“Can’t you take a break later?” The exasperation is creeping into my voice.
“The doctors don’t dictate when I get to take my breaks,” Barbara snaps at me. And with those words, she goes back into the waiting room and plucks her purse off her chair. She’s leaving. Oh my God, she’s leaving. What the hell? She hasn’t even finished her nails!
And then something snaps inside me. I may not be able to control what my husband does, I may let the elevator guy humiliate me on a daily basis, but I’m not going to allow this woman to compromise patient care for no other reason than pure laziness and possibly spite. This is her job.
“Barbara,” I say in an even but firm voice. I stand in front of her to block her from leaving. She’s roughly my height, although I suspect in a one-to-one, Barbara could take me—she looks feisty. But right now, I’m madder. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re staying right here to wait for that patient.”
She squints at me. “It’s not my job to—”
“Actually, it is your job.” I stare her right in the eyes. “Your job is to wait here and check in patients. And if there’s an issue with a patient in the waiting area, it’s your job to tell me about it. And if you leave here right now when there’s a life or death issue, you’re failing to do your job.”
Barbara opens her mouth to say something, but I cut her off, hissing, “I swear to you, Barbara, if any harm comes to this patient because you left when I told you that you need to stay, that is criminal negligence. You get me? And believe me, I will hold you personally responsible.”
Her heavily mascaraed eyes widen.
“I will go to your boss and your boss’s boss and everyone in the entire goddamn hospital if I have to.” I squeeze my hands into sweaty fists. “So if you’d like to keep working here, I think you better stay and do your goddamn job.”
Barbara is staring at me, her lips forming a little “O.” I don’t think she expected me to say all that. She hesitates, clutching her purse to her chest, maybe trying to figure out if I’m serious. Finally, she says, “Well, if it’s a matter of life or death, of course I’ll stay.”
And then she goes back to her desk and sits down.
I can’t believe that worked! I always thought if I yelled at Barbara, she’d just give me the finger and leave. But she’s now back at her desk like a good little worker. She isn’t even doing her nails!
Wow. Maybe I’ve been living my entire life wrong. Instead of being nice to people, I ought to be threatening them and bossing them around. It sure works for Ryan. It works for a lot of physicians I’ve met. Maybe if I were more forceful with Ben, he wouldn’t be threatening to move out. Maybe Leah would be potty trained by now.
I look down at my hands, which are shaking like leaves. My heart won’t stop pounding and my legs feel like jello. Who am I kidding—this isn’t me. I can whip out Mean Jane for patient emergencies, but that’s just not who I am.
_____
When Mr. Chambers shows up fifteen minutes later, I have to spend another ten minutes convincing him to go to the emergency room. I check in the computer a few hours later to see how he’s doing, and it turns out they found blood clots in his lungs. He might not have been thrilled about going to the ER, but we very well might have saved his life. I don’t get to save many lives outright in primary care, so it’s a good feeling.
After five, things get very quiet on Primary Care C. Barbara leaves at four-thirty on the dot, not a second later, and after that, I’m responsible for making my own check marks. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t add that much to my workload.
At the county hospital where I did my residency, the hospital would have still been bustling at eight o’clock in the evening. But it’s not like that at the VA. Quitting time is four-thirty, and by four-forty, the VA is a ghost town. Even George the elevator guy has left for the day.
I can’t say I don’t feel the tiniest bit nervous as I ride down in the elevator. Ben once told me I should get a can of mace to carry in my purse. Although honestly, I don’t think I’m a mace kind of person. I can’t believe that if I were ever in a situation where I actually needed mace that I’d be able to use it properly. I’d probably accidentally squirt myself in the eyes with it.
Maybe I should get myself one of those really loud horns. You can’t screw up honking a horn.
As a compromise, I grab my car keys and I thread the pointed end between my forefinger and middle finger. I took a one-hour self-defense class once where they said that you could use your key as a weapon if you held it this way, and then you stab your attacker in the belly and yell, “No!” The yelling of “no” seemed to be essential to the defense strategy.
