Dahlia

“Dr. Ralph Little will see you now.”

Oh God, it was happening. I glanced up to see the secretary that had taken my name standing in the doorway. Her office was right between the waiting room and the head of Health and Safety for the Dallas Cowboys. I adjusted my suit jacket. I had purchased it from White House Black Market on a whim when I had landed at the airport just to get a little confidence flowing.

I nodded and stood up, allowing my stomach to roll with the storms of anxiety and the rumble of anticipation. This was my first job outside of my fellowship, and I was determined to get it. “Thank you.” My trembling lips wrapped very oddly around that phrase as if they didn’t recognize it.

I smoothed out my black pants and followed her through the small islet she called an office. She paused in front of the Dr. Little’s door long enough to knock. When she opened it, I caught sight of the man sitting at his desk, a white coat on over his white button down and black tie ensemble. His crusted lips stretched into a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes as he stood up and extended a hand to me.

I brushed past the secretary, a tight smile on my face as I shook his hand. “Nice to meet you-“

“-Pleasure.” We both said at the same time.

He sat back down behind his desk, gesturing at the chair on the other side. I let my eyes drift as he pulled out what I recognize was my resume and started pouring over it, an expensive-looking pen in hand. My gaze landed first on his wrinkled fingers, his thick, bushy eyebrows, his grey hair. Then, to his desk, the bachelor’s of science, medical doctor and residency certificates displayed in sturdy, oak frames for all to see.

He cleared his throat when he looked up at me again.

I widened my eyes and tried to seem open. Someone told me that I had a beautiful smile, once; it would take me places.

“So, tell me why you decided to become a doctor.”

I huffed a quick breath and retrieved the organized answer from my file of interview questions. I had built it over years of being asked this question by recruiters and admissions committees. “I’ve always wanted to help people.” I made sure it was punctuated with a smile.

His face never moved. “But of course, you know that’s not the only way to do it. Why, specifically, medicine?”

I nodded. “Because I’m a talented, studious person. And this is the way to take my whole self and put it into something I care about.”

He nodded, smirking at the confident answer. “So, why sports?”

Because, my first love, surgery, died to me after I couldn’t make a good residency. “I love sports.” I lied through my teeth.

He took a sip from the cup of water I just noticed sitting next to his desktop. I only had a second to wonder why he hadn’t offered me one when he said, “What do you like most about sports medicine?”

That I’m overqualified. “The athletes. I think it's amazing to watch them defy physical possibilities and to be apart of it.”

He raised one of those bushy eyebrows, clueing me in on the fact that I was exactly on point. “So, what has been your biggest challenge as a doctor?”

“Well, I take my job very seriously. I always try to do the right thing.”

“And that’s a challenge, why?”

“Because not everyone is like that. And not everything is so very black and white.”

“Well, that is very insightful.”

I raised an eyebrow, anticipating the next question. The pounding of my heart had subsided. This was going as well as any interview might.

“So, in any given situation, how do you decide what is right or wrong?”

This had taken an unexpected turn, but I tried not to make that evident on my face. I trusted my years of training to expect the unexpected to keep me composed. I proceeded with the answer as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “I always ask what my dad would say. If I can’t explain it to him with a smile, I shouldn’t do it.”

He pursed his lips in thought. “Well, that seems like a foolproof method.”

There was a sinister gleam in his eyes that gave me an unfamiliar and uncomfortable chill. He closed my file and folded his hands on top of it. “So, what would your father say about you working for the NFL?”

I gulped. This organization had a long and colorful history of bending the rules. Enough books and newspaper articles had told me that there was a culture of superiority and lawlessness within these metaphorical walls. This was the hard question, the one I rarely asked myself because the answer was so laughable. “Well, he’s dead. But if he were here, he’d say they’d be lucky to have me.”

There was a dense silence right before his crusty lips stretched into a smile. He let out a slow round of applause. “Wow. What an answer.” He started shifting in his chair, telling me it was about time for me to stand up.

