This isn’t going to end well for me, but I’m already in it so I may as well continue.
“Dr. Star, you’ve made house calls to your patients and taken hospital property with you when they can’t make it out of their houses,” I continue. “Dr. Quinten, you’ve been in a longstanding battle with the administration of this hospital over not allowing low-income patients of yours to stay in hospital as long as you think they should be allowed, and it’s even your position that the hospital should write off the majority of medical bills for those patients you know can’t afford treatment any other way.
“And, Dr. Belkin, you’ve come in on your days off to meet with patients who took a bad turn. If I’m not mistaken, you’ve even gone so far as to treat patients when you were on mandatory leave — that mandatory leave, by the way, having been ordered because you refuse to take a day off and the hospital was concerned you were going to burn out.”
“What’s your point?” Dr. Preston asks.
“My point is that I know what I did was unethical and I know that you’re going to have no choice but to seek discipline for my actions, but isn’t it about time that we stop worrying so much what drug companies and insurance companies think and just start doing what’s actually best for our patients?”
I already know I’ve lost all hope of any kind of leniency, but that’s no reason for me to shut up now.
“I understand the reason for not having personal relationships, particularly to the level of my relationship with Grace Miller,” I tell the committee. “There’s objectivity, and there’s objectivity. While none of us may be capable of complete objectivity, this kind of relationship can cloud judgment to the point where we actually harm the patient in the process of saving them. Maybe that’s what I’ve done here, maybe not. I’m sitting here before you today not to pretend ignorance of the rules and codes, possibly laws that I’ve broken, but because it is my job to treat my patients the best way I possibly can. So let me save you all a lot of time. I did what I’m accused of doing. I knew it was in violation of the rules. I am not sorry that I did it, and I would do it again.”
There, I feel better.
I’ve just torpedoed my career, but I feel better.
“Dr. Churchill, if you’ll excuse us,” Dr. Preston says.
“Yeah,” I answer, standing.
I’m sure that all of them had more questions, but I made it really easy for them. I did what they say I did and I did it knowing that I was breaking the rules.
I walk out of the room, not anticipating a long discussion.
More than once, I pull out my phone because I want to talk to Grace. I want to see how she’s doing, and I want to be with her. More than anything, I just want to talk to her.
After that day in the chemo lab of Parkside Hospital, she hasn’t been answering her phone or her door.
This round of chemo is over, though, and the plans I made after leaving Melissa in my apartment that night are almost complete.
The hearing was going to go the way it was going to go even if I didn’t accuse pretty much everyone else in the room of impropriety. The hearing was always going to end the way it’s about to end.
Whether it’s my whole career or just the immediate future of it, one way or another, this is going to put a mark on my record that’s never going to come off and I’m sure that at the very least I’m going to get fired.
I can’t do anything about that. What matters, though, is what happens after the hearing. Whether I have a viable career or not, there’s something I need to know.
Deliberations, as I thought they would be, are short. Dr. Preston opens the door and tells me that they’ve come to a decision.
I rise once more and adjust my tie before following him back into the room. There’s a part of me that still has hope, but that’s the stupider part of me.
Everyone in the room is looking at me intently as I walk back in, but nobody speaks. We all know where this is going and how it’s going to end. Dr. Star even looks like she feels bad regarding what’s about to happen. That doesn’t mean she’s going to do anything about it.
“Dr. Churchill,” Dr. Preston starts. “I want to begin by saying that the committee recognizes that you are a talented physician who has, in the past, been a credit to our hospital. However, in light of the events surrounding your treatment of Grace Miller, specifically the falsifications that took place…”
He trails off when somebody’s phone starts ringing. I wish it was less obvious that the phone is mine. No doubt it’s Yuri calling for the sixteenth time since she blew the whistle on me.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, pressing the mute button. “Please go on.”
“…and the inappropriate nature of the relationship between you and this patient,” he continues, “this committee has no choice but to find you in breach of hospital policy and the ethical standards of this profession according to the AMA. It is not lost on us, Dr. Churchill, that you performed this fraud in order to provide your patient with a chance she wouldn’t have had otherwise, but this does not excuse your actions.
“To that end, it is the finding of the board that you should be suspended without pay for a period of no less than four weeks, effective immediately, after which, we will reconvene to decide where to go from there. I want to impress upon you, Dr. Churchill, that despite your protests that any other doctor would behave as you have, we do have rules and those rules are there for your protection, the hospital’s protection, and the protection of our patients.”
“Four weeks?” I ask.
“Yes,” Dr. Preston answers.
“That’s it?”
Where am I going with this?
“Excuse me?” Dr. Preston returns.
“If the codes of conduct that I’ve been found to have violated are indeed so serious as you would make out then why is my license being spared at all?” I ask.
