“Wanna go to lunch?” comes Angela’s chirpy voice from beside me, and with a start I look up and find her leaning against my desk, hands shoved into the front pockets of her baby-pink scrub top. She arches her impeccably shaped eyebrows at me, jaws and glossy lips working as she chews her gum.
“Sure. Give me a minute,” I tell her, and after she gives me a thumbs-up and walks away, I finish typing up the notes for my last patient on my laptop. Angela and I usually go out to lunch a couple of times a week—and always on Wednesdays, in observance of hump day.
I haven’t seen or heard from Jay since Friday. That’s four days with no word, and I have no idea how much longer it’ll be before he gets in touch. Because I decided I need to wait for him to make the next move. Somehow it seemed the best way to go. Like it’s going to tell me something about how he really feels about what happened between us.
So far the efficacy of this plan has been inconclusive.
It’s been really hard, resisting the temptation to text or call him. I catch myself several times a day reaching for my phone to message him whenever I have a WTS to share or something funny or frustrating or bizarre happens, and then I stop and remember I’m not sure where we stand now. Sending him chatty text messages feels awkward. There’s this gap of uncertainty where there used to be our easy, comfortable friendship.
What if I never hear from him again? Logically, I know that’s unlikely and kind of melodramatic, but the fear is there nevertheless, needling and nagging at the back of my mind.
When I’m ready, I grab my light, royal-blue cardigan off the back of my office chair and tug it on, then go to find Angela. She’s by the front desk, chatting with Diane. The waiting room beyond the desk is empty; the whole office closes between noon and one for lunch.
We go through the corridors with their moss-green walls and baby-and-pregnancy themed decor, past exam rooms and physician’s offices and the break room to the staff entrance. In the parking lot, Angela heads straight for her white Honda CR-V, so I follow her. We take turns driving when we go out to lunch, and I can’t remember who drove last time, but I guess it doesn’t really matter.
“Okay, where to?” she says once we’re in her car, strapped into our seat belts.
“Blanca’s?” I suggest. It’s been a while since I’ve had Mexican food.
“Ooh, yeah,” Angela croons while turning the ignition. “A burrito sounds really good right now.”
She swivels the steering wheel with her manicured hands as she backs out of her parking spot, her beautiful features fixed in concentration. Just like she does every day, Angela looks like she belongs on a magazine cover. Even her hair—which she dyes a deep, vibrant auburn—is perfect, twisted and held up with a jaw clip.
I’ve always kind of envied women like her, women who wear a lot of makeup but somehow make it look natural. Whenever I go full makeup like that, I end up looking like a cheap Barbie doll knock-off. So I usually just slap on some mascara in the morning and go on my merry way. The advantage is that during the time I’d be in front of a mirror, I get to spend sleeping instead.
It takes a couple of minutes to drive to the restaurant, and we chat about work on the way there. Specifically about Dr. Crane, who is at a conference in Chicago, something she didn’t mention until last week, leaving the rest of us scrambling to figure out what to do with her patients.
“I’m just saying,” Angela grumbles while making a left turn, her signal tick-tick-ticking rapidly. “She could’ve given more of a warning. You sign up for those things months ahead of time. She must think you sit around with your thumb up your ass all day and have plenty of time to cover her patients for her.”
It’s true. I work in a large and busy ob-gyn office. There are five physicians and three nurse practitioners, and, despite that, there’s surprisingly little tension. Dr. Crane is the only one who consistently aggravates everyone else with her overinflated ego and sense of entitlement.
“I’m okay,” I say with a shrug. “At least my hand is almost fully functional again.” Working with my injury has been a challenge this past week, and I’m lucky to have colleagues who only offered sympathy and helped me without complaint.
Angela pulls into the strip mall where Blanca’s is located, and she has to circle around a couple of times to find a spot. We get out and hurry across the parking lot toward the small restaurant with its plain white-with-black-text sign above the door.
The smells invade and overwhelm my senses the second we step inside, a mouthwatering mixture of seasoned meats, tortillas, and spices—garlic, cumin, cilantro. My stomach growls, and my mouth waters. I could never live any place where they don’t have good Mexican food.
The line to order is five people deep, and we take our place at the end. Thankfully it moves quickly. After ordering, we fill our fountain cups with ice and water from the drink machine, then look around for a place to sit. And find that every single table inside is occupied. There are still some empty ones out front, though.
