by DeLuca, Gia
“I know. I know. Try telling them that.” I could only imagine the picture Daphne painted for them. I closed my eyes, picturing her seated across from Dr. Whitehorn, the top two buttons of her nearly see-through silk blouse strategically undone so that he could catch a glimpse each time she’d lean in to whisper her secrets across the desk. With lashes curled, perfectly framing her big, blue eyes, and a devilish grin equal parts flirt and assertive bitch, she had the uncanny ability to make any man putty in her manicured hands.
“I will. I will tell them that,” Sophie said, holding her shoulders back and her chin up. “You’re not sacrificing your career for something you didn’t even do. Nothing about this was planned or intentional, or anything. It’s her words against ours, right?”
She pulled out her phone.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m telling my parents I’ll need to reschedule,” she said, preparing to fire off a text.
“No, stop.” I held my hand over her phone. “Go to breakfast with your parents. Let me handle this. This isn’t your fight.”
Her lip trembled for a second before she drew in a long breath. She didn’t have to utter a single word for me to know what she was thinking in that moment. She blamed herself, like she always did, but I refused to allow it.
“You have enough to deal with right now. Go on. Go meet with your parents. Have a nice time. I’ll be here when you get back.” I kissed her forehead and led her to the door, watching as she headed down the hall and disappeared around the corner toward the elevator.
And when she was gone, I slammed the door.
Fuck.
SOPHIE
I dressed in my most conservative outfit the following Monday morning: a white button-down top with a fitted black jacket and matching pants. I looked like I was heading to a job interview in corporate America.
I’d been thinking of Jamison’s predicament all weekend and how wrong they were about him, and I had to do something. I couldn’t stand by and watch his world fall apart all because of me.
“I need to see Dr. Whitehorn,” I said to his assistant. I’d promised myself the entire walk there that I wasn’t going to take “no” for an answer. I’d sit outside his office all day long, if I had to.
“Do you have an appointment?” she asked, scanning her computer screen. “I don’t see anything on his schedule for right now.”
“It’s urgent.” I said. “I don’t have an appointment, no. But I have to see him. It’s regarding one of his surgeons, Dr. Garner.”
She picked up her phone and punched in four numbers, covering her mouth as she whispered something into the receiver. As soon as she hung up the phone, she said, “It’ll be just a second. You can have a seat over there.”
With suspended breath, I lowered myself into a chair in a makeshift waiting area outside the chief’s office. My palms sweated and my heart raced, despite having practiced everything I was going to say in Jamison’s defense on my walk there.
A portly man with hair white as an albatross and flint gray eyes walked out of his office, scanning the room and landing on me.
“I’m Dr. Whitehorn. You wanted to meet with me?”
I stood, marching straight past him and right into his office, taking the seat across from his desk chair.
“I understand Dr. Jamison Garner is under investigation right now,” I said.
“Ma’am, I hope you understand I’m not at liberty to discuss any hospital investigations,” he said. “That’s not quite how we operate here.”
His condescending tone made me want to slap him right across his smug face.
“I understand,” I said. “I just want you to hear my side of the story. It might help your investigation.”
He cocked his head, leaning in as if I’d piqued his curiosity. “Is that so?”
“You may want to take notes,” I said, grabbing a shiny silver pen off his desk and handing it to him before he noticed how badly my fingers trembled in his presence. Jamison’s entire future hung in the balance, and it was my job to make it right.
Dr. Whitehall’s thin lips curled into a half-smile as he ripped a sheet of paper from a notebook and glanced back at me.
“I’m currently involved with Dr. Jamison Garner,” I said. “But I met him before I knew he was a doctor and after I’d scheduled an appointment with him. The second we realized the kind of predicament we were in, I transferred my care to another doctor. Dr. Jim Fowler performed my operation, and I’m following up with Dr. Mark Bledsoe. Dr. Garner has absolutely nothing to do with my care at this time.”
Dr. Whitehall scribbled notes quickly, his handwriting barely legible, making me wish I’d have spoken slower.
“Sophie, would you be willing to sign a paper waiving the hospital of all liability?” Dr. Whitehall asked.
“Absolutely,” I said. “Where do I sign?”
He picked up the phone, calling someone named Richard and asking for a liability waiver.
“So does this mean Jamison gets his job back?” I asked, ready to dust my hands and run back to his place, proudly declaring that I’d saved the day.
Dr. Whitehorn paused, his paper-thin skin wrinkling as he scrunched his face. “Not necessarily.”
“Wait. What?”
“Our investigation is still pending,” he said. “I can’t promise you anything, but this waiver will help.”
“Will this waiver help him, or will it help the hospital?” I asked, reading between the lines.
He smiled the kind of smile a slimy politician would’ve been proud of.
“That’s exactly what I thought,” I said, scooting my chair out and standing up to leave. I clenched onto the purse strap that dug into my shoulder. “Well, in that case, I’m not signing anything.”
“Thank you for coming in today, Sophie,” he said in a poor attempt to calm me down.
I stepped toward the door before turning to face him one last time. “He didn’t do anything wrong.”
Dr. Whitehorn nodded in a simple attempt to appease me.
