Page 40 of Anatomy of a Meet Cute
“I don’t know ...” Jehan wrinkled her nose as she processed.
“Really. Happy to help with all that. Plus, I love invitations and decor and guest lists and all that stuff. And I’m doing them for my mom’s party anyway, so my helping you is really just more efficient,” Sam said, lying ever so slightly to her friend. In reality, she knew almost nothing about that stuff outside what her high school best friend’s mother, Dr.Victoria Blake, housekeeping and party planner extraordinaire, had taught her.
Jehan blinked at her for a minute, then grinned big enough to show all her teeth before saying, “Oh, thank you!”
“Anytime.” Sam counted her blessings. Jehan was clearly exhausted. Otherwise, she would have known that Sam was lying. “Just send me what you need, and I’ll let you know when it is done.”
“Of course. I’ll send it over as soon as I finish forcing vegetables down my throat.” Jehan giggled, looking lighter than Sam had seen her all week.
“Excellent,” Sam said, standing up and walking toward her room. “I’m gonna go change outa this suit and then email Kaiya about the funding.”
“Good luck. Let me know if you need help shouting the good news,” Jehan called as Sam walked down the hall.
“Don’t worry about me. Just worry about sending me your lists.” Sam smiled over her shoulder as she hustled into her room.
She had just shed the uncomfortable waistband of her skirt and pulled her laptop out from its cubby by her bed when her phone buzzed. When she looked down, Sam’s heart flipped around in her chest as Grant’s name scrolled across the screen.
Dr.Franklin is looking for volunteers to chart records this afternoon. If you offer to help, he might be nicer when you ask him for a room for the program.
Sam felt herself smile as the little...that implied he was still typing blinked at her. This was a Grant she recognized. Before she would have seen this text as the frosty work of a man who was a little too perfect for his own good. Now she wasn’t so sure. He’d downplayed the way he’d prepared for their meeting, instead trying to guide her in his own quiet way. Sam pursed her lips and was trying to think of how best to respond when his texts arrived one after the other.
Just a tip. Of course, you do not have to work on your day off.
And congratulations, again. :-)
Sam almost laughed. She could practically see him grimacing as he typed the most uncharacteristically Grant thing in the world—a smiley face. He must really want her to know that he was trying to help. Still smiling, she typed back.
Couldn’t have done it without you.
After hitting send, she quickly added a:-)to the chain, just so that he wouldn’t be left feeling foolish for sharing a small emotion. Sam held her phone in her hands for just a moment, fighting the urge to reread his text like it was a precious message, but the time caught her eye.1:42 p.m.If she was going to catch Dr.Franklin in order to volunteer, she needed to get a move on.
Chapter Eleven
If this doula program was successful, Sam decided her next fundraising effort would focus on helping the hospital update its software so that no one ever had to manually enter another patient chart into the system again. As soon as she’d received her assignment, Sam had tried to get a moment of Dr.Franklin’s time to no avail: he’d rushed off to a meeting and then taken a seemingly endless number of phone calls—which Sam knew because she casually walked by his office every forty-five minutes just to see if he was available.
Rounding the corner, she paused just outside the door to listen for Dr.Franklin on the phone and instead heard the promising sounds of furious typing. This was a good sign. Shaking out her hands as if that would also shake out her nerves, she leaned around the half-open door and knocked.
“Hi, Dr.Franklin. Got a minute?”
Dr.Franklin’s head jerked up in surprise, and he blinked at her three times, as if he were getting his bearings. Reaching under his blue-light-reflecting computer glasses, he rubbed his eyes and said, “Yes. Hello, Samantha. Come in. How can I help?”
“Thanks.” Sam took a tentative step in and reminded herself that she did not need to feel bad for interrupting him. In fact, she’d just gotten the hospital almost a quarter of a million dollars in grant money. If it were her on the receiving end of that news, she’d be jumping forjoy. “I know you got my email with the good news about the funding for the birthing program.”
“Uh-huh.” Dr.Franklin nodded. He didn’t look like he remembered this email at all.
Undeterred, Sam powered through. “Anyway, it looks like this program can officially take off. We just need a space—”
“Oh, I remember. This is the thing with the woo-woo birthing people.”
“You mean the program to make pregnancy support available to all people in our community?” She was trying to keep the irritation from her voice. She was also aware that she was failing. There were plenty of charlatans in the medical field, but what Sam was proposing wasn’t quackery. There was no need for Dr.Franklin to act like she was shilling $1,000 magnets to desperate people.
“Sure.” Dr.Franklin shrugged as if the details were irrelevant to his analysis, then said, “Isn’t today your day off? Why are you here?”
“Grant—I mean Dr.Gao—mentioned that you were looking for volunteers, and I thought,Well, I care about this place, and I need to talk to Dr.Franklin, so why not?” Sam shrugged, trying not to be taken aback that the attending even looked at the schedule, let alone knew when she was supposed to be in the hospital.
“All right, I get it. You care.” Dr.Franklin rolled his eyes and waved her off, but his expression had gone from exhausted to amused. “Enough blowing smoke. You came here to ask me to help you cut through all the red tape and find the program a room?”
“More or less.” Sam laughed. “We can share the room with another office; it just needs to be one that can transition into a classroom space or offer a bit of privacy for the doulas.”
