Fortune

by Annabel Joseph

  “What time is it?” she asked.

  “Six in the morning. I just came on shift.”

  “But you were here last night with me.”

  “Yes.”

  “When do you sleep?”

  “How are you feeling?” he repeated with an edge of impatience.

  “Horrible.” The back of her head ached like hellfire. She reached up behind her, remembering her fall and the bleeding.

  “Don’t touch.” His voice arrested her. “You’re bandaged up pretty good.”

  “Am I bald in the back now?”

  He laughed with that easy, white-toothed smile she remembered. “They don’t normally shave patients bald just to put in a few stitches. Most of your hair is still there.”

  She vaguely remembered that now, the stitches, the scans of her brain. IVs and ambulance lights and people shining flashlights in her eyes. He made some notes in her chart. “What are you writing?” she asked suspiciously.

  “That you’re making conversation and seem relatively alert this morning.”

  “Oh.”

  “How does your head feel? Sore, achy? Any sharp pain?”

  “Just…sore. Woozy.”

  “They sedated you last night. You really don’t do well with medical procedures.”

  She grimaced. “I never have.”

  “No big deal. At least you slept well. How’s your vision?”

  She shrugged, watching the way his fingers toyed with the pen in his hand, flipping it around in a circle. Dark tufts of hair on tan knuckles. Big, big fingers. Jesus, Kat. Just chill. “My vision is fine. So will I live?”

  “I sincerely hope so. At least try not to die on my shift. They frown on that.”

  He pulled a small penlight out of his pocket and turned it on, then took her chin between those big fingers and leaned close, shining it into her eyes. She stared forward, trying not to think about the subtle pressure of his thumb and forefinger, or how near he was to her. Or how shivery both those things made her feel. Good lord, she’d bled all over him last night, whined about the procedures and needles. She’d probably even cried at some point. It’s not like he would feel any attraction to her now, whether he’d flirted with her at Masquerade or not. Had that been just last night that he’d smiled and flirted with her? Just last night that she’d gone pitching down the stairs like a total idiot? It seemed a world away now.

  He pulled back, made more notes, all businesslike doctor. Some part of her wanted him to smile that big smile at her again, to acknowledge her as more than his patient, but he was all serious and professional.

  “Your brain scans and x-rays look good. They’ll do another set this afternoon and then tomorrow morning, and provided they look the same, they’ll probably let you go home. Your mother will be happy to hear it. She was a little upset last night.”

  Kat caught her breath. “A little upset?”

  “They almost had to call security.”

  As if on cue, her mama swept into the room, waving her arms around in wide, dramatic gestures and yelling at the top of her lungs. Four of Kat’s sisters pushed into the room too and Ryan stepped back from the bed as they crowded around Kat.

  “Katyusha! You crazy girl!” her mother shrieked, then turned and glared at Ryan. He was a pretty big man and pretty well built, but he backed away from her. Most men did. “You are still here?”

  “I actually work here, Mrs. Argounov.”

  Her mother’s gaze fell on the pile of origami figures before fixing back on the man in the white coat.

  “What is your name, you? Your name is?”

  “Ryan. Dr. Ryan McCarthy.”

  “Doctor? So you are her doctor now?” Her mother had a thick Russian accent, so it sounded like duk-ter.

  “I’m a surgeon, actually.”

  Mama clutched her chest. “She had surgery? When did this happen? I knew I should never have left you here. My poor baby.”

  Kat suffered her mother’s smothering hug while Ryan watched with a faint grin.

  “No. Well, she didn’t actually have any surgeries, Mrs. Argounova. I’m just here as a consult.”

  “A consult? What does this mean?”

  “Mama, he’s helping me,” Kat interjected. “Just back off with the questions. I’m fine.”

  Her mother glanced over at her, then back at the man across from her, studying him with an unfathomable look in her eye.

  “Mama,” Kat warned in a low voice. She didn’t want her doing any of her weird perceptive nonsense. Not here, not now.

