Chapter 25

Sam

There’s nothing quite so ominous as getting called into your boss’s office first thing on Monday after the girl of your dreams ghosted you over the weekend. It's even more nerve-wracking when you’re stopped approximately every three feet by someone wanting to congratulate you or take a selfie. Our video hadn’t just gone viral. We were everywhere. Global.

“Hey! Dancing Doctors!” An Ortho bro stopped to administer some complicated high-five, fist-bump combo I barely kept up with. A pair of nurses snapped a picture with me before I could stop them. I wasn’t even at the elevator yet.

I opted for the stairs. I was sweating when I hit the tenth floor, but at least the trip had been quick, with limited interruptions.

“Reese! Man of the hour!” Caplan slid his phone into his suit pocket and clapped me on the back, steering me into his office, where I stopped short at the sight of Lainey’s ghost-white face.

Another dozen faces also stared at me from Caplan’s meeting table and the Zoom meeting projected on the large screen in his office. Lainey’s mother grinned from one of the tiles, her face surrounded by people I’d never seen before.

“Dr. Reese! The other half of our dancing duo!” Caplan gestured around the table and up at the video call, listing out names or departments or affiliations. The people in the room seemed to represent the majority, if not the entire Cedar marketing department, while the folks on the call were all Dr. Carmichael’s people. Sturmond, bafflingly, sat at the head of the table, overseeing the whole damned circus.

I practically fell into a chair, dazed, hardly able to take my eyes off of Lainey. It was the first time I’d seen her since she’d left me in my driveway. My texts yesterday had gone unanswered.

“Dr. Reese. Lovely to see you again! We were just putting a game plan together for how we can optimize this for both our benefits.” Dr. Carmichael beamed, unaware that her daughter was about to toss her cookies onto the table.

“…our benefits?”

“We can hardly field all the media inquiries we’re getting. CNN, The Times, MSNBC. We’re swamped.” One of the Cedar people across the table sounded like she was in ecstasy.

“CNN is calling you about the video?” I glanced around. That seemed unlikely, and I couldn’t help but note that for a team overrun by media calls, we seemed to have a full house right fucking here, and no one was on the phone.

“Of course we’re conducting some outreach on your behalf, to keep the conversations going.” One of the Carmichael people smiled like a cat who got the canary.

“On my behalf?” I’d never met these people in my life. Based on the nods around the table, I wondered just how many calls these people had made.

A woman next to me shuffled some papers around in front of her. “You can imagine the opportunity this presents for Cedar. It’s rare to get this kind of organic attention for our work. We all need to capitalize on it.”

“The timing of this couldn’t be better. We’re just about to launch the new campaign we’ve been working on for the non-profit. Dr. Carmichael’s daughter, having the time of her life celebrating a post-op success? It’s perfect!” someone from the Zoom call chimed in. The name in his little square said Lawrence. He was looking at Lainey like he wanted to eat her for lunch. I immediately hated him.

They buzzed around me, a real enthusiasm orgy. Caplan grinned. Sturmond practically rubbed his liver-spotted hands together with glee. Everyone here was trying to spin this somehow, or monetize it. Everyone except me and Lainey, who had been conspicuously silent this whole time. She stared at her hands whenever I tried to make eye contact.

“Sorry…What’s this?” Someone had shared a table on the screen that looked alarmingly like a schedule. A fully booked one, at that.

“Apologies, Dr. Reese, you’re coming into this a bit late,” one of the comms people tittered. “We’ve been working on this since yesterday. The key is to meet the media interest now, before other news crowds us out.”

I’d already forgotten this girl’s name, but I relegated her into the “Lawrence camp.” Immediate no.

“These are all…” I peered at the screen up on the wall. “Media interviews? Caplan, I have a full slate of patient cases today, and Lainey is prepping for that bypass.”

“You don’t need to worry about this, Reese.” Sturmond grinned. The fluorescent lights shone on his bald head, giving him the look of a sinister angel. “Dr. Carmichael will handle most of the interviews. It’ll be a good showing from our best and brightest.”

“I think I’m best suited to represent Cedar from inside the OR, where I’m using my training and education to serve patients.” Lainey finally spoke up, jaw tense.

“Sweetie, you know we can’t buy this type of publicity. For better or worse, you’re my daughter. You’re who people want to hear from. I mean, look at you, it seems like you love your work so much!” Dr. Carmichael’s people all nodded enthusiastically as she spoke.

“I do love my work,” Lainey gritted, though I doubted anyone else could see how frustrated she was. “As a surgeon. Not a publicist.”

Everyone spoke over each other, trying to talk Lainey down. I only caught snippets like “just for a few days” and “back in action in no time.” By the time the cacophony settled, it seemed like nothing Lainey had said made any difference. They began debating the interview schedule again.

