Asher grabs the phone. “Ali! Did you try that cookie recipe I sent you?” Pause. “I know! You’ll never go back.” Helaughs. “No, thank my mom. She made them when I was growing up.” He swats my hand when I try to take the phone back. “Well, Karen can suck it. You’ll be PTA queen.”
I tickle him so he’s forced to defend himself, all but climbing his much taller body to reach my phone.
His voice rises in pitch. “Shit. Your sister is attacking me. Okay. I know. Bye, honey bear.”
The phone slips from his grasp, and I grab it while pushing him away. “You aren’t allowed to steal my sister.” Then into the phone, I say, “And you aren’t allowed to steal my best friend.”
“Shit! Rosie’s vomiting. I have to go.”
She clicks off before I can say goodbye, and I slip my phone into my dress pocket, then eye Asher. “How are you talking to my sister so much that you’re exchanging cookie recipes like old biddies?”
“It’s probably about the same amount you talk to my mom behind my back.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “My relationship with Sue Ellen is my own business.”
He smirks. “You keep at it, she’ll be setting you up with my brothers.”
He’s not wrong. Every conversation I have with his mother involves at least one comment regarding the availability and desirability of her three single sons. I will never admit to him that at least three-quarters of these comments are actually about him.
Did you know Asher was president of his fraternity? Always such a leader...
Oh, I forgot to mention that Asher used to volunteer at the animal shelter, didn’t I?
Such a loving man, my son. I told you about his beautiful eulogy at my mother’s funeral, right?
He’ll make such a good husband someday.
Sue Ellen is Asher’s biggest fan, and she desperately wants grandkids. I’ve explained multiple times that no matter which son she chooses, those kids won’t be sourced by me, but she’s yet to reconcile that fact in her mind. No reproductive-aged woman is safe around her.
“One day she’ll get it through her head that I’m damaged,” I say with a wink.
“Oh, you’re not damaged.” He pulls the door to the vestibule open for me. “Just deep and dark and complicated.”
I shoot him a sour face.
“Tell her I say hi when you get a chance,” he says as I walk past with my nose in the air. “You know, since you talk to her more than I do.”
“I already told her about our Florida wedding trip in three months. She’s jelly.”
He rolls his eyes. “She hates to travel.”
“You should call her more. She complains you don’t tell her what’s going on in your life.”
He opens the second door, flooding us with the scent of ginger and butter. “When there’s something going on in my life worth telling her, she’ll be the first to know.”
“Hmm. How was your office today?”
He sighs and leans a shoulder on the wall just inside. “I got two patient reviews today, complaining they’d prefer a doctor who is moreestablished.”
“What does that even mean? They want an old man like White?”
He shrugs, pretending at nonchalance, but I can see straight through him. No matter how many patients gush over his greatness, Asher can’t help but focus on those few who equate his raw charm to unprofessionalism or lack of expertise.
The evil empire that is Press Ganey and their “patient satisfaction” surveys has proven no doctor is universally loved, but I’m certain Asher comes close. He just can’t see it. He’s blinded by the idiot patients who find his care lacking, who complain he laughs too much, or in one curious instance, call him abro—an offense that cut him deep.
The glory of anesthesia is that most of my patients are asleep, but OB-GYN is an intensely intimate specialty, and Asher takes those harsh patient reviews to heart.
After he checks in with the host, I pat his shoulder. “It’s their loss, Ash. You know that.”