I left the hospital and headed to the studio. I had to lose myself for a bit. I had to drown out the noise. I had to drown out the chaos and bullshit and forget, if only for a few hours, that the walls around me were crumbling down.
Jamison had done nothing wrong. He’d only loved me. And now he was going to lose everything because of that.
***
After work, I headed straight to Jamison’s. The hot lava coursing through my veins earlier in the day had cooled, and I was ready to sit down and try to figure everything out with him. We were in this together.
“Hey,” Jamison said, answering his door. I’d never seen him in sweats before. A faded Johns Hopkins sweatshirt and navy pants that hung off his hips made my heart skip a beat, and I forgot my name for a second. “Come on in. How was work today?”
I brushed the hair from my face and glanced around. Something was different. And then I saw them. Boxes. Everywhere.
“What are these boxes for?” I asked with sharp pangs rising from my chest.
“I got the call,” Jamison said. “They’re letting me go.”
The room began to spin, and I could only imagine the way he felt. “But how? On what grounds?”
“Improper conduct with a patient,” he said. “But they said if I go quietly, meaning if I don’t try to fight it or obtain legal counsel, they won’t report me to the board. I’ll get to walk away with a bruised ego and a glowing letter of recommendation so I can find another job.”
“Those sons of bitches,” I seethed. “Mother fuckers. I should just—”
“Sophie,” he said, stepping toward me and taking my hands in his. “It’s fine. It could’ve been much worse.”
“But this isn’t fair,” I whined.
“Life’s not fair,” he said with the certainty of a man who knew a thing or two about the world. “Hey, now we can go on that trip to Paris.”
“What are all these boxes for?” I asked, searching his f
ace for answers.
Jamison took my hand, guiding me to his sofa and sitting down next to me. “I’ve been offered a job.”
Those five little words packed more of a punch than anything else he could’ve told me. “You’re moving?”
“Come with me,” he said. “Rochester.”
“Rochester, New York?”
“Minnesota,” he said. “My father has offered me a position working under him at the Mayo Clinic.”
“You accepted the job already?”
“I did. I start in two weeks.”
“Just like that, eh?” My voice fell, along with my happiness and my heart. Everything in me sunk to the bottom, like sand settling beneath miles of murky ocean.
“I have to work, Sophie,” Jamison said, his voice steady and unarguable, like a freight train. “But I also have to be with you. Come with me.”
“You’re not even giving me an option here. You just made this decision without consulting me.”
“I have to work,” he repeated. “I can’t sit around waiting for a job to fall in my lap.”
“You’re one of the top neurosurgeons in the country.”
“Not in the country. In the city.”
“Still.”
“What’s keeping you here? Come with me. We’ll start a life together. We can do this, you and me.”
His argument was convincing, but it wasn’t that simple. The thought of leaving Mia, leaving the city, the studio, everything I’d been working toward, left me with a sick feeling in my gut. And now that I was getting back on track with my parents, I couldn’t just pick up and leave them, too.
“I want to be with you, but I’m not ready to leave the city yet.” My words fell like volcanic ash, as if I’d just set fire to our fate. I looked away, not wanting to watch his face as it fell.
“This isn’t the end,” he said, refusing to give up the fight.
“How’s this going to work, huh? Me in New York and you in Rochester?” I wiped away a tear from the corner of my eye, but I could feel more brewing, waiting to smear my mascara and turn me into a blubbering mess. “With your busy schedule, we’d be lucky to see each other once a month.”
I stood up, eyeing the door, but he grabbed my hand, pulling me into his lap and wrapping his arms around me.
“We’ll make this work.”
“You say that now,” I sniffed. “I know what will happen. We’ll Face Time and text and visit occasionally, but eventually we’ll grow apart and go our separate ways.”
“I don’t think that at all.” He ran his fingers through the loose waves that spilled around my face. “I think you’ll hate being away from me, and you’ll decide you have no other choice but to follow me.”
“Can’t you stay just a little bit longer? I need more time. We need more time,” I pleaded.
“I can’t,” he said, regret in his eyes. “Mayo offers you a job, it’s on their terms. You don’t accept their terms, you don’t get the job. I’m not exactly in a position to negotiate right now. I kind of need this.”
I sighed, resting my head on his shoulder and never wanting to leave that moment. I silently begged for time to stand still, for boxes to remain unpacked, and for Jamison to change his mind.
“I love you, Sophie,” he whispered in my ear. “I won’t give up on us. We’ll find a way to be together. I’m not running from you. You should know that.”
“I wish you would stay.”
He stood up, scooping me up with this corded steel arms and carrying me over to an open box. “I’m taking you with me, even if I have to pack you up and ship you on the moving van.”
I laughed, my first laugh all day, and beat on his chest. “Put me down. I told my parents I’d go home to visit them this weekend,” I said. “But that was before I knew you were leaving…”
“You should visit them.”
“But I want more time with you.”
“I’ll be here when you get back.”
Each day spent back home in Upstate was one less day with him, one less weekend in the city together, and two less days gazing across the street into his apartment windows wondering what he was up to and when I was going to see him next. The thought of knowing I wouldn’t be able to just walk across the street anytime I wanted knocked the wind clean out of me. Life had a funny way of smacking me in the face with reality checks when I least expected it, and it especially loved to sweep the rug out from under me, too.
