Love and Other Side Effects

Asher

Don’t think of love as the endgame. Think of it as the kickoff.

—My Therapist

Don’t laugh.

The reassuring beep, beep, beep of the fetal heart monitor fills the delivery room while my patient recovers from her last set of pushes, but instead of

catching her breath, she’s waving a hand in front of her face. “Oh, my g— Who keeps farting?”

Seriously. Don’t laugh.

Carrie is a lovely woman. She really is. One of my favorite patients. But she’s pushing a baby out, which often results in

pushing . . . other things out. I’m 100 percent certain this woman doesn’t realize the smell in the room is her.

I’m a simple man with a simple sense of humor. And this? This is hilarious.

Or maybe I’m a complex mess of a man with a child’s sense of humor. Who could say?

“Doctor Foley!”

My attention snaps to Carrie’s incredulous expression.

“I am so sorry for my family,” she says. “I can’t believe this.”

Her mother and sister stand at the bedside. Their stoic faces are pulled into guises of concern. Meanwhile, the father of

the baby tries his best not to laugh at the head of the bed. Yolanda, the nurse, wisely remains silent.

Don’t laugh!

I smile behind my mask. “It’s fine, Carrie. Push.”

She pushes once, then glares at her sister. “Do you need to go to the bathroom?”

“I’m sorry,” the sister whispers.

The baby daddy snorts then tactfully transitions to a fake cough.

“Come on, Carrie,” I say. “Don’t waste your contraction. Push!”

Epidural pushes are usually feeble—a fact inexplicably truer between one and four in the morning—but Carrie’s a champ. A+

for effort. Pushes the baby out in less than an hour.

Thank heaven.

Wouldn’t have been able to keep from laughing much longer. Not at her. At the situation. The irony. In obstetrics, humor must be found in the small moments. Otherwise, it’s nothing but long

spans of stark boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror.

We clean her up swiftly, so she’ll never know she shit all over the delivery room and blamed her supportive family for the

odor.

But I know.

And the dad knows.

We share a silent moment of understanding, a nod to the unspoken brotherhood of comedy.

Him: Did you also find this comical?

Me: Yes, brother. This was priceless.

Him: Today it was spoken, ye shall triumph all funny story contests for the rest of time.

Me: Time shall wither, but this shall remain.

I leave the room, congratulating them both. My feet skid into Pod A, our dictation room, before I collapse into a chair in

laughter. The counter is cluttered with travel mugs, binders sporting the Corpus Christi Medical Center logo, filled with

the pervasive specter known as Hospital Policy—a greedy and foolish god, if we’re being truthful—and four desktop computers. Above it all, the fetal monitors display squiggly

lines for two other patients in labor on the floor.

Luckily, neither patient is mine.

Need sleep. Laughter is now impossible to contain. Misty eyes, aching abs—the whole bit.

“What is it?” asks Raquel, one of the nurses, peeking up from her computer.

I shake my head. Too tired to explain.

A quick badge-tap and the desktop wakes, signing me in to our electronic medical record called LEGENDARY. Aspirational thinking

on the part of the people who named it, I’m sure. LEGENDARY will go down in history as nothing but an epic failure. Like Blockbuster.

Or Elizabeth Holmes.

As I type, Jocelyn plonks into the rollie chair next to mine, spinning to face me. She’s got her I-need-sleep-you-better-have-good-news

face on.

Heh. Sleepy Joss is fantastic. Prickly. A bit cheeky. Always good for a laugh.

I grin. “Hey there, bestie, you need something?”

Small hands grip my arm and shake it, peppering my delivery note with typos. “Please tell me she delivered, so I can go home.”

The harsh fluorescent lighting brings out the dark circles beneath Joss’s warm brown eyes. I tug on a blond lock escaped from

her bun and tickle her nose with it. “Is someone a little grumpy?”

She shoos away my hand. “It’s three a.m., Asher. Only people like you are chipper at this hour.”

“People like me?”

“Yeah.” She gestures toward me, face scrunched. “Happy people. Optimists.”

“Wow.” I fire a bright smile at her. “How’d that word taste coming out of your mouth?”

“Like acid. So, is she delivered?”

I finish the delivery note with a relish and spin toward her. “Signed. Sealed. Delivered.”

She throws her arms in the air, her chair whirling. “Hallelujah.”

The anesthesiologists don’t normally take their overnight calls in the hospital, but when a laboring patient has an epidural,

the on-call doc is required to remain in-house until delivery. Joss isn’t a fan of that rule. Or any other rules, really.