“Gimme your receipt,” Angela says, handing me her cup. “You go out and grab a table. I’ll wait for the food.”
I make my way outside and sit down at one of the aluminum chairs, placing the cups and napkins on the table. It’s a nice temperature for April, but without my cardigan, it’d definitely be too chilly out here. Cars keep driving by, slowing down for the speed bump in front of the dry cleaner’s next door, and then gunning it and taking off down the road like it’s a race or something.
My phone starts ringing, and I fish it out of my purse and look at the screen. It’s my grandmother. I tap the answer button and put the phone up to my ear. “Hi, Grandma.”
“Oh, you’re there,” sounds her surprised voice at the other end. “I figured I’d get your voice mail.”
Rolling my eyes, I snicker and say, “I can hang up if you want, and you can call again, and I won’t answer?”
She snorts. “Hilarious, Mia.”
“I’m on my lunch break,” I explain. “What’s up?”
“They discharged me from the hospital.”
My shoulders sag, and a knot inside me unties itself—the release of worry I hadn’t even been aware of. I’ve talked to and texted with her every day since she was admitted, and she kept reassuring me she was fine, but I guess that gnawing concern still lingered.
“That’s great,” I say, and then I joke, “Now you can go back to being Mom’s pain in the ass.”
“Oh, I’m already a step ahead of you there, honey,” Grandma replies in a tone that’s both smug and self-deprecating. “I told her I want a birthday party after all. A big one, inviting everyone—family, friends, neighbors. I made a list, and there are over a hundred people on it. Hospital is so boring.”
“And you asked Mom to handle it all?” I reach for my cup and take a sip of water.
“Oh, no, she volunteered. She sounded kind of annoyed about it, though,” my grandmother says with a chuckle.
I shake my head. My mom and grandmother’s relationship has always been somewhat strained. Aside from the obvious reason—their need to test who my dad feels greater loyalty to, his wife or his mother—a huge part of the problem is they’re too similar. They’re independent Type As with an iron will and goals that all too often conflict.
“So when is the big event?” I ask.
“The first weekend in May,” she replies. “Your mom already booked the country club, but they only had Friday night available. It’s such short notice.”
“Sounds fun. I’ll definitely be there.” And I’m able to promise that so easily because it’s the same weekend we had planned for her small surprise party, anyway. I was going to drive up on Friday morning, and I let Diane know several months ago that I was taking that day off.
“Great.” Grandma hesitates, and I can tell she’s trying to sound casual as she adds, “That handsome young doctor of yours is invited, too, of course.”
My heart does a little flip. ”Jay?”
“Well, yes.” Grandma’s voice turns sharp and teasing. “Just how many handsome young doctors do you know, anyway?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I fire back playfully, which is a below-standard comeback for me, but she’s knocked me off-kilter here.
I can’t get the words “of yours” out of my mind. Is Jay mine? I don’t know. It sounds good, though. This is Jay, I could say to introduce him to people. He’s my…what? A few weeks ago I would’ve said friend. Now I’m not sure what to call him, because he’s not just a friend anymore. He’s more than that. We’re more than that.
If I ever see him again, that is.
“Okay,” I tell my grandma. “He might have to work, but I’ll ask him.”
We say good-bye and hang up just as Angela comes out of the restaurant, pushing the door open with her behind. She places the tray on the table, sits down, and starts unwrapping the straw for her drink.
I set my plate in front of me, grab my burrito with both hands, and take a big bite. The flavors roll over my tongue, savory and spicy and so damn good. I can taste them all at once—tender carne asada, salsa, guacamole, and cheese—and I can’t help but close my eyes for a second and just enjoy it.
So, yeah. My family knows Jay very well. Is that weird? Over the years, I’ve often invited him when I go home for holidays and such. The first time was during my senior year of college and his second year of med school, and I asked him because I felt bad thinking he’d be spending Thanksgiving alone—which I only knew from his evasive answer when I asked.
No, he wasn’t spending the holiday with family, he told me, and when he didn’t elaborate, I got the message pretty clearly: he didn’t want to talk about it. That hasn’t stopped me from trying again over the years, always without success. If I were cursed with insatiable curiosity, he would’ve driven me nuts by now.
Since that first visit, I no longer invite him out of sympathy so much as the knowledge that everyone likes it when he comes along. Including me.
