Her eyebrows shot upwards — “Are you between jobs?”
“Huh?”
“Is that why you do not want to disclose your profession?” She sounded pitiful. Mildly. Did she not know him?
“I am a couturier.”
She nodded — “And how long have you been in the industry?”
“What does that have to do with this appointment?”
“Exactly what my tenure of practice has to do with it. Nothing,” she smiled. Her teeth were straight, perfect, pearly white. Her morose, roundish face stretched into the best contours he had ever seen on a woman’s face, the lines pushing her cheekbones high, her pointed chin making an appearance, and making her creamy skin shine bright. Nilay forgot the burn of her jibe in that millisecond.
Then her smile vanished as soon as it had bloomed. And with it, his momentary truce vanished too.
“If I was going to spread a roll of velvet on this table,” Nilay leaned forward, “trace every inch of your measurements on it,” he smiled. “And tailor it to you, then my career’s span would have made a difference to this appointment. Sadly, my private couture is reserved for the select. So why don’t you make this easy on both of us and call your boss?”
The easy, bored expression on her face tightened. For the first time, she looked anything other than pitiful at him.
“Here’s what you can do, Mr. Patel — You can lay out your reports and consult with me, or you can walk out and find yourself another cardiologist. Dr. Shravan mentioned you’ve passed a mini angina 48 hours ago. If you so wish, the receptionist outside can refer you to another doctor.”
He blinked. She was suddenly not sneering or talking down to him. She was… cool. Professional. She was really the doctor?
Nilay found his hand inching towards the set of reports he had put down, ready to pick them up and leave the office when his heart gave a loud thump. Logically, he knew that thump did not mean anything. A thump was not an attack. And yet, cold sweat broke out on his forehead.
“Drink this,” she inched a bottle of Evian towards him.How did she know? Sheisa fucking doctor, that’s how!
“I’m good.” He picked up his reports and set them on the table between them. The water was tempting but he felt better the moment she fetched the bunch and began to pull out the stacks from their respective envelopes. So many papers, so many photographs, so many graphs and charts. His entire life’s worth of school report cards wouldn’t be half as thick. In two days, he had amassed a year’s worth of paperwork. Nilay sat silently, the memory of Google search results and Rajiv’s explanations making his throat dry. Was he having another attack?
Nilay swallowed in a bid to wet his throat and get over this panic. He was a man who thrived on control. Things never slipped out of his hands. Not scissors, not his staff’s necks, and definitely not his own mind. The bottle of Evian called out to him. But reaching for it would mean surrendering control to this tool of an egoistical doctor. He needed her today, badly. Didn’t mean he would emasculate whatever little was left of his pride.
And… he swallowed again; his throat had begun to feel better. His heart was still thumping, but he knew it was the nervousness. What if… CABG… angio…
“Describe what happened on the night of the attack,” she set his reports down.That’s it?He gaped at them. That was a few hours’ worth of reading material! Was she still messing with him and wasnotthe doctor?
“Mr. Patel?”
“You are done.”
“Excuse me?”
He eyed the reports — “Did you see them all? There was also an ECG and a stress test…”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
Now, he was even more suspicious of her career span. She was one of Dr. Shravan’s assistants here, out to enjoy some professional highs by acting like a bitch and airily flipping reports to show her superiority.
“What happened on the night of the attack?”
Those words sobered him. He did not care who was on the other side — the words left his mouth without preamble.
“It was mild angina pain, not an attack.”
“It was.”
“How can you tell?”
