The Neanderthal Box Set: A Workplace Romance, 2020 Revised and Expanded Edition

by Reid, Penny

  I easily pronounced trastuzumab and hematopoetic and tranylcypromine, but I tripped over Manganiello, always putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable or mixing up the placement of the g.

  Rose’s confusion lasted for a full ten seconds. The fact that I looked quite different from the girl she knew was likely the reason for her prolonged bewilderment. I was still five feet four, but my blonde hair was now long and in a thick braid down my back. I’d also filled out—which was a very good thing because it meant having boobs and hips and a girl shape. I no longer tipped the scale at eighty-nine pounds. My face and features had also filled out. My lips in particular were a source of pride; a previous conquest of mine once referred to them as pouty.

  In short, despite the ambiguity of the baggy scrubs and large lab coat I wore, I no longer looked like a twelve-year-old boy.

  Finally, her green eyes focused on my blue ones, and confusion gave way to recognition and astonishment. This lasted only a split second, then morphed into delighted excitement. “Oh, my God! Oh, my dear Lord, Lizzybella! Oh my goodness, come here and give me a hug!”

  My cement smile softened. Rose struggled to stand with the child in her arms. At five feet one, the only two things that were big about Rose were her personality and her expectations for her children—all eight of them.

  “Oh, for God’s sake—Nico, snap out of it and take Angelica. Help your poor mother.”

  I noticed in my peripheral vision that Nico turned when I spoke, but now he was standing perfectly still. Holding steady to the resolve to keep my attention affixed on Rose, Nico’s face was out of focus, and I couldn’t read his expression.

  I didn’t want to read his expression.

  Even trapped in a room together, I was avoiding him.

  I never avoid anything or anyone anymore. I am proud of my lack of avoidance. I am many things, but I am not a coward.

  …unless Nico is involved.

  This reminder further aggravated my mood.

  He stepped forward wordlessly and took the girl from his mother’s arms. I noted as Angelica was passed between Rose and Nico that the child had big green eyes, brown hair, and olive skin. She looked like a Manganiello.

  Rose crossed the room with her arms open and wide, and she forcefully embraced me. “Oh, Lizzybella, I didn’t even think—when they said Dr. Finney would be coming in, I didn’t think it would be you. I should have realized, but I thought you would have changed your name when you got married.”

  Rose pulled back, her emerald eyes lighting with a familiar hint of mischief. She knew I wasn’t married. I noted that for as much as I’d changed, she was basically the same—in looks and in temperament. Her long hair was still black, and her makeup and attire were impeccable and stylish. Despite the fact that her family owned and operated the best Italian restaurant in our hometown, her figure was svelte and lissome. She was beautiful.

  I gave her a closed mouth smile and prepared to answer her unasked question. “I’m not married, Rose.” Another thing that hadn’t changed about her—she was still foxy like a fox.

  Her eyebrows jumped. “Ooh! Well…” Rose paused, looked over her shoulder—presumably at her son—then back to me. Her eyes traveled up my form, no doubt absorbing the baggy scrubs, the oversized lab coat, the long length of blonde hair in a haphazard braid, no makeup, no nail polish, and no fancy accoutrements.

  I’d been on the receiving end of Rose Manganiello’s scrutiny before. It never seemed to get easier.

  She pressed a purple-painted fingertip to her chin and her head lolled to the right. She gazed at me through narrowed eyes. “Well, you know—I just assumed you must be married now, at your age. But your father should have told me that you were here. The last time I spoke to him was ages ago. He said you were a doctor in Chicago, but ever since he started dating that girl, he never comes to the restaurant….”

  “Ma….” Nico’s voice was low and rumbly with warning. I couldn’t help—despite everything—that their interaction made me smile. My insides still felt full of lead, but now it was slightly warmed lead.

  “Well, she is a girl. She’s what—thirty?” Rose reached for one of my hands and held it between her own, patting the knuckles. “How are you doing with all of this?”

  I tried to flatten my smile. “Well, first of all, she’s forty-three, so she’s only ten years younger than my father. And, it’s none of my business.”

