More Than a Kiss

Mustaches and Mistakes

Completely unaware that she had chocolate smeared above her upper lip, Amy opened the door to the waiting room, looked out over the huddled masses and called out, "Ms. Edison? Is there a Ms. Edison here?"

Edison waved her hand in the air a la Arnold Horshack, saying, "Ooh, ooh, ooh! Tell me she'll live."

Jordan's description had been right on target except she wasn’t wearing glasses.

"She'll live," Amy said, shaking Edison's hand. "Thanks to that superior taping job of yours. It was extremely difficult to remove."

Edison stared at Amy's chocolate mustache and mistakenly thought it was a real mustache. After all, the chocolate matched Amy’s hair color. Edison’s mistake was understandable. She’d not worn her glasses. Edison thought Amy would be really pretty if she practiced hair removal.

Amy mistakenly thought Edison must be hard of hearing or maybe even deaf since she was obviously staring at her lips and trying to lip-read. So, Amy talked very, very loudly and made sure to enunciate crisply. "I. Am. Pleased. To. Meet. You. Edison."

Edison thought maybe Amy was not only hairy, but also deaf and that was why she so carefully said her words and had no volume control. Edison raised her volume to match Amy's, "It is so wonderful that you were able to become a doctor!"

"Thank you!" Amy shouted back.

Edison continued shouting, "I think it's wonderful to see people overcome their circumstances and fulfill their dreams!"

"I agree!”

"So are you going to be able to put Humpty Dumpty together again?"

"Huh?"

"Jordan's cut hand?" Edison said, making elaborate cutting gestures with her own hand.

Amy added some sewing gestures to her next sentence so Edison could understand better. "Oh, yes, I can put it back together, but it will take a while. I did not want you to worry!"

"Can I watch? I find gore fascinating!" She stared intently at Amy’s lips like a bird dog awaiting a signal.

Amy nodded enthusiastically. "I don't see why not! You can help to distract her while I sew her up!"

"If I know Jordan, you've already distracted her plenty!"

When Amy looked puzzled, Edison explained, "Jordan always notices the pretty ones!"

Amy led Edison down the hallway and since Edison was deaf and walking behind her, Amy didn't bother to keep her thoughts inside her head. "Wow. Here I am being called pretty again. Twice within five minutes. Must be some kind of record. Or maybe it's just a thing with lesbians. She said Jordan noticed pretty women. That means Jordan must be some kind of playgirl. And the way Edison said it was even more telling – like she was jealous. Is Edison her girlfriend? A better question is why am I even thinking about all this? I would have been safer and saner with Mrs. Markus' mood mole."

Edison said, "What's a mood mole?"

Amy froze. "You heard me say that?"

"Sure," Edison said, "You're the one who's deaf, not me."

"I'm not deaf," Amy said.

"You're not?"

Amy shook her head. "So if you're not deaf, why were you staring at my lips?"

Edison shuffled her feet. "I'm sorry, I know it's rude, but I've never seen a woman with a mustache before." Afraid of offending Amy, she quickly amended her words. "I mean, I've seen mustaches on women before, but not a nice, thick mustache like yours."

Amy wiped her upper lip. "It's chocolate," Amy said. She licked her finger to prove her point.

"Oh," Edison said, relieved. "Thank God, 'cause that was really scary looking."

Amy licked her upper lip. "All gone?"

Edison nodded. "Yep. Oh, and Jordan’s not a playgirl."

Amy pushed open the curtain to Jordan’s cubicle, saying, “Good to know.”