by Radclyffe
“It’s about time you noticed.” Tammy slid her arms around Pearce’s waist and pressed against her. “Now, where were we before you lost your mind?”
“Tam,” Pearce said, embracing her gently and kissing the top of her head. “I really don’t want to. It’s got nothing to do with you. I’ve just got…” Wynter. I’ve got Wynter on my mind. Jesus Christ. What am I doing?
Tammy tilted her chin up, studying Pearce’s face. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Sure.” Tammy’s nipples were firm against her chest, Tammy’s body warm in her arms. One kiss was all it would take. One kiss and she could lose herself the way she always had in the sounds and sensation of passion. For a few minutes, an hour, there would be no expectations other than pleasure, no goals other than satisfaction. She could be no one—or anyone—whomever she chose. No legacy, no promises. Just the moment burning bright, and then gone. She eased out of Tammy’s grip, resting her hands on Tammy shoulders. “I gotta get over to the hospital.”
“I don’t care if you’re seeing someone else,” Tammy said, her tone surprisingly serious.
Pearce’s heart began to pound. “I’m not seeing anyone at all.”
“You’re lying. To me. Or yourself. But I can see it in your eyes. Somebody’s got ahold of you deep inside.”
“No,” Pearce said hoarsely.
Tammy ran her fingers down the center of Pearce’s chest, then put both hands on her waist and stood on her tiptoes to kiss Pearce hard. Even when Pearce didn’t respond, she kept her mouth against Pearce’s for a long moment, as if imprinting the taste of her. Then she let go.
“You don’t have the slightest idea what a woman can do to your heart. You’re in trouble, baby.”
Pearce didn’t argue.
*
Wynter hit the knee switch to turn on the water at the scrub sink next to Pearce’s. It was the first time she’d had a chance to talk to her in over thirty-six hours. Monday had been the day from hell. They had just begun dry rounds at five thirty in the morning when Pearce had been STAT paged to the emergency room. The entire team had been racing down to the ER when Wynter had been STAT paged to the SICU. It had been nonstop surgery and emergencies the rest of the day, and the only time she’d seen Pearce had been at sign-out rounds that evening, which were truncated because there were three scheduled cases still to be done. Those cases had been bumped from the OR schedule during the day to accommodate the emergencies, and the attendings were insisting that they be done that night so as not to back up the next day’s cases. The entire service had worked until midnight, even the residents who hadn’t been on call. Now it was a new day, and it looked like it might be more of the same. “How does your hand feel?”
Pearce glanced around, but the adjoining scrub sinks were empty for the moment. “It hurts like a son of a bitch. I didn’t want to operate yesterday, but it held up okay. I was too busy to notice that it hurt.”
“It still looks swollen.”
“It looks worse than it feels today. Really.”
Wynter smiled. “Good.”
“You’re post call, Wynter. You need to go home. Why are you scrubbing?”
“Because we’ve got three rooms running, the first-year is taking McMurtry on rounds, and we need someone free to do floor work.”
Pearce shook her head. “Anderson can start that mastectomy by herself. When Liu is done with rounds, he can scrub in and help her out. Go home.”
It annoyed Wynter that she could only see Pearce’s eyes above the surgical mask, and they were flat black disks, completely devoid of emotion. “You wouldn’t go home.”
“That’s different.”
“And why would that be?”
“Because I’m the chief, and I don’t have a kid waiting for me.”
“You can’t be serious,” Wynter said, her voice laced with acid. “Are you suddenly going to become a jerk because you know about Ronnie? Like all the male residents and attendings who think that women shouldn’t go into surgery because they should be home raising children?”
“What I think,” Pearce said, her voice still steady and calm, “is that you were on call last night, and you’re supposed to be going home this morning. You should take advantage of that and do whatever you might like to do with your time off.”
“You are being a jerk. You never tell the guys to go home.”