Okay, me especially.
I’m pretty sure my Grandma has never believed he’s not my boyfriend. Maybe it’s because she’s too old-school to grasp the concept of a woman having a male friend.
Actually, that might be insulting her intelligence. More likely she doesn’t understand how I could possibly be only friends with that “nice boy” and “handsome doctor.” In which case, I guess she has a point?
“All right,” says Angela between bites of her own burrito. “Who is he?”
“Who’s who?” Carne asada juice drips out of the corner of my mouth, and I wipe it with a napkin.
She shoots me a smug smile. “The guy who’s got you acting all dreamy-eyed and distracted the past few days. It’s a man, right? Unless you’re still taking whatever drugs they gave you for your hand.”
All righty then. I wasn’t expecting this to become the topic of conversation. Deciding to go the deliberately vague route, I say, “I only took that stuff the first night.”
“So?” She widens her eyes at me. “Tell me.”
I hesitate, scooping up a mouthful of rice with my fork. Angela loves discussing everyone’s sex lives, especially her own. Only four years older than me, she’s got two kids, is twice divorced, and likes to tell everyone about it. She hangs all that dirty laundry out for everyone to see. Wears it proudly, like battle scars.
The thing is, no matter how cavalierly she talks about her past, I know there’s a world of heartache behind all the brash words. She’s thirty years old and a single mom of two. That has to be much harder than she lets on.
So why not tell her? If there’s anyone who won’t judge me, it’s Angela.
I finish chewing and sip my water. Then, still somewhat reluctantly, I say, “It’s...Jay.”
“Jay?” Angela stops eating. ”As in that gorgeous guy who you keep insisting is only your friend?”
I give a short nod.
“Oh, my God,” she breathes out with a smirk. “Finally!”
“Finally?” I say, exasperated. “Really?”
Rolling her eyes while forking up her cheesy refried beans, she barely finishes swallowing before pointing a pretty pink fingernail at me and saying, “You’re so full of it, Waters. You know that? Notice how I keep telling you I’m looking for a new boy toy and asking if you’ll pretty please introduce me to him? I do it because it’s hilarious how annoyed you get. And how horrible you are at hiding it.”
“Because Jay’s not a boy toy is why.” I frown at her while heat flares in my chest and spreads up into my cheeks. Am I really that transparent? How many other people secretly think I have a thing for Jay? Ugh.
Setting down her fork, Angela picks up her cup, slouches back, and sips her water. With a smirk, she says, “I could make him want to be one.”
“Yeah, I doubt it. No offense, but he really likes to play hard to get.” I pick a halfway-loose bit of meat from my burrito and pop it in my mouth.
She straightens in her chair and starts eating again. “So what happened? You’re dating? Sleeping with him? What?”
I meet her gaze and shrug. “It’s just sex. Friends with benefits kind of thing.”
Angela pauses with her fork halfway to her mouth. She looks surprised. “So he’s your boy toy? You stole my idea?”
Okay, no. That’s not right at all. But I don’t know how to correct her.
“Not cool, Mia,” she says with mock disapproval. “So not cool.”
I chuckle. How else am I supposed to respond? My food suddenly tastes like paper in my mouth, and I toss my fork down, pushing the plate away.
“Okay, just one more thing,” Angela says, leaning over the table and lowering her voice to a loud whisper. “Scale of one to ten, how good is he?”
“Mmm.” Forcing a smile and pressing my lips together, I pretend to ponder it. What I’m really doing is squirming inside. Talking about this was a bad idea.
“Seven and a half?” I lie, because Jay is most definitely a ten. A melt-my-bones, blow-my-mind, perfect fucking ten.
Hand over her heart, Angela falls back in her chair, feigning shock. “That’s it?”
“Figure I should leave him room to grow.” It’s getting painful to banter like this, but I’m not sure how to change the topic without being rude.
“Yeah, I’ll just bet he doesn’t have any problems growing.” She heaves a wistful sigh. “Oh, speaking of which, I’m hosting a Secrets party on Cinco de Mayo for my friend Rachel. You should come.”
“Secrets?” I ask, relieved that she’s changed tracks.
“You’ve never heard of it? Oh, my God, you’re missing out. It’s like a Tupperware party but with sex toys. It’s so much fun. You’ll love it.”