Whenever life was getting good—almost too good—it always fell apart.
JAMISON
Clearing out my office was surreal. I never thought I’d be forced out of my dream job. I never thought I’d be the ass-wipe carrying that box out those doors, while nurses whispered and other doctors stared with schadenfreudic sympathy.
I chucked an old picture frame of me and my favorite college professor on graduation day into the box, the glass shattering once it clinked against a ceramic coffee mug with the Ambien logo emblazoned across it.
“What’s going on?”
I glanced up to see Daphne standing in the doorway, her long arm gripping the frame as her free hand innocently held a steaming mug of coffee.
“You know damn well.”
“No, I don’t. Enlighten me.” A devious smirk spread across her red lips.
“Go away, Daphne.”
She stepped into my office, taking a seat across from me and crossing her long legs, pausing long enough to give me a glimpse up her skirt, though I didn’t look. I merely noticed from the corner of my eye. Daphne Strong was the devil in sheep’s clothing, and I was the only one with the pleasure of knowing the darkest parts of her.
I threw the last of my belongings in the box and taped it up.
“I can’t believe they fired you,” she said, shaking her head as if she were really upset. “I’m shocked. Really. I figured they’d just write you up, or something. Didn’t know they’d send you packing.”
I ignored her, rifling through my drawers to make sure I got everything.
“Where you going now? New York General?”
“Mayo,” I told her, proudly advertising the fact that I would soon be over a thousand miles away from her.
Daphne nearly spit out her coffee. “Mayo Clinic? As in Rochester, Minnesota?”
“Yep,” I hoisted up the box and stepped out of the office, heading to drop my key off at HR.
Daphne scrambled out behind me. “You’re really moving to Minnesota?”
“I am.” I charged forward with her on my tail.
“But you love New York.”
“I did.”
“You’re really leaving the city?”
“I am.” I smiled for a second, realizing the master manipulator’s little plan had completely backfired. But my smile didn’t last long. Had Daphne left me alone, I’d still be in the throes of a fresh romance with Sophie, not listening to her cry herself to sleep at night when she thought I was sleeping. I stopped in my tracks in front of the elevator bay, turning to face her. “Goodbye, Daphne.”
I pressed the call button and stepped on, thanking my lucky stars when the doors closed and I didn’t have to see her face ever again.
***
“I’m going to miss you this weekend,” I said as I kissed Sophie on the subway platform. I’d walked her to the subway, and from there she’d take it just outside the city where she’d catch the train to a neighboring town. Her parents would pick her up for a weekend back home.
Her eyes darted around. She didn’t want to leave me. She’d been clinging to me like a shipwrecked sailor holding onto the last of her sinking universe ever since I’d announced my job offer.
“I’ll call you every night,” she said.
“I know you will,” I teased.
“I wish you were coming.”
“You need this time with them,” I reminded her. “They need this time with you, too. I can’t keep you all to myself.”
The roaring and whistling of a subway train rumbled through the cit
y’s underbelly, and a speeding train came to a screeching halt right next to us.
“That’s your train.” I leaned in and kissed her lips, brushing my finger alongside her jaw as I took a mental snapshot of her pretty face. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” she said, picking her bag up from the ground. The train’s doors opened, and she lingered for only a moment before boarding. The thought of being away from her for two days wilted my shoulders and put an ache in my heart.
I can’t leave her.
I waited until her train charged away before heading back up to the city sidewalks and preparing myself for a lonely weekend without her.
A buzz in my pocket brought my attention toward my phone. An unknown number was calling me.
“Hello?”
“Yes, is this Dr. Jamison Garner?” a woman’s voice asked.
“It is. Whom, may I ask, is calling?”
“This is Bridget Callahan. I work in the HR department of Brooklyn Hospital,” she said. “Do you have a moment?”
SOPHIE
The backseat of my parents’ Buick sedan was lonely. I sat behind my mom, where I always used to sit and tried to avoid looking at the empty spaces next to me. We pulled away from the train station and headed back home to Cedar Mills, past the miles of ancient, rotting cemeteries, decrepit, gray factories, outdated bowling alleys, and hole-in-the-wall gas stations. That was Cedar Mills. Home sweet home.
“I thought I’d make pot roast for dinner tonight,” my mom said, breaking the silence. Pot roast was always Nori’s favorite, not mine.
“Thanks, Mom,” I replied, forcing a smile and wishing Jamison were there to whisper in my ear that everything was going to be fine.
My dad’s window was cracked a couple inches, countering the fact that my mom always had the heat on blast in the winter. Frozen February air seeped in behind him, mixing with the hot air blowing from the vents, making me feel uncomfortably hot and cold at the same time.
“Did you know that your cousin Laura’s getting married this summer?” my mom announced. “Some winery in Vermont. I really don’t want to drive that far, but you know how Aunt Kathy is. She’d throw a fit if we said something about it. The groom’s not even from there. They just like this winery.” My mom’s way of bonding always involved some form of gossip.