Pearce stepped on the kick bucket and threw her scrub brush into it. “Maybe I would if they had anything to go home to.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“Suit yourself.” Pearce turned and started for room seven and the carotid endarterectomy that awaited her, not even certain why she was pissed. Wynter looked beat, and it bothered her.
“Pearce,” Wynter called.
Pearce turned around, one eyebrow raised in question.
“Thanks.”
“For what?” She walked back and leaned one hip against the scrub sink, her hands held out in front of her, the water dripping from her elbows onto the floor.
“For thinking about me…and about Ronnie. I appreciate it. But that’s my responsibility.”
Pearce blew out a breath, making her mask puff out like a tiny sail in a brisk breeze. When she breathed in, it molded itself to the contours of her lower face. “You’re right. It’s none of my business. Did you get any sleep last night?”
“A few hours.”
“Will you go home after this case?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
Wynter moved closer, keeping her voice low when several residents stepped up to the scrub sinks adjacent to theirs. “My sister called me last night. Rose—the one who goes to law school at Temple.”
“Uh-huh? Something wrong?”
“No,” Wynter said quickly. “She and her boyfriend are going to the TLA on Friday night to hear Patti Smith. Friends of theirs were going with them, but they can’t make it. So Rose is giving me the other tickets.”
“That’s cool.”
“So I was wondering…you want to come with us?”
“Me?” Pearce couldn’t hide her surprise.
“Yes. Do you like rock?”
“I like Patti Smith. You sure? I mean…don’t you want to ask…” She couldn’t bring herself to say, Don’t you want to ask a guy to go with you? because she didn’t want to think about that reality. Stupid, she knew. But if she didn’t think about it, maybe it wouldn’t happen. At least not for a while.
“No,” Wynter said firmly, as if she had heard the rest of Pearce’s question. “I want to go with you. Okay?”
This time, Pearce’s eyes sparkled, reflecting her smile. “Yeah. Okay.”
Chapter Eighteen
Thursday was turning out to be a repeat of Monday. They’d barely finished morning rounds when Wynter was paged to the ER to see a patient with a cold foot. Sure enough, the sixty-eight-year-old diabetic, a feisty, birdlike man who watched everything she did with bright, blinking eyes, had a pale, numb, pulseless right foot. The STAT arteriogram she ordered revealed occlusion of the superficial femoral artery just above the knee with minimal collateral flow.
“You’ve got a blockage in the main artery that goes to your foot, Mr. Samuels,” Wynter explained. “You’re going to need an operation to remove it. You might also need to have a bypass or some other kind of graft to help widen that area so it doesn’t get blocked again.”
“Will it work?”
“Most of the time it does. Sometimes the artery will go into spasm and clot off or little bits of debris from the inside can float downstream and cause problems in your toes, but—”
“What happens if you don’t fix it?” he asked impatiently, waving one hand as if chasing away flies.
“You’re going to lose your foot.”
“Well then, why don’t you get started?”
“Yes sir. I’ll do that.” With a small smile, she picked up the wall phone and asked for Margaret Chung, the vascular surgeon, to be paged. Dr. Chung was a young surgeon who all
owed the residents a fair amount of autonomy. She answered within five minutes, and Wynter explained the situation.
“Is Rifkin still on service?” Margaret Chung asked.
“Yes.”
“Call her and tell her to give you a hand until I get there. Some tractor trailer dumped a load of hams on 95, and I’m going to be about forty-five more minutes.”
“Will do. Thanks.” Wynter redialed and asked the operator to find Pearce. Then she advised the patient of the plans. “Is there someone you want me to call?”
“You can call my daughter when you’re done fixing things.”
“She might want to be here before you go to surgery.”
He shook his head. “She’ll just fuss and worry. Worse, she’ll probably cry.”
“Well, it’s a daughter’s prerogative to cry over her father if she wants to. Would you rather she fuss a little bit before surgery, or fuss a lot afterward because we didn’t call her?”
“You think that’s the way it will be?”
