The shake of his head tells me he despairs of my approach to nutrition. “Try not to get sugar on the desk,” he says brusquely. “The last thing we need in here is mice.”
I glance down and see that a few grains of the sugar coating have found their way onto the scarred surface of my desk.
“Sorry,” I say quickly. “I’ll clean it up, I promise.”
He nods. “Lunch was good,” he says, handing me the lunch bag. “Thank you.”
“No problem.” I unzip the lunch bag, planning to rinse the Tupperware and cutlery, and realize everything’s already clean.
“You washed the containers out,” I blurt.
“There’s a sink in the lounge,” he says with a nod. He turns and leaves, and I realize that he came back to his office just to bring me back his lunch bag.
And I missed the opportunity to talk to him about going to the meeting.
I send Heather a vague reply, explaining that Dr. Malone is in the OR today but I’ll talk to him about the meeting as soon as I can.
The next opportunity comes the following morning. When I arrive at seven forty-five, Dr. Malone’s sitting in his office withthe door open, glaring at his computer. His chin is covered with stubble, as though he hasn’t shaved this morning.
I knock nervously on the open door, and he looks up.
“Morning, Alexandra,” he says.
“Morning, Dr. Malone.” I walk to his desk and hand him his lunch. There are smudges of fatigue under his eyes, and I remember that he’s on call most Tuesday nights. Today’s Wednesday, so he might have had to operate in the night. Maybe he hasn’t shaved because he never made it home.
It’s probably not the best time to nag him about going to a meeting.
On the other hand, I’m not sure there will ever be a good time to nag him about going to a meeting, so I gather my courage.
“Uh, Dr. Malone, Heather Larkin is trying to organize a meeting about multidisciplinary strategic communication. Would next Wednesday morning work with your schedule?”
“I don’t have time for this, Alexandra,” he says wearily.
“Heather’s willing to reschedule to a time that works for you,” I try. “She says it’s important.”
“Heather thinks a lot of things are important,” he scoffs. “This sounds like an excuse to whine that doctors are bad communicators.”
“I’m not sure,” I say carefully. “But it sounds like something that would be good to discuss with Heather? Maybe at the meeting on Wednesday?”
He rolls his eyes. “No. I’m not going, Alexandra.”
Well, that’s fairly definitive. Dr. Malone seems like a pretty clear communicator, on this issue at least. I’ll just have to tell Heather he said no. “Okay. Is there any other work I could help you with?”
“I guess you could start dealing with my emails,” he says with a sigh. He gestures to a chair on the opposite side of his desk. “You can pull that chair around, and I’ll show you what to do.”
I move the chair and sit next to him, and get a subtle whiff of cedar and musk. I don’t know if it’s soap or cologne, but it smells damned good.
He angles his monitor so I can see the screen and types in his login information. “Here’s the password,” he says, clicking the eye icon so it’s no longer hidden. His password isStrawberryFields8!.
“Beatles fan?” I ask.
“I like the song,” he says with a shrug. He clicks through to his inbox, and I blink at the screen. He has a hundred and fifty-seven unread messages. No wonder Heather thought he needed another assistant.
“You want me to sort these for you?” I ask. “By urgency, or subject, or . . .”
His lips twitch. “No, Alexandra, I want you to deal with them. Delete anything that seems irrelevant.”
“I can’t delete your emails!” I protest.
