Lakeside Hospital Box Set

by Cara Malone

  “Good,” Chloe said with a yawn. “I was up all night with a little boy who had his tonsils out. His mom works third shift so I said I would watch him. She just got here so I thought I’d try to squeeze in a quick nap before rounds start. How’s surgery?”

  “It’s incredible,” Ivy said, feeling a little tongue-tied because she was acutely aware of the fact that Megan was still watching them. She added lamely, “I’m learning so much.”

  “Good,” Chloe said. Then she leaned across Ivy to hang her backpack on the empty hook and the sudden proximity stole Ivy’s breath away.

  She glanced at Megan again and wished more than anything that she’d just disappear. Ivy could smell the honey lip balm on Chloe’s lips and she wanted nothing more than to taste them. She might as well have been on the other side of the hospital, though – Chloe was off-limits, at least for now.

  “Well,” Ivy said. “I have to go.”

  She squeezed past Chloe and went into the hall, letting the door click shut before she leaned against the wall and took a deep breath. She’d tried not to think about Chloe because she was in the middle of the most important rotation of her medical school education, but now that she’d seen her, Ivy realized how much she missed her.

  And she was alone in the call room with Megan of all people.

  The first time Ivy stepped onto the Northwestern campus as a medical student, she was going to the department’s new student social hour. It took place at eight o’clock the night before orientation and Ivy never planned on going to it. She would have been perfectly content spending the evening settling into her new university housing, unpacking her bags and getting her notes organized for the following day. She never saw much point in mingling with her classmates – it was easier to compete with someone if she didn’t think of them as a friend, and friends took up precious time that should be reserved for studying.

  The professors were what changed Ivy’s mind about the social hour.

  The entire faculty of the School of Medicine would be there, and the more Ivy thought about it, the more she realized it would be a mistake to pass over a prime opportunity to introduce herself. So she put on a black cocktail dress – the only formalwear she’d packed – and tied her hair back in a neat bun instead of her usual ponytail. Then she walked across campus to the building where she was about to spend the better part of two years listening to lectures.

  The social hour took place in the large marble lobby and someone had gone out of their way to decorate it so it didn’t look so much like a lobby. There were a number of bar tables with crisp white tablecloths draped over them, a bar near the entrance, and a long table full of finger sandwiches, hors d’oeuvres and bite-sized desserts.

  There were about two dozen people there when Ivy arrived, mostly faculty, and she went around introducing herself to as many of them as she could. She talked up her undergraduate GPA and the extracurricular work she’d done as a research assistant to one of her biology professors. She’d gotten through about five faculty members by the time the party really got going and there were enough people in the room to make it difficult for her to find her next faculty member mark.

  As more of Ivy’s new classmates came into the lobby, it became harder to squeeze her way through the crowd. She would spot a professor she wanted to talk to and set out for him, and by the time she elbowed her way past half a dozen people, he’d be pulled into conversation with someone else. So she decided she’d done enough networking for the night and gave up on that objective.

  Ivy could have left at that point – she’d gotten to most of the professors she wanted to talk to – but her stomach was growling and it was too late to go to the cafeteria for dinner. So she grabbed a plate of finger sandwiches and found an unoccupied bar table at the back of the room. She still had no intention of socializing, but there was one additional advantage to sticking around, in addition to the food – she could observe her competition.

  There were a hundred and twenty-two of them in all – Ivy knew that from her admissions packet – but by the looks of the crowd, not all of them had come to the social. Ivy guessed there were about seventy people in the lobby, faculty included. Most of her fellow med students were clustered around each other, chatting nervously and taking advantage of the bar.

  From what Ivy could hear of the conversations going on closest to her, they were comparing statistics – undergraduate GPA, college major, preferred specialty – and making new friends exchanging unnecessary information like where they grew up and what their living arrangements would be for the next couple of years.

  Idiots, Ivy thought.