Wynter laughed. “Oh, I can guarantee it.”
With a long-suffering sigh, he relented. “Well then, go ahead and call her. But if she doesn’t want to come in right away, that’s just fine.”
“Yes sir. I’ll tell her that.”
Wynter found his contact information on the chart, asked the operator for the outside number, and was listening to the phone ring when Pearce pulled the curtain aside and stepped in.
“What’s up?” Pearce asked.
Wynter covered the receiver and said hurriedly, “This is Mr. Samuels. His arteriogram is on the board over there. He’s got an acute occlusion of the right superficial femoral and a badly ischemic foot.…Hello? Mrs. Rice?”
“Huh.” Pearce looked at the films and then walked to the side of the stretcher. She held out her hand. “How are you doing? I’m Dr. Rifkin. I need to take a look at your foot.”
“Why not? Everyone else down here has.”
Pearce grinned. “Yeah, but we’re the only ones who count.”
Mr. Samuels eyed her guardedly. “Don’t they have any men doctors anymore?”
“There are a few around. We let them in when we can’t find enough good women.” As Mr. Samuels snorted and tried unsuccessfully to hide a laugh, Pearce lifted the sheet and placed her hand lightly on the top of Mr. Samuels’s foot. It had the consistency and temperature of refrigerated chicken. “How long has it been like this, sir?”
“Since right after supper last night.”
She looked up and met his eyes. “Your foot’s in a bit of trouble here. You know that you need surgery, right?”
“The other doctor there explained it to me. You two planning on doing something about it?”
“We’re going to take you up to the operating room and get things started. By then, Dr. Chung will be here. She’s the vascular surgeon who will be in charge. Are you okay with that?”
“Have you ever done this before?”
“A few times.” Pearce still held his gaze.
“You think you can be done before lunch? That one,” he said, gesturing to Wynter who had hung up the phone and now stood with her arms folded, watching the conversation, “said I can’t have anything to eat or drink.”
“She’s right. I can’t promise you lunch, but you should be able to have dinner. Did you take any insulin this morning?”
“No.”
“All right. We’ll give you some sugar through the intravenous line while you’re sleeping and insulin when you need it.” She looked over her shoulder at Wynter. “Do we have labs and a consent?”
“We’re just waiting on his CBC. I’ll get his consent now. Then we’re good to go.”
“I’ll meet you upstairs.” Pearce patted Mr. Samuels’s thigh. “See you later.”
“See you, Doc.” He leaned back and closed his eyes. “Did you talk to my daughter?”
“She’s on her way.”
“Good.”
Three hours later, Wynter carefully rotated the tiny bulldog clamps that occluded the femoral vessel on either side of the opening they had made to remove the embolus. Then they had widened the narrowed area by meticulously suturing in a dime-sized vein patch. She studied the sutures she had just placed under Pearce’s supervision. Dr. Chung had scrubbed out after Pearce had completed the first half of the anastomosis, leaving them to finish up.
“It looks pretty good, don’t you think?” Wynter said.
“It’s a thing of beauty,” Pearce agreed. “Now let’s see if it works.” She raised her voice and angled her head over the top of the ether screen. “We’re going to take the clamps off now. You might see a little dip in his blood pressure.”
“Go for it. He’s stable,” the anesthesiologist said.
“Okay,” Pearce said to Wynter. “Let’s see if your stitches will hold.”
Carefully, Wynter released first the distal clamp to allow outflow and then the proximal one to allow the full force of the arterial pressure to stress the area of her repair. At first, thin rivulets of blood seeped between her sutures, but as her heart rate escalated into the stratosphere, the leakage quickly stopped. The artery danced in the depth of the wound as if resurrected. Not yet ready to celebrate, she said, “Can someone feel under the drapes and see if he’s got pulses in his foot?”
“Stop worrying,” Pearce whispered too softly for anyone else to hear. “It’s perfect. You did a great job.”
