"You keep telling me that. So, any news as to when the babies are coming?"
"OH! It will be so good to have the twins here, safe and in my arms finally. I can’t wait to see them. They’re changing everyday, getting bigger and bigger now. Why just the other day, one kicked me while we were playing…what is that game? Hard to get…no, hide and seek."
Garrett opened her mouth to speak but stopped at the sound of a commotion just a little piece down the hall. "Rene, did you see what happened?" She motioned to the matronly looking woman being attended to by several Staff Physicians and nurses.
Dr. Chabot studied the scene and shrugged his shoulders. "I don’t know, maybe she got some unexpected news that she wasn’t prepared for. Come on, let’s go back to the office and I’ll give you this Flight Suit back." He dramatically motioned for her to lead the way, saying, "After you, my friend."
The two colleagues made their way past the group of people attending to the dazed woman. The Flight Suited man stopped and gathered up the belongings that had spilled from the handbag, then set it down next to the woman. "Nothing surgical looking for us to worry about. She must have a bad heart," Rene said in passing, and headed for the elevator.
Chapter 11
Garrett sat deep in thought, her foot resting on the chair across from her. Even though it was now several weeks out from her injury, the ankle gave her pain at times. The act of elevating her foot during the day was now in her subconscious rather than an afterthought. She looked at her ankle as she tested its range of motion, wincing when she'd gone too far. 'Yeah, Trivoli, that pothole got you good.' Her mind drifted slightly to the image of a petite blonde nurse. 'Just like she did.' The surgeon closed her eyes and sighed.
The end of May was fast approaching and here she was with a stack of letters in her hand, all of them with offers of jobs trying to win her skills for their very own purposes. They all seemed to enjoy boasting that they had the best and brightest of the new rising stars on their payroll. It was their plan to entice the surgeon with offers of money, stock options, cars, houses, and even computer dating arrangements to name a few. She had to laugh at that one and wondered just how much they knew about her, probably more than she knew about herself. 'What do I know about myself?'
It was a puzzle that Garrett had been working on for the past month or two. Each time that she thought she had it all figured out, something else would happen to make her reevaluate what she had deliberated. Her life seemed to be constantly up in the air, as did the people that surrounded her. Each one always looking at her as if this great enlightenment should be taking place any minute. Some even more than others, like Danni. How often had she seen that hopeful look in the blonde's eyes? The surgeon's heart went out to her friend but she wasn't quite sure what it was that woman wanted from her. She was trying hard at this friendship but perhaps there was something more, something that she just wasn’t getting.
The dark-haired woman was finding that her responses to some situations were even more up in the air than anything. She often wondered why Danni’s touch sent shock waves through her as if she’d touched a live wire. No one’s touch had ever done anything to her before. Then there was the time the petite nurse had squeezed by her in the doorway to her room and suddenly Garrett had felt a stimulation surging through her body that to this day just thinking about it still took her breath away. These were all feelings that she’d never had before.
It all made Garrett wonder if there wasn’t some plan that was being put in motion without her knowing about it. Fate had brought her here to Pittsburgh, obviously, for some reason. Now, somewhere in her hands was the fate for the rest of her life. She stared down at the handful of letters and wondered how and when the fates would interact with her again.
"Maybe I should cast my fate to the wind. What do you think, Danni?" She mused aloud unaware that the nurse was standing at the bottom of the stairs within earshot.
Danni noticed the letters in Garrett’s hand and her brow furrowed with consternation. She closed her eyes to stave off the tears. She’d looked at the return addresses on the corners of the envelopes as each one had been delivered to the house with Garrett’s name on them and committed them to memory. Most had been from the West Coast, big name facilities, but several were also from the South. Heck, she’d even received a letter from Hawaii. The nurse bit her lip at the thought of Garrett leaving, being so many miles away. The pain was almost unbearable.
‘A little over a month to go and I could lose her forever. I can’t lay my feelings out on the line now, she’s got too much think about as it is. I pushed her into this friendship. I want her to make this decision on her own. If she loves me, she’ll stay, we’ll work something out.’ Danni was still concerned for her friend’s career. How would her peers, patients and the power structure of the hospital that she’d work in treat a gay surgeon? These were all concerns of the nurse’s in regard to her friend. Danni knew how she would treat her, lovingly, tenderly, with kindness and consideration. The nurse would downright cherish the day that the spark of love ignited into the flame of passion between them, if only it would.
Danni pulled herself together before she spoke. The words were soft and reverent in nature. "I’d rather you let your heart rule your fate than the wind."
Garrett sat up, startled by the voice. Turning her head, she could see that same hopeful look on Danni’s face that had been haunting her for sometime now. "I…I didn’t know that you were up yet."
"I’m sorry, Gar, but I thought you were asking me a question. I didn’t mean to disturb you."
The blonde crossed the room toward the kitchen. The entire time blue eyes were on her, watching each step and savoring it. The surgeon could feel her own pulse quicken when she focused in on the gentle swaying movement of the nurse’s anatomy from side to side with each stride. Garrett closed her eyes as Danni turned the corner into the other room. ‘Was that lawyer right? Gosh, what would Danni say if she knew I was looking at her like that?’
The surgeon hung her head in disbelief. ‘Face it, Trivoli, you’re gay. You always thought that you might be. Hell, you even tried having sex with women when you were in college.’ She breathed in a cleansing breath and opened her eyes. ‘Now what do you do?’
She ran her hand through her hair as her mind brought forth scenarios of Danni interacting with the surgeon, one of denial, one of rejection, one of acceptance and one of avoiding the issue all together. The surgeon looked back down to the handful of job offers. The thought of what being involved in a gay relationship might mean to the nurse with her career and family came running through her mind until it smacked her in the face. ‘Then again, I could always just run.’
The sound of the beeper put an end to the thoughts as Garrett reached for her pager. The message scrolled across the screen, "Call command immediately." And she did.
Coming into the kitchen, Garrett looked sheepishly at the blonde woman as she was coming away from the refrigerator. "Danni, we’ll be driving in separately this morning."
"Huh?" The confusion was evident on her face. "W…why?"
"That was the Command Desk calling for Dr. McMurray. Seems like he has plans for me today. I’m not sure of what it’s all about but he wanted to make sure that you had a way home tonight."