  “Oh, Lizzy, you’re his daughter.”

  “But even if it were my business, I’m really good with it. If she makes him happy, and she seems to, then I’m happy for him.” And I was. My father’s relationship with Jeanette Wiggins, bakery owner in our hometown, and all-around nice lady, didn’t bother me.

  It didn’t bother me because his relationship with Jeanette was irrelevant. I knew my father would only ever truly love my mother. My mom was his first and only love. If he wanted to have some fun, then who was I to judge? I was guilty of the same type of behavior.

  However, I understood Rose’s apparent dislike of Jeannette. Rose and my mom had been best friends. My mother died from breast cancer when I was nine, and I think Rose took the loss almost as hard as my father and I did.

  But the real reason Rose didn’t like Jeannette was because she had the audacity to make and sell cannoli at her bakery downtown, and hers were better than the cannoli made at Manganiello’s Italian Restaurant.

  “You’re a saint.” Rose’s smile was sweet. “And you’ve grown up and become a beautiful doctor,” she added, her hands cupping my cheeks, “a profession any mother could be proud of.”

  Nico’s sigh was audible.

  “Ma….”

  “It’s nice to see you too, Rose.”

  Surprising myself, I meant it. Just her presence reminded me of home: family dinners at Manganiello’s with my mother and father kissing under the mistletoe that hung from an archway in the main dining room year-round.

  Her hands dropped from my face and reclaimed my hand. Rose’s smile widened; again, I was reminded of a fox.

  “And Nico? Is it nice to see Nico, too?”

  Without meaning to, my eyes—those traitors!—flickered to where he stood, and met his gaze for the first time since I’d entered the room.

  A sharp stab of pain pierced my chest, passed through my body, and jarred my teeth. It felt like a stake to the heart, or a branding iron inserted into my aortic valve. I held my breath.

  His wide eyes were haunted by a lingering emotion I couldn’t quite place—something like wistful nostalgia or reluctant admiration—as well as a shadow of surprise. He was obviously trying to school his expression, although with little success, and this made him look somehow severe. Mussed black hair and likely twenty-four hours since his last shave added to the harshness of his appearance; but neither, I noted with annoyance, detracted from his good looks.

  It was decidedly not the laissez-faire attitude or the roguish, cheerful face he wore on his show, nor the unrepentantly flirtatious and unscrupulous face that smiled back at his fans from publicity photos.

  He was Nico in person. But he was The Face on TV.

  The last time I had seen Nico was on the TV in the doctor’s lounge two weeks ago.

  A group of male surgeons had gathered around the TV set. They were watching a busty blonde and a sylph-like redhead Jell-O wrestle a bare-chested Nico on his Comedy Central show Talking With The Face.

  He’d been dubbed “The Face” because he used to be a male model in New York, before it was discovered that he actually had a brain and a personality. Never mind the fact that both his brain and personality were used for evil. For that matter, so was his face. I had firsthand, secondhand, and thirdhand knowledge of how he used his face for evil.

  Even though I avoided his show, I’d purposefully purchased and watched his standup comedy special, and of course I’d come face-to-The Face with advertisements for his show plastered on billboards and on the Internet. Regardless, I wasn’t prepared for an in-person encounter. In pe
rson, he was real and present in a way that he wasn’t in a still-life picture or a video clip.

  The fact that his mother was in the room, openly inspecting us as we reacted to each other, only served to crank up the awkward dial, but even if we’d been alone, I wouldn’t have known what to say to him.

  I could have tried, Hi—about deserting you after your best friend died, that was really shitty of me. Also, about disappearing that morning after I handed you my V-card, and never returning your calls or reading your letters—that was also shitty of me. In my defense, I’m pretty sure that one time we slept together meant more to me than it did to you, as I was a grieving teenager who was frightened by my feelings for you, and you’ve always had girls tripping over their panties in pursuit. I’m fairly certain that night, for you, was mostly pity sex. Furthermore, I’m sure you didn’t even notice my absence, what with all the poontang you must’ve been getting in New York as a male underwear model. Since you basically made my adolescent years hell, let’s just call it even-steven.

