First off, she brought so much stuff with her, you’d think she was moving into a mansion or something. Like five suitcases. And what’s the deal with all that lotion? I’ve literally never seen so much lotion in my entire life, except maybe in the lotion aisle of a drug store. And all her shampoos smell like fruit, which means Heather always smells like fruit. Usually peaches. I freaking hate peaches.
Plus all she really wants to talk about is her stupid boyfriend Seth. He is just so wonderful by the way. Did you know his favorite food is deviled eggs and his favorite band is Macklemore? I know it. And the worst thing is that now I can’t un-know it, as much as I really wish I could.
Oh, and did I mention she sings? Oh yes. She’s constantly singing or humming a song by Beyonce or Christina. And she’s really, really off-key. I want to stuff tissues in my ears.
I’m using like a fifth of our shared closet, yet Heather had the nerve to look uncomfortable when I hung a few posters on the wall. She started mumbling something about how we were forbidden to use thumbtacks in the dorms. I think by the time I shoved the last thumbtack into the wall, she’d started to get it through her thick blond skull that the two of us will never be friends.
I can see it all laid out for Heather. She’ll marry some guy in the next four years, if not her current loser boyfriend then some other loser in our class. Then she’ll become a pediatrician or something inane like that, and then probably quit to become a stay-at-home mom after popping out a few rugrats. Heather is not exactly a high-powered career woman.
Before I left for Southside, my mom said to me, “Rachel, please try to make some friends this time.” Or something patronizing like that. She sent me to a shrink in high school because I had no friends. Which wasn’t my fault at all, trust me. Is it really my fault that most people get on my nerves? And anyway, you don’t go to med school to make friends. You go to become a doctor.
I just wish I were better at studying.
_____
The truth is, there’s a lot in anatomy that just doesn’t interest me all that much. Well, most of it, to be perfectly honest. There are just too many nerves, too many arteries… way too much to memorize.
So I fail a few quizzes. Big deal.
Well, I can tell Dr. Conlon thinks it’s a big deal. After I fail three quizzes in a row, I notice that he’s started paying a lot of attention to me in lab. He seems concerned.
“You realize you just cut through the phrenic nerve,” he observes as he watches me.
Mason, who is working on the other side of the cadaver, says, “Rachel cuts through everything. She thinks it’s all fascia.”
Speaking of people I hate. I nearly reach out and strangle Mason for making me look bad in front of Dr. Conlon. He’s the most obnoxious person I’ve ever met. I sent out an email to the class about how disrespectful it is to name your cadaver and I asked him if he’d seen it. He told me he had and it was “hilarious.”
Dr. Conlon ignores Mason’s comment and limps closer to me, squinting at my T-shirt through his spectacles.
“‘I am the doctor my mother wanted me to marry’,” he reads off the shirt. He smiles. “I like that.”
“Yeah,” I mumble.
Dr. Conlon’s eyes meet mine, “It’s pretty amazing that women now make up the majority of med school classes these days. It wasn’t that way thirty years ago.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Too bad most women do peds, primary care, and gynecology.”
“What field are you interested in, Dr. Bingham?” he asks.
“Surgery,” I reply without hesitation.
I look up sharply as Mason snorts from the other side of the table. I really, really hate Mason. And the worst thing is, he’ll probably live out his whole life being that same arrogant asshole and never learn any humility. It’s just not fair.
Dr. Conlon waits for me after lab that day. He’s changed out of his scrubs and is back in his slacks with a dress shirt. And a bowtie. That bowtie just slays me. Who the hell wears a bowtie?
“Rachel,” he says as he takes me aside, concern in his blue eyes, “I just want you to know that if you need it, there’s help available for you. There are a lot of second year or graduate students I can recommend who will be happy to spend extra time with you in lab.”
I feel my face turning red. We haven’t even had our first big exam yet and already I’ve set myself aside as someone who needs remedial help.
“And of course,” Dr. Conlon continues, “I’m always available for questions.”
