Just What the Doctor Ordered

Chapter 1-2

When he came home, Lee surprised me with a dozen roses and a bottle of champagne the same color as the flowers. He planted a kiss on my cheek. “Because I knew you could do it.” At thirty-four he still had the willowy look of a young Samurai about him, his body slim like his Chinese ancestors but tall—his American father in him. His hands and feet were large and reminded me of modern, anime-influenced comic art. He wore his jet black hair cut short over ears that were just a hint too big. In the last year or so, though, short gray wires crept up on his temple, and fine lines started to etch themselves into the soft skin at the corner of his dark eyes. Whenever he turned toward me, his thin lips widened into his trademark grin and his small nose seemed to disappear to nothing more than a smudge in the middle of his face.

He’d found me in the sunroom, standing over the gas grill with plastic tongs in one hand and a plate full of shrimp kabobs in the other. Two thick sirloins sizzled on the grill. Earlier I had run out to the grocer’s and bought the steaks, shrimp, and the red wine chilling in a bucket of ice by the hot tub. Bubbles brimmed in the tub as if I had filled it with champagne instead of water. The steaks hadn’t been cooking for more than five minutes and already I couldn’t wait to strip down and slip into the steaming water, if only to sluice off the grease splattered on my arms and face.

Now that Lee was home, with flowers even, I didn’t intend on getting into that hot tub alone. “You just want to get lucky tonight,” I teased.

Dropping the bottle of bubbly into the ice with the wine, Lee came up behind me and eased an arm around my waist. With a playful nip at my neck, he said, “You say that like it’s a bad thing. Will it work?”

Over my shoulder I gave him a sardonic look, enough to make him grin. “I’ll take that as a reluctant yes.”

“There’s nothing reluctant about it. Since when have I needed convincing?” Before he could answer, I handed him the plate. Then, taking the flowers from him, I handed him the tongs as well And followed with a quick kiss on his lips. “How about taking it from here, doctor? I’ve done the prep work for you. I’ll just put these in some water—”

Lee nodded at the hot tub gurgling across the room. “There’s your water, professor.”

“We’re headed that way,” I promised.

I started to leave, already fussing with the flowers, when Lee stopped me. “Hey,”

I turned and with a slight jerk of his head, he called me over. “Congrats again,” he murmured as he kissed me, right this time. “You deserve this.”

“I know,” I joked. Another kiss, a third, and the steaks would’ve been served well done if I didn’t finally pull away. “I’ll be right out.” I ducked through the sliding door back into the house.

* * * *

We met at a charity luncheon two years ago. Richmond College sponsored the affair in an effort to raise money for the Riverside Immediate Care Clinic. As head of the English writing department I was expected to attend. The dean introduced Dr. Gui as she seated him at my table. “Ga-way,” she said, looking at Lee to make sure she pronounced it right. With a haughty wave of her hand, she told me, “He’s written for a few of the more scholarly journals. Nothing creative, you understand, but I thought you two might find something in common to talk about.”

Throughout the meal, I couldn’t take my eyes off of him, the soft-spoken Asian pediatrician with an unnerving way of smiling slowly while he looked at me, as if not so much at what I said but rather at what he saw. Couldn’t have been much, I imagined. It was the same thing I saw when I looked in the mirror; disheveled hair barely presentable, a scruffy shadow of a beard that I was always too busy to shave off, thick glasses that made me look more of a nerd than a scholar.

“So you write,” he said.

I hemmed around an answer because the truth of it was that I wanted to write, I lived to write, but so far I could count the number of my completed works on one hand. I was too busy, I told him, between the coursework I took for the hell of it and the classes I taught on campus. I barely had time to breathe, let alone sit down and pound out the next great American novel.

I couldn’t read behind his enigmatic grin, but his eyes danced above his glass of Chardonnay when he suggested, “You could make time, I’m sure. You just need the right encouragement. Surely your wife…?”

He trailed off, leaving the question open. “Not married,” I said, glancing at his hand to look for a tell-tale ring, but there was none. “You?”

With a sip of his wine, he shook his head. “Marriage isn’t where my interests lie.” The way he looked at me as he said it, pointed and direct, dared me to read between the words. His slow smile eased into place. “Much,” he added, “to my mother’s chagrin. Are you alone?”

“There’s no one.” I laughed at the careful way we danced around what we both really wanted to say. “My mother would probably agree with yours. God knows I’ve heard her harp on me enough about settling down. Though this isn’t really the place to go into that—”

“How about later?” Lee suggested. He had a sly frankness about him the excited me, a bold manner that belied his shy eyes. “Over dinner, maybe? Please say yes.”

“Yes,” I laughed. Suddenly the fifty dollars I had paid for the plate and the classes I canceled to attend the luncheon didn’t seem like such a waste after all.