A Doctor In Her Stocking

He knew what was deep inside everyone, huh? Reed mused. Now there was a troubling thought.

But before he could comment, Seth continued. “See, that’s where we differ,” he said.

“Only there?”

Reed’s sarcasm went right over his friend’s head. Either that or, like always, Seth just chose to ignore it. Because he went on, “When I go into a person, I’m looking for the good stuff and I work with that. And when you go in, you’re looking for the bad, and that takes priority.”

“Is this some weird surgeon’s angle on the glass being halffull or half-empty?”

Seth nodded. “Yeah, in a way, I guess it is. I’m just saying that I refuse to be blinded by the bad things in life, when those are so few and far between. It’s the good things that are most obvious, most evident, most abundant. And those are what make us able to survive the bad things.”

“Oh, please. You can’t possibly believe that the good in the world outweighs the bad. There’s poverty, hatred, bigotry, terrorism, war—”

“Love, honor, education, beauty, art,” Seth immediately interrupted him.

But Reed wasn’t going to let him get away that easily. “Sickness, death, crime, drugs,” he continued to enumerate.

Seth, however, was no more willing to back down than Reed was. “Music, chocolate, lingerie, prime rib-”

“All right, all right,” Reed surrendered. “Let’s just agree to disagree, okay?”

But Seth shook his head. “No, I don’t agree to do that.”

Reed eyed him in confusion. “You always did before.”

“It’s Christmas,” he repeated unnecessarily. “This is the best time of year to focus on the good things. Frankly, I’m getting really tired of all your pessimism.”

Reed opened his mouth to object, but Seth held up a hand, palm out, to cut him off. “Just hear me out,” he said. “I’m going to make a little wager with you, to prove that I’m right and you’re wrong.”

Now Reed eyed his friend with suspicion. “What are you talking about?”

Seth settled his hands on his hips, staring at his friend with much consideration. “You insist that the bad outweighs the good in people, right?”

Reed nodded. “Didn’t I make that obvious?”

Seth ignored his question and asked instead, “You are of the opinion that man is, by nature, at best, indifferent, right?”

Another nod. “Right.”

“You think the average person is more likely to turn his back on someone in need than to lend that person a helping hand, correct?”

“Correct.”

Seth paused, then crossed his arms over his chest and eyed Reed some more. “I, on the other hand, am convinced that the good outweighs the bad, that people are, by nature, decent folk and that, if given a choice, the average person will be inclined to help out another individual in need.”

“My, what a rebel you are,” Reed responded dryly. “Hang on a second while I alert the media.”

But Seth only ignored him again. “And I’m going to bet you that I’m right and you’re wrong.”

Reed smiled. He loved betting with Seth. Because, invariably, Seth lost. He was a lousy gambler, doubtless because he was such a flagrant optimist. Optimists never came out ahead in wagers. There was no place for hope in the world of chance. But instead of leaping to agree to the other man’s offer, Reed hesitated.

“What’s in it for me, if I win?” he asked. “More important, what’s in it for you, if I lose? And just how the hell are we supposed to settle something like this anyway? It’s all abstract.”

“It’s Christmas,” Seth repeated, more emphatically this time. “That means goodwill toward humankind abounds out there right now. You sure you want to go through with this wager? Things are heavily weighed in my favor.”

“Oh, please,” Reed muttered. “Christmas makes no difference at all. People still hate each other, they’re still willing to take advantage of each other. Now more than ever, I’d bet. There must be no end to the holiday scams that arise this time of year.”

“I say you’re wrong,” Seth insisted. “I predict that within hours of our walking out of this hospital, we’ll witness some act of goodwill that was totally unprovoked.”

Reed narrowed his eyes at his friend. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that you and I—” he punctuated the statement by pointing a finger first at Reed, then at himself “—we’re going to spend the rest of the evening together. And before this evening is through, I’ll bet you that we see someone do something nice for someone else. For no other reason than that it was the right and decent thing to do, because one person cared about what happened to another.”

Reed glanced down at his watch. “There’s less than five hours left to this evening, pal,” he said. “Don’t you think you’re being a little optimistic?”

Seth smiled. “Uh, yeah. That was kind of the point, Reed. It just goes to show you how absolutely certain I am that I’ll win.”

“You’re out of your mind,” Reed assured him. “But I don’t have any problem taking advantage of a crazy man. As long as the prize is right. What do I win at the end of this evening, when you realize what a sap you’ve set yourself up to be?”

Now Seth’s smile turned predatory. “If you win—which, it goes without saying, you won’t—I’ll spring for an allexpenses-paid golf holiday in Scotland next summer. For two. You and me. Won’t cost you a dime.”

Reed thought about that for a minute. “Throw in a bottle of The MacCallan, and you’re on.”