  Very few of them even bothered to engage with the professors, preferring instead to make friends and get tipsy. Ivy wrote those ones off and focused on her true competition – the handful of others who understood the value of this face-to-face time with the faculty.

  One girl in particular caught Ivy’s eye.

  She was blonde – not from a bottle but naturally fair-skinned, with big blue eyes and a perpetual smile on her lips. Her laugh carried across the marble and as Ivy pinpointed the source, she noticed that a few other people were looking at the girl, too - men, mostly. She had a certain magnetism about her and the people standing in a circle around her were all laughing and having a good time because she was. Other than a few students who had already managed to overindulge at the bar, they were the liveliest group in the room and Ivy felt the urge to join them.

  She stayed put but she watched the girl for a while. She seemed effortless, moving from one group to another, talking to professors and students with equal ease. Everyone accepted her at their table and everyone wanted to be her friend.

  Meanwhile, not a single person had approached Ivy’s table since she staked her claim on it. The scowl she wore intentionally to keep away unwanted conversation was doing its job, but she was suddenly feeling self-aware. Could she ever be the kind of girl who floated easily through a party? No.

  The blonde was definitely someone to keep an eye on.

  There were a few others in the room who seemed to know what they were doing – a couple of loud and self-confident guys who cornered their professor of choice in order to run down the full list of extracurriculars on their resumes. And a redhead who stood near the bar and wore a stern expression similar to Ivy’s. She’d just finished chatting up the dean and was actively looking around the room for someone else to target, and Ivy thought she might be able to get along with this girl.

  Of course, it was impossible to follow any one person for long in a room this crowded and Ivy lost each one of them after a while. When her plate was empty, she left her private table and headed back to the buffet table. She’d seen everything she needed to and talked to everyone she could manage - but she wasn’t going back to her empty apartment without a piece of pie and a cup of coffee.

  Ivy was filling a small ceramic mug with steaming black coffee when she saw a swish of blonde hair out of the corner of her eye. The pretty girl with the blue eyes was standing next to her.

  “Hi,” she said, holding out her hand and smiling broadly. “I’m Chloe Barnes.”

  “Hi,” Ivy said. She had to juggle her coffee cup and the plastic plate with her pie, balancing it on her forearm so she could take Chloe’s hand. “Ivy Chan.”

  Her eyes were even more striking up close, the color of a clear summer sky, and even with all the sweet dessert options in front of them, Ivy caught a hint of honey on the air.

  “Where are you from?” Chloe asked, taking a chocolate-covered strawberry from the buffet and biting into it. Her lips formed a perfect O around it and suddenly Ivy developed a stutter.

  “De- Dearborn,” she said. “Michigan.”

  Chloe smiled and her eyes glittered as they caught the light. “I meant what school?”

  “Oh,” Ivy said. The ceramic mug was getting hot in her hand but she only registered it in the back of her mind. This girl seemed to have a similar effect on everyone, Ivy notwithstanding, and i
f she was this powerful then she would definitely give Ivy a run for her money over the next four years. What was the question? “Michigan State. Umm, go Spartans.”

  That was a stupid thing to say, considering that in her four years there, Ivy hadn’t attended a single sporting event.

  “Cool, I went to the University of Washington,” Chloe said, and then she looked away, spotting someone in the crowd, and said, “Well, I’ll see you around, Ivy Chan.”

  “Yeah,” Ivy agreed, liking the way her name sounded on this girl’s lips. Chloe picked up another strawberry and headed back into the crowd, at which point Ivy suddenly realized how hot her coffee mug was. She set it down with a hiss and waved her hand. “Ouch!”

  She wrapped a napkin around the handle of the coffee mug, then took it and her plate back to her table. The loud guys she’d observed earlier had set up shop there, sipping whisky from glass tumblers and grinning as Ivy approached them. She didn’t even need to talk to them – she already knew they had the typical, ego-centric personalities of a lot of doctors. She’d have to get used to it sooner or later, but not tonight. Ivy set her plate down and said, “This table is reserved.”

