Victoria’s Diary
June 20, 2016
Today I met the man I am going to marry.
I know, I know. I sound like a teenage girl who is all googly-eyed over a hot guy she just met. I swear, I’m not usually like that! I am one of those people who is maddeningly sensible. I do my taxes in January. I went to nursing school when my real passion was writing, because I knew the former would lead to a good, stable career, and the latter would leave me poor and starving.
But when it comes to men, I have a bit of a tendency to… well, get ahead of myself. Sometimes. Occasionally. So I’ve been told anyway. I admit, there have been other men I thought were the one. Bradley, in college. Noah, right after college. And Evan. I’m still not sure how I misread that one so badly…
But this is totally different. This one is it. And by that, I mean, this is
It. It.
So of course, the first thing I wanted to do when I got home was write
about it. I may be a sensible nurse practitioner rather than a writer, but I can at least use my skills to keep beautiful notes of every detail, so that someday when my children ask how I met their father, I can hand them this book and say: Here!
So this is for you, Future Children.
The day started out absolutely normal. Actually, worse than normal. Right before It happened, Mack had just brought in a couple of drunk frat boys to the ER. One was passed out cold with concern for alcohol poisoning. Another had a big bloody laceration on his forehead. And it was only eight o’clock at night, for goodness sake! How did things get so out of hand at the fraternity?
“Our best and brightest,” Mack remarked after giving report on the
kids.
Mack is a paramedic who brings patients in here a couple of times a night. I suspect at the point that you are reading this, he won’t be a part of my life anymore. But I’ve gotten to know him fairly well in the last two years during his frequent drop-offs here. Sometimes he tags along with us for coffee or something stronger after the shift is done.
Mack is a good guy. He’s smart—I can tell from the insightful reports he gives to the nurses. He always keeps cool under pressure. And he’s big and strong enough that he can lift the two-hundred-pound drunk college kids without skipping a beat. He’s also… well, he’s undeniably cute. Sorry, Future Children, but it’s true. He’s tall, muscular without looking like he spends his days at a gym, and he’s got a shock of adorably messy black hair. There was a time when I thought he might be a future husband, but then I found out he had a serious girlfriend. It was such a bummer.
Not that I care anymore about Mack having a girlfriend. But it’s something that used to bother me. Yesterday.
“Are you busy tonight?” Mack asked me. He didn’t mean me specifically, of course. He meant the ER—the general “you.”
And yes, we were packed. It was a mix of people who started drinking early and did stupid things and people who had been sitting on that abdominal pain all week until work finally ended on Friday afternoon. Tonight seemed particularly bad. The waiting room was so full, soon people would have to start sitting on other people’s laps. Every examining room was full and there were patients on stretchers in the hallway. Never a good sign.
“It’s a little crazy.” I shrugged. “Full moon maybe?”
Mack winked at me. “I’ll try to divert patients uptown then.” “Much appreciated.”
I looked over at the bloody laceration guy, who vomited all over the side of his stretcher. My own stomach turned.
“Shoot,” I muttered. Technically, it wasn’t my job to clean that up, but I had a feeling I was going to end up doing it somehow anyway. You can’t just leave a pile of vomit in the hallway.
“I know,” Mack remarked. “That kid is really fudged up.”
Mack was grinning at me. He finds it hilarious that I never, ever curse. Especially since a lot of the people who work in the ER curse like sailors. What can I say—my parents taught me not to say any naughty words. Or
take the name of the Lord in vain. And now that they’re both gone, I’m even more dedicated to keeping it clean. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there? I don’t go to church on Sunday anymore, but this is a habit I’ll never be able to break.
The queue of patients left to be seen was endless. The pending patient list popped up in a spreadsheet on the computer, ordered by acuity and then by the amount of time they had been waiting, and the list easily spanned three pages. That list wouldn’t be completed until the sun came up. But my shift ended at ten p.m., thank heavens. I just had to make it through my shift.
So I chose the next patient in the queue.
