Amy's mouth literally dropped open. “Did you say licking?”
"I liked to pretend I was a puppy," Jordan explained. “I got over it by second grade when I finally realized licking friends was not socially acceptable."
Amy laughed and looked away. She found it hard to hold Jordan's gaze for any longer than three seconds. She didn't know why except that it was so… intense. She gathered her surgical implements on a tray and pulled out a pair of latex gloves from the cardboard box. "Are you wearing a wedding ring?" She snapped the gloves about five times too many.
"Wedding ring?" Jordan asked.
"Any rings? Any kind of jewelry?"
Jordan smiled coyly. "Are you trying to find out if I'm available?"
Amy blushed. She could feel Jordan scrutinizing her. It was pleasant and unpleasant at the same time. Which was kind of like eating ice cream when you had a sore throat. It felt both good (ice cream) and bad (sore throat).
Amy squirmed in her chair and said, "I'm going to have to cut close and I don't want the scissors to get caught on your ring." She added, "If you had one."
"I don't. So, Doc, are you married?”
Amy slipped the scissors under the first layer of duct tape. "No, I'm not married."
"Haven't found the right person?"
"Something like that." Amy noticed that she had said 'person' not 'man.' If she wasn't mistaken, Jordan was flirting with her. But maybe she was wrong. She didn't get flirted with often and never had a woman flirted with her, so she was no expert. The only flirting she'd ever witnessed between two women was in that movie about the fried green tomatoes, and even that had to be pointed out to her. (By her mother of all people.)
She began to cut at the duct tape. "This may pinch a little."
Jordan winced.
Amy asked, "What about you? Does someone like you have a sweetheart?" She could kick herself. Sweetheart? What kind of word was that? What was she, raised in the 1950s? What was next? She was going to talk about sock hops and poodle skirts?
"What do you mean, someone like me?" Jordan asked. "Am I that un-presentable? I knew I should have brushed my hair before I came to the emergency room. My mother always used to tell me to wear clean underwear all the time in case I got in an accident. I never understood that line of logic. I mean, if I was in an accident I'd probably mess my pants so what would the underwear have mattered in the first place?"
Amy had a sudden flash of what Jordan would look like in underwear. What kind of underwear were they? Red and lacy? White and cotton? You could tell a lot about a person by their underwear. What was wrong with her brain today? It kept taking these weird erotic turns. Must be a lack of caffeine. Or maybe too much caffeine.
Amy said, "I just meant someone like you who is so… attractive. I meant you must have a lot of admirers." Admirers? Did she really just say that? My God, she was turning into her grandmother who always asked her about 'gentleman callers.'"
"Well, thanks for the compliment. But you see that's the problem. I seem, through no fault of my own I guarantee you, to bring out the worst in my girlfriends."
Girlfriends, Amy thought. So she was gay. Her blood pressure spiked and her heart picked up in tempo. The only bothersome part was that she had used the word 'girlfriends', as in the plural sense. Of course, Jordan was so beautiful she had her pick of women. She could have oodles of women on the line. God, did she really just think the word 'oodles’?
Amy finally managed to unwrap the hand. "In what way do you bring out the worst?" She got up and put together a sterile bath for the hand.
"Most of them turn into a combination of Medusa and a green-eyed monster."
Amy looked puzzled.
"Jealous. And if I'm with someone I don't cheat. Sometimes I think I must be the only lesbian left on the planet who believes in monogamy."
Amy nodded. She knew exactly how Jordan felt. Her love life hadn’t exactly been a stunning success. She’d had Nick who couldn’t keep his dick in his pants, and Joe who had been overbearing and jealous, and now she had Chad who played the egotistical ass. Yup, her love life definitely sucked as well.
Jordan asked, "Can I ask you a question?"
God, here it comes, Amy thought. She's going to ask if I'm a lesbian and I'll have to say no and then she'll stop flirting or whatever it is she's doing just when I was beginning to enjoy it.
"Sure," Amy said, sounding not so sure.
"Why'd you become a doctor?"
Okay, so she was wrong about the question. While she formulated her answer, she turned to Jordan and flicked the needle of painkiller. Jordan looked at the needle and paled.
"Needles?"
Jordan nodded.
Then Amy did something she'd never done before. Something she had never even thought of before. Something that this time yesterday she would never ever have done. She pushed her coat and her scrub top off her shoulder and showed Jordan her tattoo. "I don't like needles either. But I sucked it up long enough to get this tattoo. It's my one claim to adventure."
"Beautiful," Jordan said. And when Amy looked up Jordan wasn't looking at the tattoo.
Amy blushed and turned her back to her. She held Jordan's hand under her arm and began to inject the painkiller into the wound but where Jordan couldn't see what was happening. "You just keep your eyes on my tattoo. I'll be done with this before you even know it."
Jordan's eyes lingered on Amy’s shoulder. The tattoo was a solid blue. Not green like old school tats, but a deep almost purple blue. It was the caduceus, the medical symbol, complete with snakes climbing the pole. It was an artist's version, though, and as Jordan stared at it, it seemed to be almost three-D. It was eerie and mesmerizing at the same time.
Jordan reached out and lightly touched the tattoo with her finger. "I wouldn't think someone like you would have a tattoo.”
"Someone like me?"
"Someone so smart and beautiful."
Amy was silent. She was stunned that she had actually been called beautiful. She finished with the needle, but kept her back to Jordan. She didn't want to see those eyes looking at her. She needed to regain her composure. Finally, she took three deep breaths, stood and tossed the needle into the biohazard can.
