by Mia Madison
“What was it?”
“I had a friend. A colleague I was very close to.”
My first thought was that he meant a girlfriend. I wasn’t quite sure I was strong enough to hear about that. But it soon became apparent that wasn’t the case.
“Somehow, we went from being best friends to fighting all the time. Eventually we stopped speaking except when we had to for work. It got really uncomfortable.”
“Kind of like two exes working together?”
“Yeah, kind of like that. It was painful since we’d been so close. He used to call me Opie sometimes,” he said with a little laugh.
“Opie?”
“It’s from this old TV show—“
“I’ve heard of the Andy Griffith show.”
“Really? Maybe there’s hope for you millennials yet.”
I rolled my eyes. “But why’d he call you that?” Owen didn’t have red hair.
“Because of my name. Owen Patrick.”
“Ah. O.P. It kind of makes you sound cute and innocent.”
Owen’s chuckle was deep and sexy. “Good thing you know better.”
“Well, the cute part’s true.”
“Cute?” he scoffed. “I’m not cute, I’m manly. Macho. Ripped. Toned.”
“Shaken. Stirred,” I added helpfully.
“Quiet, you,” he said with mock annoyance. “I’m not in any way, shape, or form, cute.”
“How about if I just say that you have a cute butt?”
He thought about it for a minute. “I guess I can live with that.”
By the time we pulled up at the dark hospital parking lot, I felt like we’d been away for a year. Okay, maybe not that long, but certainly longer than a week. I felt I knew Owen a whole lot better than was possible in just a week. And hopefully, I’d be getting to know him even better soon. We couldn’t get together this weekend, not when my dad was home, but we’d made plans to have lunch together on Monday. And Owen wanted to take me to a breakfast place he liked one morning before work, too.
Owen had stopped in front of the main entrance so that we could unload the promotional materials before he returned the car to its assigned space in the back lot. I feasted my eyes on Owen’s muscles as he easily lifted my suitcase and the other large case. It might be my last chance to see him in action for a while. Or at least the kind of action that required biceps and triceps.
He left his duffel bag in the trunk since his car was back where he’d need to leave this one. “I wish I could stay. Buy you dinner or a cup of coffee.”
“It’s okay. I need to find my dad and report in. And I know you want to see Max.”
“I know it’s dumb because I didn’t see him for years, but now that I’m back, I worry about him. He’s not as spry as he used to be.”
“I understand.”
“So…” he trailed off. “I’ll see you soon, right?”
“Right.” And he would—but somehow, this parting was more difficult that I imagined it would be. I wasn’t quite ready to go from being by his side all day to only seeing him a few times a week when we could carve out the time.
Owen sighed. “Well, let me just say that it’s been an honor, Rebecca Miller. An honor to work with you, to get to know you, to tell you to squeeze your breasts, and to—“
“Owen!” I squealed. But his unabashedly bad behavior somehow took the sting out of this temporary separation.
“Told you I’d get you to be louder,” he said, and then he held out his arms. “Come here.”
Gratefully, I fell into his embrace. It had been a long, hard week, but I couldn’t imagine anyone I’d have rather have spent it with.
Owen wrapped his arms around me and he buried his face in my hair. I nestled against his chest. I would’ve liked to have kissed him, but we couldn’t, not right here in front of the hospital. We probably shouldn’t even be doing this, but it wouldn’t matter, not unless someone like my father was around—
“Rebecca.”
Shit.
Jumping back from Owen, I turned to find my dad in his usual uniform, dress shirt and tie, black pants, and white lab coat. “Dad, hi.”
But he ignored me, his gaze on Owen. “I came out here to welcome my daughter back—not to find her in the embrace of a colleague.”
Owen smiled easily at my father, clearly trying to defuse the situation. “It was a long week. We bonded on the road—we all did. That’s what happens when you work closely together in our profession. You know that, Greg.”
“You can call me Dr. Miller or Chief. And you can also keep your hands off my daughter. Where’s Kristin?”
“She got sick,” I said at the same time Owen said, “We dropped her off first.”
Crap. I exchanged an uneasy glance with Owen. We should’ve got our stories straight before this point.
“She wasn’t feeling well, so she left the tour a little early,” I said.
Dad looked like he had a lot more questions on that front, but he merely nodded and picked up the box of promotional materials. “We’ll talk more about that later. Come along, Rebecca.”
I shot Owen an apologetic look as I grabbed my suitcase and followed my dad.
The rest of the weekend was a letdown after the intensity of the outreach tour. Owen and I texted back and forth, but it was clear he detested texting, so I tried not to let our exchanges run too long.
On Saturday afternoon, I snuck out of the house and called him, but he had only a few minutes before he needed to leave for his shift at the hospital. On Sunday, it rained all day, adding to my gloomy mood. My father was at the hospital, so I had the house to myself. I used the time to read the pre-med book Owen had gotten me. I even tried some MCAT practice tests online.
Going to medical school was still a pipe dream, but at least that was better than giving up on the dream all together.
Owen
“Hey, Owen. The Chief wants to see you in his office.”
Surprised, I looked at my colleague Amy. “But I’ve got surgery in a few minutes.”
