Chapter 8

SAN FRANCISCO

“Sadie Stone and Audrey St. Vrain.” Dr. Stone presses the intercom button with one finger, her chin jutted forward to speak into it. “We’re here for Dr. Osman.”

There’s a crackle of static, a chirped, “Come on in,” and then the door buzzes open. It’s fifty degrees but clear in San Francisco, and we’re standing before a rainbow-painted door on a steeply angled street in Cole Valley. Dr. Stone pulls it open for me and gestures me through.

I glance at her as I step forward. She’s wearing a simple black sweater and forest-green barrel pants, her hair wrapped in the same bun as usual. When I met her in the hotel lobby thirty minutes ago, she was crouched on the floor with Puddles’s front paws on her knees, their faces nose to nose. All three interns were there, too: Silas, Mick, Cleo.

“We’re going for breakfast,” Mick had said, his black hair gelled into an oil-slick wave. “Want to come?”

I was freshly showered, hair still drying over my shoulders, wearing slacks and a button-down. I was carrying the leather briefcase Fallon had given me for my birthday, deep navy with Audrey St. Vrain: Definitely going to save your life one day embroidered in pink thread on the inside flap. Couldn’t he tell, just from looking at me, that I meant businesses?

“We can’t,” Dr. Stone said, saving me from responding. “We’re meeting a pediatrician this morning.”

She stood up, and Puddles leapt at her ankles. The dog got snorty when it was animated, huffing excited breaths through its mashed little face. I took a step backward to keep its slobbery maw away from my pants, and Dr. Stone looked at me. “You ready to go?”

I nodded. I could feel the three of them watching us as we left, and resisted the urge to look back. Magnolia had pushed our next Letters to My Someday Daughter show until Friday night “to give Audrey time to recover from her food poisoning,” which meant the interns had three days in San Francisco with nothing to do but explore. I, on the other hand, had my first appointment with Dr. Stone and plenty of time with Mags and Camilla to look forward to, going over talking points so I don’t bungle the next show like I did in LA.

Now, Dr. Stone and I stand next to each other in the ascending elevator. I clear my throat.

“Dr. Stone, there’s dog hair on your pants.”

She glances down, brushes at it. This is why dogs don’t do it for me: the hair, the smells, the fluids. I’m already in my briefcase, pulling out a pocket-sized lint roller and handing it to her.

“You come prepared.” She takes it with a smile. “And please, call me Sadie.”

“You can never be too prepared,” I say. “I’m, um. Surprised Silas brought the dog on a trip like this.”

For a moment there’s just the sound of the roller, squeaking faintly. She hands it back to me as the elevator doors slide open, and the distinct smell of Doctor’s Office wafts toward us: antiseptic, hand soap, adhesive. I breathe it in, feel my shoulders relax.

“Silas got Puddles when he was fourteen,” Sadie says as we step into the hallway. The floors are pale wood, morning sun glancing across them, and our heels tap us toward a door marked Rainbow Pediatrics. “It was the year after his mom died, and Puddles was already six. She really needed a home, and Silas really needed a dog.” She meets my eyes briefly and reaches for the door handle. “Your mom okayed it.”

I feel like I’ve been put in my place, checked so thoroughly and simultaneously so gently that I can’t even muster a response. Silas’s dead mother—and my living one, who knew about this and agreed to travel with a pint-sized slobber farm all summer. Silas motherless at fourteen.

“Sadie freaking Stone!”

A woman in a white coat peers over reception at us, arms stretched out like she wants a hug. Sadie beelines for her and they embrace over the desk, swaying back and forth like a slow dance. I hang back, taking in the room: board books on low tables, kid-sized chairs next to parent-sized ones, a tank full of clown fish gurgling beneath the window. And, overshadowing all of it in my brain: Silas with his goofy laugh and his uncomfortable familiarity and no mother.

“I got a shot.”

I look down, where a little boy is suddenly standing next to me. He’s in a dinosaur-printed T-shirt and khaki shorts, bright red sneakers with Velcro. He thrusts his bicep toward me, white Star Wars Band-Aid a highlight against his dark skin. “See?”

