All at Once

The next couple of days I saw Sidney Crosby everywhere. He was on the side of the bus, smiling up at me from the flyer for a local charity run, even my favorite patient Scotty was sporting a Crosby jersey. Pittsburg had Crosby fever and it was not helping me concentrate.
Despite all the distractions I had a really good week at work. I committed myself to studying even more intensely and we were on the verge a breakthrough for my research, I could just tell. After a night shift I rolled into yoga class feeling alive and excited, something that didn’t happen often when running on 4 hours of sleep.
“Someone looks happy,” V quibbled when I rolled my yoga mat out beside her.
“Well someone figured out that receptor mediated transcytosis is more effective in penetrating the selectively permeable membrane in the brain than transferrin receptors and the molecules it transports don’t leave remains in the brain endothelial cells of capillaries, so yeah you could say I’m pretty happy,” I replied with a big grin.
“I did not understand a word you just said and I officially feel stupid.” Ver laughed lightly so I knew she was joking.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to nerd out on you, I’m just so close to a break through and I haven’t left the hospital in a couple days so my social skills are a little stunted right now.” I apologized.
“Well why don’t you work on them a little bit this weekend, do you have off on Saturday?” Ver asked.
“Yeah I actually do,” I replied, “but I have to take care of a couple thing like laundry and cleaning the apartment.”
“Oh live a little, Estelle is having her third birthday party on Saturday, you should come!” V offered, “its Circus themed so I don’t know how you could say no.”
“That actually sounds really fun,” I smiled, “I’m in,” I said grinning widely.
“Now I see what James means about you looking constipated when you smile,” Veronique teased. My mouth open and closed before I fell to the floor laughing and got reprimanded by our instructor for disrupting class.
Before I knew it I felt a foot poking my side. I opened my eyes slowly to Ver laughing down at me.
“Did I fall asleep,” I ask while rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and glancing at the empty studio.
“Yup, and you snored, “she grinned back.
Oops, guess I’m not as rested as I thought.