“I know, but he wants to see you right away. I’m supposed to scrub in.”
Shit. Now Greg was taking away one of the few surgeries I had scheduled? Unbelievable. Resigned, I filled Amy in on the pertinent facts of this case. Fortunately, it was an easy, run-of-the-mill operation.
As I took off my mask and gloves, I thought about Becca. She was probably already at the desk downstairs. First chance I got, I was going to go see her.
Minutes later, I was outside of Greg’s office. If he’d wanted to see me, why the hell was his door closed? I felt like a schoolboy waiting outside of the principal’s office.
Fuck that. I wasn’t a schoolboy, and Greg definitely wasn’t a strict but wise authority figure. I pounded on the door.
“Come in.”
Prick. It was a power play, him not getting up from his massive desk. Making me come over and take a seat across from him. A low seat, of course, so he’d be higher than everyone else in the room. Clearly he was trying to compensate for some shortcoming somewhere. “What’s going on, Greg? I was about to perform surgery.”
“Your surgery is being covered. I have something I wanted to show you. And may I remind you, you may address me as Dr. Miller or Chief.”
“Okay… what’s going on, Chief?”
“This.” Greg reached into his desk drawer and brought out a heavy book that he dropped onto the desk with a thud. With a sinking feeling, I recognized the book. “Know what this is?”
I squinted at it, pretending I hadn’t seen it before. “Looks like a book for students planning to start medical careers.”
“Precisely. I found this in Becca’s room when I went in to change a lightbulb.”
“She’s interested in becoming a doctor? Good for her.” I said it with a straight face, but somehow, Greg didn’t seem sold.
“Rebecca’s majoring in business and doesn’t need you poisoning her head with careers she shouldn’t be pursuing.”
P
asting a look of confusion on my face, I peered around Greg’s office, scanning the framed certificates on the wall. “I’m sorry, but I forgot—when did you become a guidance counselor?”
“Don’t get cute with me. You knew I don’t want her to enter medicine.”
“How would I know that? You’ve barely said five words to me since I got back.”
“Yet you just spent a whole week with my daughter. Are you claiming the subject never came up? I doubt you would've given her this book if it hadn’t.”
“Fine, I gave it to her. What’s wrong with that? She’s got a good brain, good hands—she’d be great as a surgeon. What gives you the right to dictate what she can do with her life?”
“I’ve more right than you. I’m her father. I raised her. You’re just some jerk who showed up after running away all those years ago. I don’t have the slightest clue why my daughter chose to listen to you, but apparently, she has.”
“She’s an adult, Greg. That means she doesn’t just listen to daddy anymore. She can take advice from her friends, her colleagues, and certainly herself and ignore your counsel. I know you think that this is between you and your daughter and that I should butt out, but you’ve got the math wrong. We should both butt out. It’s her career.”
Greg glared at me and slammed a fist down on the table. “How dare you speak to me like that?”
“How dare you act so stupidly that you make me speak to you like that?” I countered Greg’s furious expression with a lazy smile. I’d known this man for half my life, so I knew just how to get under his skin. Unfortunately, he knew how to get under mine, as well.
“What’s a matter, Owen? Not enough fame and adulation now that you’re back on your home turf? Maybe you decided you’d team up with my daughter and go against me just to get attention?”
“It’s not a bad theory,” I said, as if considering it. “But how would we test it? We’d need to somehow get hold of a control group…”
“You’re impossible.”
“Agreed. Can I go now?”
“No, you may not.”
“Okay then,” I said, leaning back in my chair. I had half a mind to put my feet up on his desk, but I didn’t want to enrage my old friend to the point that he had a heart attack “Shall we talk about the weather?”
“No, I have a different topic in mind. Aren’t you curious how I knew you gave her that book?”
“Really, Greg, what difference does it make if she bought it or I bought it for her?”
“No difference at all.” His voice was cold. Vaguely, I wondered how this could possibly be the same person who’d laughed with me over comic books when we’d first met. “But that wasn’t my question. My question was, aren’t you curious how I knew you bought it?”
“No.” Why the fuck was he being such an asshole about this?
“Maybe this will help you figure it out.” He shoved the book a foot closer to me. “Open it up.”
“Thanks, but I’m a bit beyond learning what’s covered on the MCAT.”
“Open. It. Up.”
Shit, he was really angry. If he wasn’t careful, my next surgery might be on him after he blew a gasket next to that black hole in his chest where his heart was supposed to be.
“Fine,” I said, opening to a random page. Except then I realized it wasn’t random. In between the open pages were several white squares, all the size of—prescriptions.
Fuck.
Greg’s voice was controlled, but I suspected it wouldn’t stay that way for long. “It’s one thing to encourage my child to go against my wishes. It’s another thing entirely to introduce her to such depravity. Are you proud of yourself? That you can suck young women into your sick little games?”
“Greg, just calm down—“
“Calm? I sent you on a work trip to represent the hospital and instead you used that time to seduce my daughter? Couldn’t you wait one whole week before unleashing your prurient interests?” He stood up, trying to tower over me.
“Will you just listen? Becca—“
“Is my daughter. My only child. You had no right to do those things with her.”