The circulating nurse called, “Plus four pedal and PT pulses. And his foot’s warm.”
Wynter looked across the table into Pearce’s eyes. They were alight with pleasure, and—she couldn’t be certain, but she thought—pride. “Fucking A.”
“You got that right,” Pearce said with a laugh. She glanced at the clock. “I’ve gotta go scrub on that hemicolectomy with the chief. You okay here?”
“I’m fine, but you’re post call. Shouldn’t you go ho—”
“Nice job, Doc.” Pearce turned from the table, stripped off her gloves and gown, and was gone before Wynter could lecture her about never going home.
*
Three and a half hours later, Pearce rolled her patient into the recovery room. She carried the chart to the counter at the nurses’ station to write the postop orders. Ten stretchers with barely a foot between them lined the opposite wall, one nurse for every two postoperative patients. X-ray technicians trundled through with their heavy portable machines, shooting postoperative films. Lab techs swarmed around the beds collecting blood samples, and EKG and respiratory techs jockeyed for space around the patients, who were dwarfed by the plethora of monitoring devices and equipment.
Pearce was used to blocking out the cacophony of sound and the buzz of activity, so she wasn’t aware of anyone nearby until her father spoke.
“I’d like to speak with you outside in the hall, Doctor.”
Pearce finished writing the order she was working on and looked up. “Of course. I’ll just be another minute with this.”
Ambrose Rifkin, who somehow managed to look commanding even in rumpled scrubs, nodded. A minute later, Pearce joined him just outside the intensive care unit. Neither of them spoke until they walked to the far end of the corridor out of earshot and sight of visitors. If patients’ family members saw them, they were likely to be accosted with questions. It was only natural that family members thought that the physicians’ only concern was for their loved ones and that physicians were always available to discuss their care. It made accomplishing the work of the day difficult, however, unless one rationed one’s time carefully.
“I’d like to speak with you about Dr. Thompson,” Ambrose Rifkin said.
Pearce’s stomach instantly tightened. “What about her?” She knew she sounded defensive, but she couldn’t help it. Her immediate instinct was to protect Wynter.
“I need to know what your—”
“Look. She’s an excellent resident. She’s smart, she’s got great hands, she’s good with the pa—”
“If I may fin
ish.”
Pearce flushed. “Sorry.”
“You’ve worked with her more than anyone else. What’s your opinion?”
For a second, Pearce was confused. Somehow, she had expected him to confront her about something else. Something personal. But then, why would he? “My opinion?”
Ambrose studied her with a sharp, appraising expression. “You seemed to have quite a few of them just a moment ago.”
“Oh. You mean what kind of a resident is she. She’s great.” Pearce repeated her previous assessment, trying to sound as objective as possible. “Why?”
“In confidence,” he said, “I just learned that the Residency Review Committee has approved us for an additional slot. We can finish one more resident beginning next year. I intend to speak to Thompson this afternoon about moving her up a year so we won’t lose that advantage.”
“That’s great,” Pearce said immediately.
“You do realize that means more competition for the chief surgical resident slot.”
Pearce smiled grimly. “I’m not worried.”
Her father did not smile, but his eyes flashed with what Pearce hoped was pride.
“Your confidence is apparent. We’ll see if it’s warranted.”
“Yes, we will,” Pearce whispered as he turned and walked away.
*
Wynter left Ambrose Rifkin’s office at 6:45 p.m. She was on call, and she needed to get dinner before the cafeteria closed or else she’d be relegated to eating vending-machine food until midnight dinner. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that she hadn’t had lunch. But as hungry as she was, the only thing she wanted was to find someone to share her excitement with. Suddenly, she wasn’t looking at almost three more years before she finished, she was only looking at eighteen months. It felt like she’d been given a reprieve from a life sentence with no possibility of parole. She hurried toward the surgeons’ lounge, and then, heart sinking, she realized there was no reason to rush. The only person she wanted to celebrate with was Pearce, and Pearce would have left hours ago.