“You got it,” Seth agreed readily. “But if I win,” he hastily continued, before Reed had a chance to start feeling cocky, “then I get something of equal value in return.”

“You want me to pay for a trip to Scotland for two? I can do—”

“No,” Seth told him. “What I want in return is for Dr. Scrooge to perform an act of humanity, of goodwill, himself. A gesture of complete selflessness and kindness.”

“What?” Reed exclaimed.

“If I win,” Seth said, “then you have to do something nice for somebody.”

Reed threw his friend a look that he knew must be ripe with suspicion. Because suspicious was exactly how he was feeling at the moment. “I have to do something nice for someone? That’s all?”

Seth barked out a laugh this time. “That’s all?” he echoed incredulously. “Listen to you. You act like it won’t cost you anything to perform an act of selfless kindness for someone.”

Reed’s suspicion compounded at the statement. “It won’t,” he told the other man.

Seth smiled, a smile that was knowing, confident and a bit sad. “Then how come you’ve never done something nice for anyone before?” he asked softly.

Reed opened his mouth to reply but realized, much to his dismay, that he had no idea what to say. He hadn’t ever done anything nice for anyone before, he thought. Had he? He tried to remember. But he honestly couldn’t come up with a single incident where he had committed an act of selfless, unprovoked, unpremeditated. niceness.

It wasn’t that he had anything against gestures of goodwill, he tried to assure himself. He just didn’t trust them. And he wasn’t a bad man. He was just a…a thoughtless man? An uncaring man? No, surely not, he told himself. He was thoughtful. He was caring. He thought and cared about…stuff. Sure, he did. It had just never occurred to him to.what was it that bumper sticker said? Commit Acts of Random Kindness and Senseless Beauty? But the reason for that was simply because he wasn’t one much for bumper-sticker philosophy, that was all.

Wasn’t it?

“I…” he began. But no more words were forthcoming.

“You what?” Seth cajoled.

“I…” Reed tried again.

“What?”

“I…I accept your wager,” he finally finished lamely. “If I lose-which I won’t,” he hastened to add, “I’ll even throw in a bottle of The MacCallan.”

Seth nodded, and Reed got the feeling the other man knew something he didn’t know himself. But all he said was, “Good. Then let’s eat.”

Two

Mindy had never been more exhausted in her entire life than she was as the dinner rush began to wind down. Boy, the first trimester had been bad enough, she thought, had had her nodding off at the worst times, in the strangest places. She’d once fallen asleep while riding the elevator to the OB-GYN’s office. She recalled reading somewhere that women were supposed to have a burst of energy in the second trimester. They were supposed to feel strong and animated and invincible, like some kind of prenatal Wonder Woman.

Mindy, however, felt more like Washer Woman.

“Order up, Mindy!”

She sighed heavily, hoisting herself up from the chair behind the counter where she’d collapsed in the hopes of stealing a minute or two off her feet. Then, when a rush of wintry wind blasted her from the door that was opening ahead of two more diners, she hugged her sweater more tightly around herself. She was almost as cold these days as she was tired. She hadn’t felt warm for five months now.

She stood up on tiptoe to pluck the Reuben sandwich and fries from the kitchen window, settling them onto her tray before reaching up to retrieve their mate, a chicken salad on whole wheat. And as she crossed the diner to present both plates to their rightful owners, another patron lifted a hand, indicating he wanted to place an order. Mindy nodded as she took care of one table before approaching the other, tugging a stubby pencil from beneath her by-now-dismembered ponytail as she made her way to the newcomer.

She smiled as she stopped by his table, so much did he resemble Santa Claus—a really skinny Santa Claus, anyway. But where Santa’s dapper red suit looked plenty warm, this guy’s attire was neither red nor dapper, nor did it look in any way warm. His tweed jacket was threadbare, his gloves more hole than wool. A knit cap covered his ears, but she couldn’t believe the man received much warmth from it.

Poor thing, she thought. It must be in the twenties out there tonight—so far, December had been unseasonably cold—and he probably didn’t have anyplace else to go. She thanked her lucky stars again that she wasn’t out on the streets—yet—and conjured the most winning smile from her arsenal.

“What can I get for you?” she asked the man.

He smiled back at her, and although he may have been cold on the outside, he certainly radiated warmth from within. “I’m celebratin’,” he said without preamble.

Mindy chuckled, so infectious were his high spirits. “Good for you,” she told him. “What’s the occasion?”

“It’s my birthday,” he replied proudly, his voice sounding rusty from disuse but happy nonetheless.

“Hey, congratulations. Is it the big three-oh?” she teased, because, clearly, it had been decades since this man had seen thirty.