I look down at my key. I can’t actually imagine stabbing someone. But it makes me feel better.
As expected, the lobby of the VA hospital is empty. Completely desolate. I walk across the lobby as quickly as I can, but before I get to the doors, I hear a voice:
“Dr. McGill?”
It’s Sam Powell. The guy who thought he got herpes from a newspaper.
“Hi,” I say. I tighten my grip on the key in my hand.
“Listen,” he says. “I was thinking about it, and I think I do want to be tested after all. So can you give me that kit?”
“Um.” I don’t know whether I’m more scared or irritated. Irritated, I think. “I don’t have it with me, Mr. Powell. Can you come back tomorrow?” When there are more witnesses.
He frowns at me. “I’d really like to have it now.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I can’t give it to you now.”
Mr. Powell’s eyes darken and my pulse quickens. I think about the key in my hand. What was I thinking? This key is completely useless. I can’t stab someone with this! If he decides to attack me, that’s it. I’m attacked.
Maybe I can surreptitiously call 911.
“Dr. McGill!”
I hear the second voice coming from across the lobby. I turn my head and before anything else, I see the green scrubs. I know who this is. I know who’s coming to save me. Again.
“Dr. Reilly,” I manage.
He jogs across the lobby, never taking his eyes off my patient. He gets it. He steps right between me and Mr. Powell, standing close enough to be intimidating. Ryan has at least two or three inches on Mr. Powell, as well as at least twenty pounds of muscle.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” Ryan asks Mr. Powell in a hard voice.
“I…” Mr. Powell glances at me, then back at Ryan. “No. I was just leaving.”
“Great.” Ryan nods in the direction of the door. “Have a good evening.”
Ryan doesn’t leave my side as we watch Mr. Powell exit the building. I look down at my hands, which are shaking. Ryan shakes his head as Mr. Powell’s hunched figure disappears into the distance.
“Don’t you have some mace?” he asks me. “You’re really lucky I was here.”
“He wasn’t really going to attack me,” I say confidently. I want that to be the truth. I don’t want to think about what might have happened if Ryan weren’t here.
He shrugs. “Yeah, well… I’m not letting you go out there by yourself. I’ll walk you to your car.”
I look at the short sleeves of his green scrub top. “You’ll be freezing.”
“It’s not that far,” he says. “I’ll be okay.”
He’s so good to me. He’s always been good to me. He looked out for me through three years of residency—I’m not sure if I would have made it through without him. I’d probably have quit and be doing… I don’t know, psychiatry or physical medicine right now. He’s stood up to patients for me before. Somehow when I’ve needed him, he’s always been there. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he showed up right now, when I need him the most.
If something had happened to me tonight, would Ben have even cared?
“Jane…” His dark blond eyebrows knit together. “Why are you crying?”
“I…” I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. “I
think my marriage might be over.”
His blue eyes widen. After a beat, he grabs my arm and gently pulls me toward the elevators. He hits the button for up.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “You really want to talk about this in the lobby?”
I try to get my tears under control in the elevator, but it’s hard. I know I look like a mess when I’m crying. My nose gets all red, my face gets splotchy, and my eyes become bloodshot. Despite everything, I still care what I look like around Ryan.
We end up at the end of a long hallway on the eighth floor, in front of a door with a sign that reads, “Ryan Reilly, MD. Associate Chairman of Vascular Surgery.” And his office is befitting of a guy who is the associate chairman of vascular surgery. Mine barely has room for my desk and a couple of chairs, but his is spacious enough to include a luxurious leather sofa that’s probably nicer than anything in my house.
“Don’t get too jealous,” Ryan says. “The sofa is from my office at the private practice where I worked before this.”
I sink into it, trying to smile through my tears. “It’s really comfortable.”
“I know,” he says. “That’s why I made them buy it for me.”