“First off, we haven’t decided not to recommend the revocation of your license, Dr. Churchill. Still, some feel that, although you have been misguided, there is still an opportunity for you to do good things at this hospital,” Dr. Preston answers. “If you have an objection to that point of view, however, we would be more than happy to revisit the subject.” Dr. Preston says, “At the end of four weeks, we will reconvene to decide whether or not to recommend that your license be revoked permanently.”
So that’s it. My career is up in the air.
In a lot of ways, the hearing went better than expected, but there’s no way of telling what’s going to happen next, and I’m not too optimistic about coming back here in four weeks.
If nothing else, though, it’s over for now. I’ve got a month between now and a final decision: Plenty of time to update and circulate my résumé, though I’m not sure who’s going to hire me.
That’s not what’s pressing on my mind, though.
I pick up the phone and call Grace. She doesn’t pick up, but I leave her a message, simply telling her to be by her apartment at eight o’clock tonight.
I just hope she’s there.
Chapter Twenty-One
Learning to Breathe
Grace
I’m sitting in the back of a cab that Jace apparently sent for me, wondering just where the hell I’m being taken.
I got Jace’s message.
His hearing’s over and there’s no more damage to be done. Everything in my life has completely fallen apart.
KJBP came out with their announcement that they accepted the offer of…it doesn’t matter. They did what I expected them to do and chose the better deal. For me to expect anything different would have been pure idiocy.
Rather than take personal responsibility for her role in ensuring that M.E. would never land a contract with KJBP, Mrs. Sutton immediately called for my termination and she got it.
John had a great big smile on his face when he told me that I’m fired.
So that’s it. M.E. is going to stay local and completely overlooked. Everything I’ve been working
toward these last couple of years is out the door along with me.
I don’t know what Jace is planning, but given the way everything’s been going lately, I’m not getting my hopes up.
“We’re here, madam,” the driver says, and I look out the window.
It’s the junkyard.
I get out of the back of the car, and I’m surprised that Jace would want to meet me here after the last time.
We’ve drifted apart, but despite myself, I begin to hope that things are going to change. Why would he invite me here if there were to be no forgiveness between us?
As soon as I close the door to the cab, the driver speeds away, leaving me standing alone next to the fence. It’s always astounded me that whoever owns this place never invested in any kind of security, but right now, that’s not a bad thing.
I’ve had some time to recover since my last round of chemo, but I’m still nervous to find out how much strength I have. The good news is, I’m able to get over the fence.
I land on the ground inside the junkyard and I start looking around. I don’t see Jace.
The place is so dark tonight with the new moon, but the stars are out in force.
I pull out my phone and call Jace’s number.
“You’re here,” he answers.
“How very creepy of you to say,” I respond. “Where are you?”
“I’ve got a little surprise for you.”
“That’s all well and good,” I tell him, “but if I don’t know where you are…”
“You know exactly where I am,” he says. “I’ll see you when you get here.”
He hangs up and I start walking again. Even with all the stars, the night is so dark that I’m having a little trouble finding the correct path through all of the wreckage. Soon enough, though, I’m through and staring up at the Ferris wheel.
I don’t see Jace.
I pull out my phone and call him again.
“You coming up or what?” he asks.
He’s at the top? Last time, he vowed that he’d never climb “that fucking thing” again. I gaze up at the Ferris wheel, trying to spot him, and I manage to make out his shadow against the backdrop of the night sky.
That’s a surprise, all right.
“Come on!” he shouts from the top. “I don’t have all night!”
A thrill flows through me and I make my way to the base of the ladder. Climbing up, I forget my usual fear and just keep putting one hand above the other.
As I get toward the top, though, that trepidation returns and I’m slow to make it to where I can look over the top of the ladder and see Jace sitting in the car.
“You’ve got this,” he says as he holds out his hand.
“What are you doing here?” I ask. “What am I doing here?”
“Why don’t we talk about this after you’re in the car?”
I climb up and reach out to him. He takes my hand. It takes a little bit of maneuvering and my life flashing before my eyes more than once, but I manage to get into the car.
Jace reaches forward, puts the pin in the front of the restraint, and turns to look at me.
“What are we doing here?” I ask him as I try to get my body to stop shaking.
“We’re both overcoming our fears,” he says. “They say that the only way to do that is to confront them directly, so here we are.”
“That’s very new age of you,” I tell him, “but you didn’t send a car for me just so I could-”
He reaches down to his side and produces a small bottle of wine.
“It’s nothing fancy,” he says, “but it’s all I could fit in my pocket for the climb up.”
“How did your hearing go?” I ask.
“I’m suspended until they can figure out what to do with me. I was hoping for a little less, but considering that they could have fired me and immediately called for the revocation of my license, I’d say it’s a win.”
“I’m sorry I’ve been ducking your calls,” I tell him. “At first, I was telling myself that I didn’t want to further jeopardize your career by somehow influencing you to go out of your way to protect me during the hearing. When I realized they’d already done everything they could do to me, though, I realized that I wasn’t answering the phone because I wasn’t ready for what you and I were turning into.”
