All at Once

“Are you sure you don’t mind driving?” I asked Sidney as soon as we were in his car. “I really am fine with taking an Uber”
“No its really not a problem, like I said, I have a meeting in the city so I’m heading that direction any way.” He replied and offered me an easy smile. Geez this guy knows how to smile I thought and gave myself a mental note to buy white strips later.
“Well thank you, its really kind of you.” I replied weakly, slightly over whelmed by how good he looked and how white his teeth were. Like seriously, there’s no way they were real. Weren’t hockey players supposed to be missing all of their teeth? ‘Ugh’ I thought to myself, being around an attractive man is exhausting.
“No problem, a friend of Marc and Veronique’s is a friend of mine. How is it you know them again? Ver mentioned you worked at the hospital?” he asked glancing over at me.
“Yeah, I’m a resident at UPMC but I met Veronique at yoga class,” I laughed, “we are literally the worst in our class and skip half the time to get coffee.”
Sidney looked a little surprised when I mentioned being a doctor, not an uncommon reaction when I tell people what I do. Having just turned 26 I was young for my class, and the fact that I wasn’t wearing any makeup probably meant I looked like I was 12. Not wanting to cause an awkward silence I quickly asked Sidney the first question I could think of.
“So how do you and Marc know each other?” I blurted out and immediately regretted my word vomit.
We both paused for a moment and looked at each other before bursting out laughing.
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t sure if we were doing that whole ‘I’m pretending I don’t know who you are even though your face is on a billboard outside my apartment’ thing or if I could bring it up at all.” I managed to get out between laughs.
Sidney tried to get out a response for a minute but kept on laughing before he could complete a full sentence out. Needless to say, the ice was broken and we spent the rest of the car ride in easy conversation with me instructing him where to turn every now and then.
As we pulled up to the curb outside my apartment building I started to get a little nervous. What are you supposed to say to a famous hockey player you just met who gave you a ride home but you’ll probably never see again? Do you hug goodbye? Could I ask him what he uses to whiten his teeth?
Deciding on a simple wave I thanked him again and focused as hard as I could on smiling nicely instead of looking constipated like James always tells me I look.
“Anytime, hopefully I’ll see you around Gabi, you’re a funny girl.” He replied and returned my wave as I climbed out of the tall car and onto the curb.
“Thank you… I think?” I thought to myself as I decided to take his statement as a compliment and watched his tail lights disappear around the corner.
With a sigh I turned around and entered our apartment building. The elevator has been broken since New Years so I took a deep breath and began my climb to the ninth floor. “So wait, you’re telling me you said ‘fuck my ass’ in front of Sydney Crosby,” Sarah cackled as we walked down the isle at Publix.
“Shhhh, not so loud,” I hushed her, glancing over my shoulder to make sure no one could over hear us talking.
“For someone who’s so smart you are painfully stupid.” Sarah teased.
As our only day off all week, Saturday was spent grocery shopping, doing laundry, catching up on sleep (aka Netflix), and relaxing as much as possible.
“Do you think James will be back when we get home?” I asked Sarah as we piled our groceries into the back of the car in a desperate attempt to turn the conversation away from myself.
“Probably, the girl he went home with was pretty but I think she had crazy eyes,” Sarah shrugged, closing the trunk. When we all started at UPMC Sarah had a bit of a crush on James. She says she’s completely over it but I can tell she’s always a little disappointed when he goes home with a random girl. I love James but Sarah is way too good for him. Maybe in a couple years he’ll grown up enough to have a real relationship but as of right now I think he would just end up breaking her heart.
“We need men in our lives,” Sarah sighed.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, I already have two.” I quibbled. When she raised her eye brows in suspicion I whipped out my carton of ice-cream. “Their names are Ben and Jerry and we couldn’t be happier,” I said causing us to burst into laughter. The rest of the car ride home was much more light hearted as we sang along to the radio and kept the windows rolled down. It was early May but the weather was just starting to turn nice so we were happy to take full advantage of the sunshine.
As soon as we got home I unloaded groceries and plopped down on the sofa and turned on the TV. Sarah and I made ourselves comfortable and began a marathon of Criminal Minds, our favorite show. About an hour in James came home and joined us. I made him shower before he sat on the couch, teasing him saying he had probably caught a disease from the girl he was with. We all took our customary positions and continued the show. James always sat on the left side of the sofa with his feel propped up on the coffee table. I sat in the middle and always ended up with my head on a pillow resting on James’s lap with my feet tucked under Sarah who sat under a blanket on the right side of the couch.