Based on the report from the triage nurse, the patient, Adam Barnett, was a thirty-two-year-old male who had been cooking dinner, and while chopping a yellow onion—I appreciated this bit of absolutely extraneous detail from the triage report—he sliced his finger open. Anyway, the point is, he needed stitches.
I like suturing lacerations—a lot of the times when people come into the ER, we don’t have an answer or an easy cure for their malady. If you come into the ER with chest pain and huge ST elevations on your EKG, we can send you up to cardiology, but it’s not going to be a quick stay. If you come in with a fever and coughing up green phlegm, you’re probably still going to be coughing when you leave the ER. But if you’ve got a laceration, I can sew you up and send you on your way. You’re cured! Well, more or less.
So I headed into the room where Adam Barnett was waiting, expecting to heal him and send him on his way. But that isn’t exactly what happened.
I have been a nurse practitioner for four years, and I’ve been working in this ER for three of those years. I’ve seen a lot of patients during that time. A lot. And of course, some reasonable percentage of them happen to be cute guys. It’s just odds. I mean, yes, most of them are elderly and dripping phlegm or possibly blood, but every once in a while, the ER Gods take pity on me and there’s a cute guy thrown in. And mostly, I take it in stride. Dating patients is frowned upon, so basically, they’re just eye candy.
But this guy.
This guy was different.
I can’t explain it. I’m a sucker for chick flicks—I’ve seen them all— and often when the girl meets the guy, she says it’s like she got “struck by lightning.” And you roll your eyes because it’s such a clichéd, ridiculous thing to say. Except, somehow it was actually like that.
I feel so silly writing it down. But it really was! I walked into the room, looked at your father, and something just hit me. Like a slap in the face. Or a dose of smelling salts. (Smelling salts are surprisingly unpleasant. Don’t try it at home, Future Children!)
I don’t know why exactly. Yes, he was quite handsome, but there have been other handsome patients I’ve treated. I once treated this guy who was a vet from Afghanistan and he had muscles up the wazoo when he took off his shirt. But he didn’t give me the lightning bolt like Adam did.
Maybe it was his green eyes. They were the exact color of freshly cut grass.
So instead of giving my usual spiel about how I am Victoria Benson and I will be his nurse practitioner, blah blah blah, I just stood there, my mouth hanging open. Possibly with a little bit of drool coming out.
To be totally fair though, he was doing the same thing. Well, he was sitting on the examining table, holding a hand wrapped in bloody gauze. But other than that, his expression looked a lot like mine. His mouth was hanging open and he was blinking at me. We were staring at each other like a couple of idiots, and I swear I could hear harps playing in the background.
So this is love. La la la la.
“Hi.” I was the one who finally broke the silence. After all, I was the professional here. “I… I’m Victoria. I’m here to, you know, I’m going to hand you a suture.”
He frowned at me.
“I mean,” I corrected myself, “I’m here to suture your hand.”
At least I got the words out. That’s just what your father did to me,
kids.
“Right,” he said. A smile slowly crept across his face. And oh my, he
was so much more gorgeous when he smiled. There was just something about him that was so sexy. Hmm… if my children are reading this, maybe I shouldn’t use words like “sexy.” I’ll have to wait until you’re at least twenty to let you look at this. Anyway, you’re not even conceived yet, so I’m not going to worry about it.
“Is that okay?” I asked.
He nodded. “Sure. Uh, have at it.”
I carefully unwrapped the crimson-stained gauze that was around his left hand. As I did so, I took note of the fact that there was no ring on his fourth finger.
Interesting. Very interesting.
The laceration was on his index finger, about three centimeters, without signs of any deep tissue damage. I could sew it up myself without having to involve the attending. I’m going to attempt to re-create our flirtatious banter:
“How did you cut yourself, Mr. Barnett?” (Barnett—same last initial as mine. I’ll still have the same initials!)
“Adam.” He cleared his throat. “So… I decided to learn how to cook. I bought this book by Julia Child with all these recipes. I figured… well, anyway… it’s not… it’s not going that great. I think my knives are too sharp. Or not sharp enough. Or I’m just not a good cook.”
I laughed, and he smiled wider. “Why did you suddenly decide to learn how to cook?” I paused. “To impress your girlfriend?”