I wipe my face again. I look down at the gold band on my fourth finger. Sometimes during the day, I look at it to remind myself of Ben. Or at least, I used to. I don’t think I’ve done that in a long time.
Maybe Ben is right. Maybe our marriage has become nothing more than a division of labor.
“Jane,” Ryan says softly. I turn to look at him, at the features I got to know so well during what I used to think were the hardest years of my life. “I just want you to know that… if your husband doesn’t appreciate how great you are, then to hell with that guy. To hell with Pip. Because you’re… I mean, if I hadn’t been such an idiot…”
I feel all the little hairs on my arms stand at attention. “What are you saying?”
“I don’t know what I’m saying.” He shakes his head. “But you… you’re the only woman I’ve ever met who made me want to take that damned test and figure out once and for all if I could have a real life. And I wish that…”
He looks like he has more to say, but instead of saying it, he leans forward and kisses me.
For a decade, ever since that night we ate Peking duck together, the only man that I have kissed has been Ben. But kissing Ryan is so familiar—it’s like riding a bike. If you’ve done it before, doing it again is so easy. Too easy.
But the problem is that I can’t stop. And neither can he.
It makes me feel better. All the anger and hurt I felt from the words my husband said to me last night drain out of my body as Ryan gently pushes me down on the leather sofa and continues to kiss me. Christ, he’s still a really good kisser. Then he pulls his scrub top over his head and I nearly gasp at the sight of his chest—wow, he certainly hasn’t let himself go over the last decade.
Against my will, I’m reminded of the first time Ben and I had sex. We had been dating for a couple of months, but he hadn’t been pushy with me like some men were. But that night, we had just been to a wedding of one of Ben’s friends where he was one of the groomsmen. There was a reason that Ryan refused to ever take me to a wedding when we were dating—“it gives you women ideas.”
Well, maybe that wedding did give me ideas. Or maybe it was because Ben looked so handsome in his tuxedo. I remember catching his eye during the ceremony, and when he smiled at me, I melted. I couldn’t keep my hands off him during the entire taxi ride home—I could see the driver giving us dirty looks in the rearview mirror.
When he was following me up to my apartment, I murmured in his ear, “You got a condom in your wallet?” Ben’s brown eyes widened and he flashed me a grin like I’d told him he’d won the lottery. The answer was yes, by the way.
And in the privacy of my bedroom, he pulled off his black jacket, his tie, and then he unbuttoned his pressed white shirt. Except when Ben took off his shirt, his ears turned red and he said, “Sorry.” Lord knows what he was apologizing for. Did he think I was expecting The Rock’s chest to materialize under his tuxedo? Ben’s chest was slim, hairy but not too hairy, and perfect. And when I pulled off my own shirt, he made me feel like I was perfect too.
I remember the way Ben kissed me, his fingers trembling with eagerness. He couldn’t figure out the clasp on the back of my bra. He worked on it for over a minute, finally pausing between kisses to enlist both his hands and all his concentrations to get it open. I teased him over that one for months, until one day he made me sit in his embrace and allow him to practice until he could undo the clasp one-handed.
Sex with other men before him was usually good and sometimes great, but it was never quite like it was with Ben. Maybe it was his eagerness or excitement, but there was something that just felt right about it. I felt like a piece of bread with peanut butter on it that had just found a matching piece of bread coated with jelly.
Ben would like that analogy.
We couldn’t keep our hands off each other for most of our courtship, and even after we got married. When we finally decided to go off birth control, I got pregnant instantly. When I first told him, he grinned and said, “Well, of course you’re knocked up. We had sex like a million times last month.”
When I was one week overdue with Leah, and we had tried all the long walks, spicy foods, and evening primrose oil that I could stand, Ben insisted on taking me to bed despite my protests that I felt like a whale—I had gained forty pounds in pregnancy, my stomach was the size of a beach ball, and every inch of me was swollen and disgusting. But Ben kissed me everywhere and acted like I was just as sexy as I ever was. And the next morning, I started having regular contractions.
