Page 18 of Just One Look
“No,” she said, “I mean—that’s it? Sixty max?”
“Don’t hold me to it,” he said, “but yeh. That’s the idea. Could be under fifty some weeks, too. We understand you’re a locum, won’t dump it all on you.”
“What do you do with all the extra?” she asked.
“Pardon?”
“The extra time. What do you do with it?”
Now, he wasreallystaring at her. “Whatever you want to do, I suppose. Family time, if you’ve got one.”
“No,” she said. “No family.”
“Well, sailing’s popular, of course,” he said. “I’ll take you out on the boat when we have the day off together, shall I?”
“Oh,” she said. “Well, uh …” Was he hitting on her?
He said, “We go out most weekends. My wife loves it, and the kids used to. Of course, they’re teenagers now, so sometimes they’re too cool, but never mind, I’ve got my first mate.”
Oh. She said cautiously, “I’ve never been on a sailboat.”
He laughed. “That’ll soon change. You can’t live in the City of Sails and never sail, eh. It’s a good time. You’ll love it.”
She was still thinking about it when she pulled the curtain aside on a cubicle in Outpatient Surgery for her first procedure. They’d given her an easy one to start with, she saw from the films: a herniated cervical disc. Painful, but it looked fairly easily resolved, especially on a … She checked. Thirty-three-year-old male. That would be trauma, probably.
Yes, easily resolved, as long as he was reasonably fit and followed instructions. This should have been Dr. Porter’s patient, but they’d shuffled procedures around today. Dr. Porter—Jack, because they all went by first names here—was doing the serious head trauma that had just come into the ED, and she was doing this.
She’d have to prove herself, that was all. She’d had a lifetime of proving herself. No difference. Nerves or no, new country or no—no difference. And if that made her tired? Well, she’d have a year to catch up on her sleep, because she was going to have a whole lot of time off, and nothing to do with it except hang out with a dog.
Sixty hoursmax?
The patient was in bed, gown on and IV inserted, looking calm. Scrolling on his phone, in fact, instead of looking nervous with a loved one in the chair beside him. That was unusual.
He didn’t look thirty-three. He looked older. Weathered. And, yes, he was reasonably fit.
You had to bekidding.
* * *
The curtain rattled,and Luka looked up.
“Mr. …” She looked up from the chart and stared at him. “Mr. … Darkovic. Luka … Darkovic.” She said it slowly.
It was the woman from the day before, the one with the dog. He couldn’t be wrong. It was the same face, though her hair was pulled back in a tight braided arrangement this time, and it was the same body, too. He could tell that even though she was in green scrubs. Not her best look. He preferred the shorts. And the wet hair. And the flush on her cheeks and general dishevelment.
She was also holding his MRI films.
He said, “You. That’s a surprise. You’re my nurse, eh.” Well, this wasn’t terrible.
She looked gobsmacked. In fact, it took her a minute to open her mouth.
“No,” she finally said. “I’m your surgeon.”
Oh. He should have noticed that. White coat over the scrubs.
And then she moved forward and knocked into the end of the bed.
No. Just no.
