Hotshot Doc Read online

I hold up my hand.

  “Not today. Let’s not discuss that one. Okay? Let me just wrap my head around the fact that you’re retiring and I’ll likely be out of a job, and then tomorrow, we can keep coming up with ideas.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  His words stab me in the gut. Poor Dr. Lopez. It’s not his fault this is happening. What is he supposed to do, work himself into the grave just so I can have a steady job? (Yes.) No. I don’t want that for him.

  I shake my head. “Don’t worry about it. Tomorrow things will look better. I know it.” I start to walk away. “And hey, thanks for trying. It was worth a shot, right?”

  I break the news that we’ll be living on the streets to Josie over dinner. We’re eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and baby carrots, a pitiful dinner by anyone’s standards. It’s not that I don’t make good money as a surgical assistant, it’s just not great money. Twice a month, my paycheck hits my bank account, and as soon as the money goes in, it goes right back out thanks to credit card payments and rent and health insurance and cell phone bills and groceries and, and, and…it’s not easy, but we’re making do. I regret having to use credit cards to get us through the lean years back when I was getting certified, but I didn’t have any other option. Josie’s with me because our parents passed away in a car accident.

  Their death was sudden and unplanned. No life insurance policies. No wills. I finished paying off their funeral costs two years after we buried them. Side note: funeral homes don’t appreciate you suggesting you’ll just make the caskets yourself. (Those things are expensive!)

  The reality that they are gone gone, not just at-work gone or out-of-town gone still sinks into me like a sharp dagger whenever I think about it, but guess who doesn’t have the luxury of grief? Raises hand.

  It’s just me and Josie. All that matters now is that we have each other and I won’t let her down.

  “I’ll find another position,” I promise. “I was totally kidding about living on the streets.”

  She shrugs. “I think it’d be fun to be homeless. I’ve always wanted to live under a bridge like a troll.”

  “Hilarious.”

  “I mean it.” Her brown eyes are wide with wonder. “Think of how cool I’ll be at school when I tell everyone I’m a vagabond!” Then she tilts her head to the side and frowns as if realizing something. “It really does suck that you sold your car a while back. It was a clunker, but we could have lived in it if times got tough.”

  I set my sandwich down and lean forward to ensure she’s really listening.

  “Josie, we aren’t going to get kicked out of here. That was a bad joke. I’m going to find another doctor to work for. Now eat your dinner or no Grey’s Anatomy tonight.”

  She stuffs the rest of her sandwich in her mouth in one fell swoop. Then she chugs her milk and sticks her tongue out like a mental patient proving they swallowed their medicine.

  “Am I excused now?”

  She doesn’t wait for me to reply, just scoots back and leaves me there to finish my meal by myself. I take a bite of the stale bread and convince myself I’m eating at a Michelin-starred restaurant. That’s not water, it’s champagne, and that line of ants trailing along the baseboard over there in perfect formation? That’s called having dinner and a show.

  My brain breaks down my current predicament while I finish eating. I honestly have no clue what to do. If none of the spine surgeons want me, I could switch specialties, but retraining would take months, if not years, and I happen to like spine. I could switch to another hospital or move to another city, but I don’t want to have to pull Josie out of school and away from her friends unless it’s absolutely necessary.

  I could potentially go back and grovel at the feet of Dr. Goddard, Dr. Richards, or Dr. Smoot, but honestly, I know they aren’t going to change their minds. If they turned me down with Dr. Lopez there to vouch for me, they really don’t need me.

  I do the dishes, wipe down the counter, tuck away the loaf of bread, and set out ant bait. Then, as I’m walking out of the kitchen, I flip the light off, and there in the darkness, I finally allow myself to consider my last, desperate, really-not-an-option option:

  Working for Dr. Russell.

  The devil incarnate.