I was in labor with Leah for over twenty-four hours. Ben never left my side once during that entire time. In retrospect, I’m not sure when he went to the bathroom, because I cannot recall one second when he wasn’t holding my hand. The nurse had to force him to eat some food from their kitchen, because Ben insisted, “If she can’t eat, I’m not eating.”
I didn’t cry the first time I held Leah. But I cried the first time that I saw Ben hold her. He sat on a chair beside me, awkwardly holding that tiny little bundle we made in his arms, and all I could think was, “I’m so glad I picked him.” I was so glad I picked this man to be my husband, to be the father of my daughter, to be my partner for the rest of my life.
Oh God, Ben.
I shove against Ryan—harder than I’d intended. He jerks away from me, blinking his eyes in surprise. He tries to lean in again, but I hold him at arm’s length.
“You’ve got to be kidding me, Jane,” he grunts.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur. “But I… I can’t do this.”
“Sure you can.” He leans in again to kiss me, and this time I roll out from under him, clutching my shirt to hold it closed. He sighs loudly and drops his head against the couch. “Christ, I need a cold shower.”
“I’m sorry,” I say again. “But I just… I mean, Ben’s my husband, and I can’t…”
“Is that so?” Ryan rolls his eyes but he doesn’t look as angry as he has a right to be. The thing is, I love Ryan. Or at least, I used to love him, and I thought that I was capable of loving him again. Except as we were kissing, it was all too obvious to me that Ryan Reilly is not my soulmate. He’s a guy that I enjoyed hooking up with years ago but he’s not the love of my life. The love of my life is at home right now, with the child we made together. And even though he walked out on me last night, I’ve got to try to make it work with him. Whatever it takes, I’m going to do it. Ben is the one I’m meant to be with.
I hear a buzz coming from my purse. A text message.
“I should see what that is,” I murmur.
Ryan nods. I feel his eyes on me as I pull out my phone from my purse. I discover that I have three text messages from Ben that I missed. The first is from two hours ago and says: Leah used the princess potty! She’s real
ly proud of herself.
The second, from an hour ago, says: Can we talk when you get home?
The third says: I’m really sorry. Please come home, Jane.
I swallow hard as I stare down at the words on my phone. Ben’s sorry.
“Is the text from Pip?” Ryan asks.
I nod. “I’m sorry,” I say for what feels like the millionth time.
He pushes himself up into a sitting position on the couch. “Don’t be sorry. I knew you wouldn’t really cheat on your husband. You’re too… moral.”
My cheeks grow warm. “Well, I did let you kiss me.”
“Yeah, I’m shocked I got that far.” He shrugs. “I’m too late. It’s okay—I get it.”
“Maybe if you had gotten tested back in residency, it would have been different.
He manages a crooked smile. “Yeah. Maybe.”
I button up the two buttons on my shirt that Ryan managed to undo, grateful I didn’t let him get any further than that. I regret even those two buttons. I feel the burn of Ryan’s stubble on my chin, and I’m overcome with guilt that I actually allowed another man to kiss me. It’s Ben’s fault—how could he have said all those things to me last night?
Ryan gets up from the sofa and stretches in a way that emphasizes that the muscles in his arms and chest are just as tight as they were ten years ago. He’s really managed to keep in good shape. I genuinely don’t know how he does it. He’s even sexier than he was back then.
He throws his scrub top back on, which helps me to think straight again. The tie on his scrub pants has come loose, and I watch him cinch the waistband. And just as he’s tying the blue drawstring, I see it happen:
His right hand jerks away.
My breath catches in my throat. I didn’t just imagine that. His arm moved in a way I’d never seen before, at least not in a normal person. Maybe if this were someone else, I would have been able to ignore it. But this is Ryan. Whose father died of a degenerative disease that causes jerky, involuntary movements of the arms and legs.
“What was that?” I ask.
The Devil You Know Page 17