This morning Hannah began her day in much the same way I did—feeling tired and despondent, with little motivation to spare. Perhaps that is what drew me to her today. I am glad it was so, because now both of us have had our spirits lifted.
Hannah had just come out of the break room when she heard her friend John saying, “Oh, here she is.” Automatically she sighed, thinking he was bringing her yet another problematic patient—there seem to have been many this morning—but something in his tone made me think that this was not the case.
We turned together and were met with an enormous profusion of color and texture. Blinking, Hannah took a step back and lifted her eyes from the bouquet to Jack’s slightly sheepish face.
“I have a friend who runs a flower shop,” he said, “and he told me I could take whatever I wanted from the leftovers after Valentine’s. Too much?”
The bouquet was enormous, and rather striking. It seemed to Hannah that every color of the rainbow was represented. “It’s—” She struggled to find something both honest and kind to say.
“Yeah, too much,” Jack sighed, lowering it a bit. “I knew it. I was going to wait until Trip had time to help me out, but he’s going to be busy for another week yet, and I thought if I left you without a major apology for too long, I’d miss out on a really good thing.” He smiled at Hannah.
She did not know what to say. When he canceled their date the other day, she thought that it was a brush-off, that he had reconsidered his attraction to her. This evidence that he has not, in fact, reconsidered, startled her into silence.
I, however, could see even more clearly than she could that his interest is genuine. I took a step closer to her to give her courage and guide her words.
“Well, I’m glad I didn’t scare you off entirely,” she said. “I guess a double date on Valentine’s Day was too much pressure for a first date.”
“I was up for the challenge, had the circumstances been better,” Jack said quickly, “and I would love to accept another such challenge from you very soon.”
“Dr. Valdez?” one of the nurses called from down the hall. “Are you off break?”
“Be there in a minute,” Hannah replied over her shoulder. She looked at Jack’s hopeful face, laughed, and took the monstrosity of flowers from him. “I get off in six hours.”
“A perfect time for a late dinner, if you’re not too tired,” Jack said, grinning. “Meet you in the lobby?”
“I’ll be there,” Hannah said. She blew a trailing strand of green out of her face and laughed again. “And I’ll teach you what flowers are Valdez-approved.”
He got the door for her, watched as she stuffed the flowers with water into a fried chicken bucket fished out of the trash, and then kissed her on the cheek before going off down the hall, whistling. That tune got stuck in Hannah’s head, and throughout the day she would hum it and smile to herself.
I should go back to check on them now, to see how the first date is going. It seems, however, that they are already off to a good start.