NYC Angels: Making the Surgeon Smile

“Oh.” She turned round. “Dr. Griffin, I didn’t see you there.” There were several people she didn’t know in the overcrowded elevator but she hadn’t noticed him mostly because she had been lost in her thoughts and hadn’t been looking at anyone. Aching from her lumpy bed, already dragging from the daily rush to the subway, getting pushed and bumped the entire commute, and now hearing from an unwelcome voice from her past, she couldn’t begin to paste on a cheery face today.

John edged closer to her. “You don’t look happy.”

She lifted a corner of her mouth. “I’m not. Old boyfriend just texted me.” What did she care if he discovered that little miss Pollyanna from Pennsylvania was a sham, that her carefree moods were manufactured from hard work and years of practice.

“Sorry to hear that,” he said, sounding curiously sincere.

“About the boyfriend or not being happy?”

“Both.”

“Really?”

“Don’t act so shocked.” He gave her a John Griffin style smile, which meant it was hard to differentiate the smile between a grimace and/or gas.

“Do you actually notice things like people’s moods?”

“No. Not usually.”

What the heck did that mean? Had her self-deprecating plea last night in his office put her on his pity list? Maybe she’d overdone it.

“Well, thanks anyway,” she said, lifting her brows and glancing toward the neon numbers indicating the floors, having run out of superficial things to talk about. The elevator stopped and several people got off.

He moved closer and whispered near her ear. “You know, you don’t have to put on your forever-cheerful act for me.”

Had he seen through her already? “Gee, thanks.” She didn’t mean to sound disrespectful, but he’d just given her permission to show her true feelings, hadn’t he? She glanced to where he stood. There was that gassy grimace-style smile again and a playful glint in his eyes. Why did she find it cute?

Cute? John Griffin?

Maybe it was his mouth, the way the marginally off-center bottom lip curled out ever so slightly, making her want to take it between her teeth and nibble … just a little.

Come on, Polly, the guy is way too old for you. Probably pushing forty. And gruff as a bulldog. Who needs the aggravation? Besides, there was no way he’d ever be interested in her. Yet … that goofy attempt at a smile could only be described as cute. Charming, even.

The elevator came to a stop on the fifth floor and everyone else exited. Once the doors closed, John leaned his shoulder on the elevator wall and looked directly at Polly.

“Let’s make a deal,” he continued to whisper. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

She lifted her head from staring at her scuffed white clogs with the image of nibbling his lower lip fresh in her mind. “What in the world are you talking about?”

“Our moods.” So he had seen through her carefully crafted façade.

“Well, no offense, Dr. Griffin, but I think I’ve already memorized your moods. Moody. Grumpy.” She used her fingers to tick off the list. “Gruff. Did I say moody?”

What do you know, she’d coaxed out a real smile. “Yes. Smartass.” He squinted graciously under fire, his dark eyes showing signs of renewed life. “Don’t forget Bashful and Sleepy, if you’re thinking of naming all of the seven dwarfs.”

“And Doc. You definitely qualify for that one.” She sighed, realizing that whatever this silly game was she was playing with Johnny, many of her cares had already evaporated in the stuffy elevator. By giving her the okay to be who she really was, warts and all, he’d liberated her from being Pollyanna. It felt pretty darned good. Hmm, had he said bashful? Him?

“Bashful? Not you,” she said.

“Oh, yes, I am.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“You’d be surprised.”

The elevator door opened and they got out and headed their separate ways, she giving a genuinely bright smile, thanks to his lightening her mood, and he, well, still looking gassy but with an added spring to his step. That on-the-verge-of-flirting look he’d just sent her way was bound to stay in her mind and keep her smiling the rest of the day. The little fizzy feeling that look had given her hadn’t been half-bad either.

Dr. John Griffin. Bashful? As in let the woman make the advance? Just what else might she be surprised about with him?

As Polly walked to the nurses’ locker room, one more thought popped into her head. Johnny smelled good, too, like expensive aftershave and clean hair. Combine that with his rugged, all-man features and her new interest in the shape and angle of his mouth, thinking it looked all too kissable for a guy with salt-and-pepper hair, for a head of Pediatric Orthopedics, and she lost her step and tripped on the doorframe.

All things considered, Johnny Griffin had done a great job of lifting Polly’s spirits that morning.

“How’s my girl doing?” John asked Polly, entering the hospital room shortly after she’d taken Annabelle’s midday vital signs.

“Great! Thanks,” Polly said. “Annabelle’s doing really well, too.” She caught and enjoyed the quick confusion in his eyes before he got her joke.

“You’ve got a real smart aleck for a nurse, Annabelle.” He took his patient’s thin hand, and the gesture squeezed Polly’s heart.

Annabelle gave a wan smile, and John lingered over her bed like a fussing papa until she closed her eyes. Polly had given her pain medication through a shot into the hip a few short moments ago.

“The nurses told me she’d had a rough night, complaining about phantom pains, and when she started mentioning them again just now, well, I wanted to make sure she was extra-comfortable today.”

He folded his arms across his broad chest. “Good. We’ll give her some rest now, but by later this afternoon I want her out of bed and in a chair for at least an hour.”

“Got it.”

“Physical therapy will start tomorrow, and the wound-care specialist should pay a visit this evening when her parents are here to discuss dressing changes when she goes home.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You can knock that stuff off, too.”

“You don’t want me to follow your orders, sir?” Why did teasing her superior feel so delicious?

He took a deep breath, as if trying to suck in patience from the room air. “Are you trying to bug me?”

“Am I doing a good job … sir?”

“Very.”

“Good,” she said, straightening out the bedspread and double-checking the IV rate. She didn’t dare look over her shoulder, but she sensed he was enjoying her feisty mood. Would any of his staff ever dare to give him a hard time?

“There’s no excess drainage from the surgical site, and I emptied thirty ccs from the drain at the beginning of my shift,” she said, all business.

He checked under the recently smoothed covers and found the Jackson-Pratt bulb was nearly empty. The quarter-sized marking on the post-op dressing hadn’t gotten much bigger either, as he soon noticed.

“Good.” He lingered at the bedside.