“Hey Sarah? James?” I called out to our apartment.
“What’s up whacky?” James replied, peaking his head out from behind my bed room door. I could see Sarah come up behind him.
“Okay first of all stop calling me that,” I said shooting him my best glare, “second of all, what do you wear to a three year old’s circus themed birthday party?” I asked, desperately staring at my closet.
“What’s the magic word?” Sarah teased me.
“Please, please, please, please,” I begged.
Twenty minutes later I was dressed in artfully ripped skinny jeans, a navy blue drop shoulder top, and a pair of strappy sandals. Sarah curled my hair and did my make up while James made fun of me for attending a three year olds birthday. In all honesty, it felt nice to get dressed up. I couldn’t remember the last time I wore mascara so the idea of going out, even if it was just to a children’s birthday party, was fun. Plus, I got to see Estelle on her birthday and give her the gift I had picked out for her in person, which made me way more excited than a respectable 26 year-olds should be.
I got to the party early to help Veronique set up. With two children of her own to look after, and a bunch of guest on the way, stress levels were running high.
“Hello birthday girl!” I exclaimed when I saw Estelle, immediately scooping her up in a hug. She giggled and hugged me back before being distracted by the gift and plate of cookies she saw tucked under my arm.
“For me?” she asked, with wide eyes.
“Estelle, avoir des manières,” her mom scolded, “you really shouldn’t have Gabi.”
“Oh it was no problem,” I said, “you only turn three once!” I teased while tickling Estelle causing her to shriek in laughter and run down the hall way. “Now put me to work before the other guest get here, what can I help with?”
I helped Veronique with simple things like putting out paper plates and blowing up balloons before getting roped into manning the face pain station.
“Oh come on, you’re literally a certified genius, how hard can face painting be?” V rationalized.
The answer was ‘pretty hard’. As the guest rolled in, it seemed like every little kid wanted their face painted with a zoo animal. Unfortunately, despite Veronique’s confidence in my ability I was not doing a very good job. After thirty minutes of failed attempts at tiger whiskers and lion noses I turned in my resignation and found a more qualified mom to take over my post.
After that fiasco the party got a lot more fun. I got to socialize with the parents of Estelle’s pre-school friends’ and won three games of pin the tail on the donkey.
Eventually, I made my way to the kitchen to scrub the remaining face paint off of my hands. As I was wiping my hands off on the kitchen towel the side door burst open and I could just make out the top of Marc’s head over the large cake box. Behind him came three more large men, all with colorfully wrapped gifts under their arms, Sidney bringing up the back.
“Need a hand Marc?” I offered while making space on the counter for him to place the cake.
“Gabi, so glad you came! Practice ran late so I’m running a little behind schedule,” he explained slightly frantically as he wrapped me in a hug. “I need to find Veronique to tell her the cake is here,” he said before rushing off to find his wife.
Slightly shell shocked I turned slowly on my heals to face the hockey players who had followed Marc in the side door. “Hi” I squeaked out as I made eye contact with Sidney. His face immediately broke into a grin as his eyes flashed with recognition.
“Gabi, hey sorry that took a minute for me to realize that was you!” he explained. For a moment it seemed like he was going to hug me as Marc had, but he must have reconsidered and ended up with a grin on his face and his hands in his pockets.
“You want to introduce us Sid?” the bulky brunette to his left asked with an inquisitive eye brow raised.
“Right sorry, boys meet Dr. Gabrielle Holland, she’s friends with Marc and Veronique. Gabi meet Kris Letang and Beau Bennett.” Sidney said.
“Hi nice to meet you guys,” I said wiping my hands dry on the kitchen towel before reaching to shake their hands. “and please, just call me Gabi,” I added with what I hoped was a charming smile.
“Nice to meet you too Doc, I’d love to stay and chat but I need to find my wife and kid before cake time.” Kris offered a warm smile as he bid our little group goodbye and headed to the living room in search of his family. I immediately decided I liked Kris Letang despite having only spent a couple moments in his presence.
The next couple of minutes I chatted easily with Sidney and Beau. We talked about how their practice went and I told them about my failed attempt at face painting. During a pause in conversation I noticed Beau’s attention shift to somewhere over my shoulder. Turning around to follow his line of sight I discovered him blatantly checking out one of Veronique’s cousins.
With a cheeky smile forming on my lips I nudged him and said, “her name’s Audrey, she’s one of Veronique’s cousins who came in from Quebec for the party. You should go talk to her, she’s really nice.”
Beau immediately turned bright red for being called out and started opening and closing his mouth in a loss for words. He glanced at Sidney and sighed when Sid gave him a nod of encouragement and a pat on the back.
“Go get her big guy,” Sidney encouraged, lightly shoving Beau’s shoulder.
“I hate you two,” Beau muttered before putting his shoulders back, pushing off of the counter and walking her direction.
Sidney and I high fived and leaned back on the counter as I let out a sigh, “ah young love,” I teased while glancing at Beau standing next to Audrey, who looked pleased by the young hockey player who had approached her.
We ended up laughing and falling back into easy conversation.
“Oh I forgot to ask you, how did your research end up going? Did the notebook help with anything?” Sidney asked sounding genuinely interested.
Surprised that he remembered anything about my research I smiled before saying, “I was actually just talking to V about it, we isolated receptor mediated transcytoses so we figured out they’re more effective at passing the barrier in the brain than transferrin receptors plus the molecules it transports don’t stay sitting in the capillaries endothelial cells. Basically, we’re moving in the right direction,” I elaborated seeing the lost look on his face.
“So what exactly does that all mean?” Sidney asked me to elaborate, and I couldn’t help but break out into another grin. If there was one thing I could talk about all day, it was science. To make things even better I was standing so close to Sidney that I could feel the heat radiating off of his body. As we continued our conversation I couldn’t help but be impressed by his thoughtful questions. He wasn’t afraid to ask me to explain something to him and he seemed to have a genuine interest in the importance of the research.
Before we could finish our discussion Veronique called everyone to the dining room for the cutting of the birthday cake. With his lop sided grin and polite manner I couldn’t help but blush when Sidney placed his hand on the small of my back, leading me to the next room over.

Notes