Prejudice Meets Pride (12 page)

Even though the boy was yelling and shaking his head, Kevin calmly talked to the boy. He opened a drawer and held up a shiny gold coin, and the boy, who appeared to be no more than three, finally stopped yelling. His mouth clamped shut as Kevin held up various dental tools, using the child’s hand to test them on. After a couple minutes of talking, the boy’s head finally nodded. Kevin gestured to the young girl at his side, probably the hygienist, and the boy nodded again. Kevin gave the boy a pat on the shoulder, handed him the gold coin and stood, switching the hygienist places.

Emma admired his patience. He probably had to put up with that sort of thing a lot, and he’d handled it well.

Only a few minutes later, the door next to the reception desk opened, and Kevin poked his head through. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Emma,” he said. “Come on back, and I’ll introduce you to Janice.”

Emma nervously following him to the back, feeling out of place. Not only did she know nothing about dentistry, but she really didn’t know much about office work either. Kevin couldn’t have offered this job to a more under-qualified person.

He led her to a small office in the back, where a woman not much older than Kevin typed on her computer. “Janice?” Kevin said, getting the woman’s attention. “I’d like you to meet Emma.”

Emma walked into the room, still gripping her purse strings, and offered a tentative smile. “Nice to meet you.”

Janice studied her through glasses that made her look both intelligent and sophisticated before nodding. “So, uh, you’re the artist.”

Emma flicked a glance at Kevin. What had he said about her? What kind of person was Janice expecting? Someone adept, or did the “artist” title convey the truth—that Emma would need a lot of training? She hoped for the latter. There was nothing worse than falling short of someone’s expectations.

“Have a seat,” Janice quipped.

“We good here?” Kevin asked.

“Just peachy,” came the reply.

“Thanks, Janice,” Kevin said.

The brief interchange made Emma feel as though she was a problem that had just been passed off to someone who didn’t want to deal with it.

Emma gripped her purse straps, wanting to blurt out, “Sorry, this was a mistake,” and bolt, but Becky’s words came back to her mind, gluing Emma to her seat.
You’re a mom now, and as such, you need to learn that it’s sometimes necessary to set your pride aside for the sake of your kids. Capiche?

Capiche
. As much as Emma didn’t want to be here, she would stay. Kajsa and Adelynn needed her to stay. Her credit card bill needed her to stay.

An application appeared on the desk in front of Emma. “Mind filling this out for me?”

“Sure.” Emma took her time with the forms. It was so much easier to write than fiddle with her purse straps in the awkward, tense silence. But when she noticed Janice glance her way for the third time, Emma quickly signed her name and set the pen down.

“Finished?”

“Finished.”

Janice pushed back her chair and stood. “If you’ll follow me, I have some new patient files that need to be entered into our database. I’ll brief you on our system and let you get to work.”

The thought of being left alone sounded really good to Emma. She couldn’t wait for Janice’s piercing stare to focus elsewhere. But that was before Janice’s five-minute explanation on what appeared to be an incredibly complex computer program. She said something about using the Tab key for one thing and Enter for another, then clicked different buttons and pointed to the areas Emma should input things like emergency numbers and insurance information. She blew through examples so fast that Emma couldn’t keep up, and by the time Janice took a step back and said, “Make sense?” Emma could formulate only one response.

“Sure,” she lied.

As Janice’s three-inch heels clacked against the tile floor, taking her away, Emma stared at the screen. Was she really supposed to remember all that? Did most people catch on that quickly, and was she just slow? Probably. Emma had never had a head for stuff like this.

With a shrug, Emma picked up the first patient file, and after trying a few different things, finally found the
Add a new patient
option. She typed the last name of Carson in the appropriate field and hit Enter, but instead of moving the curser to the next line, it took her to a page she didn’t recognize. Huh? The ESC key only kicked her out of the patient form completely, putting her back to where she’d started—a blank canvas with a bunch of words and symbols sketched across the top.

Oops.

Emma cleared her throat and tried to look nonchalant as she repeated the initial step to add yet another new patient. A familiar, blank form appeared, and this time after typing the last name, Emma tried striking the Tab key. Like magic, the curser moved to the next line, exactly where she wanted it to go.

Take that, complex and backward computer program.
Emma smiled. Who needed an in-depth tutorial? Not her.

Ten minutes later, her fingers came down on the keyboard with hard, frustrated strokes as she pounded out the last name of Carson for the fourth time. This was getting ridiculous. If it wasn’t for her natural instinct to hit the Enter or ESC keys, she’d be on the third patient by now. Instead, she kept inadvertently exiting out of the patient record and having to start all over. At this rate, she’d take all week to input the small stack of patient files Janice had given her. Why wouldn’t the stupid computer save what she’d already typed instead of making her redo everything? Where was the Save button anyway?

There was none.

A feeling of unease materialized in Emma’s stomach. Did this program automatically save everything? Were there now four Benjamin Carsons in the database, all in various stages of completion? If so, how did she find them?

“Is there a problem?” Janice’s voice made Emma jump.

She spun her chair around, hoping to block the computer screen from Janice’s view, and forced an overly bright smile. “Nope, I’m great.”

A dark eyebrow raised above the dark frames as though Janice saw right through Emma’s bluff. “Good. Let me know when you finish or if you have any questions. I’ll be in my office.”

“Will do.” Emma spun back around and held her breath until the clack of high heels receded.
Why hadn’t that noise warned her that Janice was coming?
she thought wryly. Or had Janice sneaked up on her?

