Foreign Body

Chapter 7

October 15, 2007

Monday, 7:54 p.m.

Los Angeles, USA

(Simultaneous with the Time the Nurses International Morning Meeting Is Breaking Up)

Neil McCulgan put down his pen to rub his eyes. The schedule he’d been working on was still unfinished. The software company whose program was supposed to do the schedule had recently changed hands, and without the original CEO’s keeping everything under control, the software was getting things mixed up, ergo the need for Neil to painstakingly redo it by hand. He looked at his watch. It was already close to eight and he was supposed to have been off at seven, and he was exhausted.

The fact that he’d not managed to get the schedule completed was based on two things. The first was a major pileup on the 405 freeway causing several deaths and a number of very serious injuries, all of whom had begun to arrive in their respective ambulances less than a half-hour after Jennifer Hernandez had childishly stalked out of his office. All that took a number of hours to handle, meaning separating the dead from the living, stabilizing the most seriously injured and sending them up to the OR, and finally dealing appropriately with the less severely hurt by setting and casting broken bones and suturing lacerations.

The second reason the reworked schedule wasn’t done was because he wasn’t concentrating well. “Damn!” he shouted at the wall, then felt guilty and foolish. Spinning around in his chair, he looked out into the triage area. Two patients were looking in his direction with raised eyebrows. Embarrassed at his outburst, Neil got up from his chair, and after giving the two startled patients a reassuring wave, he closed the door and sat back down.

Neil couldn’t concentrate because of Jennifer. Although he’d inevitably used what he called her puerile behavior as further justification for his decision not to go to India, he slowly began to admit that he’d handled the situation miserably. First off, the real reasons were simply more selfishly motivated. He eventually admitted that the excuse he’d given her — namely, the reworking of the ER schedule — had been a transparent lie. He should have been more up-front so that there could have been, at a minimum, an honest discussion. And finally, the part that made him feel most guilty was that the excuse he gave himself — that he would have been more receptive if the death involved her mother, not her grandmother — was also a lie. He was well aware that Jennifer’s grandmother, for all intents and purposes, had been her mother.

At one point Neil called Jennifer’s cell phone, but she didn’t answer. He had no idea if it was because she noticed it was he who was calling or if she’d already departed, and there was no way to find out. He even thought, in a moment of irrationality, about running out to LAX to catch her before she did leave, but he dismissed the idea because he had no idea which airline she was taking. From having made travel arrangements to India five months ago, he knew there were multiple carriers flying from L.A. to New Delhi.

All afternoon Neil progressively chastised himself for having handled Jennifer so badly, to the point that he began to accuse himself of exhibiting the immature, selfish behavior he’d blamed on her. He had even gotten to the point of believing she’d acted entirely appropriately by walking out and not looking back. By then he had good reason to suspect that had she done otherwise, he probably would have dug in his heels and made an even bigger fool of himself.

Impulsively, Neil stood up, sending his desk chair rolling backward on its casters to collide with the door. Taking a fresh white coat from the hook behind the door, he pulled it on and went out to the central desk. He asked the first nurse he could corner if she knew whether Clarence Hodges had left. He was officially off duty the same time as Neil, but like Neil, he rarely left on time. Happily, Neil was told he was in one of the bays, sewing up a laceration. For Neil’s benefit, the nurse pointed to the appropriate curtained area.

“Wow!” Neil exclaimed when he looked over Clarence’s shoulder. Clarence was in the process of sewing a right ear back onto the side of a patient’s head. He was doing a meticulous plastic repair with what looked like hundreds of tiny sutures of gossamer-like black silk thread. Neil had recruited Clarence. He had been a classmate of Neil’s in high school. For college they had chosen rival schools, with Neil going to UCLA and Clarence to USC, but for medical school both had chosen UCLA. What made them special friends was their shared love of surfing. “That’s quite a laceration!”

Clarence leaned back and stretched. “Bobby here and his skate-board had a little argument with a tree, and I think the tree won.” Clarence picked up the edge of the drape and looked in at his patient. He was surprised to find him asleep. “My goodness, I guess I have been at this for a while.”

“Why didn’t you have one of the plastic-surgery boys come down and handle it?” Neil asked.