I’ll bet. Between his obvious disability and being the biggest dork on the face of the planet, Dr. Conlon clearly does not have a rip-roaring social life. Every time I pass by his office, no matter what the hour, I can see the light on under his door. No wife, no girlfriend, no kids. He probably hasn’t had a date in years. Maybe it’s been so long, he’s given up hope that it’s going to ever happen again.
It is just so goddamn perfect.
Chapter 41
When I was a junior in high school, I found myself in serious danger of failing trigonometry.
Trigonometry is hard. The entire concept of sines and cosines just didn’t make a lot of sense to me. My parents hired a tutor, some eighty-year-old walking skeleton of a woman, but each session just confused me further. What can I say—I suck at math. I kept getting my exams back full of red pen marks and I started to really worry about how I was going to get into a decent college with an F in trig.
Harvey Pritchett was my trigonometry teacher. Mr. Pritchett was a short, balding, overweight, middle-aged man who waddled instead of walking. He was married, probably to a short, overweight, middle-aged woman. He left a sticky note on my second midterm exam (with my spectacular grade of thirty-eight out of a hundred), saying, “See me after class.”
When I saw the note, I cried. I was not exactly a picture of confidence back then. I had zero friends, sucked at sports, and wasn’t really into extracurricular activities. I dressed in frumpy sweaters and baggy jeans, and grew my hair out to hide the zits on my face. I had tiny little mosquito bites for breasts and I was so skinny that you could make out every single one of my ribs and pelvic bones. I was the kind of girl that the popular girls would point at and laugh.
Anyway, trig was the last class of the day, so after the other students filed out of the room, I trudged up to the front of the classroom to face Mr. Pritchett. I was terrified. I hugged my textbook to my chest, my dark hair nearly obscuring my eyes.
Mr. Pritchett sat atop his desk in a gesture that I guessed was supposed to seem casual and friendly. He was a chronic sweater. I could smell the perspiration on him and see the moisture under his armpits, staining his shirt, and in a little line on his brow.
“Rachel, I’ve noticed you’re struggling a little bit in the class,” he said.
To put it mildly.
“I guess so,” I said quietly, hanging my head.
“Is there anything in particular that you’re having trouble with?” Mr. Pritchett asked.
Yeah, everything.
“I don’t know.”
“I’d like to try to help you, Rachel,” he said, “but I feel like you’re not trying yourself. I hate to tell you this, but if you don’t bring up your grades significantly, I… I’m going to have to fail you.”
I had never failed a class before in my life. As much as I tried to stop them, a minute later I had tears streaming down my face. Mr. Pritchett, looking very uncomfortable, patted my shoulder in a lame “there, there” gesture. It wasn’t enough. I collapsed against his desk, sobbing into my hands. I feel his arm slide around my shoulders and then…
Later on, Mr. Pritchett tried to say that I initiated the kiss. But that’s total bullshit. After all, I was just a shy, innocent young girl. In any case, Mr. Pritchett couldn’t argue that I added some excitement to his gray little life. After all, how many other short, overweight, balding, middle-aged teachers got to have sex on their desk with nubile sixteen-year-old girls?
Before Mr. P
ritchett, I had never even kissed a boy before. I had a few very mild crushes on boys, but nothing to write home about. There were times when I thought I might be a lesbian, although I realized I didn’t have much interest in girls either. But my relationship with Mr. Pritchett was never about love—I never had an ounce of feelings for him, aside from perhaps pity. Physically, he was repugnant. He had a beer belly, he was sweaty everywhere, and he was covered in a thick layer of graying hair. When he was inside me, there were a few moments when I was so disgusted, I thought I might vomit.
But I did what I had to do. I couldn’t fail trig.
You should have seen my face when I got my next exam back with a forty-two circled in red ink. I was completely shocked. When class came to an end, I brought the exam up to Mr. Pritchett, shook my head, and said, “What’s this?”
“Rachel,” he said, trying to smile, “I can’t falsify your grades just because of our relationship. It wouldn’t be right.”
