Destroy (A Standalone Romance Novel) (8 page)

As for studying, I knew
we would have to hit the books again from time to time. Dr. Kerry would
question us about what we did and why we did it every day. We would all go
through a performance review every six months and those would count for or
against a promotion toward a residency. I promised myself, even before moving
to D.C. that I would review every treatment I had witnessed or performed on the
day to ensure I had done things properly. If someone else was treating a
patient and I was assisting or attending the treatment; I would still review
what had been done. I would not leave anything to chance or trust my memory.
Too many things can go wrong if you do.

And with those thoughts
in mind, I went to prepare my dinner. Once again, I was tired beyond reason. My
body had not adjusted to this newly imposed schedule.

Chapter
8

I knew my mother would be
up early the next morning. It was her day to go to work. With the different
time zones, she would just be getting breakfast ready by the time I return from
my morning jog.

“Goodness, Heather. Do
you realize I’m not even dressed yet?”

“And good morning to you,
too,” I replied, smiling to myself. “I’m only on the phone, Mom. No one is
going to see you in your nighty.”

“Yes, yes, I know. But I
feel silly anyway.” She stopped talking when I heard my dad whisper something
in her other ear. “If you’re calling about your dad, he’s fine. He’s been
snoring the night away as usual. Do you want to talk to him?”

“No, Mom, not now. Just
give him a kiss for me, okay?”

“Sure will. But what
about you, and about finding a roommate, any progress?” Mom rushed to ask.

“I found another intern,
a young woman who needed to share a place, too. She’s great, Mom. She’s moving
in on Saturday.”

“Did you say she’s also a
doctor?”

“Yes. She wants to become
a trauma surgeon; you know, the doctors who work in the emergency department of
the hospital.”

“But is she the friendly
type? That’s what your dad and I worry about.”

“She sure is. She’s going
to be a great companion.”

“Where did she live
before getting to Washington?”

“Why the third degree,
Mom? Trust me, will you? Tiffany will be fine. And to answer your question, she
used to live with her parents in D.C. But now she wants her independence.” I
paused to listen to my father’s grunt of approval. He had listened to my little
spiel.

“Alright then. Sounds
like you found the right person to share in the expense. But, as soon as we
both have more time, let’s talk about this a little more, okay?”

“Sure, Mom. No problem.
Give a hug to Dad. And please, don’t forget to book an appointment for him with
Dr. Bernard, okay?”

“Okay, okay, now get
going, girl. You don’t want to be late for work. Neither do
I
.”

When I hung up, I cracked
a smile and shook my head. Even two-thousand miles away she still managed to
direct my actions.

The day promised to be an
interesting one. Dr. Kerry had told us that we would be watching a couple of
surgical procedures from the inside of an operating theater. They were both
minor interventions, but it would give us an opportunity to meet the chief of
surgery and the surgeon who was going to teach us the ropes of surgical
procedures.

I must say I was truly
looking forward to this. Not only was I going to meet the surgeon who was going
to guide my steps in and around an operating theater, I was finally going to
get a glimpse into my future.

Standing around an
operating room for hours on end required for me to wear comfortable clothes and
comfortable shoes. Thanks to my latest shopping spree, I had both. I wore a
nice pair of grey slacks and a pink shirt. Admittedly, neither was of the jeans
and t-shirt variety but they were comfortable nonetheless. Besides, meeting a
mentor for the first time meant making a good first impression. Since the
sneakers I had bought were not too bulky or too obvious under a pair of pants,
they looked okay. I mean they were not stilettos, but they would have to do.

As soon as I gulped down
my breakfast, reviewed my attire in the bedroom mirror and ensured that my hair
wasn’t going to be a problem–I had tied it expertly to the nape of my neck–I
was satisfied that I looked good and ready to be “examined” by the chief of
surgery.

When I arrived at the
hospital, I saw Dr. Kerry and half of the team waiting for the stragglers (like
me) to come through the main door. I apologized for being late, although I was
on time with two minutes to spare, and asked why we were meeting in the foyer.

“Because we’re going to
the basement as soon as we’re all here,” Dr. Kerry replied. “In this hospital,
like in many facilities in the US, the operating theaters are located in the
basement of the building. The reason being mainly because the vacant space in a
basement can be put to good use without impinging on the patients’ comfort
upstairs.”

“They’re the one paying
the bills,” Gerald, Mr. Bragger himself, interposed, “so we have to let them
have the rooms with a view.”

“Exactly, Mr. Houston,”
Dr. Kerry told him. “And you’ll do well to keep that in mind. If you have a job
and a career, it’s thanks to people who count on you to make them better, to
heal their wounds, and who pay their bills.”

As soon as everyone had
arrived, we took the elevator down three floors. The hallways were lit overhead
with these awful fluorescent globes that make you look sick even if you aren’t.
The floor was tiled with some sort of poured and waxed granite pebbles. I had
only seen similar surfaces on kitchen counters.
It’s
liquid repellant, detergent safe, and always gleaming under the light. I
thought the gurneys must really slide easily on that floor.

Tiffany was walking
beside me. She was all smiles for some reason. As usual, she hadn’t said a word
since she came in a couple of minutes after I did. Given that we had not
reached the surgeon’s lounge, she had time to tell me what was on her mind. She
seemed impatient to do so.

“I met him in the parking
garage yesterday,” she said almost inaudibly. “He is wonderful.” She was
blushing.

“Who is?” I asked quickly
as we flattened ourselves against the walls to let some orderlies push a man on
a gurney toward the first theater.

“Our resident surgeon.
God, Hattie, you should have seen the guy. Just wonderful, I tell you.”

“Did you two talk?” I was
getting curious. We resumed our walking down the corridor.

