Doctor Last-Chance

by Kenna Ryan

  “Thanks. I need to occupy my brain.” My heart. All the parts. “I’ll be fast; save my seat.”

  Spoiler: I will not be fast. I’ll be hiding in the closet behind a stack of freshly-pressed exam gowns.

  ***

  Sheets and gowns, two walk-ins, and prep get me through the next couple hours. I’m in the middle of setting up for Mr. Alvarez’s biopsy when I hear Jake’s office door thump closed.

  Should I get it over with? Will he mention it first? Maybe I should wait until lunch.

  Before I can work up my nerve, Rhonda sends a message to my phone.

  Elia Alvarez check-in

  He’s early, which is fine. It gives me something to do. And he was my very first patient when I first came to Maple Hills. Elia is a kind, patient grandfather of twelve who brings a smile with him no matter what.

  Today is no exception, despite his being here for a skin biopsy. Jake’s confident it’s nothing to worry about but we still have to check. Elia spent his childhood as a migrant field hand, baking in west-coast sun for almost a decade. It’s natural for him to worry and I want so badly to put his mind at ease.

  Elia stands, unfolding his six-and-a-half foot frame to tower over our pastel reception area. He raises his ten-gallon hat like an old-fashioned gentleman. “Katie, my favorite! How are you today?”

  “Great. Ready to get this over with and off your mind?”

  Elia thoughtfully smooths stubble across his cheek. “You’re not going to take my arm, are you?”

  I glance at his chart. I know as a fact we gave him the procedure info packet. “No. No, it’s just a biopsy.”

  “Good. Because Dr. Chance told me you like to…” Elia makes a sawing motion across his arm, “…amputate.”

  I will never live down some stories from nursing school. Not if Jake has his way.

  “Oh haha. You two are hilarious. Come on.” I wave him along. “Put on your coffee filter and sit patiently or I’ll consider getting the bone saw.”

  Once he’s settled in his room and I take vitals, there’s nothing left but to face the music. I step out so Elia can change, and stare at Jake’s door.

  Nothing happened. Keep it cool. Keep it professional. I rap twice.

  “Yeah!”

  He sounds fine. This just kicks up the howling from my neurotic peanut gallery. I’m not fine; why is Jake fine?

  I crack the door with a shaky hand. “Hey! Mr. Alvarez is almost ready for his amputation. Biopsy.” I mutter goddammit under my breath as a chaser.

  Jake doubles over. “Going to be that kind of day, huh? Guess I should have cut my meeting short and picked up coffee.”

  So, he had a meeting. That explains his late arrival but not his lack of apparent abdominal pain, nervous sweats, or sudden urge to develop a chain-smoking habit.

  Oh wait. That’s me.

  We have to talk about this or I’m going to vomit on his shoes and teasing about the ultrasound gel will look like a unicorn emoji by comparison. “Hey–”

  “Okay. All ready!” Mr. Alvarez calls through the door behind me.

  “Yeah?” Jake asks, getting up and slinging on his stethoscope. He doesn’t look bothered. He looks…fine. Despite my epic screw-up and my ridiculous anxiety, things seem normal. “Mr. Alvarez is ready,” I toss out lamely.

  He gives me a sidelong look. “Lucky you’re a good nurse or I’d be worried right now.”

  Jake greets Elia and makes polite small talk while I watch him for signs. It can’t be this easy. I wanted to believe Felicity but I had doubts. There’s no such thing as going back in time.

  Or so I thought, but as we start the procedure things feels the same as ever.

  Well, everything except me. I should be happier, more relieved. It doesn’t feel as good as I’d hoped.

  I should get Why Are You Like This? tattooed somewhere.

  “Hand me the tweezers, Kate?”

  I pass them by gripping atoms along the furthest edge from his fingers.

  “Thanks.”

  He doesn’t have a tone or anything! I reach for a stack of gauze 2x2’s and topple the iodine.

  Scott smiles through a squint at his injection site. “Whoa there, ace. Calm down.”

  Still joking around. Why am I bothered? I ask myself this for the millionth time.