  Everyone at the practice calls him that, but I was the one to draw that hilarious picture of him in the lounge. Kirt was crying and I felt bad for him because he’s 6’ 3’’ and built like a linebacker and I honestly had no idea so many tears could come out of a man that size. He was blowing his nose into a tissue I’d passed him and crying so hard I couldn’t understand him, so I added the devil horns and red tail to Dr. Russell’s headshot as a distraction. Everyone laughed and Kirt stopped crying, but I instantly regretted it.

  Just the thought of Dr. Russell ever finding out about that picture sends a shiver down my spine.

  No.

  There’s no way I can work for him.

  Maybe Josie’s right—would living on the streets really be so bad?

  Chapter 4

  MATT

  I’ve been accused of being set in my ways by a few people in my life, and they’re right. I rely on routine. I eat the same breakfast every morning: protein smoothie, four egg whites scrambled with freshly cracked pepper, turkey sausage, and two cups of coffee (one right when I wake up and one when I arrive at work). After breakfast, I work out. That routine stays the same every day too. Cardio. Weights—not so much that I’m an over-engorged beast, but enough that I can stand over an operating table for nine hours and torque a spine without breaking a sweat. Core work is vital.

  I wake up at 4:00 AM Monday through Friday, and I’m in my office by 5:30. If there’s a resident or a fellow on my team, I prefer for them to meet me at this time so we can go over the case schedule before we start rounding. During rounds, I check that post-op patients are recovering and go over any final questions with my pre-op patients and their guardians. I’ve learned to pad this time. Parents are always nervous, and children always come up with the most random, curious questions. Often, it’s about the anesthesia.

  “You mean I won’t remember anything? It’ll feel like I’m sleeping? Will I dream?”

  Today, I’m in the office at 5:00 AM, even earlier than usual. I have a routine procedure scheduled in a few hours, but I wanted to spend some time looking over Fiona’s file. Her parents aren’t sure they want to go through with the surgery. They’re confused why so many doctors turned her away and yet I’m willing to try. They don’t want to put their daughter in danger, which is understandable, but still, my gut tells me they’ll be back. Her case is severe and they’re going to be completely out of options soon. When that time comes, I want to be ready.

  Unfortunately, when I arrive at my desk, I discover I won’t have the thirty minutes of uninterrupted time I was craving. My voicemail announces thirteen unheard messages, and there are a few dozen emails demanding responses. Two doctors are requesting a surgical visit in the upcoming week. Another one is asking for my assistance on a case on the west coast. It’s not unusual as there are so few of us who specialize in complex pediatric scoliosis.

  Before I reply to the emails, the blinking red light from my office phone demands my attention. I press play and listen while I tidy up my desk. Three of the messages are from Victoria, telling me “it’s nothing urgent” but asking me to call her back as soon as possible. I wonder why she didn’t just call my cell phone, and then I remember I forgot to give her my new number. It wasn’t intentional, but now I wonder if it’s not better this way.

  I have no idea what she’d want to talk to me about, but since it’s not urgent, I skip past her message and make a mental note to get back to her when I have the time.

  “Knock knock!” Dr. Lopez says from the hallway as he opens the door and waltzes into my office without a care in the world. “Do you have a second?”

  I don’t look up. “No.”

  Undeterred, he walks in to take a seat across from me. I think he’s half-t
empted to prop his feet up and interlace his fingers behind his head, but he knows that’d be pushing it too far.

  “I like what you’ve done with the place. It’s homey in here.”

  He’s staring pointedly at my framed diplomas stacked against the wall behind my desk, still waiting to be hung. Beside them, there’s a mountain of issues of European Spine Journal and old textbooks. Spinal hardware litters most of my couch. Admittedly, it’s a mess. It’s why I meet my patients in the conference room for consultations.

  “It’s like stepping into the laboratory of a mad scientist,” he notes with a teasing smile. “I wouldn’t be surprised to find the secrets of the universe in here.”

  He’s wasting my precious time. “What can I do for you, Dr. Lopez?”

