Playing Doctor

Manny and his balled fists passed by the stethoscope that hung in the window. With the afternoon light glinting off its bell, it appeared to be winking at him. Tauntingly.

The door slammed behind him, and he muttered a quick apology to Mrs. Swety, who had one phone cradled between her cheek and shoulder while she texted on another phone.

Nails still indenting his palms, Manny charged toward the second door down the hallway.

“She’s in with a patient, hon!” called Mrs. Swety, sounding aggressively tickled, as usual.

“Yes, yes,” Manny said as he hovered in front of Flo’s door. His hand was poised, but the fierceness he’d been containing like a grenade now seemed to dissipate. “Argh!” He clenched his hands again and reminded himself what she did. And the battle-readying fire returned.

“Manny?” Flo asked, turning to him as he entered.

Flo sat at her desk, in her white lab coat. A stack of papers in front of her and her purple pen uncapped beside them meant she was in her diagnostic mindset. The one that required a grape-smelling writing utensil, a couple of Hershey kisses, and her brilliant can-do-it resolve.

“You lied to me.” Manny’s voice shook, like he was stepping out onto a trampoline for the first time as a young boy. He shook his head to clear the static and tried again, channeling his father this time. His father could get quite forceful from inside the bathroom - when responding to incessant knocks. “You lied to me, Flo.”

“About?” Flo tossed a blonde braid over her shoulder and tapped her chin. She was apparently aiming to channel an inconspicuous energy, but instead came across as a big-eyed cartoon villain.

For the past three hours, Manny had practiced pacing his words while controlling his breathing. This had looked like a lot of self-talk (“cool it down, tiger”), some diaphragm exercises, and of course finger wagging and scribbling in his journal. It was common knowledge that if he got too worked up, the inhaler would need to join the conversation. And if the inhaler came out, Flo would use his weakness to her advantage, because she was a genius mastermind.

“I needed to get some shots today,” Manny said, as prepared. “Dr. Gnu administered these shots, Flo. And while he did, I discussed with him what he did to become the physician he is today. He told me all about the schooling, all about the tests, all about the family that he didn’t get to eat dinners with. Flo, all those exams you did on me? All those innocent procedures? You are not a—”

“Doctor!” called a voice from behind the curtain in the corner of the room.

Flo held up a finger to Manny and turned toward the voice. “Mrs. Boggins? What is it?”

“You didn’t stitch me up, and I’m not feeling so good.”

Manny threw up his hand, as if his outrage was causing the ceiling to crumble. “You’re cutting open patients now?”

Flo appeared a little pale; the finger she used to silence Manny quickly became an unsteady hand. She reached for him, like she had when they’d met at the park all those years before. “Manny, I just want to help others, you know that.”

“I love you,” Manny cried, forgetting his hours of assertiveness training. “But this is unethical!”

“I can see my organs,” Mrs. Boggins said faintly.

“Help me, dear?” Flo asked, continuing to reach for him. Her bright blue eyes held oceanic promises of summertime sweetness and laughter.

Like a scalpel tore his seams, the air that had inflated Manny’s indignation came whistling out until he was just flappy skin. No more betrayal and adrenalin, just his skeleton and his adoration for Flo. She was his clever and highly-immoral girlfriend, but he was allergic to tuna fish – so no one was perfect in their relationship.

Together, they threw back the curtain and took in Mrs. Boggins. With limbs sprawled on the bed, she was covered in what looked like white chunks of gauze, and her stomach had been sliced open. The hole gaped like the mouth of a desperate fish out of water, seeming to ooze the most vibrant of shiny reds; Manny was reminded foggily of cherry Kool-Aid, which he could taste and smell as if he’d enjoyed a glass just yesterday. Mrs. Boggins’ glossy faraway eyes were trained up at the ceiling, but one arm dangled from the table and pawed for them. She was clearly in shock.

Flo stumbled toward the patient and cooed reassurances. Her glances to Manny screamed for assistance.

“Cool it, tiger,” Manny found himself whispering. His trembling fingers pulled the inhaler from his pocket, and he took two puffs. With a quick holstering, the inhaler returned to his jeans, and the tiger was officially iced down and ready for action.

“We need to stop the blood and stitch her back up,” he said.

Manny helped Flo out of her lab coat and wrapped it around Mrs. Boggins' torso. He leaned down and rubbed her knuckles, caressed the hairiness of them, and he told her that she was going to be okay.

“I can’t sew her back up,” Flo said softly, drifting back toward the curtain. “You were right about me. I’m a fraud.”

“No.” Manny pointed at her, while his other hand applied pressure to Mrs. Boggins. “You may have lied about being a doctor, and you may have diagnosed me with illnesses that I actually do not have, and—”

“Performed open-heart surgery on you?” Flo added, cringing.

Manny picked a freckle on Flo’s nose to focus on, steadying his legs. The urgency of the situation was almost as heavy against his shoulders as the realization that he was going to love this girl through many, many more emergencies. Whether it was his body cut open or someone else’s, she would always possess a special knack for rearranging his guts and proving there was nothing he could do about it.

“You’re Flo,” he said. And he told her, like his father would demand of him while the old man was on hour two of toilet-time: “Whatever it is, you take care of it.”

“Go get me my sewing kit, dear,” Flo said.

------

Shoulder to shoulder, Manny and Flo sat next to the floral curtain. Manny had his inhaler on his lap, while Flo’s purple pen lay uncapped beside her. Red sparkled from Flo’s forehead and glimmered against the gauze-type fuzz in her hands.

“Kiss,” Manny said, and Flo handed him a chocolate. Then he asked her, “So, what do you think? Is Mrs. Boggins going to be okay?”

Flo sighed. “Nah, she’s dead.”

A light tippity-tap on the door sounded before Mrs. Swety popped her head into the room. She held her cell phone away from her mouth for one moment. “Manny, hon, your mom is waiting out front.” The door stayed ajar as she headed back down the hall, with her chipper voice reaching them still. “Oh, Perry, you should see them . . . so cute when they have their playdates. With her little teddy bear as her patient, and—what’s that? Oh, the Kool-Aid is not going to stain, and . . . no it’s all perfectly normal behavior for children.”

Manny wiped a smudge of cherry from Flo’s cheek with a smile. “See you tomorrow?”

“We’ll bury Mrs. Boggins in the backyard next to the others, dear.”

There was a clank from the kitchen as Mrs. Swety swore. “Oh, don’t be so uptight, Perry!”