“Do you see that a lot around here?” she continued with a laugh meant to sound playful but veered closer to psycho.
The woman turned away from the screen. “No,” she answered with the pleasantness of a slug.
Wait! That wasn’t fair to slugs. There had to be some pleasant ones out there.
“I need to ask you a few questions, Mrs. Jensen-Marks,” Nurse Joyce said, squinting at a piece of paper in the chart.
“Go ahead.”
Joyce pursed her lips. “A lot has changed for you. Last time you were here, under relationship status, you circled single, then wrote in that the doctor may need to clear the cobwebs because it had been so long since you’d gotten any.”
Gah! That’s what she’d written last year, and Dr. Rosenstein thought it was hilarious.
Georgie smoothed her potato sack gown. “Well, that’s certainly not the case now.”
Jordan perked up and tossed her a little wink. “I can attest to that. There are no cobwebs in my wife’s lady parts, and Georgie’s all about getting some these days.”
Sweet Jesus! Did he think he was helping?
“And you’re married now, I see,” Joyce continued.
“Yes, just last month,” she confirmed, grateful to move on to a less embarrassing subject.
The nurse raised an eyebrow. “Shotgun wedding, I assume?”
Georgie gasped. “No! Goodness, no! Getting pregnant wasn’t even on our radar during that time.”
“Were you having sex?” A smirk pulled at the corners of Joyce’s lips.
Georgie knew where this was going. Oh, how she needed Nurse Gina! Gina would have been all high fives and sweet giggles upon hearing about her recent wedding, not hardened features and disapproving glares.
A bead of sweat ran down her back. “Yes, we engaged in sexual activity.”
There! She’d make it sound clinical—like something you’d read in a nature magazine. Nobody begrudged animals for getting some!
“Were you using protection consistently?” Joyce asked in a tone that said she already knew the answer—which was pretty damn clear when one made an appointment for a pregnancy check.
Georgie shifted in the chair as another bead of perspiration slid down her spine. “Define consistently.”
The crabby nurse scribbled a note. “I’ll take that as a no.”
Georgie turned to her husband, who winced. Even he knew this wasn’t going well. With her eyes, she asked him to swoop in and say something funny or charming. Anything to make her look less like an irresponsible woman whose wedding ceremony had included firearms.
“Alcohol consumption?” the nurse asked.
“Only a glass of champagne at our wedding,” Georgie answered.
Jordan took her hand and tossed her another wink. “And with all the pineapple juice Georgie’s been downing, she might just have a piña colada in her belly.”
Oh, Jordan!
The nurse frowned. “So, you’re binge drinkers?”
“No! Nothing of that sort,” Georgie answered.
“My wife’s right! On our honeymoon, we didn’t touch any alcohol.”
She breathed a sigh of relief, but Jordan wasn’t done.
“You see, I wouldn’t have been able to keep up with my wife’s sex drive if I’d ingested alcohol. I needed to be at peak performance. It got pretty wild, if you know what I mean,” he added, tossing Joyce a wink.
Did he think he was helping? She looked like a binge-drinking sex maniac!
Georgie adjusted her potato sack. It was time to shift gears.
“Will Gina be back soon?”
“Who?” Joyce grunted.
“Nurse Gina. She usually goes through all the health questions with me,” she answered, praying her favorite nurse was in the vicinity.
“Oh, her. She moved to France with her boyfriend, Pierre. She told everybody some blog taught her how to meet a nice guy,” Joyce replied flatly.
France?
And a blog that helped her find a good guy?
“How lovely for her,” Georgie answered with a pinched grin.
She wanted to be happy for the woman. It was most likely her advice that helped the kind Gina find love. But now, she detested this Pierre for taking the compassionate nurse and leaving her with this grouchy sourpuss. She wanted to kick herself for suggesting Gina check out the blog in the first place.
Was this a little selfish?
She glanced at the scowling Joyce.
Nope, she was all for selfish at the moment.
“It’s poppycock!” the crabby nurse remarked.
“What’s poppycock?” she asked, treading lightly. And who still used the word poppycock?
Joyce turned toward them. “All that internet mumbo jumbo! All those talking heads, filling the void with nonsense.”
“Not all of it is nonsense. There are places with helpful information, like CityBeat,” Jordan offered.
Joyce reared back. “Did you say city freak? Is that a porn site?”
Jordan waved his hands. “No, no! Not freak! Beat. Beat with a b. Like, ‘Beat It.’”
The poor man was zero for two in the spell-it-out department.
“Beat it?” the woman gasped in horror.
“It’s a song—an old popular pop song,” her husband stammered, his crimson cheeks matching his red scratch.
Joyce looked ready to call the cops and report a pervert in the building when somebody tapped out a cheery knock on the door. Before the addled nurse could request backup, a man with glossy blond hair and cheekbones for miles entered the room. He flashed a smile that glinted in the light like a toothpaste commercial.
Who the heck was this made-for-TV doctor?
“Joyce, you delightful creature, I’ll take it from here,” the man purred, sending another dazzling smile toward the grouch.
He was like Baywatch meets ER with a dash of General Hospital flare thrown in.
“That’s your gynecologist?” Jordan asked under his breath.
“I don’t know who this is,” she whispered back.
The TV doctor flashed his pearly whites. “Let me help you out with that. I’m Chad Beaver, MD. And you two must be Georgiana and Jordan—or else I’m in the wrong exam room. Wouldn’t be the first time that happened, would it, Joyce?”
The nurse replied with a surly harrumph.
“Forgive me for asking,” the doctor continued, oblivious to Joyce’s discontent. “But aren’t you the More Than Just a Number CityBeat couple?”
“That’s us,” Jordan answered with a grin.
“Joyce, we’ve got internet royalty in our office. Isn’t that exciting?” the doctor remarked.
The nurse’s eyes went wide, likely thinking they were part of the internet porn industry.
One thing was for damn sure—they weren’t winning any points with Joyce today.
Georgie glanced around the tiny room, hoping Nurse Gina and Dr. Rosenstein would materialize. Could she be hallucinating? Could an overabundance of pineapple cause delusions? She shook her head, trying to clear the gynecological mirage, but Dr. Beaver and Nurse Scowl were still there.
“Where’s Dr. Christine Rosenstein? I always see her,” Georgie stammered.
“Dr. Rosenstein got married about six months ago,” the man answered.