Nose Job (Mavin)

            Michael is sitting in the seat, waiting patiently for his turn to be addressed by the hospital crew. His right arm is in a shitty homemade sling (courtesy of Lindsay) and his left is flipping slowly through an outdated gossip magazine. “Where is Paris Hilton now? How does Lady Gaga’s new hit single compare to Beyoncé’s album release? You could lose twenty pounds in the next two weeks!” the cover boasts. Michael, of course, isn’t interested in the least by any of these hooks, but he continues pretending to care to avoid the struggle of using phone apps with only his left hand. He’s already been here for about an hour…

Actually, he’s beginning to wonder when Lindsay will be back. It’s eleven in the morning on a Saturday, so the hospital is bustling with visitors and attendees alike so he assumes that her morning cup of coffee is taking a while to brew at the moment. He can almost hear the line of tired, angry coffee-waiters from the waiting room where he is now.

But it’s quiet. Almost quiet enough to hear the people around him whispering about their broken bones and scheduled appointments, since he is waiting with the people who are expected at the hospital. He has a sprained right wrist from falling out of the bed this morning and refuses to bitch about it enough to go to the E.R. So, he waits, in mild-to-moderate-to-occasionally-severe pain with plastic surgery patients and hairline fracture citizens.

One of the two doors in the room, the one facing Michael’s back, opens in a hush of air that ruffles Michael’s magazine pages. This door is the one where people enter. It shuts again, and the person who came in sits down in the far left corner, almost directly across from Michael. He can hear the person nervously tapping at his armrests. The person is obviously late. So far, Michael has avoided meeting eyes or even glancing at the other people in the room to avoid getting angry at them for making him have to wait longer for treatment, but he somehow feels different about this person.

He breaks his streak to look up.

There is a pause.

During this pause, the door Michael is facing, the one that leads to care, is opened by an average-looking nurse that is thirty-something. “Gavin Free?” she calls into the room. The man who just sat down near Michael gets up and starts his journey towards her.

But Michael gets there first.

He meets Gavin in the middle of his path, strong arm in sling, weak arm with a rolled-up magazine in hand, and faces him down. “What’s wrong with you?” Michael asks, taking in Gavin’s appearance. Apart from looking a bit disheveled from being near late to his appointment, he doesn’t look injured in any way.

Michael’s genuine concern begins to fade into anger when Gavin stares at the ground in response to Michael’s question. It doesn’t matter, though, because the nurse answers his question.

“He’s here for a…” the nurse begins flipping through the pages on the ever-present clipboard that is imperative to make it in a medical profession, “rhinoplasty.” Her dull green eyes wear into the top of Gavin’s head. “Is this correct, Mr. Free?”

Gavin sighs and turns his head back up to face the nurse, face full of guilt. He won’t look at Michael, even though he is standing right next to him “Yes.”

“And what the fuck is a rhino-whatever?” Michael hisses, glaring at Gavin.

Again, the nurse takes this time to intervene with her own helpful thoughts. “It’s what people normally call a ‘nose job.’” She lets her arm holding the clipboard drop to her side to dangle. “And I would appreciate it if you would refrain from using such language in the presence of other patients, sir.” She doesn’t look like she really cares. Neither do any of the waiting people. In fact, has drool dribbling down their chin.