  Because I can’t do more than dip a toe, I guess, even if it means losing out on something I want so badly. I had a doctor–crush once before. More than a crush where Scott was concerned. We brought it to school, we brought it to work, and when it fell apart…I did, too. There was just too much of Scott in the fabric of my life for me to be okay afterward.

  Mr. Alvarez peeks up over the bunch of his paper drape. “You two alright today?”

  “Yes!” Jake and I shout in unison, smiling like an ad for dental work.

  “Never better,” Jake murmurs, leaning closer to his incision.

  Really? Never? Well, there it is, if I had any doubt left. “Just the Monday slump,” I manage.

  Mr. Alvarez chuckles, oblivious. “Don’t miss that since I retired. Now I sit and feel the sun on my face. Go up to my cabin at Beaver Lake.”

  “Sounds relaxing.” I look at Jake who hums agreement and goes about his procedure like nothing happened. Nothing; not the kiss, not the drive home. Not our night together at his house.

  What’s wrong with me, I realize, is that I make bad choices and bad decisions and I can’t get out of my own way. Mr. Alvarez gives me a questioning look. All I can do is shrug.

  I wish I could retire.

  And with this, the first seed is planted in my brain. Looking back, I can see I didn’t realize it for a few weeks, but this moment was the beginning of the end. Even more final than our stupid kiss.

  We finish Mr. Alvarez’s biopsy with small talk, remarks and polite observations. Jake laughs at a joke I make about the lab. We’re like a 50s couple pretending the Cold War is affecting our sex life more than our beds being in separate rooms.

  Mr. Alvarez is our last patient before lunch, and as much as I love seeing him, I’m grateful it’s time for him to go. I need a break.

  “Well, it was good to see you, Elia,” Jake says, stripping his gloves and washing up. “I’ll be in touch as soon as we have the results; I’d say next week sometime. Kate will give you a call.”

  I nod. “I’ll get your discharge papers and we’ll get you headed home.”

  Mr. Alvarez glances up at the clock. “Oh, I missed the shuttle!”

  “Oh no. I’d offer you a ride but I have lunch plans,” Jake says, turned away from me.

  Lunch plans? Unless he has a meeting with the board or a patient in labor, Jake’s lunch plans for the last two years have consisted of sitting with his feet on his desk, packing away a sandwich from Eckmann’s Deli and pestering me to show him whatever I’m looking at on my phone.

  “I can do it. I’ll give you a ride,” I volunteer. Mr. Alvarez is too old and too sweet to be traipsing halfway across the city.

  His bushy brows jump. “Are you sure? I don’t want to put anybody out.”

  I glance at Jake, hunched over his laptop as he finishes Mr. Alvarez’s chart notes. I guess more is different than I realized. There is no changing things back. This is Jake’s way of letting me know where we stand in not so many words. “It’s no problem,” I say, handing Mr. Alvarez his clothes. “I don’t have anything going on.”

  -Chapter Eight-

  And then? you shout.

  No ‘and then’. Things never did come to a head. Felicity had been a little right: Things stayed same-enough.

  Jake went out each day at lunch, or into his office with the door closed. Otherwise, it was medical-business as usual. Maximum Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

  Well, for one of us, anyway.

  We didn’t have a talk or figure ourselves out. Jake still brought coffee or I brought coffee. He still joked when I spilled the gel. I still called him Dr. Awesome to our pediatric patients.

  Felicity a
nd I went out every Friday night and tore up the town and one of us went home alone. And I called her every Sunday for at least two months and cried on the phone. I cried about Scott, and Jake, and a lot about how much of all of it was my fault. They hadn’t done this to me; I did it to myself.

  Then, a month ago, I saw the phone message on Jake’s desk. Jenny and the weekend plans. Suddenly Jake’s lunch dates made more sense, his closed office and his out-the-door-promptly-at-five-twenty routine on Friday afternoons.

  I thought we told each other damn near everything but I guess he never felt comfortable mentioning there was someone else. Realizing this put our relationship and my feelings in a whole new light.

  I went home that night and put in my online application with St. Francis. Not that I had a chance in hell of getting the position. But it made me feel better, like I was getting back. Getting back at Jake, at myself? Scott?

