Kathleen Creighton: The Awakening of Dr. Brown

Jerking around to face him, she said, “Get real!” in a brittle voice that sounded like anger.

Not the least bit perturbed by her fit of temper, Doveman shrugged. “Why not? Girl, it’s who you are. Time you let folks see who Phoenix is.”

She shook her head; a derisive sound puffed softly from her lips. But as she gazed at the coffee-brown face of the man who’d been like a father to her for more than twenty years, she felt her anger drain away. When it did, only the fear remained.

With her voice still hard as stone she said, “Doveman, I haven’t been that person for so long, I wouldn’t even know who she is now.”

Unwillingly, her glance went back to the window, pulled inexorably by its view of row houses, tenements and despair. “Besides-” and now suddenly her voice had gone sharp and bright, pain disguised as laughter “-who in their right mind is going to pay money to listen to somebody named Joanna Dunn?”

She didn’t wait for the answer to that, didn’t expect or want one. She jerked herself away from the window and announced, “I’m going out,” as she snatched up a pair of sunglasses and a New York Yankees baseball cap that were lying on the white leather sofa.

Rupert Dove only said mildly, “If you’re walkin’, better take one of the boys with you. This ain’t exactly a strollin’-around neighborhood.”

And he watched as the rock star’s famous lips curved with a small, sardonic smile. He said nothing more, knowing it would fall on deaf ears; in all except music matters, Phoenix listened to no one but herself.

He watched silently, then, as she twisted her long black hair and stuffed it beneath the baseball cap, as unforgettable silvery eyes vanished behind mirrored sunglasses. “Be careful out there,” he drawled by way of a farewell. She threw him a wave, went out the door and left him shaking his head and chuckling to himself.

He doubted she’d have heard the sadness in his laughter, even if she’d stayed.

Doveman’s heart was heavy with concern for the girl-child he’d raised and loved as his own for more than twenty years. Not for the sake of her physical safety-he knew she was capable of handling anything those mean streets might throw at her. Nor was he afraid she might be recognized, even on the streets of the city of her birth. Phoenix had always been a master of the art of disguise.

It was the part hidden away beneath all the layers of her disguises he worried about, the part only one old black piano man even knew existed. The part named Joanna Dunn.

Swiveling once more to the keyboard, Doveman reached into the bowels of the baby grand and drew out his hidden stash-a crumpled pack of Camels and a half-used up book of matches from the convenience store down on the corner. He preferred matches over a lighter, always had; liked listening to the sound of the matchhead scraping grit, liked the flowering flame, the faint smell of sulfur. Now, touching the flame to the tip of the cigarette, he closed his eyes and drew the forbidden smoke deep into his lungs. His body reacted to the abuse with a violent fit of coughing, which he accepted philosophically. His lungs were shot to hell anyway; the way he saw it, he might as well enjoy what life there was left to him.

But that was another reason why he worried.

“Doctor? I put that otitus media in exam three, when you’re ready.” Ruthie Mendoza, casually dressed in jeans and a pink cotton smock with kitty-cats printed on it, waved a clipboard from the opposite end of the counter.

“Thanks, Ruthie.” Dr. Ethan Brown returned his pen to its customary place in the pocket of his lab coat and tried to sneak a glance at his watch as he laid the chart he’d just completed back on the pile.

Bibi Schmidt, whose mild gray eyes missed little, glanced at him over the tops of her half glasses as she reached for it. “You gonna try and get some shut-eye this afternoon, Doctor? It is your night to ride-along, isn’t it?”

“It is, and I’d hoped to.” The smile Ethan gave the clinic’s volunteer administrator/receptionist was wry. “I don’t know what it is with this sudden epidemic of ear infections. Lord, it’s June-cold and flu season should be over with by now.”

“Swimming,” said Mrs. Schmidt, returning to her paperwork. “School’s out, it’s hot, these poor kids are out there trying to cool off in that filthy river.” Bibi had been a school administrator in a former life, and Ethan didn’t doubt she knew whereof she spoke.

After a moment, the bookkeeper glanced up again. “Who are you going to be riding with tonight?” Her expression was bland, her tone casual but with a particular undertone.

Ethan had come to know that look and that tone well in the six months or so he’d been serving at the South Church Street Free Clinic; behind Mrs. Schmidt’s stern and stony schoolmarm’s demeanor lurked the soul of a schoolboy prankster.

Playing along, he replied in a similarly casual tone, “Oh, I don’t know. Most likely be Kenny.” He slid a sidelong glance toward the other end of the counter, where Ruthie was poring over an upside-down chart and pretending complete disinterest in their conversation.

“Baumgartner?” Behind the half glasses, Mrs. Schmidt’s eyes were now openly twinkling. “Why, that’s that nice Jewish boy, isn’t it? The one that has such a crush on our Ruthie.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a crush, ” Ethan mused. Then, following a pause, “More like…the hots.”

“He does not!” That brought a rich, warm color to Ruthie’s cheeks. “And even if he did, so what? I’m not interested.” She dropped the clipboard with a clatter and went flouncing off.

“A good thing she isn’t,” said Mrs. Schmidt in a dry undertone, watching the nurse walk away toward the back of the cavernous room that had once been a fire station’s engine bay. “What kind of a future can there be for those two-a nice Jewish boy in love with a sweet Catholic girl whose twin brother just happens to be a priest?”

For a moment Ethan allowed his own gaze to follow Mrs. Schmidt’s, before he jerked it back to the counter and its pile of charts. Ruthie was a sweet girl and he was fond of her, in a way. But the fact was, there was simply no place in his life for entanglements-not now, and not for the foreseeable future. At least for the next year and a half, while Everett Charlton Brown was still in residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and his entire family under a constant media microscope and his son’s future in limbo as a consequence.

Ethan didn’t resent the notoriety his father’s choice of careers had forced upon him-he truly didn’t. At least, not anymore. Rhett Brown was a good man and a great president, and he’d done some wonderful things for the country-the world, even. But to be honest, there were times when Ethan thought about his childhood back in Iowa, thought about holidays spent on his aunt Lucy’s farm, or building a tree house in the backyard in Des Moines with his sister Lolly…

He thought about Lauren, and how she’d managed to escape the limelight practically on the eve of their father’s presidency. And yes, he envied her sometimes, with her law practice and her two kids and her Native American lawman husband, living out there on an Apache reservation in the wilds of Arizona, far from the glare of TV cameras.

Back then, while struggling through med school and internship out in California, he’d mostly been too busy to think about his own future…about personal relationships, anyway. A family, a wife, children…it had all seemed too far off to worry about. Lately, though, he had begun to think about it-something to do with being on the verge of turning thirty, he imagined-and whether it would ever be possible for a man in his position to meet someone he could fall in love with. Someone who would love him back, for the right reasons. Ethan didn’t consider himself to be shy-although others might disagree with him, and he supposed he might have been shy, as a child. Now, as far as he was concerned, he was just a very private person. And one thing he knew for certain: if and when he did meet someone, there was no way in hell he was going to risk having his personal life, his emotional affairs turned into public entertainment like some huge Hollywood production!