“Because of Bobby,” Clarence said, as he got another stitch in the claws of his needle holder. “When I suggested that, he said he was going to leave, despite his ear hanging off by a few threads of tissue. He said he’d been here so long he wasn’t going to wait. He wanted me to do it even though I told him I wasn’t a plastic surgeon. He was persistent and even stood up from the table as if he was heading for the door. So to make a long story short, that’s why I’m doing it.”

“Do you mind if I ask your opinion about something while you work?”

“Not at all. With Bobby sleeping, I could use the company. Of course, two seconds ago, I didn’t know he was sleeping.”

Neil rapidly told Jennifer’s story, which Clarence listened to without comment while he continued to reattach Bobby’s ear. “So that’s it in a nutshell,” Neil said when he’d finished.

“What do you want my opinion about? Whether I’d go to India to have a hip replacement: The answer is no.”

“That’s not the issue. The issue is how I handled Jennifer’s request. I think I did a lousy job. What’s your take?”

Clarence looked up into his friend’s eyes. “Are you serious? How else should you have handled it?”

“I could have been more honest.”

“In what regard? I mean, I can’t imagine you want to go all the hell way over to India for someone’s grandmother, do you? I mean, it’s not like you could bring her back to life or anything.”

“It’s true I’m not wild about going all the way to India at the moment,” Neil admitted.

“Well, there you go. You handled it just fine. It’s her problem the way she responded. She shouldn’t have walked away.”

“You think so?” Neil asked. He was unconvinced. After explaining the episode to Clarence, he actually felt guiltier about his behavior, not less guilty.

“Wait a minute,” Clarence said, holding up the suturing and staring back up at Neil. “I’m beginning to think there’s something you’re not telling me here. What’s your relationship with this woman? Are you sweet on her or what? Are you guys dating?”

“Sort of,” Neil admitted. “Actually, I’m not sure. It’s like she’s been holding me at arm’s length. We have been getting together a lot, and it’s wonderful. We never run out of things to talk about, and she’s been really open with me, telling me things she’s never told anyone else. I know that for a fact.”

“Have you guys ever hooked up?”

“No, but it’s not for not trying. I mean, we tried once, but it was awkward. It’s kind of strange. We can be talking about the most intimate things, and as soon as I try to move in on her, wham! This wall comes up.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“I know, but on the other hand she’s really smart, and she works and studies her butt off, and she’s terrific to be with. I’ve never been with a girl quite like her.”

“If she’s who I think she is, she’s also a piece of ass.”

“I can’t deny that. She caught my eye the first time I saw her as a first-year med student.”

“Okay,” Clarence said. “This all changes everything. What I’m hearing is you love this woman.”

“Let’s just say I’m interested, but since she’s got some baggage, there’s more that I’ve got to learn.”

“Are you thinking about chasing after her to India? Is that what I’m hearing you want my opinion on?”

“It is. The one thing I do know about her with absolute certainty is, she’s headstrong. She makes up her mind about things instantaneously and then holds on to her decision like a dog with a bone. At the moment she’s royally pissed at me, and I can understand why. She took me into her confidence, and now that she’s asked me to support her, I, in a sense, confirmed her worst fear by not doing so. If I don’t go over there I have to kiss good-bye any chance of learning anything more about her.”

“Then do it! That’s my advice. Handling the arrangements for the grandmother’s body will probably take all of a half-hour, and it’s over. Then you guys can make up. That way you won’t be burning bridges over this affair.”

“So you think I should go?”

“Absolutely. And you told me you found India fun, so you can kill two birds with one stone.”

“I told you it was interesting.”

“Interesting or fun, what’s the difference? As far as your responsibilities here are concerned, don’t worry about it.”

“I do have the next four days off.”

“See what I mean. It was meant to happen. Go! As far as your obligations here are concerned, after your four days, don’t worry about it. I owe you. I’ll cover for you, and when I can’t, I’ll see that someone else does.”

“I’ll certainly need more than four days. The travel alone takes four days.”

“Don’t worry about it. Okay? I said I’d cover. Do you know where she’s staying?”

“I do.”

“That’s all you need. When will you leave?”

“Tomorrow, I guess,” Neil said, wondering if he’d allowed his friend to talk him into something that might end up being more complicated and more stressful than he’d anticipated.

If he only knew...