  “Dr. Ryan McCarthy, you have my many thanks,” her mama finally managed. But she still looked at him for an unnaturally long time, long past the time she should have looked away. Then she extended one plump hand. “Please, call me Elena. You and my daughter are friends?”

  He and Kat looked at each other. “No. Well—” Kat said, as Ryan said, “Yes.”

  “And you are good duk-ter? You take excellent care of her?”

  “I’ll do my best. But I do have a surgery to prepare for now, so I’d better go.”

  “Yes, you must go.” Her mother nodded as if it had been her own brilliant idea, although Kat could tell he was dying to get out of there. “You go and do surgeries, yes. Many blessings on your head.”

  Ryan took one last look at Kat and left, brushing by her sisters. She wondered if she’d ever see him again. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to or not. Her mother watched him go too, then turned to Kat, hugging her close, clucking over the bandage around her head.

  “My baby girl. You see, this going out, dancing, partying all night. When they call last night, I drive here expecting the worst. Gospodi, a call from the hospital! I didn’t tell your father. It will kill him with worry.”

  “I’m sorry, Mama.”

  “When will you outgrow this nonsense? It is time to grow up now into lady. You must find a good man and settle down. What about this duk-ter? He is your friend?”

  “He’s just…some guy. I don’t know. I barely know him.”

  “One of your, how do they say, ‘man sluts’—”

  “Mama, please.”

  “I am only saying he is handsome, duk-ter, probably rich man. Maybe you get to know him better, zaika.”

  “Life is not all about bagging a rich man, Mama.”

  “I didn’t ever say rich man was all in life. I never did. Is your father a rich man? Not so much. What is important is to find a man who makes you happy. You, girl. You run around, you wear your short skirts and clonky shoes and your hair…” Elena sighed, lifting a tangled mass of Kat’s curly locks from beneath the bandage.

  Kat pulled away. “I got this tragic hair from you, you realize.”

  “Don’t take that tone with me.” Her mother enfolded her in another smothering hug, pressing her to her ample chest. “Katyusha, my own. I only want you to be happy. It is my wish for you, my one wish. You know this.”

  “Yes, Mama. I know. But it’s not that simple. I can’t just pretend to be happy, or bag some rich doctor and find happily ever after.”

  “I know. You must find your way. You will find your way. I know this.” She pulled away and smiled down at Kat with a twinkle in her eye. “You know I do know, zaika.”

  “Did your crystal ball tell you?”

  “My heart tells me, you impossible brat. Now you rest. You get better, Katyusha mine.”

  * * * * *

  Later, after Ryan’s last surgery, he went to her floor and checked in at the nurses’ station. “Ekaterina Argounov,” he said, repeating the exotic name he’d learned from her chart. She had pronounced her mother’s name “mama,” with the accent on the second syllable. Her ethnicity fascinated him, like everything else about her.

  His last surgery had run over, although it was ultimately successful. He hated to admit how antsy he’d gotten at the end, how impatient he was to see her—the girl he definitely didn’t want to get messed up with. But things were feeling messier than ever right now. He fought with himself as he walked
down the quiet, sterile hallway. Why was he here when he had no intention of getting tangled up with her?

  He stopped outside the door, looking through the window. The mama was sitting in Kat’s room by the bed. Kat was sitting up too, alert and awake. Her eyes flitted to his over her mother’s shoulder, her beautiful eyes that made him forget everything. Elena turned and saw him too.

  “Dr. Ryan McCarthy! You come in.” Not would you like to come in? Not why don’t you join us? It was an order as emphatic as any he’d received as a child. He pushed the door open slowly as Kat stared daggers at him.

  “I know you’re tired. I won’t stay. I just came by to—”

  “Come in and sit,” Elena ordered, getting up. “I have to go to…gift shop. You stay here, you sit with her. You stay, yes? While I am gone?”

  He was pretty sure the gift shop was closed, but he sat in the chair Elena shoved him toward and watched her sail out the door.

  He studied Kat. Good, she looked better. Some part of him had feared a hidden pocket, a slow bleed. He worried all day about being paged for emergency surgery. He couldn’t have done it, not on her.

