Different Circles

Darcy Grover was the thirty-year-old clerk who took the call from Dr. Jonas Steinberg’s office regarding the admission and induction. She was not a nurse but had been working in this position for six years now and she knew that planning a routine induction more than a week before the actual due date was unusual indeed. Darcy had access to Mindy Snow’s chart and could see that there was no medical justification for such a thing. Mindy did not have gestational diabetes and the fetus was not overly large. There were, in fact, several medical reasons not to do an induction early. She smelled something sour here, something that probably had to do with Mindy’s Snow’s celebrity status, but she could not figure out what it was.

It should be noted at this point that Darcy Grover had a fairly intense dislike for Mindy Snow. Though she had never met her, she was a regular follower of celebrity gossip and knew that Mindy had been responsible for the breakup of Greg Oldfellow and Celia Valdez, who had been her absolute favorite celebrity couple. She thought that Greg was the most handsome man and often fantasized about him when she masturbated. And Celia was her favorite singer and favorite female celebrity of all time. She had a beautiful voice and seemed a very realistic person. The two of them had been natural together, obviously soulmates. And those vicious stories about Celia having sex with that lesbian pilot simply could not be true—just like those stories about Greg routinely cheating on her when they were married.

After putting the hold on the birthing suite for the next morning, Darcy went and talked to the day shift charge nurse to let her know that a VIP would be checking in the next day.

“Mindy Snow, huh?” Lynda Rogers, the charge nurse in question, commented when she was told. “I heard that she would be delivering here.” She sighed. “I guess we’ll have to pull out all the bells and whistles.”

“I noticed that her EDC is not until July 21,” Darcy said. “And she has no medical reason for early induction. Isn’t that kind of strange?”

Lynda, who had been working in labor and delivery departments in the greater Los Angeles area for more than twenty years simply shook her head. “Not with these celebrity types,” she said. “It’s a body thing.”

“A body thing?” Darcy asked, confused.

“How does Mindy Snow make her living?”

“With her acting,” Darcy said.

“That’s part of it,” Lynda allowed, “and I’m not suggesting that she isn’t a great actress, because she is, but it’s her looks that are the most important thing. She is a beautiful woman, and she needs to stay that way if she wants to keep getting roles. I’ve seen this time and time again with women who rely on their looks to get them through life. They eat a restrictive diet and exercise obsessively so they won’t gain any weight while they’re pregnant. They rub imported Greek extra-virgin olive oil on their bellies four times a day. And they want the baby out as soon as it is reasonably safe to do so. This all helps prevent stretch marks on their precious skin. And they want it out by induction instead of C-section. Induction doesn’t leave a scar on her their little flat bellies.”

“That is appalling!” Darcy said, outraged. “They would risk their baby’s health just to prevent a few stretch marks?”

Lynda simply shrugged. “It’s Hollywood,” she said.

“And Dr. Steinberg goes along with this?” She had always liked and respected Dr. Steinberg before. But now...

Another shrug. “It’s not really all that dangerous,” Lynda explained. “There’s a slightly increased risk of lung issues, but it’s only a small risk. If Steinberg didn’t do it, she’d find someone else who would.”

“Hmph,” Darcy grunted, shaking her head. “I think it’s disgusting.”

“Yeah? Well, what can you do?”

Darcy returned to her desk and continued to fume about this. What could she do? Well, maybe there was something that she could do. She could expose Mindy Snow for the heartless bitch that she was. Anonymously, of course.

She got off work at four-thirty that afternoon and drove home to her modest apartment in North Hollywood. After feeding her two cats and playing with them for a few minutes, she went to the kitchen and looked at the stack of this week’s LA Times copies that were sitting next to the garbage can waiting their turn to be taken to the recycle bin. Her absolute favorite entertainment reporter was Bernadette Tapp, who had been the one to first break the story that Greg and Celia were divorcing and who had covered their breakup extensively since. There had been an article penned by her a few days ago on that very subject. It had to do with the final paperwork filing of the uncontested divorce.