  “For who?” one of them asked.

  “The dean,” Ivy said. It wasn’t a total lie – if the dean happened to walk past, she would happily invite him to join her – but it worked. The guys took their drinks and moved on, and Ivy got to enjoy her dessert in peace.

  The pie was good – a tart cherry – but the nearby conversation was even better. After a minute or two, she noticed that Chloe had worked her way to this side of the room and was standing just two tables away, talking to the guys that Ivy had just scared off. She kept her eyes on her pie but listened intently.

  “So what’s your specialty?” one of the guys asked, his voice smooth in a way that made it blatantly clear he was hitting on her rather than asking a serious question. Ivy couldn’t entirely blame him – who wouldn’t want to take a shot at a girl like that?

  “I don’t know yet,” Chloe said. “What about you?”

  “Surgery,” he said, and Ivy rolled her eyes. Of course. He probably wouldn’t be much competition for her, but she also wouldn’t take much pleasure in taking him down. Too easy. Too much like a frat guy. He extended his hand to Chloe and introduced himself as Tom Donoghue, then asked her, “What are you drinking?”

  He was standing pretty close to Chloe and Ivy thought now might be a good time to finish her pie and go home - she’d rather not watch it unfold if Chloe went for this guy.

  “Just soda,” Chloe said.

  “Care to make it interesting?” he asked. “I could get you a little Jack to go with that Coke.”

  “No thanks,” she said. “We’ve got orientation in the morning.”

  She took a small step away from him and Ivy was relieved – Chloe seemed like the bubbly sorority type, but at least she didn’t have frat guy tastes.

  “You know it’s just going to be introductions and boring stuff,” Donoghue persisted.

  He put his hand on the small of her back and tried to lead her toward the bar. Ivy felt something akin to protectiveness rising in her gut, but Chloe didn’t miss a beat – she stepped out of his reach and smiled warmly as she said, “I’m sorry, but you’re barking up the wrong tree. Have a good night, boys.”

  She picked up her soda and headed further away from Ivy’s table, into the crowd. Donoghue and his friend had a few choice words to express their confusion at her turning down such an attractive offer, but Ivy wasn’t interested in listening anymore.

  The wrong tree? she wondered. What did that mean?

  She finished her coffee and gave the two guys a wide berth as she headed for the door. It was time to go back to the apartment, but as she walked, Ivy couldn’t help scanning the crowd for Chloe. She found her at a table of girls – the redhead included. She looked much more at ease there and Ivy was glad she could leave knowing that Chloe wasn’t trapped at a table with that future surgery goon.

  Ivy’s path to the door carried her just close enough to hear a little bit of Chloe’s new conversation so she lingered for a moment longer to listen.

  “Are you having a good time?” Chloe asked the redhead. She hooked her arm around the girl’s elbow and Ivy felt a moment’s unexpected jealousy while the phrase barking up the wrong tree occurred to her again – did Chloe prefer the redheaded girl’s tree?

  “Not particularly,” the girl said. “I think I’m going to go soon.”

  “Stay a little longer,” Chloe said. “I haven’t met everyone yet.”

  “There are seventy or eighty people here,” the redhead pointed out. “Anyway, you definitely don’t need me to mingle. You have your key, right?”

  They must be living together. Dating? The qualities that would make the redhead good classroom competition suddenly irritated Ivy, and she wondered if she should stick around after all - just in case Chloe had to deal with that idiot, Donoghue, again. A job her girlfriend really should be doing instead of leaving Chloe to her own devices.

  “I do,” Chloe said to the girl. “So you’re leaving?”

  “Yeah,” she answered. “You have fun mingling.”

  “Okay,” Chloe said, unlinking her arm. “See you at home, roomie.”

  Roomie. They didn’t kiss or look affectionate in any way as the redhead weaved her way to the door and Ivy felt somewhat vindicated at this development. The redhead was just a crummy friend, not a crummy girlfriend.