I was blown away. Did he really think that I had slept with him because I liked him? Because I was so overcome with passion for my dumpy middle-aged math teacher? That little delusion needed to be corrected ASAP.
I had thought I’d be more nervous, but my hands were steady as I slammed the paper down on his desk.
“You know what I think isn’t right?” I said. “Statutory rape.”
The color drained from Mr. Pritchett’s face. “Rachel, you wouldn’t… I mean, I’m a married man…”
I didn’t even have to say anything else. He knew by looking at my face that I was dead serious. I got an A in trigonometry that semester.
I wish I could say that was the last time I slept with a teacher for a grade, but it wasn’t. Once I did it and got away with it, it was a little hard to stop. You’d think that most professors would be protective of their reputations and their marriages, but it’s scary how easy it is to seduce them.
Some of them know my game right from the start—that’s the easiest. But some of them think that I really like them, that I honestly have feelings for them. One or two pathetic losers even cried when I threatened to turn them in. But eventually, every single one of them gave me what I wanted.
And so will Dr. Matthew Conlon, even though he doesn’t know it yet.
Chapter 42
I know right away that I failed my first anatomy exam. Unless some miracle occurred, there’s no way that I passed.
Heather is also certain that she failed. She mopes around our apartment, half in tears.
“I studied so hard,” she keeps saying. “I must just be stupid.”
Heather, in my opinion, isn’t the brightest penny in the fountain. Frankly, she’d probably benefit from offering a few professors some action on the side. But no, she’d never do it. She’s not that type of girl.
At one point, she starts pacing back and forth across our bedroom. I really want to throw something at her.
“Maybe you should go take a walk?” I suggest.
“Yeah…” she mumbles. She glances around the room and her eyes fall on a piece of paper on my bed. “Hey, what’s that?”
“Oh,” I say. “It’s just some note I found under the door this morning.”
Heather swipes the note off my bed and her brown eyes widen as she scans the paper.
“It’s says that they’re turning our hot water off at seven p.m.,” she says. She looks down at her watch. “That’s ten minutes from now!”
“Yeah,” I say.
A look of panic fills Heather’s face.
“I’ve got to take a shower!” she screeches.
Did I mention that Heather takes five thousand showers per day?
But it least it gets her out of the room, thank God. Of course, the second she’s gone, I hear knocking on the door. I try to ignore it, figuring it can’t be anyone for me, but the knocker is too persistent. Finally, I trudge over to the door and throw it open. It’s Abe—big surprise.
“Oh, hey, Rachel,” he says. “Is Heather home?”
Abe has the biggest crush in the world on Heather. Everyone knows it except her. He follows her around school like an extremely large puppy dog, saving her every time she needs it (which is all the freaking time). Abe seems like a nice enough guy, but the way he acts around Heather seriously gets on my nerves.
“She’s in the shower,” I tell him.
“Oh,” Abe says.
He doesn’t move. Am I supposed to invite him inside? I really don’t want to. Why can’t they go to Abe’s room to study instead of hanging out here all the time? (I suspect the answer to that question is that Abe and Mason’s apartment is a pigsty.)
“Listen,” I say to Abe. “You know that Heather has a boyfriend, right?”
His cheeks color. “Yeah, I know that.”
And then I add, for good measure, “And even if she didn’t, you wouldn’t really have a chance.”
Abe stares at me like I just punched him in the face. He lowers his eyes and mumbles, “Yeah, I know. Of course. I mean, I’d never think that…” He clears his throat. “Um, I’m going to go. You can… maybe just tell Heather I stopped by.”
“Sure thing,” I say and I slam the door in his face.
Was that a really bitchy thing to do? Maybe it was. But seriously, somebody needed to tell that guy the truth. I did him a favor.
I go back to the bedroom and get on my computer. I check my email and that’s when I see the message from Dr. Conlon: “Please come see me after class tomorrow.”
Ah, the “come see me” note. Always the start of something interesting.