“Okay.” That’s the night before I drive up north for Grandma’s party, but that doesn’t matter. If there’s alcohol, I just won’t have any—or much. “I’ll be there.”
We finish up our meal and head back to work. I spend the entire drive wondering how to ask Jay to come with me on that trip. A few weeks ago, it wouldn’t have been a big deal, but things are different now. I don’t actually want to ask him, I realize. Somehow I know in my gut that he’s going to get weird about it and ask all kinds of questions I don’t want to answer.
Then again, maybe it’s a nonissue, since it’s possible he’s decided to disappear from my life.
Suddenly, asking him to go with me to my grandma’s party doesn’t seem all that terrible. Relatively speaking.
Angela pulls around the back of our office building, but after parking, she leaves the engine running. I look at my phone. Ten minutes left of our lunch break.
“Why friends with benefits?” She looks at me sideways, her nails tapping on the steering wheel.
I groan inwardly. Should’ve known she wouldn’t let it go. Trying to deflect, I reply, “Why do you want him as your boy toy?”
Her lips are twisting. “No, seriously.”
I stay mum. But she stares at me for so long that I finally give in and grind out, “What?”
“You sound like me. Why’s that?” Her eyes are dead serious now. “Who was he? High school boyfriend?”
All right, fine. I could pretend I have no idea what she’s talking about, but that seems self-defeating. With a sigh, I admit, “College.”
“What did he do?”
“Cheated on me.” With Sarah French. Shy, quiet, blushing Sarah. I clench my hand around the handle on my purse.
“Pretty bad, huh?” Angela asks, her voice unusually soft.
I give a nod. “He was my first…everything. First serious boyfriend. First time I was in love. Like, actually in love. Picturing wedding bells, kids, grandkids—happily ever after. I thought I’d found my soul mate.”
I also gave him my virginity. And he made it a perfect experience—nothing like all the horror stories about your first time.
Angela lets out a loud sigh. Turns off the car engine and unbuckles her seat belt. “Well, I’d tell you that’s no reason to give up, and I’d be right. But I’m the wrong person to be saying it to you.”
I meet her eyes from across the car. The corners of her mouth dimple, and I smile back and say, “Thanks.”
If we didn’t need to go back into the office now, she’d probably dig for more details. Hopefully by our next lunch break together, she’ll have forgotten about it. And the reason I’m wishing for that is not because it’s too painful to talk about.
I don’t want to discuss Matt Nolan because I never think about him, I don’t give a shit about him, and he sure as hell has nothing to do with my life choices right now.
Jay is wrong about that, and now Angela is, too.
“How are you feeling today, Tricia?” I ask as I enter, carrying my notebook computer, into the exam room with its soft pastel walls covered in newborn photos and informational posters about birth control and STDs.
A high-risk obstetric patient of Dr. Crane’s, Tricia Michaelson is here for her thirty-seven-week visit. She’s a cherub-faced woman in her late thirties with shoulder-length, dirty-blonde hair, and she’s sitting at the end of the exam table, one hand resting on her enormous belly and the other holding in place the paper draped from waist to knees.
“Oh, just peachy,” comes her mildly sarcastic reply after I shut the door.
I give her a sympathetic smile before crossing the room to set my computer down on the counter. “The last few weeks are tough, but you’re almost there.”
“I know,” she says while I look over her chart on the screen, plucking a pair of latex gloves out of the box on the counter. “He hasn’t been kicking much today. It’s been nice to get a little break from that. Still, he’s been sitting on my bladder the whole time...”
“Yeah, baby doesn’t have much room to move in there anymore, so if he’s starting to move a little less, that’s perfectly normal,” I reassure her while reviewing the data Dr. Crane’s nurse, Emily, entered. Tricia’s weight, blood pressure, temperature, and urinalysis all look fine.
Pulling on the gloves, I do a mental rundown of what to do at a thirty-seven-week prenatal checkup: measure fundal height, listen for the heartbeat, evaluate the baby’s position, perform a pelvic exam to check the patient’s cervix, and do a swab to test for Group B strep. All of it straightforward. Her age is the only reason Tricia is considered high-risk, and so far her pregnancy has proceeded normally.
Since I don’t have a midwife certification, I deal mostly with gynecological cases. I have nothing against obstetrics in general—the year I spent in Labor and Delivery was a very rewarding experience—but I have no interest in a job where I have to be on call for deliveries. I want to leave work at the office and be able to actually enjoy my time off.