  I swallowed memories down, down, down, along with all the recriminations that surfaced immediately afterward. I wasn’t at all proud of how I’d behaved, but it was a very long time ago. I’d just turned sixteen and he’d just turned seventeen. We were kids. He may have been my first, but I most definitely had not been his.

  I knew that if he were still upset with me, it probably had less to do with my abandoning him after sex and more to do with my abandoning him after Garrett’s death. For that, I still felt ashamed.

  I commenced with an attempt at a smile, and nodded my head in his direction.

  “Of course. Hi. Good to…see…you.”

  His full lips flattened. His frown deepened. He visibly swallowed. He didn’t respond.

  He just looked at me, and his stare felt like a branding iron.

  “Oh—and this is Angelica, my granddaughter.” Rose led me by the hand to where Nico held the small girl. Pride was evident in Rose’s voice, but so was a trace of sadness.

  I used the movement as an excuse to shift my attention away from Nico, and I smiled at Angelica as I approached. The small girl was dressed in a kid-sized hospital gown, and I knew better than to offer her my hand. Cystic fibrosis would make her extremely susceptible to pulmonary infections, even though she was likely already on prophylactic antibiotics.

  Angelica smiled at me briefly then buried her face in Nico’s neck.

  “It is nice to meet you, Angelica.” I kept my voice soft. “I’m actually here to talk to you and your—your—your dad about a research study that might help you feel better.”

  Curses!

  I didn’t know why I’d stuttered over “your dad,” but I did know I needed to pull my shit together before shit got everywhere and shit got crazy.

  “Oh, Lizzybella, Angelica isn’t Nico’s. Nico is her uncle.” Rose leaned forward and her whisper assumed a wavering, watery quality. “Angelica was my Tina’s.”

  I nodded in dejected and horrified understanding. On the tragedy scale, this news was an eleventy thousand. That’s right: eleventy thousand. Not only did sweet Angelica have a chronic, life-threatening disease, but her mother was dead. Tina was Rose’s third daughter. My father had told me of Tina and her husband’s death last year in a freak car accident.

  It was horrible and senseless, and I now felt the sudden need to drink some scotch and wade into a brooding sea of melancholy, or to read Edgar Allen Poe, or the ending to Hamlet. Maybe I would top it all off with some YouTube videos of drowning kittens while listening to Radiohead.

  “I see,” was all I could say.

  Again, without meaning to, my gaze sought Nico’s. I found him studying me. I tried not to fiddle with my stethoscope; I hoped my eyes conveyed my condolences. Yet, I couldn’t help but feel foolish and inadequate. I wasn’t used to feeling foolish and inadequate—not since high school.

  He made me feel foolish and inadequate.

  At last Nico spoke. The sound of his voice—deeper than I remembered, raspy—made my spine stiffen in automatic response.

  “We’re in Chicago to see a visiting disease specialist, but we came to the ER because Angelica had a fever this morning. She’s been on the inhaled antibiotics since two weeks ago. I’m worried that….” he paused. His soulful eyes shifted from me to his mother, then back to mine, and their intensity pierced me. “We’re worried that they aren’t as effective. They did a chest X-ray downstairs, but we haven’t heard anything about the results.”

  I motioned to the aptly depressing beige furniture, and endeavored to slip into Elizabeth Finney, MD mode. “Here—let’s sit down and I’ll take a look at Angelica’s chart.”

  Rose sat next to Nico on the couch, and Angelica moved from his lap to hers. I deposited the consent forms on the table then crossed to the computer station mounted on the wall; Angelica’s electronic medical record had two procedural tabs for April 1. The first was a full blood panel and the second was a chest X-ray. The actual image wasn’t yet available, but the radiologist’s report indicated that her lungs were negative for infection.

