Sleeping Beauty (20 page)

“Why not West? I thought you said you and Wib hadn’t spoken in awhile?”

I shake my head. “West left yesterday to tour, remember?” I put the box on the counter and walk to the bedroom to find my cell phone.

A few minutes later I yell down the hallway, “They had a cancellation at two.”

“Have a ride?” he says.

“Davin’s going to pick me up in an hour.”

An hour later, we’re in Brendan’s car, heading to the gate of Andy’s estate where Brendan will hand me off to Davin like a football.

“Why don’t you just find a doctor closer to the house?” he says.

My doctor is on the other side of town. Traffic is always a gridlocked mess. “No way. I’ve been going to Lana since I was a teenager. She knows everything about me.”

“Does she know about
me
?”

“If she’s been reading
The Enquirer
, she does
.
”

“In that case, she’s going to think you’re dating Johnny.”

“Brendan, John is twenty-four years old. He told me that he still has his childhood stuffed animal collection in a room somewhere. To say he’s not my type isn’t saying nearly enough.”

“Why won’t he stop calling you then? Filming’s over.”

This is still a sore spot between us, even though filming wrapped a month ago.
Evensong
is in post-production and won’t be released until next summer, but the fan-craze for Jonathan Varner (and the ridiculous rumors of our romance) continues. That’s because Jonathan and I still rev up the tabloids all over again about once a month when we hang out publically. It was the photographers following me everywhere I went that prompted Andy to offer me and Brendan the guest house in the first place.

Luckily, he’s made a friend in West, and has been spending more time with him and that crew, leaving me some extra time to mollify my actual boyfriend.

I shrug. “I think he’s lonely. Before he started hanging out with West and them, I don’t think he had a lot of friends. He can’t go anywhere. He can’t find a girlfriend the regular way. What’s he going to do, show up at a club? Those crazy girls that follow him would burn the place down. He’s never made a move on me, so I don’t know what you’re worried about.”

“Most guys would kill to have every woman from eighteen to fifty wanting to jump into bed with them.”

“But not you, right?”

He gives me a closed-mouth smile. “The last time I had enough free time to think about seriously dating anyone was before med school. Then I met you and had to fight like hell to keep you. No way.”

“Well, I guess since you went through all the trouble, I’ll let you keep me.”

I’m excited to see Davin, but he looks less than thrilled. He nods at Brendan while I’m moving from one car to the other, and his greeting once I’m in his car is only slightly more enthusiastic.

“It’s good to see you!” I say, giving him a hug that he doesn’t return. “Where’ve you been hiding?”

“Where I always am from May to November…working like a slave for Earl.”

“You could have a regular life if you’d stop surfing your work hours away from December to April.”

“I guess so.”

“You and West do anything fun before he left?”

“Same answer as before, Claire-Bo: work, work, and more work.”

I shift from topic to topic, trying to turn small talk into an actual conversation. Davin grunts a series of toneless, monosyllabic answers.

“Thanks for doing this,” I say, after twenty minutes of awkward silence. “I really appreciate it. Brendan had to work, and with West out of town, getting around’s a pain.”

Of course, it’s taken him an hour to get to me. The trip to my doctor’s office is another hour, then he’ll have to drive me back: another hour. By the time he gets home, this routine trip to the doctor’s will relieve him of four hours of his life that he’ll never get back.

No wonder he’s pissed off.

“You know, I can always call Andy and see if he’d be willing to have his driver come–”

He cuts me off by cranking up the radio so loud that the fillings in my teeth ache. I stare forward, devastated by the slow slide to obscurity our friendship has taken. When Brendan asks me about it, I can’t really come up with an explanation. I know he and West haven’t been getting along, and I’m beginning to suspect that they’ve had some big breakup, but always tell myself that if that were the case, one of them would have clued me in by now.

I’m actually not certain that my doctor reads the tabloids, so as we get closer to Lana’s office I start to worry about sitting in the waiting room where people might recognize me. I’m hoping that they can sneak me into an exam room right away when I get there.