Now Emma was being ridiculous. Just because she hadn’t received the warmest of welcomes from Kevin’s office manager didn’t mean she should go accusing Janice of being sneaky. Emma was sure, underneath that piercing stare and rigid professionalism, that Janice was a nice person. She just had to get to know her better.

Turning her attention back to the computer, Emma tried to find a list of all the patient files on record. Maybe it wouldn’t be a big deal to delete three of them, assuming they even existed, which she still wondered about. Unfortunately, the task turned out to be more difficult than she thought. Either a master patient list didn’t exist or it was buried under some hidden feature in this incredibly un-user friendly program. Who wrote the code for this anyway?

Footsteps sounded behind Emma, and she quickly clicked on the New Patient Form option once again.

“How’s it going?” Kevin asked.

“Awesome.” Emma forced a smile to her face, glanced up to show it off, and went back to frowning at the screen.

“It’s a great program, isn’t it?”

“Awesome,” she said again, feeling the sudden urge to kick something. Knowing her luck, she’d probably just scheduled appointments that didn’t need to be scheduled or switched around crucial information, like insurance providers.

“Since you have it up and running, mind if I check something really quick?”

Emma slid her chair to the left and gestured at the stupid machine with the stupid program. “Check away.”

Kevin leaned down, and his shoulder brushed hers, making her arm feel more sensitive than usual. Emma couldn’t decide if she wanted to stay put or slide farther away. Kevin was her neighbor and now her boss—someone who felt the need to step in and help her out at every opportunity because he seemed to think she couldn’t handle anything on her own. The last thing Emma wanted was to give him yet another reason to roll his handsome dark eyes at her—eyes that were now staring at a list of names on the computer screen.

Emma sat up straighter and jabbed her finger at the monitor. “How did you do that?” she blurted.

“Do what?” Those amazing dark eyes turned on Emma. He was so close. Too close. A slew of butterflies knocked against the wall of her stomach.

What had he just said? Wait—what had
she
just said? Belatedly, Emma realized her slip. So much for playing it cool and figuring things out on her own. Why hadn’t she simply observed and paid closer attention to how he’d accessed that screen?

Kevin lifted an eyebrow in question, and since Emma couldn’t think of a logical reason she’d asked the question, other than the truth, she gave up and nodded toward the monitor. “How did you find that list of all the patients in your database?”

“Oh, easy.” Kevin clicked the ESC key, returning the screen to the main menu. “Just click on Members, then All. And
voilà
.” The beautiful screen appeared again, listing all of the patient names. Thank goodness there were a lot of A and B surnames, so if there were duplicate Carson, Benjamin entries, at least he couldn’t see them.

Until he started scrolling down. His eyebrows knit together when five of the exact same names appeared. Emma wanted to drop her head to the desk and bury her face in her arms. Could she not catch a break with this guy? It seemed to be her destiny to constantly prove how incompetent she was.

Kevin’s gaze moved from the monitor to the stack of papers on her desk, where he undoubtedly saw Benjamin Carson’s name on the top of the stack. His lips twitched as he continued scrolling down the list. “I had no idea that Benjamin Carson was such a popular name.”

Neither did Emma. Why were there five of them anyway? She was sure she’d only messed up four times. “I know, right? Someone really should tell all those Colorado Springs Carsons to find a new name for their sons. Benjamin has already been taken. Way too many times.”

His head twisted to face hers again, and a mischievous smile appeared. “Wow, she counts.”

“All the way to a hundred.”

He chuckled, then returned his attention to the screen, where he continued to scroll down. He finally clicked on a name, then clicked on something else before reading over some notes. When he finished, he hit the ESC key and stood, tapping the papers he held on Emma’s desk. “I’ll let Janice know you could use her help. You’re going to need her password to delete those duplicate records.”

Emma’s expression must have told him how much she didn’t like that option because his palms came to rest on her desk as he leaned toward her once again. His eyes were only inches from hers when he said quietly, “You really need to get over your aversion to asking people for help. It’s not doing you any favors.”

Yeah, well he wasn’t doing Emma any favors by informing Janice of her mistake. Emma forced herself to nod. “I know.”

Kevin pushed himself back to standing and gave her a parting smile—a smile that wasn’t repeated on Janice’s face when she came out of her office moments later and headed Emma’s way.

With the last patient file clenched in her fingers, Emma fought back a cringe as she knocked on Janice’s office door yet again.

Janice glanced up and didn’t even bother to mask her irritation this time. “Yes?” she said.

“Sorry to bug you again, but I can’t find the insurance company WHC in the database. Is there another name it would be under?”

“Yes, WHC is the parent company for a bunch of different plans. You’ll need to look at the copy of the insurance card to figure out which.”

“Oh.” Emma flipped through the few papers on that particular patient and saw no copy of any insurance card. “And that would be where, exactly?”

The way Janice’s jaw tightened made Emma’s do the same. She was getting really sick of feeling like an idiot for not guessing the right answers on everything.

“Remember how the receptionists initially create the patient files when parents call for the appointment?”

Emma refrained from rolling her eyes—barely. Of course she remembered. She wasn’t stupid. “Yes,” she mustered.

“Well, when the patient comes in, the receptionists also scan the insurance cards and attach them to the patient’s file. Just click on the image in the database and it will pop right up.”

And I’d find that
where
, exactly?
Emma wanted to scream. All this would have been really good to know from the get-go, but heaven forbid Janice spend any real time training her.

She ground out a “Gee, thanks,” and walked back to her desk. Emma would find that stupid image on her own, even if it took all night.

Turned out, it didn’t. As soon as she opened the patient’s file, she found the copy of the insurance card right away. Emma frowned at the screen. Maybe she really was lacking in common sense.