  “Well, the good news is that the radiology report came back, and it looks like Angelica’s lungs are currently free of infection. Her labs aren’t in the system yet, but the attending physician will be able to review them with you before discharge.” Unable to find a reason to loiter any longer with the electronic medical record, I crossed to them and chose the beige chair across from Rose. “The reason I’m here is to talk to you about a research study that Angelica might be eligible for.”

  Nico nodded. He leaned forward and placed his elbows on his knees, his hands tented before him. “Yeah, the nurses downstairs said that you guys were doing a study, and it might help with the symptoms—reduce the infections or something like that.”

  The hope in his voice was heartbreaking. I tried to distance myself from my history with him, with Rose, with this family, and review the study and consent forms with measured impartiality, just as I would with any other family.

  But because I was unable to completely detach myself from the strength of memories and guilt, historical emotions involving Nico, I kept my gaze fastened on Rose as I explained the study visits, risks, and benefits.

  “Results thus far are promising; increase in mucociliary clearance, improved digestive and pancreatic function. But the study isn’t yet fully enrolled. No definite conclusions can be made about long-term benefits.”

  Rose was staring at me as though I had three heads.

  I reminded myself to slow down and use everyday terms, and to treat them like any other family. This was safe territory for me: current research trends, the study, risk analyses.

  What unnerved me was the realization that I still had unsafe territory where Nico was concerned. Since leaving high school, I was used to venturing beyond the pale with abandon. I was not used to feeling like I needed to watch my words, determine where I looked, and control the inflection of my voice.

  It chaffed. Each time I made a mental note to avoid his gaze my irritability increased. I didn’t like this feeling. I didn’t like the unresolved issues between us. What was unsaid choked me, and honestly, it pissed me off.

  I started over. “This study is straightforward, but also extremely intense: twenty-eight days of infusions administered every eight hours. This means that Angelica will have to return here to the clinical research unit every eight hours for twenty-eight days to receive medication via IV, in her vein, for half an hour. There are some documented adverse reactions. But, on the plus side, the study is not placebo-controlled; this means that all patients will be receiving treatment.”

  Rose nodded her understanding and held Angelica tighter.

  “You should take some time to read the forms and discuss them together.” I studied Rose for a moment as she held her granddaughter to her chest. According to Angelica’s chart, the little girl was four. She was very small for a four-year-old. She was also very shy, and looked away every time I attempted to draw her out
with a smile.

  Rose sighed. It was a heavy, distracted, helpless sigh. “I just don’t know….” She turned to Nico. “What do you think?”

  Nico held his mother’s gaze for a moment, then glanced at his hands, studying them as though they might answer the question for him. He lifted his eyes to mine, and targeted me with a pointed stare, sending another stabbing pain through my heart. If he saw me wince, he didn’t make any outward sign.

  He lifted his chin a notch, “What do you think we should do?”

  “Read the study materials, and take some time to think about it.”

  “No, that’s not what I mean.” Nico’s eyes moved between mine. I was startled by the trust and vulnerability I witnessed in his gaze. “Will you be her doctor?”

  “I…uh….” My head shook before I knew it was shaking. “No. The research nurses administer the infusions and conduct the study visits. And this is my last week in research rotation. It is a mandatory six-week rotation for all residents, and this is my last week. But the principal investigator of the study—Dr. Botstein—is a world-renowned pediatric pulmonologist. He is an excellent doctor. He will be assigned to Angelica.”

  Nico glared at me through his thick, black lashes. His left leg started bouncing. “Couldn’t we request you?”

  My involuntary headshake increased in speed. “No. Listen, you don’t want me—really. You want Dr. Botstein.”

  “No, Elizabeth.” He said my name slowly, stubbornly. His eyes narrowed for the briefest of moments, then he leaned back against the cushions of the pitiful beige sofa. “I want you.”

  I set my expression to rigid, holding Nico’s challenging glower, determined to win this staring contest.

  I spoke first. “You’re not thinking about this clearly.”

  “Whereas, you’ve won awards for clear thinking….”

  “No.” I gritted my teeth. “No one is perfect.”

  “Even you?” his tone was bitter, and his indisputably handsome face was marred by an ugly sneer.