The elevator door opened onto the peds floor, and Flower stepped out with him, her hand still tucked in the crook of his elbow, clinging to him like a vine. He didn’t have the heart to disengage.
“You two look good together, “Sandy said, trailing after them. “And I happen to know that neither of you are seeing anyone.”
People were always trying to set him up with their friends, but setting him up with a clown? This was a first. He checked her out, wondering what she looked like under all that makeup. She was fairly tall. He was six foot three, but in her big clown shoes, the top of her puffy purple wig came to his nose.
“What do you think, Flower? Am I your type?”
She looked him over, head to toe, and shrugged as if to say maybe, maybe not. After all that clinging, her indifference made him laugh. A guy had to love a clown who played hard to get.
A nurse on the peds floor saw him carrying the pretty basket and said, “Let me take that basket to the Sun Room, Dr. Hemingway.”
She was probably busier than he was at the moment. “That’s okay. As you see, I’m escorting Miss Flower to the party, so I’ll take the sock puppets and then I’ll see my patient Kendra McKnight.”
“Kendra’s already at the party. You’ll want to examine her in her room, but Kendra will be so disappointed if she has to miss the clown.”
“How long is your act?” he said to Flower. He didn’t want to be the one to disappoint any little girl, and especially not Kendra. Not only had she been a brave child through three surgeries, her mother was a colleague of his.
“Flower never stays long,” Sandy answered for the silent clown. “Maybe ten minutes.”
He checked his watch. He had time to watch Flower’s performance. It would give him something to talk to Mom about. “I’ll wait,” he said to the nurse.
As they reached the Sun Room, Flower detached herself from him and motioned for him to go on in. Maybe she needed a moment to mentally prepare. He needed that before surgery. He followed Sandy, turned the basket over to a tech and leaned one shoulder against the back wall, his arms folded.
Flower skipped into the room, tripped on her oversize yellow shoes and took a pratfall. It made the kids laugh, especially when she struggled to get up only to fall on her face again. He had to wonder if it truly hurt, though professionals knew how to take a fall.
Moving among the children, she tweaked their noses and invited them to tweak her big red nose. He noticed how gentle she was with the children and how she made them laugh but didn’t let them get overexcited. Children who were sick enough to be in the hospital overnight needed to forget how ill they were, and she was superb at her job.
She found a coin behind the ear of a child and showed it to the kids before she “accidentally” swallowed it. Her pretense of choking was so convincing that he geared up to help her, but she staggered among the children, opening her mouth and silently inviting them to find the coin.
One little boy thought she was in trouble though and worriedly called out, “Somebody! Help Flower!”
Flower gave the little a guy a hug before she zoomed to where Zack leaned against the wall, her arm outstretched in fake need. Obviously, he was the designated “helper.” She turned to the children, pointed to his lab coat with an expression that clearly said, “Is he a doctor?”
Kendra called out, “That’s Dr. Hemingway. He’s my doctor.”
He gave Kendra a smile and a little wave.
The clown grabbed his hand and pulled him center stage, the better for all the kids to see. Holding her throat, she looked at him beseechingly.
What was the protocol for the imaginary swallowing of a coin? The imaginary Heimlich?
He stepped behind her, circled her with his arms and locked his hands in the proper position. As an orthopedic surgeon, he’d never been called upon to do the Heimlich maneuver for real, let alone for pretend, but the kids weren’t going to criticize his technique, and the nursing staff was laughing too hard to care.
He didn’t apply much pressure at all, but the clown leaned back into him as if he had. Her big yellow clown shoes came at least two feet off the floor. It took three pretend jolts before she coughed into her hand and produced the coin for all to see! He was almost as glad as if he’d helped her for real.
Flower was a bundle of wiggly, over-the-top gratitude. She shook his right hand and his left hand, but that wasn’t enough. She grabbed both of his hands and danced him about as much as he would let her. All of sudden she stopped cold, her hands in the air, her expression one of complete wonder.
The room went silent as they waited for what she would do next. It seemed like a good time for him to inch back to the door, but she snagged his arm. Apparently, he was still part of the act.
She looked at him, her head cocked to one side, and then she slowly covered her heart with both hands. There was no doubting her tender expression. He got it, and so did her audience. Flower was in love. She sighed and made goo-goo eyes at him until every kid and grown-up in the room was laughing.
Zack tried not to. It wasn’t nice to laugh at your new girlfriend.
From somewhere she produced a tall stool, apparently for him to sit on. Then she produced an oversize fake diamond ring. She showed it to the kids before getting down on one knee, her intention so obvious that the kids screamed she was doing it wrong. Kendra yelled out, “Flower, you sit on the stool. Dr. Hemingway is supposed to give you the ring.”
Maybe Flower just wanted to do things her way because she shook her head so hard the curls on her purple wig bounced. He knew she was going to propose even before she reached for his hand. How did a gentleman behave in a situation like this?
“This is so sudden,” he said, holding back a laugh. “Can I have a moment to decide?”
She cocked her head and pretended to think about it, then nodded and turned to the kids, swaying left to right, the perfect pantomime of a ticking clock.
When she stopped abruptly and turned expectantly toward him for his answer, he had one. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t think without a sock puppet on my hand.” He turned to the children. “I need a sock puppet. Does anyone else need a sock puppet?”
Of course they did. The clown clapped her hands as if she, too, were sock-puppet needy. She jumped to her feet, and he thought she was going to help with their distribution, but the next time he looked for her, she was gone.
He found Kendra and asked, “Did you see Flower leave?”
“No,” she said, playing with her sock puppet, “but I think Flower’s special. Sometimes you see her, and then you don’t.”
Before she changed out of her clown costume, Chloe looked at herself in the mirror and tried to imagine what Dr. Hemingway must have thought about Sandy’s comment that the two of them looked good together. That was just Sandy teasing, but when Zack had asked if he was her type, she’d been embarrassed.
If she’d had to answer, it would have been a big no. He’d gone out with both of her sisters! They said he’d merely been a friend to hang out with, and she believed them. But anything they did, Chloe made a point of not doing. In any comparison, she came in last. Why set herself up for that?
But there was something about Zack Hemingway. She’d liked tucking her hand in his arm, and he’d been great about the pretend Heimlich. And he could be a Christian. Gentleness and kindness spoke of a Christ-centered life.
Her older sister, Carmen, stuck her head inside