Surprise, my parents are visiting today.
Last night my mother called me and told me that she and Dad
were going to a wedding in the area this morning and they were going to swing
by my hospital afterward. They wanted
the grand tour. This is typical for my
parents, always giving me less than 24 hours notice for a visit, like there’s
no way I could possibly have plans. It’s
kind of insulting.
I told Noel. I said
that I thought that maybe he could say hi or something. Show my parents that I’m not a loser that no
man could love.
“It’ll be fun,” I said, trying to smile.
“You really think that’s a good idea?” Noel said, shaking
his head. “Look what a hard time the
students in your class are giving you.
You think your parents are going to like me any better?”
“Absolutely,” I said.
Hey, stranger things have happened.
“They won’t,” Noel said flatly.
I frowned. “It’s not
like you’re some punk musician with pink hair, a pierced tongue, and hepatitis
C.”
“Yeah, as if you’d ever date a guy like that.”
We went back and forth a few times like that, but I finally
gave in, mostly because he kind of had a point. I didn’t care what the hell my parents thought,
but I also didn’t want my mother yelling at me to break up with him. My mother thought I was going to meet and
start dating some future doctor. I
should have introduced them to Graham while I had the chance. He was a model boyfriend.
I meet my parents at the entrance to the hospital. I always thought my parents sort of look like
the parents in some sitcom, maybe Family Ties.
My dad is tallish with a beard that turned gray before I was born, while
my mother is short, cute, and blond. Sometimes
when I look at them, I think I might have been adopted.
The first thing Mom says to me when she sees me is, “So
where’s your boyfriend, Chloe?”
“I don’t have a boyfriend,” I say.
“Lies!” Mom declares.
“You think I don’t know when my daughter is in love?”
“I’m not in love,” I mumble, even though I can feel my
cheeks getting hot.
“She’s blushing!” Dad gleefully points out.
“I’m not blushing!”
When do you get to an age where your parents no longer have the ability
to embarrass you? All I know is I
haven’t gotten to that age yet. “Listen,
do you want a tour or not?”
My mother sniffs and says, “To be continued.” But she thankfully drops it for the moment.
I take my parents all around the hospital. My father is especially excited because he’s
a doctor and this is all nostalgia for him.
He works as a family practitioner, but I think he trades his services
for, like, chickens or goats or magic beans or something, because we were
always dirt poor. But he loves his job,
so my mother puts up with it.
When we get to the anatomy labs, my mother wants to know
which cadaver belongs to me, then she announces that it’s the best one. She doesn’t clarify what she means by
“best.” My dad looks all nostalgic in
the lab and starts sniffling a bit. “I
miss those days,” he sighs. “Cherish it,
Chloe.”
I’m grateful when it starts getting late and my parents have
to leave, and I’ve managed to avoid any further discussion of my love life. I lead them to the elevators and just my
luck, the doors open and Noel is sitting there.
The three of us step inside and I raise my eyebrows at him. Wanna meet my parents?
He shakes his head at me.
No surprise there.
“Don’t forget how lucky you are to be here,” Dad says to
me. “So many people would give their
right arm to have the opportunity to learn medicine.”
“Yup,” I say.
“Cherish it, Chloe,” he says again. I look over at Noel, who is very obviously
trying to keep from laughing.
As we exit the elevator, I can’t help myself: I reach out
and give Noel’s hand a quick secretive squeeze.
He looks at me in surprise and grins.
When we get out of the elevator, Dad announces that he has
to go to the bathroom. He wanders off to
look for a restroom while Mom and I wait for him near the elevators. “This is going to take forever, isn’t it?” I
say.
“Probably,” my mother agrees. “In the meantime, maybe you should introduce
me to your boyfriend.”
My heart stops.
“What?”
“The guy running the elevator,” she says with a wink. “He’s your boyfriend, isn’t he?”
My jaw drops open.
Maybe my mother isn’t as naïve as she seems sometimes. How did she figure this one out?