Did you know your mother could be so smooth???
He shook his head. “No, I don’t have a girlfriend. I just felt like it was an important life skill. But clearly, it’s not for everyone. Maybe I should stick to things I’m good at.”
No girlfriend. Even more interesting. “What are you good at?” “Well, writing books, I guess.”
And then something clicked in my brain.
The name Adam Barnett had sounded familiar when I first heard it. But now it came to me. This wasn’t just some random guy. This guy was a New York Times best-selling author. He was a freaking celebrity. I had picked his latest book off the shelf at Barnes and Noble a couple of months ago and read the whole entire thing in a day. And now he was sitting in front of me!
Of course, you already know your father is a celebrity. I bet at the point you’re reading this, he has written ten more number one bestselling novels. But it was a revelation for me. I had always enjoyed my writing workshop classes in college, but I went a more practical route, as you know.
I admired that this guy had gone for it. And what’s more, he succeeded. Of course, he had talent coming out of his eyeballs.
“Oh my goodness!” At this point, I had completely abandoned any attempt to be cool and sounded like a lame fangirl. All my sentences had multiple exclamation points at the end of them. “You’re Adam Barnett! The writer! I love your books! I’m such a huge fan!!!”
To his credit, his ears turned slightly pink. “Well, thanks.”
“Your books are so thrilling and suspenseful.” Now I was gushing. How embarrassing. “How do you think of all that? I just… I mean, The Edge of Town was one of the best books I’ve read this year. I guess I always thought that the person who wrote it would be…”
There was no photo on the book jacket of Adam Barnett’s bestselling suspense thriller. I remember that much, because I always check for things like that. When I’m reading a story, I like to know who is telling it. So when there was no photo, my mind came up with a picture on its own. I imagined a distinguished man with flowing silver hair who always wore a suit. It was a far cry from the guy in jeans and a T-shirt with thick chestnut hair, and lines around his eyes only when he smiled.
He raised an eyebrow. “Would be what?”
“Uh…” I searched for a word that would be the least offensive. “Older?”
“So… I write like an old man?”
I started to correct myself but then I realized he was smiling. He was teasing me. Flirting with me. This sexy guy (sorry again, kids!) who had written one of the best books I’ve ever experienced was flirting with me. My head was starting to spin.
“Let me get you sewn up,” I said.
I will confess that after I left the room, instead of grabbing the suture material, I ran straight for the bathroom to do an inventory of my appearance. Thank heavens I chose to wear my fitted scrubs today, instead of one of the baggy pairs that I wear when I’m bloated from PMS or I just don’t feel like being hit on by drunk guys. My blond hair was pulled back into a messy bun in the back of my head, and I spent a good minute trying to decide if it was messy in a sexy way or messy in a sloppy way. Ultimately, I left my hair alone and just did a quick touchup of my mascara and lipstick.
I had to hand it to him—Adam was stoic when I sewed him up. An hour later, when I sewed up one of the frat guys, he cried like a baby. But your father took it like a man. He didn’t even flinch when I injected the lidocaine, and we joked around as I took way too long to pop a few stitches in place. Given how busy the ER was, I really should have done it as quickly as possible and gotten him out the door. But I was selfish. I didn’t want him to leave.
“I hope you’re not stuck here all night,” he said as I wrapped his sutured finger in a Kerlix bandage.
“My shift ends at ten,” I said.
Aaaaand… this was his chance. Hint, hint! I stood there, waiting for him to suggest going out for a drink. Okay, I’m technically not supposed to date patients, but I was willing to risk getting in trouble for a date with this guy. You don’t get lightning bolts every day. Right???
But he didn’t ask me out. He didn’t suggest drinks or a walk around the neighborhood or a late dinner or even going back to his place. (Which I absolutely would have said no to, and you kids should do the same. Don’t go back to a strange guy’s apartment, no matter how gorgeous or sexy or certain you are that he’s going to be the father of your children.)
After we got Adam’s discharge paperwork ready and I sent him on his way, I was in a bad mood. I’m usually right when I think a guy is into me. How could you get a lightning bolt and then nothing happens, for goodness sake?
