I brought home the quarterly news bulletin for the hospital last night. Want to read it?" She smiled coyly as she rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet in anticipation.
"Something tells me that you want me to see it. Right?" The surgeon was picking up her utensils, reading to eat. She sighed knowing that she couldn’t enjoy her food with those green eyes watching every bite. "Say, did you eat yet?
The eyebrows raised on the blonde with that remark. "Why, no. I’ve been making your breakfast." She looked so cute as she turned her head slightly as if she were shy about what she was about to reveal. "But I did make enough for me. I left mine out in the kitchen."
"Well, go bring it in here and eat with me. There’s no sense in us eating by ourselves when we are both here together." Her face turned into a scowl. "I’m sure not joining you in the kitchen. No way! The bet was breakfast were ever I wanted it. And here in bed is where I intend to eat it."
It was a decree straight from Garrett’s mouth and there was no way that the blonde nurse was going to refuse a chance like this. ‘After all, wasn’t that what I was going to request if I had won the game?’ Danni quickly assembled her food on another tray and briskly walked down to Garrett’s room. Save for the flowers, the trays were laid out almost identical. She rounded the corner of the bed and sat down on the far side. Nestling into the soft pillows she made herself comfortable before she handed the small hospital news bulletin over to the woman beside her. "You may want to start out reading the story on page three. I think you might know some of the people."
Garrett took the paper and opened it to page three. There on the bottom of the page was an article about the annual E.R. Physician/Staff softball challenge. Off to the right of it was a photograph of Danni and Garrett sprawled on top of each other in the dirt with a caption that read, "Nurse and Physician get down and get dirty to save lives."
Garrett’s face turned red. "I don’t remember any pictures being taken, do you?"
The petite nurse shook her head. "No, I don’t but obviously there was. We have the proof of that right there."
"You know, it’s not really a bad picture of either one of us. Maybe we could get a bigger one that we could frame and put on the wall. What do you think?" Garrett kept cocking her head for side to side to look at it better.
Danni nodded in agreement. "I’ll see what I can do. Now let’s eat."
With that said, both women started eating the food before them. Each one contemplating the situation in there own minds.
‘I may have lost that game, but I still came out a winner.’ Danni thought that it could get no better as to be eating breakfast in bed with her raven-haired friend. Stealing glances at the person next to her kept a smile stretched across her face as she devoured the food on her tray.
Garrett had won a lot of softball games in her athletic years but this one was the sweetest of them all. No trophy had been awarded or records broken, but the feeling of accomplishment and teamwork overwhelmed her. Maybe that was because she felt a growing bond with the motley crew from the hospital emergency room who had opened their arms and taken her into their world, especially one small, blonde nurse in particular. Her eyes glance over casually at the photograph in the bulletin. ‘Besides, we kind of look like we belong together.’
Continued
Chapter 8
The weather was beginning to cool down and the first samplings of the autumn colors were settling on the trees. ‘Thank the gods for the new school year.’ The young nurse thought to herself as she put her key into the lock on the door. She was finding it difficult to relax when she came home from work with the sounds of the excited children playing outside all summer. It often brought back all of the childhood memories that she cared to muster. Her mind would think back on them but something was always missing, like she was never really a part of the activity around her but rather a spectator in the game of life. It had made her feel uneasy, even unsettled in her life just like she was now. ‘There’s got to be something more to life. Some other kind of…’ she searched for the right word, ‘fulfillment. Yeah, that’s it!’ She shrugged her shoulders dejectedly, ‘Maybe someday….’ The noise of the neighborhood children could only be heard now in the late afternoons and on the weekends. It had not been keeping her from sleeping since every night seemed to drain her energy with the multitude of traumas that were coming into the E.R. There were seasons to everything including trauma. Danni had been around long enough to know that each of the weather seasons brought on a rise in a particular kind of traumatic mishap that would befall her patients. The autumn of the year brought scholastic sports injuries with it as well as the falls from trees as people were preparing for the colder winter months ahead.
She pushed open the door and made her way into the comfortable looking living area. Her tired green eyes scanned the room until they detected the out of place duffel bag next to the coffee table. A grin came to her face as she thought about the owner of the bag and what a pleasant impact she was making on the life of the young nurse. It had been years since Danni had a roommate. She had several roommates back in her college days and none ever seemed to work out. In fact, it was those horrible experiences that had made her promise herself never to be put into those circumstances again. She shook her head in amazement at her situation now. Who would have thought that two people as different as night and day could actually be so comfortable around each other. It was as though they had known each other for as long as they had been alive or even longer. The petite blonde shivered as a chill ran down her spine at the thought. ‘I guess I just had to find the right roommate,’ she reflected. ‘Too bad I’ll probably lose her after next June. She’ll have a ton of offers from the really big hospitals across the country with her talents.’ And at that thought a melancholy mood came over her.