“It’s so obvious, honey,” she says.
“It is?”
Mom smiles. “So
what’s his name?”
“Noel.”
“So can I meet him?”
Noel is going to kill me, but oh well. I press the button for the elevator. It takes a few minutes, but we finally get
the elevator with Noel in it. He looks
very surprised to see me again. “Um,
Noel,” I say. “My mother wants to meet
you.”
He looks alarmed. “Chloe, you… you shouldn’t have…”
“She didn’t tell me,” Mom says. “I figured it out.”
Noel stands up from the stool and nearly trips over himself. His cane is behind the stool and I’m not sure
if my mother sees it. “Uh, hi, Mrs. Ross.”
Mom holds out her hand for him to shake. Of course, he’s got issues with his right
hand, so he takes her right hand with his left.
This doesn’t fool my mother, who notices his right hand
immediately. She looks at it for a
second, then up at his face. Oh god,
she’s figuring it out. Noel’s ears are
bright red.
“It’s very nice to meet you, Noel,” she says. “Chloe seems very happy lately.”
“Oh yeah?” A slow nervous smile dawns on his face.
“Very much so,” she says.
“I was just saying to my husband Harry yesterday that I wanted to meet
this new guy that my Chloe is so in love with.”
Oh hell. “Mom,” I
groan.
I can barely look at Noel, but when I do, he seems very
pleased.
They make idle chat for a few more minutes and then Noel says
he has to get back to work. I’m kind of
amazed. I thought my mother was going to
skewer me for not dating a med student or doctor. Instead she seems to like Noel even better
than that guy I dated in college who wanted to be a senator. I’ll never understand my mother. Never.
“I like him,” Mom declares, after the elevator doors
close. “He’s got character.”
Is that my mother’s way of saying he looks like he got run
down by a truck? At least she didn’t ask
me what happened to him.
“And he’s very good looking,” she goes on. “I’ll tell you, Chloe, if I were twenty years
younger… or even ten years younger…”
“Mom, stop, please,” I beg her. The last thing I need is to hear is my mother
talking about wanting to jump my boyfriend.
“You like him, I get it. I’m glad
you approve.”
“I do,” she says.
Then she hesitates. “But then
again, let’s not tell Daddy about this just yet.”
Fine by me.
Noel’s Memory Book:
I was really relieved when Chloe told me that her mother
approved of me. After the failed
handshake, I didn’t think I was going to win that one. Mrs. Ross actually seemed like a pretty cool
lady.
It’s funny, because I used to be exactly the kind of guy
you’d want to bring home to Mom and Dad.
To be blunt, what girl doesn’t want to bring home a surgeon? A guy
who’s bright, clean cut, and with the earning potential to support a family.
It took Liz forever to introduce me to her parents. It wasn’t like I desperately wanted to meet
them or anything, but whenever they were in town or she was driving home to see
them, she’d make up some excuse for why she didn’t want me around. It started to bother me after a while. The third time they came to visit, when we’d
been dating about six months, I finally said to her, “Who are you embarrassed
about? Me or them?”
“Neither,” Liz insisted.
“It’s just…”
“It’s just what?” I
was getting pretty pissed off.
Liz fiddled with her hair.
I always found it really sexy when she played with her hair and it was
keeping me from being as angry at her as I wanted to be. “Look, I just don’t see the point in
introducing every fling to my parents.”
“Fling?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. We’d been together for six months and as far
as I was concerned, things were going great.
“You think this is a fling?”
“Well,” Liz shrugged.
“It’s not like we’re going to get married someday or anything.”
“But I want to marry you.”
I said it without thinking, but I realized at that moment it was
true. I wanted to marry her. It was my first thought when I met her, and
now after six months of dating, I was more sure than ever.
“Oh, stop it, Noel,” she said.
“I do,” I insisted.
“But…” She stared at me, her wide eyes more beautiful than
I’d ever seen them. “Why?”
“Because I love you,” I said.
