The Doctor's Little Girl (5 page)

The day hadn’t started off the way it should have to begin with. Andrew had gotten up, taken a shower, and gotten dressed without hearing or seeing any signs of stirring from Molly’s room. He had a cup of coffee and checked his watch; they needed to leave in a half an hour, and Molly was obviously still asleep. Part of him was annoyed by this, but another part was concerned. He remembered when things had first started to truly overwhelm Lisa, and how she had avoided the world by lying in her bed for hours. He had always thought that if he had just pushed Lisa harder, maybe she wouldn’t have started to fall apart so much. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake again.

Andrew went up to Molly’s room and knocked on the door briskly. Molly muttered something unintelligible, so Andrew opened the door and walked in. He found her curled up in a ball under the covers, her bear tucked up under her chin. Cute as it was, there was no time for this.

“Molly!” he scolded. “It’s almost time for work. Get up.” Molly groaned and moaned, rolling over onto her back. Andrew grew more impatient. “Now!” He raised his voice when he said it, and Molly snapped up, rubbing her eyes groggily.

“I’m tired,” she whined.

“I don’t care,” Andrew told her coldly. “It’s a work day. You have somewhere that you need to be, don’t you?” Molly glanced at the clock.

“Oh my gosh!” she muttered, hopping out of bed and starting to strip her nightshirt off without even letting Andrew get out of the room. He caught a glimpse of her peachy nipple as she turned away from him and, despite his curiosity, quickly left the room.

He went downstairs and finished another cup of coffee while Molly rushed around. She emerged looking less than ideal, but still professional enough that he could bring her along. Her hair was frizzy and her face was still lined with pillow creases, and she had put on her old shoes instead of the new ones, obviously because she hadn’t remembered that her good shoes were downstairs where she had left them when she kicked them off watching TV the night before.

In the car, they drove in silence, the car filled with a mix of annoyance and disappointment. Molly didn’t even seem the least bit sheepish, and in fact returned the vibes that Andrew was giving her, seeming like she was grumpy to have been awakened and unhappy about having to go to work. When they got to the office, she headed straight to the break room for a cup of coffee instead of greeting Samantha, who had arrived before them. Andrew gave her a quick hello and then headed to his office to try to get into a normal mood before his first patient arrived for the day.

He didn’t see much of Molly during the day when they were at the office, since she was sitting behind the front desk and he was always either in his office or the exam room, but when he was going to go ask Samantha and Molly what they wanted him to order for lunch, he noticed that Steve Barker, another drug representative, was at the door.

Steve was a rep that Andrew enjoyed seeing: his friendliness was legitimate, and he came by often to drop off free samples. The drugs that he primarily promoted were very good ones that Andrew was happy to prescribe, so meeting with Steve wasn’t a chore. He hung back by his office, thinking that he would probably be visiting with Steve before he took care of lunch. Samantha was on the other side of the room looking for a chart, so Molly greeted him when he entered.

“Hi, welcome to Dr. Harrington’s office. How can I help you?” she recited.

“Hi there, my name is Steve Barker and I represent the Morton drug company. I was hoping to catch Dr. Harrington between appointments quickly if I could,” Steve said.

Molly looked at him with a serious face. “Dr. Harrington is free right now, but I just wanted to let you know that you can’t leave any stuff here without asking. That’s not allowed and nobody wants it!”

Steve looked a little surprised and Andrew felt a rush of disapproval.

Steve played it cool. “I’ll just leave my ‘stuff’ with Dr. Harrington and he can decide what he wants to do with it,” he said, smiling jovially.

Andrew came out into the reception area and gave Molly a hard stare. “Hi, Steve! I’m free right now, why don’t you come on back?” he offered.

Steve followed him into his office for a quick chat, dropping off lots of samples and giving him a mug with the brand of a herpes management drug printed on it, which Andrew thought would be vaguely funny to leave in the break room. It was a short but friendly meeting, and afterwards Andrew walked Steve to the door, giving him a chummy handshake and saying goodbye. Once he was out of the door, he strode over to where Molly was seated.