  “Oh right—busy busy. We doctors never have enough time, do we? Well, I’m about to get a lot more of it actually. You’ve heard I’m retiring, haven’t you?” A rumor has been circulating for months, but I never thought he’d actually go through with it so soon. He has another five years of surgery left in him, ten if he pushed himself. “Yup. Laurie’s pretty excited. She has all sorts of plans for us for the coming months—a Caribbean cruise, holidays with the grandkids. Your parents live here, right?”

  I nod as I start sorting through my emails, triaging the most important ones and deleting the ones from medical device reps I don’t care to entertain.

  “Lucky for them. They’ll be close by when you have kids. All the better to spoil them rotten.”

  Kids. My gut clenches. Right. I tense and finally glance up at him.

  “Congratulations on your retirement,” I say, my voice professional and unfriendly. “Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?”

  He grins and threads his fingers together on his lap. He looks mighty comfortable in my office, like he plans on staying here for quite some time.

  “Sort of. You’ve probably heard me mention my surgical assistant a time or two?”

  I rack my brain but nothing comes to mind. “If you have, I wasn’t listening.”

  He laughs. “Never one to bullshit are you, Dr. Russell? Anyway, Bailey is great, one of the best damn surgical assistants I’ve ever had, but unfortunately, I’m going to leave her high and dry in a few weeks when I retire.”

  “Why is that my problem?”

  He shakes his head, and then wags a Let me teach you something finger at me. “Bailey isn’t your problem, but she could be your salvation. Kirt put in his two weeks’ notice—”

  “Kirt was never going to last. He doesn’t have the stomach for surgery.”

  Literally.

  “Bailey does.”

  I arch a brow and give him my best bored expression. “Just say what you’re hinting at or get out of my office. I have shit to do before my resident arrives.”

  He stands and leans over, pressing the button on my office phone that connects me to my secretary.

  “Patricia, are you at your desk yet?”

  A second later, her words bite through the line. “What do you want? It’s too damn early. I haven’t even had my coffee yet.”

  “I understand and I apologize for the inconvenience,” Dr. Lopez says, his voice full of deference for the woman who actually wears the pants in this place. “But would you mind checking real quick to see how many surgical assistants have applied to replace Kirt?”

  I get his point even before there’s a long silence, followed by a chuckle from Patricia. “No one yet, but I only put the ad out a couple of days ago.”

  Dr. Lopez is wearing a shit-eating grin. “That’s what I thought. Thank you, Patricia. Now you can go enjoy that cup of coffee and I won’t bother you again.”

  His finger lifts up off the intercom button and silence fills my office. We stare at each other across my desk. He couldn’t be making his point any clearer if he was waving his hands wildly overhead, pointing to a marquee that spelled out, Matt, you insufferable asshole, no one wants to work with you!

  I look away first and clear my throat. “I get it. You can get out of my office now.”

  He fails to hide a big victorious smile before he turns for the door and I think he’s finally going to leave me in peace, but then he throws out one last piece of advice over his shoulder. “I know you like to operate as a lone wolf, but the best surgeons know how to be team players. You’d be an idiot to let Bailey slip through your fingers. She’s been my right hand for the last four years, and if circumstances in her life had been different, she would have made a damn good surgeon herself. Take my advice and hire her before it’s too late.”

  Chapter 5

  BAILEY

  The time has come: Dr. Lopez’s last week with the practice. He’s taken to wearing Hawaiian shirts under his white coat. Vacation brochures litter his desk. Movers will be here on Friday to pack up his office. He has one foot out the door, and I still don’t have a new job. He agreed it was best for me to contact a headhunter, and she found a few open positions. Unfortunately, none of them quite fit the bill. Most are too far away. Some are even across the country, not to mention the salaries weren’t as high as what I make here. I’d be taking a major gamble, moving Josie, and earning less, all in the hopes that the surgeon I end up working for is half as decent as Dr. Lopez.

  At this point, it almost makes more sense to switch specialties. I tell this to Dr. Lopez on Monday while we’re eating lunch in his office, printed emails from the headhunter spread out on his desk between us. We’ve already found something wrong with every single one of them.