  I had to fill it out fast. Felicity was picking me up in forty-five minutes and after that it wouldn’t matter – until St. Francis sent me a rejection letter.

  And then Carol, their nurse manager, called the following Wednesday morning while I was with a patient. Her voicemail was brief but it held a warm tone. So did her voice when I called back.

  “We’d be thrilled to have you come down for an interview,” she said, sounding like she meant it.

  What do I say? I hadn’t planned for this. It was my nurse-equivalent of a tantrum, over with days ago. “Can I get back to you? I’m flattered but–”

  “Don’t be flattered,” Carol cut in, efficiently kind. “You earned this opportunity. Dr. Chance couldn’t have given you a more glowing recommendation. And a recommendation from him, well…”

  “You–” I have to swallow twice to keep breakfast from running away from home. “You called him.”

  “We’re anxious to fill the position. This is a busy facility.”

  “Can I have until the end of the day?”

  Carol makes a baffled noise. She’s probably well aware there are nurses out here willing to give a kidney for a job at St. Francis. “Of course. Call me back at the number I left in my voicemail.”

  I hang up and lock myself in Exam 3. Door locked, lights off, I sit on Jake’s stool and lay my head on the cool countertop, shaking.

  The thought occurs for me to text Felicity. I don’t. Because my next thought is, she gave me bad advice the last time. Profoundly bad advice. If there was such a thing as best friend malpractice, I’d have sued her for it.

  I can’t be upset, though. At least not too upset. She gave the advice in good conscience; I’m the one who took it.

  Jake shot me down. That’s a fact and nothing can make it hurt less. Dancing around each other for the past few months? Pretending what happened never happened? I mean, what’s been going through his head? What if he met this Jenny before I made my move and he’s been close to panic-vomiting over it all this time?

  Questions pop up and spin through my brain until it’s all just noise between my temples. One thought stands out: If I’d been honest, if I’d been an adult and faced him, at least whatever we had from there would have been real. There’s no fixing it now.

  I pick up my phone and dial Carol. “Hi Carol, it’s Kate Cleary. Yes, I have. Yes please. Next Tuesday at four; got it. I’ll be there. Thanks again. I can’t wait to meet you. You too. Bye.”

  There’s no fixing the engines, but at least I can manage the crash-landing.

  I dab my eyes, smooth my scrubs and go looking for Jake.

  -Chapter Nine-

  “Yo.” I lean against the frame of Jake’s office door.

  “Yo,” his eyes flick to me over the edge of his laptop screen. “Walk-in patient?”

  “Nope. I want to talk.”

  “Oh…” He glances from me to whatever he’s working on enough times that his message is clear: He doesn’t have time to talk.

  This moment is the equivalent of the music they use to play celebrities off from an Oscar’s speech. No one could blame me if I took the hint and ran away, not even me. But that’s not how things are going from here on out. “I promise I’ll make it quick.”

  Jake pushes his computer away and slides down in his chair, chin on his fist. His exam coat pulls around his biceps. His feet slip from under the desk, reminding me how tall he is.

  Goddammit. When does the lust wear off enough that I start to find him ugly and annoying?

  “Want to sit?” he asks.

  “No. Like I said, just need a second.” I take a deep breath and dive. “I applied to St. Francis; they accepted. It’s important to me that you’re the first to know.”

  His deep amber eyes hold me where I stand. “You didn’t tell anybody before you applied?”

  Just like that, he flips my shitty consolation-prize announcement back on me. It doesn’t sound like I did anyone a solid by waiting until after I landed the job.

  I could make a hundred excuses about not thinking I’d get it, not thinking he cared. “No. I didn’t tell anyone.”

  “Not even Felicity?”

  “No. I tell her a lot about–” I barely catch myself. Will I ever get out of the habit of telling him everything? “No one.”

  A smile plays faintly at his lips. “I’m really happy for you. When you started here, you were a hot mess with the imaging gel and I was convinced you’d be a one-woman charity with half our patients.” Jake holds up a hand. “Not that the last part has changed. But you’re a fantastic nurse.”