Across from me, she curled up, arms crossed, staring at her lap.

“Dr. Carmichael is an integral part of this surgical team. You can’t just remove her from her cases. Even temporarily.” The PR people quieted, looking at each other. I wasn’t sure if it was because she was Dr. Carmichael’s daughter, or a woman, or what, but they seemed perfectly content to steamroll over her objections. Mine gave them pause.

“We have plenty of qualified residents, and fellows, who can take on Lainey’s patients while she’s away.” Sturmond showed his teeth. So that was what he got out of all this; more OR time for his golden grandson.

“Reese, it’s just a few days. We’ll pull Lainey off her surgeries and make sure she still has time to check on patients in between interviews.” Caplan tried to look soothing, but couldn’t keep the smile off his face.

“I’d prefer not to transfer any of my surgeries right now. I’ll make it work. But, I have to be candid here, I don’t think this media campaign presents the right image for me.” Lainey glared at the wood grain before her, weathering another eruption of denials and soothing words. “I’m not sure how this will look to my colleagues,” she said in a raised voice, cutting them off. That’s my girl.

“Interviews for a permanent position here are competitive. I don’t like the optics of me doing all these media spots on Cedar’s behalf right when something as big as my future at the organization is on the line.”

“I think your future with the organization will be pretty secure by the time all this is done.” Lawrence again, snickering. That fucker. Lainey finally looked up, searing him with her glare. He blanched and sat back from his camera.

“I know the way I got here was unorthodox.” She glanced at Caplan, Sturmond, me. The ones who knew just how out of the ordinary it had been. “It’s important to me to earn this next role on my own merit.”

“Dr. Carmichael…Lainey, we accepted you into this fellowship program with zero hesitation. Your colleagues sing your praises. There’s no doubt in my mind that a position here is yours, with or without this media blitz.” Caplan patted his closed laptop as if it were the top of her head.

“But our organization also values team players, Ms. Carmichael. Your actions this week will tell us a lot about what we can expect from you in the future,” Sturmond butted in.

“ Doctor Carmichael.” Lainey, her mother, and I corrected him all at once. He smirked without apologizing.

“What you can expect of me in the future is my full dedication to evidence-based, cardiothoracic surgery. Nothing more, nothing less.” Lainey held his gaze. The half-smile on his face didn’t budge.

◆◆◆

“Holy shit.” The door to Caplan’s office closed behind me. I stared at the cheerful painting of daffodils in the hall and tried to wrap my head around what the fuck was happening. “Lainey, are you—”

She had already taken off, marching down the hall towards the elevators.

“Lainey, wait.”

“I can’t, Sam. If I slow down, I’ll get mauled by a news anchor or something. I have to check my post-op patients, including Mrs. Singh, and start rounds with the residents before my eight back-to-back interviews that start in”—she glanced at her smartwatch—“forty-five minutes.”

“Take a breath. It’ll be alright.”

“Ha! Easy for you to say. You’re not the face of heart surgery for the next week,” she growled, stabbing her finger at the elevator call button.

“It’s just a few day—”

“That schedule had me booked for an interview in New York on Thursday. This is not just a few days. They’re going to keep me out of the hospital for as long as media interest is there. And I’m going to miss out on OR time and get behind on my cases, just in time for these freaking attending interviews to really ramp up.”

I held my tongue as we stepped into the elevator. I’d worked with her long enough to know anything I said right now would fall on deaf ears. But I wasn’t just her colleague anymore. I reached for her the second the elevators closed.

“Sweetheart—”

“Cameras,” she whispered, jerking out of my grasp. An ocean of industrial carpet opened up between us.

“Fuck the cameras, I need to know you’re alright.” But I stayed on my side of the elevator.

Teeth dug into her bottom lip. The same one I’d sunk my teeth into just two days ago. What the hell had happened? “I’m fine. I just need to ride this out and get to the other side. I can make it work.” Her head bobbed. “We just can’t be seen together like this.”

“In an elevator?”

My weak attempt at a joke fell flat. “People saw us at dinner together on Saturday. What happens when they put two and two together?”

“We’ve worked with each other for years. No one will think twice if—”

“I can’t risk it. Not right now. God, I want to puke. Just…just let me get through this, Sam.”

The elevator doors opened, and she slid out. I stuck around long enough to hear Jones make a snide remark about how “well-timed” the video was, and then gloat about snagging her quad-bypass now that she was otherwise engaged with interviews.

As I made my way to the lockers to change (slowly, still interrupted every few steps by enthusiastic colleagues), I couldn’t help but replay her last words, over and over.

“Just let me get through this, Sam.”

I couldn’t help but think that she meant something closer to, “Just let me get through this without you, Sam.”