A Doctor In Her Stocking

“Definitely the French dip,” Seth said, bringing Reed’s thoughts back to the matter at hand—food.

Their waitress—a brash, blousy brunette whose name tag proclaimed her to be Donna—returned then, and Seth repeated his order for her. Reed asked for the club sandwich because he’d never read past it—and, hey, it did look good—along with coffee. He was about to ask for a side of onion rings when a quiet outburst of laughter erupted from the other side of the room, claiming not only his attention but Seth’s and their waitress’s as well.

“‘Scuse me for a minute, will you, gents?” she asked as she moved away from their table and over to the one across the way.

As Reed and Seth watched, every waitress in the place, along with the cashier, the busboy and a couple of gravystained kitchen workers, gathered around the other booth and began belting out a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday” to the elderly man seated there. He seemed not to know what to make of the episode at first, then he smiled, a huge grin that softened his craggy features and actually brought tears to his eyes.

Tears, Reed marveled. Just because a bunch of diner employees were singing “Happy Birthday” to him. Unbelievable. He shook his head in bemusement, then turned to say something to Seth. But he stopped short, because, naturally, Seth was looking as if he wanted to burst into tears himself.

Oh, man. What a pushover.

“Why don’t you just go over and join them for another chorus?” Reed asked, only half joking.

But Seth didn’t rise to the bait. “Hey, if they sing another chorus, maybe I will.”

“You are such a bleeding heart.”

“Hey, at least I have a heart to bleed.”

Meaning, of course, that Reed didn’t have a heart, he thought grimly. Then again, he couldn’t exactly deny Seth’s assertion, could he? Not when he went out of his way, every single day of his life, to illustrate exactly that fact. Hey, it was hereditary, after all. Heartlessness ran on both sides of his family tree.

“Why is it that you became a neurologist?” Reed suddenly asked the other man. “You’d do much better with hearts.”

“Ironic, isn’t it?” Seth returned dryly. “You being a cardiologist, I mean, seeing as how you would do so much better with heads.”

“Maybe I just like cutting them open,” Reed said, unable to help himself. “Or better yet, cutting them out.”

“Or maybe,” Seth posed, “you’re just trying to figure out what makes them tick. Trying to learn how to jump-start your own.”

Reed eyed him thoughtfully, thinking he should probably be offended by what Seth had said. Oddly, he wasn’t. In spite of that, he responded, “You know, that’s a hell of a thing for a man to say to his best friend.”

“Yeah, it is, isn’t it?” Seth agreed. “Makes you think, doesn’t it?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Seth was spared having to answer that question by the return of their waitress, who was still chuckling when she pulled her pencil from behind her ear again. With a couple of quick cracks of her gum, she sighed out a final laugh and said, “Oh, that was fun. Now then. Can I get anything else for youse? Coffee? Beer?”

Reed was about to ask for those onion rings again, but Seth gestured toward the other table and piped up, “What was that all about?”

Donna smiled, one of those too-bright, why-don’t-youcome-up-to-my-place-and-see-my-etchings? kind of smiles. And Seth, naturally, returned it with one of his own. Seth always had liked brash, blousy brunettes. And brash, blousy blondes. Brash, blousy redheads, too. And really, they didn’t have to be brash. Or blousy, either, for that matter. As long as they were breathing.

“That,” Donna said, “was yet another one of Mindy’s good deeds. The kid’s got a heart of gold. Go figure.”

Well, that certainly perked Seth right up, Reed noticed. Not that Seth needed perking. He was just about the perkiest damned man on the planet already.

“Good deed?” he echoed. “Heart of gold? Gosh, that’s really, really interesting. And just who, may I ask, is Mindy?”

Donna jutted her stubby pencil over her shoulder, toward the pretty—pregnant—blond waitress who had commanded so much of Reed’s attention. “She’s a total sweetheart, that’s who Mindy is,” she told them. “Like I said, go figure. In the last year, her house burned to the ground, her husband got himself killed and every nickel she had left went to straightening out the mess he’d made of their lives. And now she’s being evicted from her crummy apartment so the scumbag landlord can turn it into a co-op. And she’s five months preggers, to boot. And broke. And all she has is this lousy-paying job to get her through. But even at that, she bought the old guy dinner tonight, because it’s his eightieth birthday.”

“Oh, really?” Seth asked with much interest, folding an elbow onto the table and cupping his chin in his palm. “My, but that was certainly a nice thing for her to do.”

Reed frowned, knowing where this was going. “So that must be her grandfather or something, right?” he asked, jerking his head toward the elderly man across the way.

Donna shook her head, her dark ponytail dancing when she did. “Naw, she never saw the guy before tonight. He’s homeless, I think. Prob’ly usually gets his dinner out of the Dumpster out back.”

“Oh, really?” Seth reiterated. “She’d never met him before tonight? He was a total stranger to her?”

“Yeah, but on account of it’s his birthday, he came in and ordered a bowl of chili, ‘cause he wanted to celebrate. But Mindy thought he should get more than just a bowl of chili, so she used some of her tips to buy him a cuppa coffee and a steak sandwich and a piece a peach pie to go with.”

“Oh, really?”

Donna, finally, gave him a funny look. “Yeah, really. Boy, it doesn’t take much to interest you, does it?”

Seth threw her a salacious grin and cocked one blond eyebrow. “You might be surprised.”

Donna tossed him a pretty lascivious smile right back. “Oh, yeah?”

Reed cleared his throat in a manner that was by no means discreet. “Uh, do you think you could go ahead and place that order now?” he asked. He was, after all, going to take a bite out of the table if someone didn’t put something edible in front of him soon.

“Yeah, sure thing,” Donna said, turning.

Reed was about to add that extra part about onion rings before she could get away, but before he had a chance Seth caught her gently by the elbow and said, “So this Mindy has nothing in the world, is about to be bounced out of her apartment, along with her unborn child, but she squeezed out a few bucks from her tips just so this old guy she’d never met before could have a decent birthday dinner?”

Donna scrunched up her shoulders and let them drop. “Didn’t I just say that?”

Reed nodded and released her. “Yeah, you did. But I wanted to make sure my friend here heard all the details.”

“I heard,” Reed muttered.

As always, Seth ignored him. “Thanks, Donna,” he said instead, releasing their waitress so that she could place their order. Finally.

“No problem, big guy,” she returned with a bright smile. “I’ll be right back with your coffee.”

And then she was gone. Before Reed could tell her how much he wanted those onion rings. He sighed with much disappointment.

“Did you hear that, Reed?” Seth asked, turning to sit forward at the table again.

“I heard,” Reed repeated.

“Mindy, that big, selfless, generous sweetheart, did that out of the goodness of her heart.”

“I heard.”

“Just because it was the right thing to do.”

“I heard.”

“Because she’s a kind, decent human being.”