Page 20 of Hearts on the Table
Following her success with the stent, Dr. Rebecca Carmichael had made a name for herself, lecturing passionately about patient-centered care and surgical innovation. Her career transitioned from practicing medicine to speaking on the circuit. She was on a few boards and had founded a nonprofit helping underserved patients receive life-saving heart care. Years ago, I’d heard a rumor that Dr. Carmichael was being considered for the surgeon general’s office. Somewhere around that same time she’d appeared on Oprah.
But that didn’t tell me how Lainey had ended up here, far from her home in Texas, talking with me. And I really, really wanted to know what cosmic whateverthefuck had aligned to make all this happen. “That’s her origin story. Not yours.”
Silence settled again on our table. Around us, customers bustled in and out. The milk steamer screamed. Tiago shouted for another chair from the back. Lainey frowned, but the pouty downturn of her mouth only made her more beautiful.
“I’ve lived a very privileged life. I had the nannies and the chauffeurs and everything. But people out there are suffering. There’s not enough food or money or…love.I’ve never struggled once in my life. It feels like I shouldn’t waste that opportunity, you know? Not everyone has my advantages, but we all have hearts. And I know hearts. If I can use that knowledge to help someone live a better life or have more time on this earth, I havean obligation to do so.” She stared down at her plate, visibly uncomfortable.
“I don’t know. Maybe that’s a stupid reason to get into this. I’m good at it. I like it. I like that I can help improve the world, even if it’s just one artery at a time. Your story is better.” She polished off the last of the chocolate thing.
“I like your story.” Ilovedher story. It was honest, and she was self-aware enough to understand it. I got the feeling that, like me, she wasn’t used to sharing this facet of her past with people, and I loved that she trusted me with it.
“Yours didn’t have a butler.” She huffed, crossing her arms as she sat back.
“A butler?” I whistled. A freaking butler. And I’d grown up scrubbing the mold off the walls with just my little brothers to help. We were worlds apart. And yet, not really.
“Two. Divorced parents, right? Everything is duplicated.”
“So, you left the butlers behind and went to med school in Texas. How’d you end up in Chicago?”
A burning question, often hotly debated at Cedar. According to the rumor mill, she’d matched with Houston Presbyterian for her residency and switched to Cedar at the last minute. Something normal people couldn’t really do, but Lainey came with the advantage of a hefty medical legacy. Having the favor of someone like Dr. Carmichael could open major doors for an organization.
All Caplan would say on the matter, when someone had asked him about it once, was that they wanted the best at Cedar, and they’d opened up a spot for her when she’d requested a transfer. I’d still been at Northwestern at that point, but the story of her irregular entrance into the program still popped up every once in a while, so I was familiar with it. Sometimes people dredged it up when she and Cooper did something particularly brilliant in the OR.
Whatever the naysayers muttered about didn’t matter, though. Lainey had entered the program and promptly blown everyone away. She knew hearts in-and-out. But I’d always been curious about the actual story of how she got here.
As she stiffened, her gaze shooting down to the empty cups around her, I immediately knew the question was unwelcome.
“Another round?” Santiago plucked up the tray, cutting off whatever I’d just opened my mouth to say. An apology, perhaps. Lainey gave him a small smile. Strained.
“I couldn’t. It was all amazing. The dreamsicle? A literal dream.”
“A literal dream. It’s going on the menu board. I told you!” Tiago snapped his fingers in my face. I smacked his hand away. “What did you think of the coconut pastelitos? Jordan has been agonizing over them. He thinks there’s too much salt, even though he’s wrong.” He glared at his partner, who ambled over to listen in on Lainey’s response.
“The coconut things? Ohmigod, don’t change a thing. I want to eat this until I die. And then I want to be embalmed in whatever glaze you have going on here. And then stuff me in my casket with as many of these as you can fit.” She thawed as she talked, conversation melting away the awkward freeze from when I’d mentioned Texas.
Or maybe she was just that good at faking it.
Despite her insistence otherwise, Tiago handed her a decaf matcha something or other with some sort of ginger whip on top, and handed me another cup as well. When my friends drifted away to see to other customers, we fiddled with our drinks in awkward silence. For maybe the first time in my life, I felt compelled to fill it.
“Embalming, huh?” I surprised a laugh out of her, which was gratifying.
“Hey, those things were good! I’d be rich and well-fed in the afterlife.”
“Hmm. More of a cremation guy, myself.”
A week ago, if you’d told me I’d sit across from Lainey Carmichael, trying to distract her by talking about our post-mortem preferences, I would have called the psych ward. Now? Her smile lit up the whole fucking room.
“Tell me more about that.”
I smiled back.
Chapter 9
Sam
Shiny plastic and metal chairs filled conference room C, and I was currently planning to burn them all to the ground. They creaked. Every one of them. Fuck conference room C.
Cooper shifted beside me, tugging his sleeve to check his watch again. As he moved, the metal frame of his chair squealed, and I decided I’d burn his first. I’d allow him to vacate it before I started, of course. Considering how he was crossing and re-crossing his legs, he might even help me with the lighter fluid.