Looking to my left and right I sighed with contentment. I had my two best friends by my side and in that moment everything felt all right. Before we knew it, it was 10 and all of us started getting ready for bed, knowing we had an early morning ahead of us.
That night I had a dream that I played goalie for Pittsburg Penguins and Sidney kept on yelling at me because I kept on letting in goals. I tried to explain that I wasn’t a hockey player but the crowd kept on booing me and throwing things on to the ice. Suddenly, I woke with a start as my alarm went off. I quickly decided I liked real life Sidney much better than dream Sidney.
My week started off nearly as bad as my dream. I couldn’t find my notebook which had my patients notes in it, which meant I was late for rounds, which meant our chief resident was mad at me, which meant I was assigned to the pit for the day. The pit is the emergency room, resident form of medical purgatory where you’re stuck until you get back in the good graces of the chief resident and get assigned cases that are actually relevant to become a pediatrician. I spent the rest of my shift giving stitches, inserting iv’s, and calming down panicked patients. By the time 6 rolled around I was ready to pull my hair out.
When we got back to our apartment I tore the place apart looking for my journal. Not only did it contain patient information, it was filled with my suggested treatment plans for a ton of our kids, as well as information of research I was doing about designing a drug that could penetrate the blood brain barrier.
Right when I was about to admit defeat and beg Sarah and James to let me copy some of their notes, my phone rang. An unknown number popped up on the screen and I leaped across my bed to answer it in time.
“Hello, this is Dr. Holland speaking?” I answered, expecting it to be a former patient who I may have given my personal number to for further consultations.
There was a pause on the other line before, “Gabi? Its Sidney,” then a pause, “Sidney Crosby? I drove you home a couple days ago?” he sounded nervous.
“Oh hey Sidney, sorry I thought you were someone else. Is everything alright?” I asked confused. Also questioning his sanity if I he doesn’t think I would remember who he was. Why the heck was Sidney Cosby calling me, did I break something in his car? Was he going to sue me?
“Vero gave me your number. You left a few text books and a couple of notebooks at her house by accident and she asked me if I could drop them off on my way from practice, are you home?” he inquired sounding more confident having confirmed my identity.
“Holy cow thank God, I’ve been looking all over for those,” I sighed in relief. “I actually just got back home, do you want me to come pick them up or something? I don’t want to make you drive all the way over here again,” I offered immediately feeling guilty for making the face of the NHL play delivery man.
“Nah it’s really not a problem, I’m only a couple of minutes away, can I text you when I get there?” he asked.
“Yeah of course, I’ll meet you our front!” I answered while doing a little dance of happiness.
Before I had a chance to change out of my scrubs my phone buzzed with a text simply saying ‘here’. I shot a quick response, ‘on my way down!’ and sprinted down the nine flights of stairs to the front of my building. I immediately spotted Sidney’s Range Rover and when Sidney stepped out of his car with a stack of my books in his arm I couldn’t help but run forward and throw my arms around his neck.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” I squealed, “I’m doing research on fat soluble compounds that can surpass endothelial cells to deliver drugs to the brain and all my notes are in here” I started to explain before seeing the blank look on his face. “I’m sorry you probably don’t care. I just have some really important stuff in here that would have been really bad to lose.” I awkwardly concluded.
His face softened immediately, “it’s not that I don’t care, I just have no idea what you’re talking about,” he laughed easily before giving me a once over. “I like your outfit though, very cute,” he teased (flirted? Was Sidney Crosby flirting with me??).
“Oh geez thanks, I do my best,” I stammered out as I felt the blood rush to my cheeks and I knew my face was turning bright red. What was wrong with me.
“Well I’ve got to get going but I’m glad I got to see you again Gabi, hopefully we’ll bump into each other again,” he smiled and walked away before I even had a chance to react.
“Thank you Sidney, I officially owe you,” I called out before he closed his door.
With a nod and a wave, he pulled away from the curb and drove down the street. For the second time in a week I watched as Sidney Crosby’s tail lights disappeared around the corner. The difference was this time my stomach was full of butterflies and my cheeks were still burning red.

Notes