  He acts deeply affronted by the idea of me moving out of spine.

  “You’d be bored out of your mind on another floor,” he says, sipping on coconut water while luau music plays from his computer.

  I shrug, trying to come up with another specialty that would interest me. “General ortho wouldn’t be so bad.”

  He narrows his eyes as if I just said I wouldn’t mind dabbling in prostitution. “Remind me again why you don’t want to just take the position with Dr. Russell?”

  “Well, first off, he hasn’t offered it to me.”

  “Because you haven’t applied.”

  “And also, I’ve heard the horror stories.”

  “Can I offer you some insight?”

  I tip my head to the side and present a knowing half-smile. “You’re going to anyway. Why ask?”

  He cuts the music and leans forward in his chair. The tone of our conversation changes in an instant. “We all know simple, successful surgeries are lucrative. There are enough routine fusions to keep this practice afloat for the next decade. Dr. Russell doesn’t see it that way, though. To him, the second a procedure becomes routine, it means he’s not pushing himself hard enough. He’s high-strung and intense in the operating room because he’s striving to do better, to be better. Why do you think the gallery in his OR is standing-room only? Why do you think people travel from all around the world to observe him while he operates? It’s not because he’s playing it safe, and it’s not because he’s a mild-mannered surgeon. I completely understand if you don’t want to work with him. Hell, I wouldn’t. Give it some thought, though, kid. Worst-case scenario, we reassess and try to place you with a surgeon down on two.”

  He knows what he’s doing. The second floor is where the hand surgeons operate. I’d be assisting on outpatient carpal tunnel procedures day in and day out, and I would bash my head against a hard object within the first few days.

  As the day progresses and the deadline to make my decision looms closer and closer, I try to mostly ignore his words of wisdom, but I can’t. He’s striving to do better, to be better. Right. That’s all well and good, but Kirt had to pop TUMS like they were candy while he was working for him. Word on the street is the guy’s currently in therapy for PTSD.

  Still, a small part of me wonders if Kirt might have been exaggerating. It occurs to me that I’ve let the rumors about Dr. Russell taint my perception of him past the point of logic. I mean, most of them aren’t even believable. Making
device reps cry? Firing surgical assistants in the middle of a procedure? That one time he was supposedly so mean to a nurse she sued the company for subjecting her to a hostile work environment and won the case? According to urban legend, she lives on a private island near St. Barts. Even I can admit that’s probably unlikely.

  So, I decide to do some investigating of my own and carve out time to watch Dr. Russell operate. That way, I’ll know exactly what I could be dealing with—except, when I arrive at his surgery after I wrap things up with Dr. Lopez on Monday, the viewing gallery is so packed I can’t even make it past the door. The next day, I try to shove my way in, and one particularly overzealous fellow elbows me in the ribs and rudely suggests I should get there earlier if I want a good view. I resist the urge to stomp on his foot.

  On Wednesday, I finally catch a break. Dr. Lopez’s case gets canceled so I take advantage of the opportunity and show up to Dr. Russell’s gallery as early as possible. I’m the first one there. I have snacks and a front-row seat. I also have mace in my purse just in case some stupid medical student thinks they deserve this spot more than I do.

  Within a few minutes, the gallery fills around me. There are conversations about the planned case and idle chatter about some party they were all at last night, but I sit quietly, talking to no one, waiting for the show to begin. The viewing window stretches from one side of the room to the other, almost like a movie screen. We’re up on the second floor looking down on the auxiliary staff trickling into the operating room.

  Exactly on schedule, down to the minute, the patient—a young boy—is wheeled in and transferred to the operating table. After the anesthesia kicks in, there’s a flurry of activity as nurses and scrub techs unpack the instrument sets. Sterile trays are arranged and placed around the operating table and then, once the drape is covering everything but the center of the patient’s back, Hotshot makes his entrance.

  The swinging door is pushed open and Dr. Russell steps in, arms bent at ninety degrees as water drips to the floor.