Page 84 of Caught Up In You

And throughout the conversation about ass accoutrements and other emergency room disasters, Owen remains loose. He laughs and smiles, sipping on a series of beers, but he doesn’t say much. He tells no horror stories, and honestly, that makes me respect him more. His patients don’t deserve to be cocktail party fodder.

A lanky white guy yawns—he works at Cook County Hospital in Chicago and has the most horrific stories of the lot. “You know, Owen,” he says, “you were smart to go into privatepractice. Better hours, much less stress. Way to get out while you could.”

Owen nods and gives a little laugh, and I think I’m the only one who notices it’s a bit brittle. “Always thinking ahead,” he says, then tosses back the rest of his beer. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to hit the restroom.”

He gives my elbow a squeeze, then disappears into the crowd.

“I’m so glad he settled down,” the woman next to me says. I think her name is Mira? Maura? When she introduced herself, I was too busy trying not to stare at the bloodred lipstick on her obvious veneers. She’s been eyeing me all night, noting every time Owen touches me, her pointed gaze on my tattoos. She leans into me now, talking like she’s got a secret, and it’s all I can do not to step away from her cloud of sickly sweet perfume. “That thing third year was so wild. We were all so worried he’d, like, quit medicine and go work on an oil rig or something.”

Her overdrawn lips curl into a Cheshire Cat grin, her highlighter catching the glow of the antique chandelier overhead. And I realize this is some kind of power move. Mira can barely control her face as she watches me to see how I’m going to respond. If I’m going to ask,What thing third year?And even though I want to, I will not give this bitch the satisfaction.

“He loves his patients,” I tell her, which has the benefit of being true. “He’s doing great.”

But in the back of my mind, a tiny voice says,But is he really?His reaction at the soccer field revealed the wear at his seams.

“Well, that’s good,” Mira says, like she doesn’t believe it. Like she wants to coax me into giving her some dirt.

Before she can say anything else, I take a step back. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to freshen my drink,” I say, then place my empty champagne glass on the tray of a passing waiter and melt into the crowd.

I circulate a few times, thinking maybe Owen got drawn into a conversation with one of the silver-haired executives or some other doctors, but I don’t find him.

“Excuse me, where’s the bathroom?” I ask a waiter, who points me down a hallway.

I turn the corner and run into Francie.

“I’m peopled out,” she explains, leaning against a wall beside a painting that looks like it came from a garage sale but is probably worth more than my house.

“I don’t blame you. This party is something else,” I say.

“The one my parents are throwing up in Gary is going to be much more relaxed,” she says. “Their work colleagues are all middle school teachers and bus drivers, and the food will be served in disposable trays. I can’t wait.”

“Sounds much more my speed,” I confess.

“Mine too,” she says. “Don’t get me wrong, I love Josh’s parents, but they become different people entirely when it comes to stuff like this. I just accept it and move on.”

I nod.

“Hey, so I saw you talking to Mina. I should probably do some damage control,” Francie says. I realize she means Mira/Maura, she of the gaudy makeup and the fake sympathy. “That witch was always trying to get Owen in an on-call room. I only invited her because she’s dating Josh’s best friend from undergrad.”

I shrug, because Mina/Mira/Maura didn’t really get to me. Not in the way she intended, anyway. Mostly she just made me more concerned about Owen.

“Hey, Francie, can I ask you something? What happened during third year?”

Francie sighs. “That’s not my story to tell, but Owen lost a patient, and it really fucked with him. Like, beyond what onewould expect. There was a minute where I wasn’t sure he’d come back from it.”

“But he did?”

She nods. “Eventually. He worked through it.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“That’s not to say he’s over it. I’m not sure if you ever get over something like that. You just learn to compartmentalize it.”

That doesn’t sound like a great strategy. And maybe Owen’s compartment isn’t big enough to hold the enormity of what happened to him. Maybe something about what happened to Betsy this morning made the door to that compartment spring open, and now some not-great stuff is leaking out.

“Keep an eye on him,” Francie says. “He puts on this whole persona of the smiling, happy, calming Superman, steady and strong. He wants to do the saving. He doesn’t want anyone to have to save him.” After a minute, she adds, “I’m not even sure if he would know if he needed saving.”

“Thanks, Francie.”

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