When she turned around, Jordan was staring at her. Her eyes roamed over Amy's face and lingered on her exposed shoulder.
Embarrassed (and a little thrilled) to be looked at with such daring, Amy pulled her top and coat back into place. "Where's your friend?" Amy asked. "The one who did this amazing first-aid job?"
"She's in the waiting room."
"I'm going to go tell her that you're all right, but it's going to take a while to do all the sutures. What does she look like?"
"Short, curly black hair, red cat-eye glasses, camo pants and a big black hoodie. Just call for Edison and she'll pop up."
"Edison? Okay."
And Amy left. As she walked the hall, she tried to collect her emotions. This is what she said to herself in her head as she walked: Amy, what are you doing? That is a real-live gorgeous woman in there and you are here only to stitch up her hand. You date men, you’ve never really considered a relationship with a woman and just because this beautiful, sexy, smart woman is flirting with you does not mean you’re going to change your entire life perception of how the world operates. Jordan probably flirts with everyone. It’s what gorgeous people do – they play with the rest of us because they can. Still Jordan didn’t seem like that…the way she looked at me was so disarming.
Her heart raced at the thought of Jordan’s finger on her skin. She might not ever wash there again.
It wasn't working. Amy’s pep talk with herself was having no effect on lowering her heart rate. So she did the next best thing. She stopped at a vending machine and bought a candy bar. She hurriedly unwrapped the candy and stuffed it into her mouth. She chewed, swallowed, and sighed with relief.
"See there?" she said to herself inside her own head. "I'm not a lesbian. I just was having a low blood sugar moment."
Mustaches and Mistakes
Completely unaware that she had chocolate smeared above her upper lip, Amy opened the door to the waiting room, looked out over the huddled masses and called out, "Ms. Edison? Is there a Ms. Edison here?"
Edison waved her hand in the air a la Arnold Horshack, saying, "Ooh, ooh, ooh! Tell me she'll live."
Jordan's description had been right on target except she wasn’t wearing glasses.
"She'll live," Amy said, shaking Edison's hand. "Thanks to that superior taping job of yours. It was extremely difficult to remove."
Edison stared at Amy's chocolate mustache and mistakenly thought it was a real mustache. After all, the chocolate matched Amy’s hair color. Edison’s mistake was understandable. She’d not worn her glasses. Edison thought Amy would be really pretty if she practiced hair removal.
Amy mistakenly thought Edison must be hard of hearing or maybe even deaf since she was obviously staring at her lips and trying to lip-read. So, Amy talked very, very loudly and made sure to enunciate crisply. "I. Am. Pleased. To. Meet. You. Edison."
Edison thought maybe Amy was not only hairy, but also deaf and that was why she so carefully said her words and had no volume control. Edison raised her volume to match Amy's, "It is so wonderful that you were able to become a doctor!"
"Thank you!" Amy shouted back.
Edison continued shouting, "I think it's wonderful to see people overcome their circumstances and fulfill their dreams!"
"I agree!”
"So are you going to be able to put Humpty Dumpty together again?"
"Huh?"
"Jordan's cut hand?" Edison said, making elaborate cutting gestures with her own hand.
Amy added some sewing gestures to her next sentence so Edison could understand better. "Oh, yes, I can put it back together, but it will take a while. I did not want you to worry!"
"Can I watch? I find gore fascinating!" She stared intently at Amy’s lips like a bird dog awaiting a signal.
Amy nodded enthusiastically. "I don't see why not! You can help to distract her while I sew her up!"
"If I know Jordan, you've already distracted her plenty!"
When Amy looked puzzled, Edison explained, "Jordan always notices the pretty ones!"
Amy led Edison down the hallway and since Edison was deaf and walking behind her, Amy didn't bother to keep her thoughts inside her head. "Wow. Here I am being called pretty again. Twice within five minutes. Must be some kind of record. Or maybe it's just a thing with lesbians. She said Jordan noticed pretty women. That means Jordan must be some kind of playgirl. And the way Edison said it was even more telling – like she was jealous. Is Edison her girlfriend? A better question is why am I even thinking about all this? I would have been safer and saner with Mrs. Markus' mood mole."
Edison said, "What's a mood mole?"
Amy froze. "You heard me say that?"
"Sure," Edison said, "You're the one who's deaf, not me."
"I'm not deaf," Amy said.
"You're not?"
Amy shook her head. "So if you're not deaf, why were you staring at my lips?"
Edison shuffled her feet. "I'm sorry, I know it's rude, but I've never seen a woman with a mustache before." Afraid of offending Amy, she quickly amended her words. "I mean, I've seen mustaches on women before, but not a nice, thick mustache like yours."
Amy wiped her upper lip. "It's chocolate," Amy said. She licked her finger to prove her point.
"Oh," Edison said, relieved. "Thank God, 'cause that was really scary looking."
Amy licked her upper lip. "All gone?"
Edison nodded. "Yep. Oh, and Jordan’s not a playgirl."
Amy pushed open the curtain to Jordan’s cubicle, saying, “Good to know.”
The Sex Eye
Jordan had spent her interlude away from Amy giving some serious thought to the dilemma of asking Amy out. Using all her superhuman lesbian powers, she had deduced that Amy was straight, but interested. Jordan knew that she would have to tread carefully. She would have to entice Amy without being overbearing. She would have to be coy without being standoffish. The next few minutes would have to play out like a delicate surgery.
Jordan's thoughts were interrupted when Amy led Edison inside the cubicle. "What the hell are you doing here?" she asked.
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