  “You don’t have to stay,” she said at the same time he asked, “How are you feeling?”

  They both paused. “I’m feeling okay,” Kat finally said. “Less groggy. I’m sorry about my mother, she’s a little—”

  “Never apologize for your mother,” he said in a chiding tone that doubtlessly annoyed her. She stopped talking and stared at her hands. The awkward silence was stultifying. Just leave, you idiot. “So no pain? No visual disturbances?” Okay, that’s not leaving.

  “No bad pain. Just the bruises. And the twenty stitches along the back of my head,” she added ruefully.

  “Maybe I should just take a look while I’m here.” Idiot. Not your job! Leave now, before you touch her. If you touch her… She leaned forward and he put one hand on her hair even though he didn’t need to. He felt guilty, like one of those doctors who fondled patients on the sly. Her curls were as thick and soft as he imagined. He ran a thumb across her nape as he lifted the gauze to check the stitches. When she shivered a little he almost came undone. He replaced the bandage quickly and stepped back.

  “They look good, Kat. And any scar won’t show unless you pull your hair up. I’d say you’re a very lucky lady to come away with just a scar, considering the fall you took. But you’ll need to take things easy for a while. No late nights and bar hopping. No tabletop dancing.”

  She looked at him with that shuttered, slanted glance, and again he thought, Go, just go. Get out of here. This wasn’t the wanton tease from the club. This was a real girl and he felt even more strongly for her. Forget messing with her stitches, the medical small talk. He wanted to take her in his arms. Why this strange pull, this connection? Yesterday it had been all about the amazing body, the challenge of the frown. Now, he realized, it was about something more. She looked back down at her hands, a faint blush rising in her pale cheeks.

  “I do appreciate your help. For you to stay all night… And I know I bled all over you.”

  He shrugged and smiled. “You really know how to maim yourself. But you’re okay, and that’s all that matters.”

  “Well… Thank you. I wouldn’t have liked to bleed out at the bottom of the stairs at Masquerade.”

  “No. It wouldn’t have been a very dignified way to go.”

  She looked up at him, her deep green eyes narrowed in a question. “You seem awfully young to be a surgeon.”

  “Thank you. But I’m not that young.”

  “You’re younger than every other surgeon I’ve ever seen.”

  “And how many have you seen?”

  She pursed her lips and he grinned by way of apology. “Okay, you’re right. I’m slightly younger than average. I started college early.”

  “When you were twelve?”

  “Not quite,” he hedged. He had been almost sixteen.

  “You’re like Doogie Howser, huh? Child genius?”

  “I was just really motivated. I always wanted to be a surgeon. My parents were both surgeons.”

  “They were? They died?”

  “They retired last year. Went off to spend their golden years in Aruba.”

  “Oh, nice.”

  Her Oh, nice was difficult to decipher. Approval? Derision? He mentally compared his serious, reserved parents with the effusive Elena Argounov. He loved his parents, but his childhood had been lonely, quiet. Solitary. He wondered what Kat’s childhood had been like, with her prodigious mother and all those women he’d assumed were sisters since they all looked like different versions of Kat.

  “Did you make these?” Kat asked, turning to the window. Someone, perhaps her mother, had lined up all his little origami figures like soldiers on the windowsill beside her bed. He’d made a cat, a dog, a crane, a fish, a pig, a tiger and even a bird with flappable wings. Kid stuff. He could fold more complicated things, but that took a level of concentration he hadn’t possessed last night as he watched her sleep and obsessed about intracerebral hemorrhage and aggravated axonotmesis.

  “Yeah. I’ve been making those for ages. I make them for kids sometimes before surgeries to calm their nerves.”

  “You’re like Patch Adams.”

  “Patch Adams. Doogie Howser. Any other celebrity doctors you’d like to compare me to?”

  She laughed then, a weak laugh, but it was a laugh. He stared at the way her face changed when she smiled. It was over too soon.

  “Do that again.”

  “Do what?”

  “Laugh. Or at least smile. I thought you weren’t capable of it.”