“What was that all about?” he scolded.

Molly looked at him out of the corner of her eye without stopping the game of ‘Rescue the Jewel Pets’ that she was playing on the computer. “You said to make sure no one left any stuff in the waiting room the other day,” she told him with a shrug.

Andrew reached over and took the mouse from Molly, closing her game. “No games while you’re working, Molly. That’s not professional behavior. There’s always something to do. And especially not while I’m speaking to you,” he scolded.

“Yeah, okay,” was all that she had to offer.

Andrew fumed. “And when I told you to make sure no one left anything, I didn’t mean for you to be rude to the people that we work with! Steve is a friend of mine, and he didn’t need to be spoken to that way. I meant for you to check to see if anyone was leaving anything in the waiting room, and if they were, to ask them about it politely.”

He sighed. “You know what that means, don’t you? You were being polite for the first few days, so I know you can do it.”

Molly rolled her eyes. “Okay, fine. Sorry,” she muttered.

Andrew balled his hand into a fist and went into his office, shutting the door behind him. Molly was out of control today, and he wasn’t sure if he could take it. He understood the impulse that her other bosses had fallen into, and part of him could see himself firing her.

He then remembered how sweet Molly could be, how she had bounced on her toes when she had seen her new room and how innocent and young she looked when curled up asleep with her bear. He remembered Lisa, bouncing the same way on their first date. He remembered Lisa’s heartbroken face as he had broken the news that she had failed too many classes and wasn’t going to be able to continue in medical school. He imagined Molly looking the same way when each and every one of her previous bosses had let her go. It made him want to be patient with her. For now.

* * *

Molly knew that she was slipping up, and she knew that Dr. Harrington was starting to get annoyed with her, but she just couldn’t help herself. She felt like she was falling back into old habits, and the more mistakes she made, the more anxious she felt at night and the sleep that had been temporarily so easy for her to reach had become elusive again, leaving her tired and grumpy in the morning.

The stress often made her tummy hurt, and she found herself skipping meals, which only made her crankier. This led to her making more mistakes, and she had begun to argue with Samantha pretty regularly.

Whenever anything went wrong like this, it compounded Molly’s major fears. The most immediate one was that she was going to ruin her chance here with Andrew and get sent away, and that she’d then have nowhere to go. She didn’t know anyone else out here, and the idea of using her only paycheck to buy gas to drive all the way back to New Jersey, only to have to crash at one of her friends’ houses, made her feel queasy. She wasn’t even sure if anyone would take her in: none of her friends in Jersey had been very close with her, or really, very good friends.

Her bigger fear, the mother of all her fears, was that there was no fixing her. She was just a fuck-up and there was nothing she could do about it. The greatest chance of her life, with people who seemed to care more about her than anyone before, was going to be wasted because everything was wasted on her. She was going to live the rest of her life struggling to make rent each month, struggling to keep jobs, struggling to get through the day. Molly didn’t want to struggle anymore.

As days went on and Molly grew more tired and more cranky, things only got worse. She had run out of clean clothes to wear to work and had done her laundry, but hadn’t removed it promptly or hung anything up so she found herself once again looking crinkled and sloppy. She had misplaced one of her shoes somewhere in the house and was too shy to ask Andrew to help her look for it so she had just taken to wearing her old shoes. She felt embarrassed that Rebecca and Andrew had gone out of their way to help her to look like a professional and she was still messing it up.

One such slipup took place when Samantha had gone home at lunchtime in order to be with her baby and wasn’t planning on coming back for the day. She did this a couple of times a week now that she had Molly to cover for her. Molly sat at her desk by herself, fighting the temptation to start playing a game on her computer, but feeling hopelessly bored.

She heard Rebecca packing up for the evening and waved goodbye to her as she left. Molly had to stay about an hour after Rebecca, while Andrew finished his paperwork for the day. Molly was supposed to be filing the updated charts and making sure that all the billing was completed for the day, but instead she found herself spinning in her chair. Just then, the phone rang.