“Okay,” I tell Tricia as I move to her side, taking hold of her elbow for support, “let’s go ahead and have you lie down.”
“So Dr. Crane said something last time about scheduling an induction?” she says as I nudge her black maternity shirt up and above her taut and swollen abdomen. “She was kind of pushy about it.”
Stretching the soft tape measure from her pubic bone to the fundus, I grind my teeth together, clamping down on my gut response. Which is to ask her to please not let Dr. Crane bully her into hurrying things along for no reason other than the risk of interrupting the good doctor’s weekend tennis matches.
Since it’s not my business to give that kind of advice and I’d catch all kinds of hell if I interfered in any way, I tell Tricia in a tone that I hope sounds convincing, “Yeah, she likes to play it safe, especially with her high-risk patients. I’m sure she’ll bring it up again when you see her next week.”
After finding the fundal height spot-on at thirty-seven centimeters, I grab the fetal Doppler. I squeeze on some ultrasound gel and place the probe right in the middle of her abdomen. Slowly I start to slide it up toward her belly button and out to the sides, searching for the heartbeat. All I hear is the swishing static noise. I keep moving the probe around, but there’s still nothing—no rushing sound of fetal blood flow and no whistling placental sound. And no heartbeat.
My own heart gives a painful thump. No. No, this is absolutely not happening. I’m just doing something wrong. I have to be.
I look up at Tricia’s face. She’s watching me. Her eyes are round, brimming with questions. An ugly, sick feeling is twisting and coiling in my chest. I force myself to smile at her, hoping it doesn’t look as rigid and fake as it feels.
“The Doppler’s not picking up the heartbeat today,” I tell her lightly, and I think—I hope, I pray—that my voice isn’t in any way reflecting the panic that is slashing through me. “So we’ll try an ultrasound, okay?”
Tricia nods silently, still wide-eyed. There’s fear in her gaze but also trust, and it’s the trust that breaks me. I can’t do this. Not by myself. I need to find a physician. Someone who knows how to deal with this, because I can’t.
“Let’s give it a few minutes,” I say to Tricia. “Go ahead and stay there for now, okay? I didn’t see the result of your urine sample on the computer, so I’m going to go check on that. I’ll be right back.”
She nods. Feeling like I’m being remotely controlled by a foreign being, I give her hand a pat and flash another smile. Then I tear off my gloves and toss them in the trash before leaving the room, shutting the door quietly behind me.
At the nurse’s station, I find Angela in conversation with Dr. Borawski. Oh, thank God. Borawski is the senior physician in this office, and he’s a calm and soft-spoken man, always willing to help and answer questions.
He and Angela both look up as I approach them. My terror must be showing on my face, because Angela’s expression turns instantly to alarm. “Hey,” I say to the doctor, “I have one of Dr. Crane’s high-risk patients. She’s at thirty-seven weeks, and...I can’t find a heartbeat with the Doppler.”
“Did you do an ultrasound?” he asks.
“Not yet. I—” I’m terrified, and I need help. “I don’t have a ton of experience with this and would like a physician’s opinion. If you don’t mind.”
“All right,” he replies easily, gathering up the papers sitting on the tall counter in front of him. “Just give me a minute.”
He strides away down the corridor, and I’m left there with Angela. I clench my hands around the edge of the counter, closing my eyes and drawing in deep breaths. What the hell is wrong with me? I saw more than one stillbirth in L&D. It’s a horrific and harrowing thing to witness and assist in, but I always managed to keep my cool, at least while I was in the middle of the whole ordeal and needed to be a damned professional.
So why is this different?
Because I’ve never had to be the one to tell a woman the baby she’s carrying is dead. I’ve never been in charge in that kind of situation before. And Tricia isn’t even my patient, but I’ve still failed her. Left her in that room all alone. She’s probably terrified, racked with worry.
I don’t even know if I can go back in there.
“Hey,” Angela says, and I open my eyes and meet hers across the counter. She’s watching me gravely, her head tilted. Tears are pressing behind my eyes.
Reaching across the counter and putting a hand on top of mine, Angela says in a low, urging tone, “Go. Go in there and hold her hand. You can do this.”
I swallow hard. Give a quick nod. And do as she says.