Davin walks me into the medical office building, and immediately ditches me by taking a seat in the furthest corner of the full waiting room and snatching up a magazine. A few people turn their heads and stare at me with a puzzled, “don’t I know you from somewhere?” look when we walk in, but a nurse appears almost immediately and calls my name.

The nurse is getting my blood pressure and weighing me in the hallway when Dr. Lana Goodman appears. “Hey you!” she says, folding me into a big hug. “I’ve missed you!” Lana is the same height as me, but kind of round everywhere so hugging her is really comfy. “This way.” She takes my hand and pulls me to the closest exam room. “I want to hear what you’ve been up to.”

Even before my sudden pseudo-fame, Lana was one of those doctors who actually spent a lot of time with me. No matter what I was there for she’d ask me about my life: past, present, future. Are you eating? Are you dating? Is work stressful? Are you getting enough exercise? Who’s your favorite on
American Idol
? Have you put together an earthquake evacuation plan for The Big One?

She closes the door and throws my chart onto the counter. She motions to one of the chairs, sits on the stool and rolls over to me. “So? I hear you’re still acting.”

I laugh, knowing full well that she knows. “You could say that.”

She shakes her head. “I can’t believe it! Your parents…what would your dad say about the circus
now
?”

I try to keep my attitude breezy, but it’s hard not to tear up at the mention of my folks. “Oh, I’m sure he’d still be asking me when I’m going to get a steady day job.”

Lana smiles. “So hey, I got the clinic notes from the sleep doc.” She flips my chart open. “Dr. Charmant’s his name?”

“Uh–”

“I’m so glad you finally found someone who was able to figure it out.”

“Thanks to you,” I say. “Going to the pediatric hospital was your idea.”

She rolls her eyes. “It was the least I could do after sending you to that awful psychiatrist. You should’ve seen the love letter I sent to
that
guy.” She studies me. “So you’re feeling better? No worse for the wear after the last big sleep?”

“Not that I can tell.”

“Does Dr. Charmant have a treatment plan? For next time?”

“Yep, they’re going to try lithium and carbamazepine together once another episode starts.”

“Did they try it this last time?”

“Not at first. They wanted to observe me for a day in the sleep lab once the episode started, but then they started both. They think it will work better to shorten the episode next time if I take it right away.”

“Good, good. So what’s going on with you today?”

“I think I have a urinary tract infection.”

“Why?”

“I have to pee all the time.
All
the time,” I add for emphasis.

“When did this start?”

I tilt my head, trying to think. “I guess about a month after I started filming …about two months ago.”

She looks skeptical. “You’ve had to pee all the time for
two months
and you didn’t come to see me?”

I shrugged. “I couldn’t get away from filming even for a day–I was in almost every scene. I was drinking a lot of coffee to stay awake, and I thought it would go away once I stopped, but that was a month ago.”

“Any burning? Any problems with incontinence?”

“No.”

“Any pain in your lower back? Any fever?”

“Nope.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound like a UTI to me.”

“Oh…well, what then?”

“Go to the bathroom and pee in a cup. I can rule a couple of things out in ten minutes. We’ll go from there.”

Once I’m done with the barbaric practice of training a urine stream into a receptacle smaller than a Dixie cup, I place it in the two-way, stainless steel cabinet in the wall and shut the door as fast as possible. I have a long-harbored fear of the person on the other side. I mean, who are they? Do they do anything besides play with urine all day? They’re, like, the Great and Powerful Wizard of Pee, safely behind the curtain, itching to tell you can’t have that heart, that brain, that courage you were hoping for.

I park myself back in the same room I started in, and thrum my fingers on the armrest. When Lana enters I’m expecting a grand pronouncement. Instead, she’s holding my cup of urine in her hands, looking uncomfortable. I feel it right away: something’s wrong. I put my hand on my chest. “What?”

“My staff’s all aflutter at you being here,” she says with an awkward smile.

“I’ve been coming here for years.”

“Well, that’s true, but that was before you were in all the magazines in the waiting room.”

She’s still standing there, holding the plastic cup in her hand like she’s thinking about giving it back to me and sending me on my way.