  I sink teeth into my lip and nod, trying to look thoughtful and not like I’m about to cry.

  “It sure will be hard to replace you,” he says softly.

  Will it?

  Tell him. You’re sorry about what happened, what you did. Sorry for the way it’s been and so, so sorry you didn’t tell him about the job.

  When I open my mouth, none of this comes out.

  What happened with Scott still festers; I have to admit that. He burned me like I’d never been burned, professionally and deep in my heart. And saying something to Jake now feels like hailing a taxi after it’s turned the next corner. It’s too late, time has moved on. No point running after it; you just have to make the best of what’s left.

  “Thank you. The feeling’s mutual.” Silence stretches between us until I swear I hear emotional Velcro rip. “Well, I’m here for the next few weeks if you need me to train or…”

  “Thanks. Looks like I’ll be filling in over at the emergency department while Colleen Lang is on maternity leave.”

  “Dr. Lang? I feel like she just got married! Isn’t she like, forty?”

  “Yeah!” Jake gives the first genuine laugh I’ve heard out of him in a while. “When it happens, it happens…whenever that is.”

  I physically step away, stung by our sudden circle-back to a painful subject.

  Then it sinks in, what he said about the ER. He won’t be around much for the last of my time here. Maybe that’s a blessing in disguise. “Well, I’ll let you get back to it. Let me know if I can do anything.”

  Jake’s expression slips to neutral. “Will do.”

  This hurts like hell, but somehow it’s easier, too. I’m moving on, taking the first step in putting this behind me. And unlike my disaster with Scott, I didn’t wait for Jake to do the cutting-loose. We both knew what had to happen, and I was brave enough to do it.

  -Chapter Ten

  So, here I am where you found me, six months since the kiss incident. The kissident.

  One month since I applied for the job at St. Francis.

  Today is my last day at Maple Hills Family Medicine. Ashley, Dr. Piper’s nurse, and the front office ladies have flowers and cake waiting when I come in.

  “Going to make you earn your last day,” Rhonda says, pretending to glare at me over the top of her oversized frames. She taps the screen of her scheduling computer with her prized pen. “Sports physicals and an apocalyptic outbreak of hand, foot, and mouth.”

  I scoff. “You can’t scare me. I
survived last year’s Great Rotavirus Epidemic with extra diarrhea included. Even got the t-shirt.”

  Ashley raises her slender arm. “Got it in a medium and a large.”

  “Exactly. Ash knows. Besides, if I didn’t have all this I’d just have to go home and finish packing.” All that’s left is my toiletries and a few piles of laundry. Otherwise, I live in a box fort.

  “Switching over the phones!” Rhonda calls out, patting her salt and pepper bun like she’s ready for war.

  I gird myself and stretch. “I’ll go get Exam 1 ready.”

  “Make sure you do it the way Evans likes it,” says Ashley.

  I stop mid-stride, trying to decide if this is an off-color joke. “Dr. Evans?”

  Immediately I realize she doesn’t know about Evans. Ash is just making a general comment on his reputation for being difficult.

  The ladies pass around a guilty look. “He’s covering today for Chance. Had to call in reinforcements with all these extra patients.”

  So, no Dr. Chance on my last day. True, Jake hasn’t been in the office much with his ER rotation, but when he is around, I thought he and I had done alright. It was even borderline pleasant a lot of the time.

  Today will not be borderline pleasant. If I’m lucky it’ll be tolerable hell.

  “Kate, you okay?” asks Ashley.

  “What? Yeah. No big deal. I’ve worked with Scott Evans enough times to…” I trail off, nodding.

  Just get it over with, Kate. Get it all over with.

  My phone rings when I’m halfway through setting up the room. I secretly hope it’s Jake; he should be getting into the ER about now.

  It’s not. “Hey,” I mutter, phone clasped between my chin and shoulder.

  “Hey,” Felicity shoots back. “I’m at your place and my key doesn’t work?”

  “What! Wait, what are you doing there?”

  “Dropping off a surprise. Well, I was dropping off a surprise. Cat’s out of the bag now.”