But the answer seemed obvious at the time. I felt the lightning bolt. He didn’t. The lightning bolt was entirely one-sided.
The remainder of my shift dragged on for what felt like an eternity. All I wanted was to go home, take a nice hot shower to wash off the various smells of the emergency room, and try not to think about Adam Barnett. After a glass of wine, it wouldn’t hurt quite as bad. In a week, he would be a distant memory.
By the time my shift was coming to a close, the pain was slightly dulled. Mack rolled into the ER with yet another patient, and I managed to almost return his smile.
“Hey, Vicky.” Mack nudged me in the shoulder as he waited for a nurse to sign off on his paperwork. “You look wiped. Almost done?”
I winced. “Just about. But then I’ve got a ton of documentation to finish up.”
Mack looked wiped too. His black hair was even more mussed than usual and he had beads of sweat on his forehead from his recent efforts lifting a morbidly obese patient off a stretcher into a bed. He’s been taking post-bacc classes, because he says he needs to train for another job before his back goes out on him. He’s been considering medical school. He thinks he’s too old, but I keep telling him he should go for it. He would be a great doctor. And he’s not that old—not even thirty.
Mack glanced down at his watch sticking out of the sleeve of the navy blue uniform all the EMTs wear. “I’m done at midnight. If you’re still around by then, you want to grab a drink?”
I shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”
Of course, since Mack has a girlfriend, we would just be two friends hanging out and sharing the war stories from an exhausting shift. But I figured it would help me forget about Adam even better than a hot shower. And there would be alcohol—a key ingredient in forgetting anything painful.
Hmm. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. Don’t drink, kids! Except at weddings and a glass of champagne on New Year’s Eve.
But for once, I managed to finish up my documentation quickly and I was done before eleven. At that point, I didn’t feel like sticking around for another hour for drinks with a cute guy who was already taken. Mack would understand.
The waiting room of the ER was still packed. A couple of hours ago, the sight of that waiting room would have given me a throbbing headache, but now I was just relieved to be done. I love my job, but at the end of a twelve-hour shift, I’ve got nothing left to give. But the nice thing about shiftwork is that when you’re done, you’re done. I could go home and not think about what I saw today.
But then when I got outside the ER, I saw him. Your father. Sitting on the bench right outside the door.
And get this: he was holding a rose!
“Victoria?” He scrambled to his feet. “Hey…” “Hey,” I said.
He later told me he had been sitting there for nearly an hour, ever since my shift ended. He walked around for an hour trying to find an open florist, even though the lidocaine had worn off and his hand was throbbing.
“Don’t think I’m crazy,” he said. “But as soon as I left the ER, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I’m sure there’s some rule about not being able to date patients, but I would be kicking myself for the rest of my life if I didn’t at least give it a shot.”
“Well…” I cleared my throat. “It’s not so much a rule as it is a guideline…”
He raised his eyebrows. “So… does that mean you’ll come have a drink with me?”
That’s right, Future Children: At the end of an exhausting ER shift, your father was waiting for me. And he gave me a rose and we got a drink that turned into a late dinner. And then we walked around the city talking until the sun came up.
He told me about how he backpacked through Europe the year after college and stayed at youth hostels until he ran out of money and then would sleep on the street because he didn’t want to go home. He told me how in high school he used to sing in a country music a cappella group, but got kicked out because he couldn’t carry a tune. He said his favorite movie is Pulp Fiction, and teased me when I said mine is Sweet Home Alabama, but promised to watch it. He told me that he’s never cold, but he wears coats during the winter because everyone looks at him funny if he’s got a T- shirt on in thirty-degree weather. I told him that I’m always cold, and he said he would keep me warm and wrapped his arms around me.
Then just as the sun was peeking out from the horizon, he leaned in and kissed me for the first time.
And oh my…
I’ve never met anyone like him. He is such a great guy. I’ve only known him less than twenty-four hours, but it’s long enough to know that I’m in love. This is It. It.
I never believed in love at first sight until I met your father.