  12

  Chloe

  “She’s been kind of weird lately,” Megan said about Ivy as she flopped down onto the freshly made bottom bunk.

  “What do you mean?” Chloe asked.

  “Her insults just don’t have the same sting that they used to,” she said. “I hope for her sake she’s not getting burned out.”

  “I don’t think that’s it,” Chloe said. “How could she burn out when she’s finally in the rotation she’s been waiting for? She must be on top of the world right now.”

  “More like up Dr. Isaac’s backside,” Megan said with a snort. “Anyway, I’ve got the same idea you do – let’s get some sleep before rounds.”

  She pulled a sleep mask over her eyes to block out the early morning sunlight and turned toward the wall, leaving Chloe feeling slightly frustrated in the middle of the room. If Megan had stayed awake a little bit longer, Chloe might have told her just how weird Ivy was acting, and that Chloe didn’t really know how she felt about it yet.

  But surgery was demanding and Megan needed her rest. So did Chloe.

  “Sleep well,” she said, then she quietly took off her shoes and climbed into the top bunk. She turned her head toward the door and realized that she wouldn’t be getting any sleep – not while Ivy was running through her mind.

  Chloe’s mother was the only person she’d told about their kisses.

  She’d hoped that talking about it would help her unpack her feelings on the subject – Ivy had been all studying, all the time for the first three years they’d known each other, meanwhile Chloe had spent a good portion of that time in unrequited desire for Megan. Chloe had never thought of Ivy as anything more than a slightly stand-offish friend. Now things had changed and neither of them could deny that it felt amazing when they kissed, but Ivy also made it clear that she still intended to focus on her education.

  It was confusing and exciting all at once, and Chloe’s mom had not been helpful. She’d immediately jumped to conclusions and misconstrued Ivy’s intentions. Chloe wouldn’t be surprised if, in her mother’s mind, they were practically engaged already.

  “I knew it,” she’d said when Chloe told her about the locker room kiss. “I could always tell from the way you talked about her that there was something between you.”

  “Mom,” Chloe had chastised. “That’s ridiculous. I never even thought about her that way before the kiss.”

  “Mm hmm,” her mom hummed, willfully unconvinced.

  Chloe wished she could have had this
conversation with her mom in person. It would be so much easier to really talk to her about her feelings for Ivy if she could explain herself fully. But it was impossible to do over the phone and Christmas, when she would go home for a quick visit, was still six weeks away.

  “She’s very career-focused,” Chloe said.

  “That’s a bad thing?” her mom asked.

  “It is if you think you might be developing feelings for that person,” Chloe said. “Ivy made it very clear that those kisses were nothing but a lapse in judgment and that she can’t be distracted from her education. I can’t turn myself into a giant flashcard, mom.”

  “I’m just saying don’t rule anything out,” her mom said. She was being supremely unhelpful - Chloe had hoped she would talk her out of the feelings she was developing for Ivy, but instead she was encouraging them for some cruel reason. “She might surprise you.”

  “I doubt that,” Chloe said. The kisses themselves had been surprising, but Ivy never faltered in her intentions.

  Chloe lay on the top bunk of the call room for twenty more minutes, tossing and turning and trying to keep her eyes shut to block out the morning sun, but she couldn’t get Ivy out of her head. They’d barely seen each other since the start of their new rotations and Chloe had missed her in surprisingly complex ways.

  “Stop fidgeting,” Megan grumbled from the bottom bunk around the fourth or fifth time Chloe rolled over. “You’re making the bed shake.”

  “Sorry,” Chloe said. She checked her watch and it was only a quarter to six, but sleep was hopeless.

  She climbed down and grabbed her backpack off the hook, then left Megan to sleep in peace. Chloe went to the hospital cafeteria and got a large cup of coffee to help her through her shift, then headed back to the pediatric department. She’d been awake just shy of twenty-four hours and even though she’d been able to nod off here and there last night while she looked after Tyler and his sore throat, she was already dragging.