She introduced me to her parents a week later. And they liked me a lot, although I heard
that after my accident, they told Liz not to waste her life grieving over
me. Thanks a lot, Mr. and Mrs.
Woodhouse.
Noel’s Memory Book:
Chloe spent the night at my place last night. It’s been so long since I’ve slept in the
same bed as a woman. I was a little
worried I might be too nervous to sleep, but unfortunately, that hasn’t been a
big problem. My sleep medication puts me
out like a light.
Chloe slept in her tank top and panties. She wore her hair in pigtails. She looked adorable prancing around my
bedroom in her underwear. We’re trying
to take things slow, but it was all I could do to keep from ravaging her. I’m only human.
I still feel self-conscious about taking my pants off in
front of her. She’s got such a perfect
tight little body and I’m such a mess.
And Graham, the last guy she dated, probably looked great without
clothes on (I’m trying not to think about that). Before I take my clothes off, I always shut
off the lights.
“Why don’t you leave the lights on for a bit,” Chloe
suggested as I reached for the light switch.
She lay in my bed, waiting for me.
“I prefer it this way,” I said as I hit the switch and
everything went dark.
“But I can’t see you,” Chloe pouted.
Exactly, I almost said. Instead, I said, “Your eyes will adjust.”
Admittedly, it’s harder to get undressed in pitch
blackness. Since my balance is not
great, I practically tripped over the bed and fell on my face. After Chloe heard me swearing, she jumped out
of bed and flicked on the lights. I
shielded my eyes dramatically, “Turn it off!”
But Chloe wasn’t listening.
She moved her hands under my T-shirt, raising the hem higher and higher
till I obliged and lifted it over my head.
My chest is a mess of scars, but that doesn’t bother me as much, I
guess. Sonia said chicks dig scars,
right?
Then she did something unexpected which was to lift up my
left pants leg. Almost automatically, I
flicked her away. She looked at me in
surprise. “Seriously, Noel?”
“Just… go lie on the bed and let me take it off myself,
okay?” I pleaded with her.
She frowned. “Why
can’t you accept that I think your leg is sexy?”
Because there’s no fucking way in hell that’s possible? “Please, Chloe,” I said.
She sighed and lay back down in bed while I pulled off my
prosthetic, my KAFO, and finally, my pants.
I looked down at my legs, hating how crippled they looked. The lights were still on and now that I
wasn’t wearing my prosthetic or my brace, I couldn’t make it over there to turn
it off.
“Come here,” Chloe said, pawing at my back.
I quickly scooted back in the bed, grabbing the blankets to
cover my legs. Chloe surely knew what I
was doing, but thankfully, she didn’t say anything. Admittedly, she hasn’t given me any reason
for me to think my legs are a turn off to her.
But I just can’t quite believe that’s not the case.
Noel’s Memory Book:
Liz and I had lunch today without fighting. It’s kind of amazing.
I called her, told her I wanted to talk to her, and we
arranged a time to meet. I arrived early
because I wanted to avoid Liz seeing me walk, and then making a patronizing
comment like, “Wow, you’re walking so well, Noel.” If she said something like that, I wasn’t
sure I could be civil.
I expected Liz to be twenty minutes late, which is her
usual. It’s not even her fault because
she’s a surgery resident and things always come up. Except she was actually right on time for a
change. And when she saw me sitting
there, waiting for her, her face actually seemed to light up. I got this weird déjà vu feeling, like it was
back in the old days and we were catching a quick lunch together between surgeries.
What did we talk about?
Mostly work. Her work. Liz was telling me about a recent surgery she
did to repair a slipped capital femoral epiphysis, also called SCFE and
pronounced “Skiffy.” It happens mostly
in kids when part of the femur basically slips off like ice cream falling off a
cone.
“This kid was so fat,” Liz was saying. Obesity predisposes kids to SCFE. “I thought we weren’t going to be able to
find his hip. I swear, how do kids get
so fat?”
“You see, Liz,” I said.