“Just for a bit. You know
me. I’m not one to open my mouth in front of strangers.” She threw me a glance.
“But I tell you this: I’m never going to be late when we have to follow him on
his rounds or go to the operating theater with him. He’s just that good-looking.”
With that, we arrived in the lounge.

The older fellow–a man in
his fifties, if not older, wearing black-rimmed glasses and an attractive smile
slicing a tanned face–stood up and came toward Dr. Kerry, right hand
outstretched.

“Kerry,” he said, “Good
morning, my dear. Glad you got the troops all assembled.” He threw a glance
over Dr. Kerry’s shoulder to look at us. “I see they’ll be on equal footing
this year–six men and six women–a perfect team.”

“Yes, Doctor,” Dr. Kerry
replied. “And good morning to you as well.” She smiled and then turned to us.
“Doctor Clemens, let me introduce you to our newly appointed interns…” By the
time she finished going through our names and qualifications, I bet Clemens had
forgotten half of us already. I was to be proven wrong later.

I bent down to Tiffany’s
ear. “Is that the guy?”

She shook her head just
as Dr. Kerry said, “And this is our Chief of Surgery, Dr. Albert Clemens,
ladies and gentlemen. Although you might not see him when you perform or assist
in a surgical procedure, you should be well aware that Dr. Clemens is aware of
every move you make.”

Good
or bad, we will have to face the consequences of our actions,
I
recalled telling Allie before we left New York.

“Yes, Doctors,” Dr.
Clemens rejoined, “being a surgeon requires aptitude, skills, knowledge, but
most of all, it requires feelings. Always remember that you are not performing
an operation on a corpse, such as you did in your anatomy classes, but the
person under your knife is alive until one of us kills that man or that woman.
Make absolutely no mistake: you will be faced with a dying patient. You will be
faced with a patient who will die no matter what you try; no matter how many
times you try reviving him or her. If God decides it’s time for this human
being to leave this earth, there is nothing anyone of us can do. Right or
wrong, the life of that patient is in your hands until God decides otherwise.”

Wow,
I
thought,
no wonder this guy is chief of
surgery. He’s not going to give you a by-pass when you need a new organ, is he?
Straight off the shoulder; we’ll get it!

“Any question?”

I looked down at the
floor beneath my feet. I had no question to ask. Frankly, I wouldn’t have dared
ask him anything for fear of, at worst, being kicked out on my ass or, at best,
meeting his mocking rebuke.

“Okay, Doctors,” Clemens
went on, “in a few minutes you will meet your resident surgeon. He, like Dr.
Rosalind here, will show you how to behave in an operating theater until you
are ready to assist any of our surgeons and then perform an operation yourself.
And I warn you, ladies and gentlemen, he might sound like a purring pussycat to
you now, but he is not, far from it in fact.” He looked at us–one by one. I
felt as if he was dissecting my face and listening to my thoughts through my
cranium.
God, this guy is giving me the
shivers already.

“Okay, enough of the
torturing comments for now,” Clemens added, finally cracking a smile. “Let’s
have a coffee and maybe a muffin or something to nibble on while we’re waiting
for our resident surgeon to make his appearance.

You could have heard the
sigh of relief exhaled by all of the interns present in the lounge room.

After getting a coffee
from the service counter, as Tiffany and I sat down at a table in the corner of
this café-style room, I asked her, “So, what do you think of Dr. Clemens?”

“Gosh, Hattie, he’s worse
than I ever thought he would be. He’s not one you’d want to cross. I would melt
in shame at his feet if I did something wrong, I am sure.”

“You said it, Tiff. The
guy is truly a chief, in every sense of the word. His tomahawk wouldn’t miss my
head if and when he decides to throw it at me. But in every regard, I think
it’s a good thing.”

“Oh, why’s that?” Tiffany
asked raising her eyebrows in surprise.

“It’s a bit like your
parents. They put you through hell, as you said, but without them you wouldn’t
have made it, right?” Tiffany nodded. “Well, I think with Chief Clemens at the
helm there’s very little chance of us failing. We’ve got to make it and make it
all the way.”

“Sure, but I don’t know
if I can take that sort of pressure again.”

“Listen to me, Tiff. It’s
not the same thing. Here you simply have to apply what you’ve learned and if
you’re not sure about something, your “Mr. Wonderful” from the parking garage
should be able to help you. Or it will be his head on the chopper block.”

“I guess you’re right. No
one said it was going to be easy or even enjoyable, except when what you do
saves someone’s life.”

“And you and I will save
more than one person’s life in our career. Yet, what people remember most in
our profession is not the number of people we save; it’s the number of people
who die because we cannot do more for them.”

“You’re right, of course.
But I studied day and night to “enjoy” my work. I mean I love being a doctor,
and I want to be a trauma surgeon more than anything, but I don’t want to keep
thinking of what might go wrong. I don’t want to worry all the time. Otherwise,
I’ll go absolutely crazy.”

“Me too, Tiff, me too.
We’ve got to stay positive.” I paused, taking a sip of my cooling down coffee.
“Tell me more about your Mr. Wonderful. How come you talked to him?”

“Oh it’s just that I
dropped my keys as I came out of the elevator and he picked them up for me. He
has such a gorgeous smile…” Tiff commented dreamily. “Anyway, he said that he
saw me with Dr. Kerry while we were making our rounds yesterday and that he
would be pleased to take over once we came downstairs to ‘his dungeon’.”

“Is that how he described
this place?” I looked around me.

“I guess so. And I think
he was right. This is like a dungeon. There is no window anywhere, every wall
seems as thick as those of an old castle, and everything is so sound-proofed, I
bet you couldn’t hear anyone scream in here, even if you put your ear to the
wall.”

Tiff
is right,
I thought,
it
certainly look and feel like a dungeon around here.

“But you haven’t said how
he looks. He is tall and handsome I suppose.”