“What’s the matter?”

“I’m not sure I want to do any tests here,” she says.

“Why not?”

“Because judging from the uproar in the office right now, I can’t guarantee that any of it will stay private. I’m not exactly set up for celebrity patients. I’ve already pulled your chart and locked it in my office, and I’m having my office manager lock down your computer file.”

“Oh.” This was something I hadn’t thought of. “So what am I supposed to do?”

“Well, I can refer you to someone else or…”

“Or?”

“Or I can do those simple tests I was telling you about myself, right here; I don’t put it in your chart until I figure out a way to make things more secure. That sound good enough for now?”

“Yeah, of course. I don’t want to go somewhere else, Lana.”

“Of course you don’t, hon. I’ll be five minutes.”

I’ve barely had time to crack a magazine when she’s back.

“Well, that was easy,” she says, flapping a piece of paper back and forth. “You’re pregnant.”

I push against the armrests and lurch to my feet, knocking the chair against the wall behind me. “
What!
No, no, no, that’s can’t be right, Lana. That can’t be right. I get–”

“Birth control shots,” she says. “I know. I’ve never heard of this happening before.” She looks at my chart. “You came in for a shot in mid-May, and another one mid-August. You had a week of overlap. This shouldn’t be possible.”

I realize I’m sitting again, but don’t remember doing it. I’m in such a state of shock, I should be weeping hysterically, but I can’t even produce one tear. My eyes are burning so intensely that the tears are probably boiling away before they can form. I put my hand on my chest again, rubbing to dislodge the two ton weight perched there.

“Oh, god, Lana. Oh, my god. How did this happen?”

She smirks a little, and I swear I will get up and choke her if she tries to make any jokes about things a man and woman do when they really love each other.

“There are some medical interactions that can disrupt the effectiveness of the shots,” she says. “I can look into it. Did Dr. Charmant know you were getting them?”

“I don’t know.” My voice sounds weird, like I’m talking from the inside of a trash can. I wrack my brain, trying to remember if I listed my birth control shot as a regular medication on anything I gave Brendan or Wendy. I only get it every three months, so I usually forget to declare it when I’m asked. It’s never mattered before.

“Well, I’d like to talk to him first, nail down for sure what they’ve prescribed you. I can put in a call to him today, but probably won’t hear back until tomorrow.”

“You can talk to him before that.” She gives me a puzzled look. I put my elbows on my knees, drop my face in my hands, and groan. “He’s my boyfriend.”

“Oh. Oh,
Claire
.”

“It’s not what you think!” I say, lifting my head. “I was trying to tell you…he stopped being my doctor two days after I first met him. Wendy Pickering’s been my official sleep doctor since then.”

She brightens immediately. “Well, that makes a big difference!” She sits on the stool and rolls it towards me until we’re knee-to-knee. “How pregnant do you think you are?”

I’m numb. “I have no idea.”

“When did you two become sexually active? We can start there.”

I sigh, avoiding eye contact. “It’s kind of…complicated.”

“Well, it had to have been after your last episode ended.”

I don’t answer, because I know “it” wasn’t after the last episode ended at all. But putting that fact into a context that doesn’t sound utterly creepy is a herculean task I’m not up to at the moment, what with my brain reduced to a cranium-shaped pile of Jell-O that’s taken all non-essential functions offline.

She rolls back to the chart on the counter, and flips through it. “Says here you came out of your episode in mid-July. That sound about right?”

“Yep.”

“So, I’m guessing probably not even three months pregnant then.”

“Okay.”

“Do you know what you want to do?”

“I have no idea.”

“Are you going to tell him?”

“No! I’m not telling anyone.”

Again with the smirk. “Well, eventually–”

“I mean I’m not telling anyone
now
. I’m aware that an expanding belly will probably tip my hand.”

She grows serious. “If you’re thinking of terminating, you need to see an obstetrician right now. Once you’re past twelve weeks things get a little more complicated.”

“Okay.”

She scribbles something on a small, blue pad and tears off the top piece. “Take this, just in case. It’s a prescription for prenatal vitamins.”

“Thanks.”