He laughed and shook his head. “I’m eighty years old today, missy. Eighty! What d’ya think about that?”

“Get out!” she exclaimed, nudging his bony shoulder playfully with her elbow. “And here I thought I was going to have to card you if you asked for a beer.”

He laughed some more. “No, ma’am. I don’t touch that stuff. But I think I might like to sample some of that chili I hear they do so good here.”

Mindy nodded as she scribbled down his order. “It’s the best,” she assured him. “Evie’s special recipe, passed down through generations. What else can I get for you?”

The man’s smile dimmed some. “Maybe just a glassa water. That oughta do me.”

She started to object, started to remind him that it was his birthday and that he was entitled to celebrate with more than just a bowl of chili, then she realized that a bowl of chili was probably all he could afford to buy. And heaven only knew how long he’d been saving to manage even that for a birthday feast.

So she smiled once more, tucking her pencil back into her hair, and said, “I’ll be right back with your water.”

Among other things, she thought. She rattled the change in her pocket as she strode toward the carousel over the kitchen window. She’d had a good night tonight, considering the fact that it was Monday. Thanks to the nearby mall and hospital, Evie’s Diner always had a nice, steady stream of patrons, both from people who worked in those places and the people visiting them. Heck, Mindy had probably cleared almost twenty bucks this shift, in addition to her—very tiny, granted—wages. Still, there was no reason she couldn’t spring for a little birthday present for someone who was marking such a major milestone.

She made a few more notations to the man’s order, then clipped it onto the carousel and spun it around to the kitchen. “Order in, Tom!” she called to the cook. Then she went to the coffeepot to fill a cup of hot birthday cheer for her customer.

“The club sandwich looks good.”

Reed mumbled something in agreement to Seth’s gourmet analysis, but his attention wasn’t on the plastic-coated menu in his hand. It was on the blond, pale, exhausted-looking—and slightly pregnant—waitress on the other side of the diner, the one who seemed to be this close to falling over if one more stiff wind from outside hit her. Involuntarily, his gaze skidded over to the main entrance as two more diners strode through. He had to force himself not to shout, “Hey! Close the damned door, will ya?” or jump up to close it himself.

Fortunately, when he looked over at her again, he saw that the little blond waitress had moved behind the counter to sit down. Reed mentally willed the newcomers to take a seat in somebody else’s section and glanced down at the menu again.

Hmm…The club sandwich did look pretty good. Of course, at this point, he was so hungry that a rubber chicken with a wax apple stuck in its mouth would look good.

“No, the French dip, I think,” Seth was saying.

But again, Reed’s attention had been diverted, because wouldn’t you know it, those two idiots who had just come in had indeed sat down at one of the exhausted-looking waitress’s tables, and she was making her way toward them now.

He felt he could honestly say that he’d never met a weak woman in his entire life. Never. The doctors and nurses of the feminine persuasion who surrounded him at the hospital were in no way fragile, in no way weak. On the contrary, they were the hardiest, sturdiest people he knew, both physically and emotionally. And the women in his family, both Atchisons on his father’s side and Thurmons on his mother’s side, had been uncommonly stalwart. Strong-willed, strong-minded, strongtempered.

Which maybe explained why he couldn’t take his eyes off of the waitress who seemed to be none of those things. She was an alien creature of sorts, a fragile female. And something inside Reed—something he had never felt before in his entire life—surged up out of nowhere, nearly overwhelming him. A desire to protect her, he marveled. To take care of her. That was what the something welling up inside him was. She was a total stranger, he tried to remind himself. And probably not quite as fragile as she appeared.

Still…

He shook off the incomplete rumination as he watched her. In spite of her obvious exhaustion and her faintly rounded belly, she moved with certainty and purpose. And even though she looked ready to collapse, she stood firm—even smiled a little—as she scribbled down an order on her pad and moved away from the table. She joked with the elderly man seated in the booth across from Reed and Seth, and her laughter sounded robust enough as it warmed the room around her.

And still Reed couldn’t quite take his eyes off of her. Still, he felt compelled to do something—he had no idea exactly what—to ease her fatigue.

He told himself it was because she was pretty, in a pale, fragile kind of way, and any man worth his weight in testosterone would just naturally respond to that. But there must be something else, too, he mused. Because he’d been around women who were prettier than she was, women who wore much-more-attractive outfits than a yellow polyester waitress uniform and sneakers. And they hadn’t come close to capturing his attention the way this woman had.

She was pretty, though. And she smiled a lot. And even though she seemed fragile, there was something about her that indicated she probably could take care of herself just fine. That maybe she had been taking care of herself for some time now. He supposed looks could be deceiving. And after all was said and done, she really was none of his business.

Still, he thought, she was pretty.

“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.”