“I’ve played some baseball,” I said.
“There’s hope for us yet,” Copeland said. “Expect an email about jerseys this afternoon. Don’t make me chase you down for your answers. Assuming we don’t get pulled into the OR on Friday evening, we’re playing ball and we’re playing to win. Understood?”
“If there’s a different reason to play, I don’t know it,” Tori said.
Copeland gave a gleeful giggle that sounded entirely foreign coming from her before clapping her hands together. “Cortes-Dixon, Ansari, Tran. You’re with me this morning. I’ll need one of you to scrub in”—three hands shot into the air—“to retrieve a donor lobe, and another for the transplant. Then, you’ll be in the clinic with Dr. Aldritch this afternoon. Put your damn hands down. I’ll decide after rounds. Hazlette.” She flipped through a notebook before glancing down at her tablet. “You’re reporting to Dr. Salas this week. I hope you’ve done your reading on lung transplants.”
“Dr. Salas,” I repeated.What the fuck?I glanced at my team, but they were busy squabbling over the liver transplant procedures.
Still focused on the tablet, Copeland asked, “Is there a problem with your assignment?”
“No,” I was quick to say. “But?—”
She pushed her clear frames up her nose and leveled me with a stare that cut me off at the knees. “Then I’d suggest you pay extra close attention to Dr. Salas’s patients on rounds this morning because she’ll expect a full update.”
I moved closer to Copeland, asking, “And I’ll be on Dr. Salas’s cases all week? Every day? Monday through Friday?”
Again, she eyed me like my existence was a real nuisance. “What part of ‘you’re reporting to Dr. Salas this week’ was unclear to you?”
Shit.“No, I was just wondering if there was a reason why?—”
She tucked the tablet and notebook under her arm and leaned in. “Since we’re talking, Hazlette, allow me to clarify a few things for you. First, assignments are based on need. That’s it. Your entire purpose here is about meeting patient needs and you’re going to be sent where your skills can be of most use. Second, just because we hung out on Friday night doesn’t mean you have any ground to come in here today and question me like we’re friends. We are not. Get that straight in your head right now. And finally, Salas is one of the most brilliant surgeons inthis building. Why you aren’t thanking me for the privilege of being assigned to her cases and certain to scrub in on all of her procedures is a mystery I’d like you to solve.”
Since I couldn’t give her any bit of the truth, I offered a contrite nod. Better that than getting on Copeland’s bad side this early on. “It just came as a surprise. Thank you. I’m looking forward to it.”
“That’s more like it.” She turned an impatient stare toward the battle raging between the rest of my team. It was mostly Cami and Tori arguing over who should be on the retrieval versus the transplant while Reza interrupted to tell them they were both wrong. “None of y’all listen,” she muttered to herself as she held the door open. “Rounds. Now. Let’s move, people. Dr. Hirano will start without us.”
What the actual fuck?
“What do you mean, Dr. Hirano? Isn’t Dr. Aldritch leading rounds?” I asked as everyone else filed past me.
Copeland squared her shoulders as she shifted to face me, her hand still closed around the edge of the door. She was tall enough that she didn’t have to tip her chin up to meet my eyes. “I’m repeating myself an awful lot this morning, don’t you think?”
I shoved my hands deep into my pockets. “Just another surprise,” I managed. “I got the impression last week that Dr. Aldritch always led rounds on this rotation. Must’ve misunderstood.”
Copeland glared at me for a moment before heaving out a sigh and glancing down the hall. “Usually she does, but we’re spicing things up around here this week. Don’t ask me to explain because no one explained it to me. Now, get going. We’re late.”
And all over again, I was fucked.
I thought I’d see Whit at the coffee shop this morning, though I’d brushed that off as the timing being wrong. But shewasn’t coming to roundsandI wasn’t getting anywhere near her cases—and by extension, her—for the whole week?Fuck.I knew resident assignments were unpredictable, but this added up to more than bad timing.
I thought we’d come to an understanding on Friday night though now I was wondering whether we left understanding different things. Even though it’d all seemed so clear. I should’ve known better.
Swallowing a curse, I marched down the hall to meet my team.
Copeland was right.
Dr. Salas was brilliant. Easily one of the best surgeons I’d ever observed.
She was also in the third trimester of her pregnancy and my primary purpose seemed to be following her around all day, carrying her water bottle and handing her snacks. Or standing in a corner of the operating room, holding a milkshake or cheese sticks for when she was hungry. Not that I had any problem with that. Watching the procedure on the monitors and listening while she transplanted new lungs was worth every minute.
When I’d proven that she could rely on me to not ruin her day, as she put it, she let me hold a retractor for eight hours. Later, she taught me a few stitches. When I kept up the streak of not ruining her day, she upgraded me to holding a clamp. By the end of the week, I’d participated in more procedures than the rest of my cohort. Even better, all that time talking to Dr. Salas was like an expert-level crash course in pulmonology. Whenever I pulled a bag of chocolate-covered almonds from mycoat pocket, she’d give me a thoughtful look, point at me, and say something like, “Here’s what no one tells you about post-op embolisms.”
I had not, however, caught more than a glimpse or two of Whit. It was like she’d disappeared all over again though this time was worse because I knew she was here and I knew she was keeping me at a distance. There was no question about it.
The benefit of all that time spent on milkshake duty was that I could take apart this problem and examine it from every angle. Not that I made any headway in the first part of the week. No, I was too busy being bitter. Just fucking bitter as hell that I was living through the most unlikely coincidence of all time, and the most important part of that coincidence was doing everything in her power to avoid me.
I didn’t stop being bitter until I saw her laughing with a surgical tech in the halls on Wednesday. I’d recognized the laugh first. It sparked something warm and electric in my chest, and that pressure only expanded when I traced the shape of her in scrubs, the bottoms cuffed a few times above her emerald green clogs. Her light brown hair was in two braids that came together at the nape of her neck and fine golden wisps haloed out around her face.