“Wow,” I say, crouching in front of him. He puts his arm right in my face, so I take his elbow to inspect the Band-Aid. “Did it hurt?”

Our eyes meet and he scrunches up his nose. “Nah. It was like a little pinch.”

“You must be brave,” I tell him. “I’m so scared of shots.”

“Really?” His voice is soft and imprecise in that kid-specific way, so it comes out like weally? “I used to be ’fraid but that’s when I was four.”

“How old are you now?”

“Five,” he says proudly. “For my birthday my dad got this huh-yuuuuuge balloon that looked like a basketball because at summer camp with Micah we always—”

“Liam, honey.” The boy whips around, his arm slipping out of my fingers. A tall man drops a hand onto his shoulder and smiles apologetically at me. “Let’s let this nice lady get back to her morning, okay?”

Liam looks at me, smiling shyly as he leans into his dad’s legs. “Okay.”

“Good job with the shot,” I say, offering him a high five as I stand up. He slaps my palm, all enthusiastic energy. “I hope I can be as tough as you next time I get one.”

I turn toward Sadie as they leave, find her and the doctor watching me.

“Well,” the doctor says. She’s smiling, arms crossed, her dark hair pulled back with a knotted pink headband. “That was charming.”

I flush. I don’t want her to find me charming; I want her to find me impressive.

“My mom always took me for ice cream after shots,” Sadie says as I pick my way around the scattered chairs toward reception. “Even if it was nine o’clock in the morning.”

I glance at her and don’t say what I’m thinking, which is that Camilla doesn’t even eat dairy and I can’t recall a single time she’s taken me for ice cream.

“I’m Audrey,” I say instead, reaching a hand over the reception desk. When the doctor takes it, her skin is cool and dry—like every other doctor I’ve ever met, all my life. I hope mine is, too. “Thanks so much for meeting with me.”

“Aiyla Osman,” she says. “And happy to. Anything for Sadie, really.”

Sadie makes a flattered little noise and the two of them laugh like schoolgirls, which is apparently what they are to each other.

“We were roommates in undergrad,” Sadie explains. “Trauma bonded over O-Chem.”

“Oh god.” Dr. Osman leans into the counter as a nurse passes through the hallway behind her, patient folder in one hand. “I wish I could tell twenty-year-old Aiyla she’d get through that class.” She gestures around the waiting room. “That she’d be here, one day, doing this.”

“Well, I knew it,” Sadie says on a smile. “Even then.”

Dr. Osman waves her off. “I thought you’d bring Silas.” She peers around me, like he might just be coming in from the elevator bay. “Haven’t seen that kid since he was, what? Fifteen?”

“Fifteen,” Sadie agrees. “At the wedding. He’s nineteen now—he’ll be a sophomore at American in the fall. He’s in the city, but with his friends today.”

Dr. Osman shakes her head, her expression gone soft. “All grown up, huh? Your first baby, practically. It’s so great you wound up together in DC.”

“Truly,” Sadie says. “I’m already campaigning to get Lily out that way, too, and she’s only thirteen.”

Dr. Osman laughs, and Sadie gestures toward me. “Anyway, Audrey’s going to Johns Hopkins in the fall, premed.” I swallow, straighten my shoulders. “We’re visiting a whole list of practitioners this summer so she can get a feel for different specialties.”

“Are you seeing Dustin in Santa Fe?” Dr. Osman asks, still not looking at me. My skin’s starting to feel prickly, on the perilous edge of breaking a sweat. On the opposite side of the country, Ethan starts classes at UPenn this afternoon. “Last I heard he’s all set up with his own practice at that spa in the desert.”

“We sure are,” Sadie says, and I can tell she wants to keep talking about this. But, at long last, Dr. Osman catches sight of the clock and drops her hands onto the desk.

“Okay, I’ve got an appointment in an hour, so we should dive in.” Her eyes meet mine, this woman who has everything I want, who’s found her way to where I need to go. “Audrey, you ready?”

“I’m ready,” I say. I’ve been standing here like a jangling third wheel, after all. I’ve been ready this whole entire time. This is the one thing about this summer that I feel ready for.