than one, in the audience who got too personal for public television. That same person usually rambled, hanging on to the spotlight as long as possible. Eva’s job was to divert them while seeming sympathetic. Some days this worked better than others.
This was the only part about her job she would avoid if she could.
She walked toward the audience, feeling Mark right behind her, obviously not needing her cue to move center stage. “Now, who has questions?”
The first hand up was from a staff member the producer had planted in the audience. He set the tone of intelligent yet brief questions. Eva wasn’t too thrilled about her producer’s subterfuge, but show management wasn’t her job, as they often reminded her. She was the expert—the talking head—not the boss. And her paycheck paid many bills, including her grandmother’s nursing-home supplements and her huge student-loan debts.
A frazzled woman in the third row began jumping up and down in her seat with that certain body language that said, I’m here to tell you my whole life’s medical history on television and I dare you to try and stop me. Eva took care to avoid eye contact.
Looking past the woman’s raised and waving hand, she pointed to her undercover staff assistant.
But before she could reach the assistant with the microphone, Mark thrust his own microphone into the jumping woman’s face.
He put his arm around her shoulders to still her fidgeting as the camera moved in close. “How can I help you today?”
Eva thought the woman would swoon right then and there. All they needed was someone to faint on set to lose those sponsors who were hanging in there for them.
Instead, the woman grabbed the microphone and held it close to her mouth to speak into it.
From the corner of her eye Eva saw the alarm on her sound engineer’s face as he shoved slide knobs to lower the volume before the woman’s voice blasted everyone’s television speakers into mush.
But Mark purposely covered the woman’s hand and pulled the microphone away to the proper distance.
Eva was beginning to suspect he’d done this kind of work before.
The woman cleared her throat. She was now red in the face. “Ever since I was a little girl …” She stopped talking as she teared up.
Mark patted her on the shoulder. “Deep breath.”
The woman gave him a watery smile. “When I get excited, I can feel my heart try to beat out of my chest, then it just seems to stop and I feel dizzy.”
Mark raised his eyebrows as he wrapped his arm more securely around her. “Are you feeling that way now? Have you ever passed out?”
“Once or twice.”
“Please, have a seat.” Mark helped her into her chair and whipped out his stethoscope. With a shiny white smile, Mark asked, “May I listen to your heart?”
Starry-eyed, the woman nodded.
The man had charisma, no doubt about it. But that bit about her not being a real doctor still stung. Being pretty—or in his case extraordinarily handsome—couldn’t make up for being mean.
As Mark took the time to listen to the woman’s heart, the producer instructed a camera to zoom in on Eva, expecting her to fill in the dead air space. So much for thinking Mark had live studio experience.
To the camera, she said, “When a doctor listens to your heart, she is listening for several things, including a steady rhythm.”
Of course, everyone in the world already knew that, but at this point in the show Eva would spout anything that came to mind to keep the action moving along. With Mark doing personal examinations in her public forum, her only hope of making this part of the show work was to avoid a silent studio. Any intelligent information she could pass on to her audience was a bonus.
Wrestling control of her show away from her guest, she looked out towards the crowd. “While Dr. O’Donnell is performing his examination, does anyone else have questions?”
Without being called on, a young man in front of her stood up. “My son has recently developed the same symptoms as that woman. His doctor has diagnosed a congenital heart murmur and is requiring a series of tests before he’ll sign off for my son to play football. He’s played sports all his life. To tell you the truth, playing sports is the only thing that keeps him interested in school. How can I tell a high-energy teenager he can’t play a sport he loves when he’s never had any problems before?”
It was one of those questions, the kind that had no happy answer. She knew, first hand, how hard it was to keep some teenagers in school. Eva hid her sigh.
Mark startled her by answering from across the studio. “Playing sports with a congenital medical condition, particularly a heart murmur, is a topic that is under fierce discussion in the medical community. Many of us doctors know the value of sports in our children’s development. Make sure you have a doctor who will do whatever he can to keep your son on the playing field.”
Nope. Not the right answer. Eva signaled for a close-up. “You’ll notice Dr. O’Donnell said there is much discussion over this topic. I, for one, would not put my child’s life at risk over a school sport.
“But I completely understand your concern. It is very difficult to walk the line between keeping our children safe and letting them live a fulfilling life and developing the skills they need to become well-rounded adults. It is often a choice we have to make as parents.”
Right there in front of her, ducked down below the camera lens, her producer was pointing to his watch and making a dramatic cut sign. Eva snuck a glance at the studio clock.
How had that happened? She had never run this long before.
“And that’s a question each parent must answer for their children. Remember, moms, you can’t take care of your children if you don’t take care of yourselves first. So if you think you are having a heart attack, go to the emergency room.”
She went into her sign-off. “Thanks for watching Ask the Doc. If you have questions, we have your answers. See you tomorrow.”
She thought she’d done rather well at turning back to their topic of the day. Why, then, was her producer grimacing?
A closer look at the clock explained it—a minute over. The little red lights on the cameras went dark as Eva wondered which commercial they had cut. There would be an angry sponsor to answer to. They would have to offer them an extra slot to make up for it even though the show needed all the sponsors they could get. If they received any more production budget cuts, they’d have to start shooting the show with their camera phones.
Turning to Mark O’Donnell, Eva braced herself for saying the polite thing, even though he’d caused her show to be more topsy-turvy than a cheerleader doing backflips.
Trying to ignore the sexy way his shoulders filled out his lab coat, she said, “Thank you for—”
“You weren’t serious, were you?”
What did he mean? “I’m sure I was. I always am.”
Her husband had always encouraged her to lighten up, but it wasn’t in her nature.
Her husband.
Finally, she could think about him without that tearing pain to her heart. If she could only find absolution for herself in her soul.
“What, in particular, were you referring to, Dr. O’Donnell?”
Maybe she’d had enough of his grandstanding in front of her audience, or maybe she was lashing out at him because of the hurt she still carried for her husband, but either way she lost her temper.
Gesturing off stage, she said, “Maybe you’re talking about the way you came in an hour late and didn’t have time for a pre-show briefing. Or the way you began to ad lib your presentation instead of following