We both stood at the same time, and he gestured for me to follow him to the door. “From an impressive candidate as well.”

It was the after statement that really told me what he thought.

He opened the door for me and gestured for me to leave. I turned to give him one last hopeful look before he shut the door in my face. I nodded at the secretary as I passed through her small office and re-entered the waiting room, where another candidate sat crossing and uncrossing his legs over and over again.

My interview with the Dallas Cowboys was my last order of business before I got back on the plane to Iowa City, where I had just served as a resident of Iowa State General. I obediently answered the anxious calls from my mother as I got off the plane. I told her that my interviews went great and that we all just had to wait.

The next week, I spent most of my days in my drafty, cosmopolitan apartment in the city center, enjoying my days off as I waited on call-backs. It had been years since I had more than a couple of days to myself that weren’t over a holiday and I enjoyed the quiet. It wasn’t more than a week before I was standing in my kitchen drinking my second cup of coffee and getting a call from Dallas.

“Hello?” My heart had already started fluttering.

“Dr. Waters?”

It was some secretary. “This is Alexis from the office of the Dallas Cowboys Health and Safety.”

My eyes widened. “Yes?”

“We are pleased to tell you that we would like to offer you the position.”

“Thank you!” I listened to the rest of her instructions through a kind of daze as the butterflies in my stomach fluttered with the thoughts of my whole new life in Texas.

***

I stretched my neck to catch a glimpse of my flight on the automated television screens.

“Dahlia.” James, my boyfriend of three years, squeezed my hand as he stood next to me, his eyes on the screens too.

After committing the number of the gate to memory, I turned to face him. “Don’t worry.”

He shoved his glasses up higher on his face, the loose frames sliding back down almost immediately. He was too set in his ways and too socially lazy to suffer the afternoon at the eye doctors necessary to get himself a new pair. “I’m not worried.” He said the words a little too fast.

I planted a kiss on his cheek trying not to think about the next time I would feel his skin beneath my lips. “I can feel your anxiety,” I whispered.

He frowned, the lines around his lips solidifying even more. He had the kind of wrinkles that happen prematurely through unnecessary strain. “Don’t worry about it. I’m excited for you.”

He didn’t have to lie like that. Still, I squeezed his hand again. It was my job to see through his words. I had to start the conversation he really wanted to have but was too afraid to initiate. “You can come visit me whenever you want.”

He scoffed. “That just depends on the money.” He was being spiteful. I knew with his job as an analyst, a $500 flight every once in a while was not going to break his bank.

“Right.” I wished he didn’t have to be like this on my last morning with him. I glanced at my watch. I was approaching the 45-minute mark. It was time for me to at least start the trek through security. I glanced over at my mother, who stood a couple of paces off, clutching her oversized sweater tightly around herself. She glanced this way and that, her phone nudged in her right hand as if she were expecting a call. It was so hard for her to simply be in a place. “Mom!”

She jogged over in that instant. “Right, then. Is it time now?”

I cocked my head to one side, wrapping my arms around her. Her soft skin caressed my cheek. “Don’t worry. I’m gonna be fine.”

She nodded as I pulled away, stretching her pink lips into a half-hearted smile. “I know. I’m used to this now.”

I raised an eyebrow. She was referring to the time she sent me off to college, then the time I went off to medical school, then my residency, my fellowship and now.

She let out a weak cough. “I just wished you didn’t have to keep going away like this.”

“We have already talked about this.” My eyes were starting to water.

“I know. I know.” She gave me another tight hug.

I turned and landed right in James’s arms. He gave me several squeezes before he held me at arm’s length, his brown eyes scanning my face as if committing it to memory. His hands slipped to my hips before he drew me in for a kiss. It was the kind of thing that didn’t happen as often as it should, the kind of thing that we planned and over thought and contemplated once it was over.

As I walked farther and farther away from them and towards the gate, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of relief. It washed over me like a cold ocean spray on a scalding, hot day.