“Don’t hold me to it,” he said, “but yeh. That’s the idea. Could be under fifty some weeks, too. We understand you’re a locum, won’t dump it all on you.”
“What do you do with all the extra?” she asked.
“Pardon?”
“The extra time. What do you do with it?”
Now, he was really staring at her. “Whatever you want to do, I suppose. Family time, if you’ve got one.”
“No,” she said. “No family.”
“Well, sailing’s popular, of course,” he said. “I’ll take you out on the boat when we have the day off together, shall I?”
“Oh,” she said. “Well, uh …” Was he hitting on her?
He said, “We go out most weekends. My wife loves it, and the kids used to. Of course, they’re teenagers now, so sometimes they’re too cool, but never mind, I’ve got my first mate.”
Oh. She said cautiously, “I’ve never been on a sailboat.”
He laughed. “That’ll soon change. You can’t live in the City of Sails and never sail, eh. It’s a good time. You’ll love it.”
She was still thinking about it when she pulled the curtain aside on a cubicle in Outpatient Surgery for her first procedure. They’d given her an easy one to start with, she saw from the films: a herniated cervical disc. Painful, but it looked fairly easily resolved, especially on a … She checked. Thirty-three-year-old male. That would be trauma, probably.
Yes, easily resolved, as long as he was reasonably fit and followed instructions. This should have been Dr. Porter’s patient, but they’d shuffled procedures around today. Dr. Porter—Jack, because they all went by first names here—was doing the serious head trauma that had just come into the ED, and she was doing this.
She’d have to prove herself, that was all. She’d had a lifetime of proving herself. No difference. Nerves or no, new country or no—no difference. And if that made her tired? Well, she’d have a year to catch up on her sleep, because she was going to have a whole lot of time off, and nothing to do with it except hang out with a dog.
Sixty hours max?
The patient was in bed, gown on and IV inserted, looking calm. Scrolling on his phone, in fact, instead of looking nervous with a loved one in the chair beside him. That was unusual.
He didn’t look thirty-three. He looked older. Weathered. And, yes, he was reasonably fit.
You had to be kidding.
The curtain rattled, and Luka looked up.
“Mr. …” She looked up from the chart and stared at him. “Mr. … Darkovic. Luka … Darkovic.” She said it slowly.
It was the woman from the day before, the one with the dog. He couldn’t be wrong. It was the same face, though her hair was pulled back in a tight braided arrangement this time, and it was the same body, too. He could tell that even though she was in green scrubs. Not her best look. He preferred the shorts. And the wet hair. And the flush on her cheeks and general dishevelment.
She was also holding his MRI films.
He said, “You. That’s a surprise. You’re my nurse, eh.” Well, this wasn’t terrible.
She looked gobsmacked. In fact, it took her a minute to open her mouth.
“No,” she finally said. “I’m your surgeon.”
Oh. He should have noticed that. White coat over the scrubs.
And then she moved forward and knocked into the end of the bed.
No. Just no.
7
With the Dog-Loser
The guy—Luka—said, “No.”
“Pardon?” she asked.
How could he be Luka Darkovic, one of the only people she’d met in New Zealand the first time around? Yes, it was a small country, but this was ridiculous. Statistics weren’t individuals, but the probabilities were …
This couldn’t be happening. But it wasn’t a name you saw every day, so it had to be happening.
Please, let him not remember her.
Also, she’d kicked the bed. When she’d wanted a reboot, she hadn’t meant going back to being a nervous intern!
“You can’t be my surgeon,” he said.
“Except I am.” So far, this adventure was off to a sterling beginning, and he’d been there to observe all of it. Exactly what she did not need.
“Nils Larsen did my injections last time,” he said. “And Jack Porter’s doing them this time. Either one of those will do, but not you.”
She wasn’t eighteen anymore, and she was a professional. “Unfortunately,” she said, making it brisk, “Dr. Porter’s about to drill into somebody’s skull, so I’ll be doing them instead today. I understand that medical situations can be unfamiliar and frightening, but this is a very common procedure, and a very straightforward one. On that note, though, I have two concerns. First, I think you may have exacerbated this injury yesterday during the incident with the dog, which means I’d like to get another scan before we proceed. I also notice that you’ve declined intravenous sedation. Are you sure about that? The sedation is mild and wears off quickly, and this can be a—”
“This can be a what?” He was scowling, and he looked like he was seriously regretting being in a hospital gown. “Are you going to say the ‘frightening’ thing again? It’s not frightening. It’s a few minutes with a needle and some cortisone. I’ll be numb. It’ll be like going to the dentist, except that I won’t even have to open my mouth. What I do care about is having a doctor who knows what they’re doing, if they’re going anywhere near my spine. I need my spine. And I may have exacerbated it while tackling the dog—your dog—but it’s the same injury. I can tell. You could call me an expert. I don’t need another MRI.”
She could not believe this. Any of it. “I did my first epidural injection when I was about twenty-six,” she told him, holding onto her temper, but not holding it too hard, because this was one of those times when a little temper was necessary. “I’ve done hundreds of them since. It’s not a cutting-edge procedure. And I’m sorry if it interferes with your schedule, but I’m not going in blind after witnessing you injuring yourself further. And, finally, women can be neurosurgeons, too.”
“I didn’t say they couldn’t. I said that I want one who didn’t start doing this yesterday!” His voice had risen a little. It was a deep voice, which made sense, because it was coming from a whole lot of chest.
The curtain rattled again, and a voice from behind Elizabeth said, “Is there a problem?”
A Scandinavian voice. Which would make him Nils Larsen. Senior neurosurgeon, looking down at her from his superior height and his superior age and probably his superior gender, as far as he was concerned.
What was wrong with this country?
It was another neurosurgeon. One of his neurosurgeons. When you played professional rugby as a forward, you ended up recognizing neurosurgeons, and he wanted this one. He took a breath, then let it out and said, keeping his tone measured, “The problem is that I need an experienced surgeon doing this procedure, as I earn my living with my body. My functioning body.”