“I had every right, if she wanted to as well. Which she did.” I had to get that out there once, but now that I had, I was dropping that line of defense. The last thing I wanted to do was bring more of her father’s wrath down on Becca.
“Ah, so you’re both consenting adults, is that it? Even though you’re twenty years older than her?”
“Nineteen. Unlike you, I skipped the seventh grade.”
Ignoring that last jibe, Greg focused on the first part. “Oh, it’s just nineteen years different. That makes it so much better. How silly I’ve been, thinking that your relationship was inappropriate.”
“It’s entirely appropriate. Distasteful to you, but legally, morally, and ethically appropriate.”
“She’s a child!” He took a few steps forward, and I stood to meet him. I was starting to get genuinely angry, too. Fuck. This was not going to end well.
“She’s twenty-one. Shit, when you were twenty-one you were already married and had a baby on the way. Were you a child then? Was your wife? Of course not. You were living your own lives and making your own decisions at the same age Becca is now. When are you going to realize that she’s an adult, too?”
“Don’t lecture me about my own child! A child you shamelessly seduced!” His hands were clenched into fists, as if he were just barely abstaining from launching himself at me.
Shit. He sounded like he’d just stepped out of a Victorian melodrama. And I was fucking furious at him, but more for Becca’s sake than my own. “She’s your child, but she’s not a child. Again, she’s in her twenties! She’s an adult, and sooner or later, you’re going to have to accept that. The only question is if you’ll figure that out before or after you drive her away.”
Now Greg did take a swing, and though I’d been expecting it, he almost slipped past my guard. But the years sitting behind a desk had slowed him down, and I caught him by the wrist, directing his force away from my body. And now I was officially pissed off. “We are not going to do this,” I thundered. “We’re both surgeons, our hands are our livelihood, and we aren’t going to fuck them up in this manner. Understand, idiot?”
Greg seethed with rage as he twisted his arm out of my grasp. But he didn’t try to hit me again. Instead, he took a step back and straightened his lab coat. Pompous prick.
“This is my office and my hospital. Therefore, you’ll address me as Dr. Miller or Chief.”
“Right, I forgot. Sorry, that should’ve been Chief Idiot. And speaking of names, maybe you could go outside and paint your name next to the big sign that says Hawthorne Memorial. Do you think that might lessen that massive inferiority complex of yours? Of course, it‘s been simmering for years. It’s probably so big by now that it travels with its own entourage. Hey, maybe they could make an HBO show about it.”
“Get out of my office!”
“Gladly. But just one more thing. This is between you and me. Don’t take this out on Becca.”
Greg moved in close, until we were almost eye to eye again. I didn’t think he was going to try anything else physical, but I readied myself just in case. “Don’t you mention her name. Don’t think about her. Don’t talk to her. And get the fuck out of my office.”
Wow. Greg Miller, saying the f-word? I hadn’t heard him say that kind of thing since high school. He must really have his panties in a bunch to use such strong language. But wait, what had his demands been? “Let’s see… don’t talk to your daughter, don’t think about her, and one other thing I can’t remember. My response, to all three, is: You wish.” If he could revert to high school language, then so could I. “But that last thing? To get out of your office? No problem. Anything you say, Chief.”
I stepped back and gave him a mock salute, then a wink since I knew it would piss him off even more. Then I walked out.
I resisted slamming the door, which I felt was very matur
e given the situation. It looked like Becca wasn’t the only one who was a grown-up. I was becoming one, too.
Too bad the same couldn’t be said about her father.
Becca
Everything was awful. I was miserable. Owen looked miserable every time I saw him at work, which wasn’t often. It seemed like the entire hospital system was being redesigned to keep us apart. Word was, Dad had tried to get Owen fired, but the board, with a charge spearheaded by Uncle Max, had refused.
Which did nothing to improve my dad’s mood. He wasn’t talking to me, he wasn’t talking to Owen, and he didn’t want me to talk to Owen. Maybe we should just lock the doors and become some kind of virtual hospital online. That way we could officially spend all day not talking to each other.
“Table for two, miss?”
“Yes, please.” I squinted out toward the parking lot, but I couldn’t see much in this rain. “I’m meeting a tall, older gentleman for dinner. Could you please bring him back to my table when he arrives?”
“Certainly.”
A few moments later, I was seated at a table along the wall, the menu unopened before me. I was too nervous to eat. And a little worried. It wasn’t like him to be late, but due to the storm, the roads were awful. Very low visibility.
Finally, after about ten minutes and two visits from a rather annoyingly attentive waiter, he entered the restaurant. I stood when he neared, trying to keep my hands from shaking. This was going to be one of the most important conversations of my life.
“Thank you for coming,” I began, pleased that my voice was fairly steady. “I’m glad you could make it. Have a seat—Dad.”
I spoke calmly. Clearly. Rationally. And occasionally passionately. I listed all the reasons I wanted to be a doctor. All the reasons I thought I’d make a good one—a list that Owen had secretly helped me compile. I talked about which medical schools I wanted to apply to.
And at each and every turn, my father was adamant. I was to finish my degree in business. Get a job in business. And give up on my dream of being a doctor once and for all.