Page 48 of Summer Reading

She made a face. “Seems painful.”

“Okay, then we could get some really cool hats. You’d look adorable in a beanie.”

“Without eyebrows?”

“We can draw them on, angry ones if you want. If not hats, you can get some supercool wigs,” I suggested. She looked distraught. “Now just hear me out. Dolly Parton has like three hundred and sixty-five wigs, one for every day of the year.”

“I am not Dolly Parton,” she said. She waved a hand in front of her diminutive chest.

“Well, no, but she’s a big promoter of literacy, so you have that in common,” I said.

Em laughed. “Yeah, me and Dolly Parton, I can see where people would get us confused.”

I smiled at her, relieved that her panic seemed to have ebbed.

“Emily Allen?” a woman in scrubs called from the door.

We both glanced up, and then Em scrambled to pick up her things.

“Do you want me to come back there with you?” I asked.

“Would you mind?” she asked.

“Not at all,” I said. I felt like this was very altruistic of me, because the truth was I hated doctor’s offices. In my world, they were to be avoided at all cost. I was most definitely of the “rub some dirt on it and get back in the game” school of medicine.

The woman in scrubs took the clipboard. I held Em’s handbag and book while she was weighed and had her blood pressure taken. We were shown into a tiny exam room, where we waited for what happened next.

Em sat on the paper-covered patient table while I took one of the two plastic chairs. I tried to think of things to say that might calm her down, but I was drawing a blank.

“Read any good books lately?” I asked.

Em turned her head away from the human anatomy poster she was studying, and looked at me. A small laugh bubbled out of her. Maybe it was nerves, but her laugh got bigger and bigger until I was laughing at her laughter, and not because I’d said anything particularly funny.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” she gasped as her laughter wound down.

“Me, too,” I said.

A knock sounded on the door, and we straightened up. A petite woman entered the room. She was middle-aged, judging by the silver just starting to appear in her black hair. She wore glasses and carried herself with an air of no nonsense.

“Good morning, Emily,” she said.

“Hi, Dr. Ernst,” Em said.

Dr. Ernst looked at me with one eyebrow raised in question.

“Hi, I’m Samantha Gale, a friend of Emily’s,” I said.

“I appreciate you being here.” She smiled at me, and it was a warm and gentle smile. Then she said, “You’re not squeamish, are you?”

“Nah, I’m a chef,” I said. “I once butchered an entire cow.”

She blinked at me. “Well, okay then.” She turned back to Emily. “Now, you know how I feel about this procedure. A biopsy is serious, and there is always a risk for complications.”

“I understand,” Em said.

“When we get the results, we are going to have to have a real conversation about your situation,” Dr. Ernst said.

“Yes, ma’am,” Em said.

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