“And what’s that?”
“You put your career on the line for me,” I tell him. “You did that before we were even in a relationship. I don’t know — that kind of selflessness isn’t something I’m used to.”
“It was the right thing to do,” he says.
“They told me I was on the placebo,” I tell him.
“They told me you were on the placebo, too,” he says just as quickly. “They were wrong.”
“What are you talking about?”
“On paper, you were on the placebo, but I may have convinced one of the orderlies to give me access to the room where they keep the stuff. It took a while to figure out which you were on, but as soon as I found out that it was the placebo, I had you changed over,” he says.
“Why would you do that?”
“I wanted to give you a better shot. We don’t have to talk about that now, though. I saw you on the news,” he says. “I called, but you didn’t pick up.”
“Yeah,” I tell him, “that didn’t work out for me any better than your hearing worked out for you. Actually, it went worse because I know I’m fired.”
“Ah, to be unemployed at the top of a Ferris wheel,” Jace says, and I’m wondering how much of that wine he’s already drunk. As if aware of my question, he hands me the bottle, saying, “Let me know what you think. The clerk at the liquor store said it has a velvety texture with a bouquet of oak and citrus. As far as I can tell, though, it’s just another bottle of wine. Maybe you can tell me what I’m missing.”
I take the bottle and have a quick drink from it.
“It tastes like wine,” I tell him and hand it back. “What are we doing up here?”
“I told you,” he says. “We’re conquering our fears.”
“What does that mean, though?” I ask. “Pretty much everything I’ve had to be afraid of in the last year has already happened. If anything, I’d say that’s just more of a reason to be afraid.”
“You forgot something,” he says.
“What’s that?”
“Even with things going bad, we’re both still here.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s something,” I agree.
“I know that you’ve been avoiding me,” he says. “I know that the last time we spoke didn’t really go so well for either of us, but I also know that I like you, Grace. You’re stubborn and you talk like a sailor-”
“Have I ever told you exactly how thoroughly I loathe that expression?”
“What I’m getting at, is that you’ve brought a kind of excitement into my life that I’ve only dreamed of, and I don’t want things to be over between us. If you’ll let me,” he says, reaching into his pocket, “I’d like to spend the rest of my life bringing you the same thrill that your presence brings me.”
Even in the dark, I can see that the motherfucker’s holding an engagement ring.
“You’re not serious,” I tell him.
“Really,” he says, “I am. Grace, will you marry me?”
All right, when the cab pulled up to the junkyard, I figured we were probably on the road toward getting back together, but I did not see this one coming.
“No,” I tell him. “I mean — no. I mean… Don’t you think it’s a little soon?”
“What do you mean?” he asks. “We’ve already been through more shit together than most people face in a lifetime.”
“First off, I don’t know if that’s true,” I tell him. “Second off, haven’t you noticed that we’ve kind of skipped a few steps?”
“What steps?”
“Well,” I tell him, “we’ve never lived together. We’ve never talked about whether we each want to have kids or anything. We’ve never
sat down and planned anything except to defraud your hospital and the clinical trial. Jace, we’ve never said ‘I love you.’”
“Well,” he says, “I lov-”
“Oh, don’t say it now,” I interrupt. “It just makes it seem like you’re trying to prove a point, not that you actually mean it.”
He’s looking at me, the ring still in his outstretched hand.
“You’re an idiot, you know that?” I ask with a laugh.
“Yeah,” he says. “I really do.”
“I love you for it,” I tell him.
“I love you, too,” he says. “Does that mean-”
“Oh, hell no,” I tell him. “I’m nowhere near prepared to get married, but I have another idea.”
“What’s that?”
“Do you remember what I was planning on doing with you up here before you started flailing like a moron?” I ask.
“I take exception to most of that question, and no,” he says. “What were you going to do with me up here?”
“Put the ring back in your pocket,” I tell him. “You don’t want to lose it.”
He puts the ring back in his pocket, and I kiss him on the lips. With that restraint in place, we’re not going to be able to be too creative, but I think I’ve got a few ideas for getting around that.
Our arms are around each other, and I can feel that Jace, despite his generally calm demeanor is shaking. Whether it’s from the height or from the breeze or from the adrenaline of the moment, I have no idea.
He’s pulling me close.
“Exactly how far were you planning to go?” he asks.
“Far enough,” I tell him.
“Yeah, I have no idea what that means,” he says. “I’m just thinking that with the bar there, we can’t, you know, and if we unlatch the bar, I don’t think we should.”
I pull away from him and move as far as I can to the other side of the car which, granted, is only about a foot from where I was before. I lift my feet until they’re above the footrest and I straighten my legs only to bend them as if I were going to cross my legs. That way, I’m able to get my legs out from under the restraint and cross them in front of me on the seat.
Escort (A Standalone Romance Novel) (New York City Bad Boy Romance) Page 24