Page 25 of Hearts on the Table
Though there was no discernible demographic of the room, younger residents and attendings, like me, crowded towards the front while older professionals watched from the back or shouted out from their seats.
It was unlike any presentation I’d ever seen before. By the end, when he walked us through the patient’s real diagnosis and treatment (we’d gotten pretty darn close), there was a feeling of camaraderie in the air, fresh and energizing, and I wasn’t the only one who thought so.
I lingered by a coffee cart as people lined up to talk with Sam when the session was over. Crowd members stuck aroundinstead of rushing over to the lunch buffet. All of it was as remarkable as it was embarrassing.
Just a couple of weeks ago, I’d compared this man to oatmeal, for God’s sake. Now here he was, leading one of the hottest sessions at the biggest cardiac conference on the East Coast, and side-hustling as a personal trainer when he wasn’t hanging out with his BFF, who owned the hottest coffee shop in the city?
I’d been a freaking idiot—blind idiot, at that—and now, all I wanted was a little more of his time. Me and the rest of the room.
“Lainey.”
I jerked, water spilling from the cup in my hand when I seized up at the familiar voice. I’d been trying to rig up an iced tea situation with a bottle of water and a crumpled tea bag. Katie gave me an apologetic wince. I nearly growled, but I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of knowing she’d gotten a rise out of me.
I stepped around her, trying to escape.
“Wait! No, please, I need to talk to you. Just…just two minutes, please.” She grabbed at my arm, but I yanked it back. Her pleas drew the attention of a few people around us. My heart pounded in my throat as I looked around, considering what to do. Part of me was screaming for me to turn and walk away. But I couldn’t risk any public attention with Katie. I’d done my best to keep it all quiet, but cardiothoracic surgery was a small specialty. I wouldn’t be surprised to find a few UT grads in the room today, if I looked hard enough.
I nodded towards the door, motioning for her to follow me out into the hall. We wandered for a few feet until I found a quiet alcove tucked away from the prying eyes of the conference attendees. I didn’t know what the heck this was about, but I didn’t care for any witnesses to the conversation. Especially if I gave into my baser instincts and strangled her on the spot.
“What?” She flinched as I spat out the word.
“Did you read my email?” she whispered, rubbing her hands nervously across her belly.Pregnant.She was freaking pregnant. The sight had nearly made me pass out yesterday. Looking at her now still incited a queasy feeling in my stomach.
“Obviously not.”
She slumped. “I specifically put in the subject line—”
“And I specifically deleted it as soon as your name darkened my inbox,Doctor McDaniels.What are you even doing here? You’re an OB, not a cardiologist.”
A flash of something crossed her face, maybe pain or grief. In a blink, it was gone. “I accepted a position here. And I had time between jobs, so I came with Nathan.”
A whining screech filled my ears. The world shivered slightly, like a mirage. “You…What did you just say?”
“I got a job here. In Cedar’s OB department.” She gulped when I didn’t respond. My mouth had dried up. Maybe my brain had, too. “They got a massive research grant for pediatric neuro...”
“Yeah.” I remembered hearing about the grant—the one funding research for Katie’s specialty—and then immediately dismissing it as something totally unrelated to me. Because surely this woman wasn’t sadistic enough to accept a job at my hospital. Absolutely not.
“Well, my advisor back at Texas is in charge of the research team, and she called me. It all happened so fast. It’s such a great opportunity.”
“But you work at Presbyterian. Both of you.” I waved my hands towards the windows flanking the hallway, somewhat sure that the direction faced south, where their existence had continued while I’d holed myself up in this city. Now my walls were getting breached.
“He put in his application for an attending spot here.” Katie wrung her hands, shifting her weight from foot to foot like she needed to pee. But she was just nervous. I hated how I knew that.
“You know he’s always wanted Cedar. And when this opportunity came up, I couldn’t let it pass. It was too perfect.”
“Perfect,” I repeated. I wanted to puke.
“Lainey, I promise you, I never thought we’d end up here. But when the attending interviews opened up right after I got my offer…There’s a new OB director at Presbyterian and it’s been really hard lately—”
“Oh, my God. It’s been hard for you? Well, gee, Katie, why didn’t you just say so? Was it so hard in your hometown? With your friends? In your house with your husband? Working at your first-choice hospital? Was it just so fucking hard for you?” I held my hand up when she opened her mouth. Rage shook my fingers. “No, please. Please tell me about it. What it’s like to get literally everything you ever wanted, and it still not be enough.”
I stared at the ceiling, shaking my head. If I looked at her for a single moment longer, I was going to lose it.
“I didn’t want it to go like this,” Katie whispered, swiping her fingertips under her eyes.
A bitter laugh cracked out of me. “How did you think this would go?”
“Listen, if you both get a job at Cedar, I know it might be uncomfortable to work with Nate after everything that…happened…”