  She snorted softly, with another quick smile that left him wanting more.

  “I wonder what it would be like to see you laugh until you were breathless.” His words came without thought, without intention. She sobered and looked down at her hands, then back at him. They were still looking at each other when Elena returned.

  “Ouft,” she sighed. “Gift shop is closed. But thank you for staying. You think she is okay? She go home soon?”

  “Tomorrow, I expect,” Ryan said. “Her physician will be by to discharge her.”

  Elena dug in her purse, brought out a business card and handed it to him.

  “You come to our house so Ekaterina’s papa can give thanks to you. She is his princess. He will wish to thank you very much. He is not so strong in his mind now and he does not like hospitals, so he cannot come here,” she said. “You come and see us. Come for dinner.”

  He looked down at the card. ELENA ARGOUNOV, FORTUNE-TELLER AND SPIRITUAL ADVISOR. And under that, in ornate, swirly script, “Show me your palm and I will tell you your future.”

  “You call first if you like, let us know you are coming. A big boy like you, an important doctor has great appetite, yes? I cook lots of food.”

  The phone number was there, the address too. Unbearable temptation.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Argounov, but I have consultations, office hours. Surgeries of course, and then work at the club some evenings—”

  “You call and you come,” Kat’s mother snapped in her inimitable style.

  “Yes, I sure will,” he assured her. “When things slow down, I’ll call.”

  But he wouldn’t call. He absolutely would not call. Kat watched him pocket the card, watched the entire interaction with an ambivalent look on her face. Oh, her glorious curls and those lovely pouting lips he wanted to kiss.

  Run, you idiot. Run.

  Forget it. It’s too late.

  Chapter Three

  It took over a week for Kat to get back on her feet. Then she started work from home, which was impossible with all the noise, so she returned to working at the office probably sooner than she should have. Her stitches itched and her bruises were tender. She went straight to bed after work, no nightclubs. Her beloved club shoes were tainted by misfortune and went out with the trash.

  She still thought about him, though, in no small part because her mother m
uttered often about the fact that he didn’t call. Kat tried not to care, but each time she stood at the top of a flight of stairs, she felt the loss of him. She waited for it to happen again, some random accident in the random world that flummoxed her. Wouldn’t he be sorry when her next stair debacle turned fatal because he wasn’t there? Escalators with their sharp, scary teeth were impossible for her to cope with. She took elevators whenever she could and convinced herself he was just an asshole. Just one more of those club guys, not worth obsessing over. She forced herself to stop thinking about him and actually tried to convince herself she hated him. She threw away his silly paper animals so she didn’t have to look at them, then fished them out of the trash and stowed them in a shoebox under the bed because she couldn’t bear to lose them.

  On difficult days, when the textbook translation was boring and her family was annoying her to tears, she’d pull out the box and pore over the origami figures he’d made. The folds and corners were so delicate and precise. Little flaps and notches, each perfectly symmetrical and balanced, like him. She would trace the folds as if to trace the fingers that had run over them. Some of the newspaper ink blurred along the edges. Had his fingers done that? Or hers, tracing again and again? She imbued the paper figurines with an emotional gravity she was sure they didn’t have.

  She just needed to go back out to the clubs. She needed the eardrum-bursting music, the hot press of party people. But to return to that place where she’d surely see him, where she’d have to navigate those stairs—it seemed the most self-destructive of choices.

  But then, she was a self-destructive person. It took less than three weeks for her to break down and return to Masquerade because she simply couldn’t stay away. She refused to admit to herself that he was the reason, that she really wanted to see him again. She convinced herself it was only the atmosphere she missed, and the promise of more empty but comforting sex.

  When she got there it felt strangely different. She felt like an outsider for the first time in a long time. She wandered around for a while, then retreated to her place at the top of the stairs, navigating the concrete steps gingerly. The blood was long gone, of course, and now the stairs had some kind of nonslip rubber material on them. Some other girls were standing in her spot. Damn it. She leaned on the railing farther down and her gaze swept the dance floor. Lots of new faces but a few familiar ones too.