Most days, she ate lunch with Stremmel, Cal Hartshorn, the cardiothoracic surgeon who lived in my apartment before I did, and Nick Acevedo, the neurosurgeon who'd lived in the building a few years ago. If I did that much peoplingevery day, I'd be catatonic within two weeks. It wasn't an exaggeration, it was my nervous system.
"I don't make a habit of hanging out with people who condescend all over my specialty," I said.
"Sorry, honey, but you do now." She dropped a shard of glass into the basin. "At least for the next eight weeks."
Sebastian
I pressedthe heels of my palms to my eyes. "This isn't even my fault."
"Are you sure about that?" Nick Acevedo asked as he distributed sandwiches from the delivery bag. After the shitshow in emergency—and the fallout in the Chief's office—he'd dragged me to the park across from the hospital complex with the promise of lunch.
"On this specific occasion, I am one hundred percent positive I didn't create this problem," I said. "I'm just picking up the tab for it."
"What did the Chief say?" Cal Hartshorn asked.
"Yeah," Nick said. "I can't imagine he came down on you at all in this situation. Accidents happen. You got into it with Shapiro but you're his boy, so—"
"I am no one's boy, Acevedo," I snapped from behind my hands. "I'm an accomplice in trashing an exam room; I get the same slap on the wrist as anyone else who's too stupid to get out before the ceiling comes down."
"Yeah, except youdon'tget the same slap," Nick said with a laugh. "I realize you're unaware of the privilege afforded to you from being the guy the Chief of Surgery trusts to save the day—"
I reached over and stole his apple. "Shut your mouth with that nonsense."
"—but you are still the guy who coordinated the largest and longest all-hands response to a crisis situation this hospital has ever experienced." Nick flattened his hands on the picnic table. "You are the guy who stepped out of his practice to lead pandemic operations for six months and—"
"It wasn't like I had anyone getting hit by cars or fucking themselves up on trampolines and ladders when the world shut down."
And if I hadn't done it, I would've lost my mind from standing by and doing nothing.
Cal shook his head. "Hate to break it to you, Stremmel, but you're the guy. You're definitely the Chief's guy. You're also our guy because you got all of us through it too. So, you need to deal with the fact that you play on a different level now. You're on the soon-to-be Chief of Emergency Surgery level. You're not on the level where you get penalized for a loud disagreement with a colleague."
"Funny you mention that," I said with a bitter approximation of a laugh. "Seems I won't be chief of anything until I can make it through a conflict resolution course with Shapiro."
Nick shrugged. "No sweat. That should be easy."
At the same time, Cal hissed out a heavy "Fuuuuuck."
"Yeah. There it is. Somewhere betweenno sweatandfuuuuuck." Another bitter laugh broke free from my chest. "It would be one thing if I had to do a program on my own. But with Shapiro? Kill me."
"Wait a second with that," Nick argued. "She flies way under the radar but she's the best reconstructive person we have. I go to her skills lab sessions whenever I can and learn something new every time. Same with Hartshorn. He sends all his residents to those sessions too."
I glared at him as hard as my exhausted eyes could. "She's a little high octane, wouldn't you say? Pulled down half the ceiling with one hand."
"You are literally the only person who doesn't like her," Cal said. "Something to think about."
"It's handy that I have eight weeks of therapy with her to think about it, then," I grumbled.
The memory of Shapiro's clenched knuckles and the curtain balled in her fist pushed itself forward. She must have yanked the hell out of that thing. Nothing else could've set off that chain of events. It was impressive in an alarming,give the lady a wide berthsort of way.
Beside me, Cal crumpled the butcher paper from his sandwich and held the ball between his hands. "If I had to guess, I'd say this conflict res thing is some kind of human resources requirement following any incident between staff, but you have to know this is a mild response. No administrative leave, no suspension of privileges. All that said, Sebastian, I want to make it clear to you that she's the one taking the penalty here."
"And yet I'm still the one in therapy with her," I argued. "For two fucking months."
"You remember what it was like to be the problem-child surgeon," Cal said.
I shook my head as a gust of bone-chilling air cut across the park. "Please don't remind me of my fool-ass days. You know I'm sensitive about that, Hartshorn."
"I'm just saying," he continued, "Shapiro is probably feeling like a problem child right now. You have nothing to worry about. Your contract will get renewed. You'll sail through this and get the chief gig. You'll have your pick of the best candidates for fellowships. You'll get to research whatever the hell you want. You'll get to take sabbaticals whenever you feel like it. Nothing on the road ahead of you will be altered by this incident. Shapiro, on the other hand, will have to work this out of her reputation. She hasn't even been on staff that long, right? I lose track of time these days."