_____
I show up at his office around six-thirty p.m., when most of my classmates are either home or crowded into the library. Dr. Conlon should have been home having dinner with his family, but since he lives alone, he’s still in his office. I knock on his door.
“Come in,” he calls out. “It’s open.”
I open the door to his office and shut it behind me. Dr. Conlon is working on his computer, but he turns to face me as I walk in. From the few lines around his eyes and the slight graying of his black hair at his temples, I’d place him in his late thirties. But there’s something very youthful about those blue eyes, even when they’re hidden behind his spectacles. The truth is, in spite of everything, he’s actually a pretty good-looking guy.
None of the professors I’ve slept with before have been even remotely attractive. That’s purposeful. I figure if the guy is a heartthrob, there’s no way he’ll fall for my act—he won’t be desperate enough to risk his whole career for a little action from a student. But Dr. Conlon is an exception. It’s painfully clear that he’s not a ladies’ man.
“Rachel,” he begins. He folds his hands together. I’ve noticed the way his right hand doesn’t move normally and this action only calls attention to that fact—I can’t help but wonder what’s wrong with the guy. “Will you have a seat, please?”
I wore a red skirt just for the occasion. There’s something provocative about the color red—men don’t refuse a woman in a red skirt. I slide into the chair in front of his desk and cross my right leg over the left. Even though I’m very thin, I actually have pretty nice, shapely legs.
“Rachel, you probably know that I want to talk to you about the exam,” Dr. Conlon says. There’s a crease between his eyebrows.
I nod.
“Your grade is…” he bites his lip. “Rachel, I’m very concerned that you’re not studying enough. Anatomy is a lot of memorization and you… well… you missed a lot of basic information. I went through your exam very carefully and I’m worried that you’re just not making an effort.”
I lower my eyes. “I just don’t have a great memory. I swear I’m trying my best.”
Well, sort of. The truth is, I hardly studied at all. When I saw Dr. Conlon give his passionate “anatomy is fun” speech at the beginning of the year, he may as well have painted a big L on his forehead. I knew I had nothing to worry about.
“It can be a very difficult transition f
rom college to medical school,” he acknowledges. “I know that. Is there anything going on in your life that’s keeping you from studying enough?”
I feel my eyes filling up with fake tears. I rest my elbows on his desk and bury my face in my hands. Did I mention I can now cry on command? It totally comes in handy at times like these.
“Rachel…” he says gently. I feel his hand on my shoulder.
Oh Dr. Conlon, you don’t know it, but you’re about to get very lucky. We both are.
“Rachel, you can talk to me…” he says. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
Wow, he’s saying all the right things. It’s like he’s reading from a script. Nice job, Dr. Conlon. This is going to be so damn easy.
“It’s just that,” I sniffle, “I feel like I’m all alone out here. I miss my family and I… I have no one…”
“Listen to me, Rachel,” he says. “Everyone feels that way when they first start med school. Everyone. But I swear to you, you’re not alone.”
He puts his hand on top of mine. His palm is rough and calloused, probably from always holding that cane. I turn my own hand slightly so that I can grasp his fingers.
“Thank you,” I say in a small voice. “Thank you for being so nice to me. You’re the only one who’s tried to help me in this place.”
They should give me an Oscar, truly.
He’s leaning forward like I am, so that our faces are only inches apart. I wonder if he will kiss me first or if I’ll be the one who has to make the first move. When I first met Dr. Conlon, I made a bet with myself that I would have to kiss him first.
“Rachel,” he says. He is so close to me that I can feel his hot breath. “Have you ever…”
I raise my eyebrows at him.
“Have you ever considering seeing a therapist to talk about your problems?”
Have I what?
My face burns. “No,” I say.
“Patrice is wonderful,” he says. “I really think she can help you.”
I nearly pound my fists against the desk in frustration. Goddamn Dr. Conlon! He was doing so well! Is he seriously this dense? Any other man would be ripping my blouse off by now. And nothing kills the mood like talking about a shrink.
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