“Dr. Harrington’s office,” Molly answered. The voice on the other line sounded a bit flustered and stressed.

“Good evening, this is Adam Herbert. I’m calling to see if there are any last-minute appointments for tomorrow,” she heard.

Molly had already closed down the scheduling software for the day.

“Is it a medical emergency?” she asked. She figured that if it was really important, she would open the software back up, but otherwise, it could probably wait.

“No, I just need to get my son in for a physical, or else he won’t be able to start the basketball season at school. I totally forgot about it, and I’m sorry for any hassle it causes.”

Molly did feel hassled. If she had left something to the last minute like this, everyone would have been mad at her. She knew this because it happened all the time. She didn’t want to overfill Andrew’s schedule and put him in a rush just because someone had called and asked for a favor. It didn’t seem fair to him.

“Dr. Harrington’s office requires an advance appointment for all well-patient checkups,” Molly said, trying to sound as professional as possible.

“Is there anything free tomorrow at all? I’d happily make it worth the office’s while if you could fit us in,” the caller tried again.

“Are you bribing me?” Molly asked incredulously.

The caller sounded shocked. “Why no, I didn’t mean…”

“Maybe you should be more responsible in the future,” Molly suggested. “Dr. Harrington is very busy, and he deserves our respect.” Molly’s voice sounded a little smug, as she was feeling pleased with herself. She had handled the matter professionally enough to be acceptable, but hadn’t caved under pressure.

“Fine, I guess I’ll just get an appointment at a doc-in-a-box instead. But I’m going to have a word with Dr. Harrington about the way I was spoken to the next time I see him.”

Molly shrugged. “I’m only doing my job,” she said. “Have a good night.” She hung up the phone and started to pack up her things for the day, noticing that it was past six.

* * *

Andrew had been standing in the doorway as Molly had hung up the call. He felt entirely sure that Molly had meant to be doing the right thing, just like she had tried to do the right thing with Steve, just like she had tried to do the right thing at the airport, just like she had tried to do the right thing at all her previous jobs. Yet what she had done was entirely not what he would have wanted.

She didn’t seem to understand when to stand up for someone and when that wasn’t needed. He put his head in his hand. It seemed like the days were filled with headaches caused by Molly, be it at home where she was leaving a trail of messes and arguing with him when he tried to remind her how to behave, or at work, where she was being consistently too snappy with people and where Samantha had stopped talking about how much easier Molly’s presence made things for her.

Realistically, he should just fire her, as all her previous employers had. He had come to the conclusion that as she was, Molly was essentially unemployable. She didn’t listen to what she was told to do and made all her choices based on what her instincts told her. She didn’t understand how to work within the rules. Despite what seemed to be her best efforts, she was messy and habitually late. She had gotten rude and hard to deal with recently.

Yet Andrew felt a sense of responsibility toward the girl. He had brought her out here, after all, and it had been his idea to change her life so drastically. And living in close proximity with her had made her feel like part of his life already.

But it wasn’t just that: he felt like he had a second chance to give Molly the help that he should have given Lisa. Molly pushed all the same buttons in his heart that Lisa had, and it made him just want to take care of her and offer her the love and support that her earlier life hadn’t included. He knew that there was hope for this girl, even if she didn’t see that there was hope for herself.

No, he couldn’t let her go. He was going to have to deal with her in some other way, and he knew just the thing: it had been on his mind constantly since Molly had first called him. Molly needed to be taught a little discipline, but she needed to know that she was cared about, too.

Watching her fidgeting in her chair, he made up his mind: he was going to have to give her a spanking. There was no other way.
Are you serious, Andrew?
part of his brain screamed at him.
You’re going to walk up to your twenty-year-old receptionist, lift her skirt, pull down her panties, put her across your lap and spank her?

Yes, he was. He knew that it wasn’t really the ‘right’ thing to do, that it wasn’t normal behavior, and that it could put him in serious trouble if it went wrong. He could go to jail. But he had such a strong feeling that it was exactly the thing that Molly needed that he was willing to take that risk.