“There’s this invention called donuts.”
I look her up and down. “You
should check them out. Seriously.”
Liz stuck out her tongue at me. “It’s not my fault I don’t have time to eat.”
Liz has gotten really ridiculously thin. She was slender when we were together. Now she looks like she’s anorexic or
something. I bet if she took her shirt
off, I could count her ribs. Not that I
want to see her with her shirt off. Not
that this is something I’m thinking about at all.
“So, I wanted to talk to you about something,” I said.
“Yes?” Liz looked nervous, but also something else. Maybe hopeful? That doesn’t make much sense. I looked down at her thin fingers, which she
was tapping against the table nervously.
Positive Fingernail Sign, I noted.
“About Chloe.”
“Chloe?”
“Chloe Ross,” I reminded her.
“Oh,” Liz murmured.
“Oh! Are the two of you….?”
“Yeah, we are,” I said.
She looked absolutely, completely shocked. Her eyes got wide like saucers and her mouth
fell open. I was a little insulted. I guess when I told her I liked Chloe, she
didn’t think I had a shot in hell. I
showed everyone, I guess. I’m a real
Casanova.
“Look,” I said. “I shouldn’t have told you not to hang around
her. I mean, I know it was her decision,
but I think you should give things another chance. I’d like Chloe to see a surgery, find out if
that’s something she might be interested in.”
Liz smiled wryly.
“You know, Noel, when you date a girl, you’re not also responsible for
her career development.”
“I’m not allowed to try to help her?”
“No, you are.” Liz
looked kind of sad all of a sudden.
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter. She
doesn’t want anything to do with me.”
“I’ll talk her into it,” I said. “I talked you into it, didn’t I?”
Liz had a classic case of self-doubt about going into her
first surgery. She was terrified. She thought she was going to pass out or
something. She made me wait in the
lounge outside for her through the whole thing.
I read an anatomy book to kill the time.
I still remember the look of excitement on her face when she first came
out of the OR. If there’s any chance Chloe
can experience that, I don’t want to take it away from her. I’m not worth it.
“You didn’t talk me into anything,” Liz cried. “I was interested in surgery.”
“Yeah, right,” I snorted.
I made my voice sound high pitched: “I don’t want to see a surgery. I might faint and break a nail.”
“Oh my god!” Liz laughed.
“I did NOT say that. You’re
awful!” She laughed again and slugged me
playfully in the arm.
I froze. I know it
sounds dumb but this was the first time Liz had laid a finger on me since my
accident. Laughing and joking around
like this, having lunch, talking about surgeries… it just brought back memories
of the past. Of what I lost. It was too painful. But then again, I was doing this for Chloe,
not for me.
“So I’ll tell Chloe to call you,” I said.
She sensed something had changed. The smile faded from her face and we ate the
rest of our meal in silence.
I have been checking for this all day. Awesome update!
ReplyDeleteMe too! Great update.
DeleteMe, three! And I didn't see it until this morning! It was sad. :(
DeleteBut yaaay! Lots going on. Love it.
What a great way to cap off my evening! Wonderful read.
ReplyDeleteGood onya, Chloe's mom!
ReplyDeleteI like that you're keeping it realistic with Noel still having doubts about Chloe's acceptance of his body.
But what about the job offer - will Noel reconsider...??? Next chapter...??? (I hate waiting a whoooole week.... :( )
Great update, grazie mille!
ReplyDeleteThank you for the great chapter!!
ReplyDeleteChloe is totally a closet dev and doesn't even realize it yet!
ReplyDeleteAs always, really great. I said last week that I thought Liz was more suitable but I'm going back to Chloe now. Definately a two horse race!!!! And I thought your intro comment about muchas updates was hilarious. I've been having a great weekend reading them all so I'm not complaining:-) Updates are like buses - you wait for ages for them then lots turn up at once (oops - plagiarising Wendy Cope's ace poem "Bloody Men"!)
ReplyDeleteLovely - thank you!
ReplyDelete