She’s zipped up in her white Patagonia vest—the uniform of all anesthesiologists everywhere—clearly ready to bounce. Her teal

scrub cap peeks out of the breast pocket. It’s patterned with little pink flowers and script letters that say Don’t Be Extra.

Jocelyn’s favorite phrase.

Once she’s completed a full rotation, I grab her knees to stop her. A glance at the nearby nurses ensures they’re distracted

by their own conversation.

She arches one brow. “What’s up?”

The mail I received this morning still burns a hole in my scrub pants pocket, and I’ve been waiting all day to show her. After

three years of dedicated service as my best friend, Joss knows me better than anyone. She can read my expressions like words

on paper. Open book. Boldface font.

Don’t really want her intuiting what I’m thinking now.

Panicky feeling rises. Suppress. Suppress. Suppress.

Wouldn’t bother her with this, but I just need to hear her thoughts.

With a lowered voice, I ask, “Meet me in the call room after you check on the patient?”

She fake-gasps. “Does someone have a secret? Are you the one who stole Doctor O’Malley’s DIVA Cup?”

“That’s a weird place for your mind to go—”

Her eyes widen comically. “Wait! Did the patient in room seven finally decide clitoral stimulation isn’t adequate pain relief?”

The girl can always pull a laugh from me. “Just do it, okay?”

She sighs. “You’re going to keep me awake longer, aren’t you?”

I push out my lower lip, and her body goes stiff, her expression affronted. “How dare you use puppy dog face on me at three

a.m., Asher? It’s a sin against nature. And sleep.”

“Please?”

With a sag of her petite shoulders, she submits, and ten minutes later, we’re sitting side by side on a starched white bed

in a tiny room with one blacked-out window, a broken lounge chair and a lamp with no bulb.

“All right.” She claps once. “Lay it on me. If you’re going to tell me you’re pregnant, I assure you, it’s not mine.”

“What?” I splay my hands over my chest. “You’d abandon our love child?”

She sleepy-chuckles. “Asher. Tell me.”

Welp. Must get it over with. I slap the fancy embossed invitation into her hand.

She unfolds it. “ ‘Mister and Missus Caleb Rose joyfully request the presence of your company at the marriage of their daughter,

Sapphire Grace, to Julian—’ Asher, I don’t know who these people are.”

“She’s one of the girls I told you about.”

Her eyes narrow at once. “You’re joking. Is this a prank?”

Fair question. Pranking her is my favorite pastime, but this is very real. Unfortunate, that. I shake my head, and the suspicion

disappears from her expression. “Which one is she? The one you proposed to?”

God.

Thanks for that reminder.

Good old Katherine.

I like to shove her memory down where the unbearable things live, like the time I texted my residency class about our shitty

senior resident only to realize that senior was in the group text. Or the time I took too much cold medicine and fainted in

the anatomy lab.

I love you. Let’s get married.

Ha! Are you serious? No way.

That was her gut reaction. Are you serious? No way.

Broke up with me the next day. Married a cardiologist a year later. Nice guy, though.

Memory still stings.

I laugh to cover the discomfort. “No. That was she-thought-we-were-friends-with-benefits-while-I-thought-we-were-in-love girl.

Grace is the one who had no idea I was in love with her until after she fell for this guy instead.” I tap the invitation in

her hand.

She fiddles with the edge of the cardstock. “But you don’t love her anymore, right?”

“Of course not. That was three years ago.” I drag a hand down my face. “But . . . I don’t know. Feels weird.”

Jocelyn smacks me on the forehead with the invitation. “Why didn’t you tell me about this when you got it?”

“Ow.” I snatch the paper from her hand. “I was busy.”

“Not too busy to tell me about the new protein powder you have to try, or to send me pics of the ducks outside.”

“There were ducklings!” I say in defense. They were waddling behind their mom along the crosswalk. How adorable is that?

Joss throws a hand up. “I can’t anymore with you and the ducks. They’re just ducks.”

“Your hatred of cute things is one reason I’m convinced you’re part demon.”

“I don’t hate them.” She yanks the invitation from my grasp, and her pretty lips curl. Is that disgust or disbelief? Not sure. Perhaps

a bit of disdain, too. “Who names their daughter Sapphire?”

“What should I do, Joss?”

It would be nice to see some of my old friends again, Grace included. I’d truly like to go, but going alone, aware she knows

about my unrequited crush on her . . . And did I mention the alone part?

Ugh.

“Obviously, you’re not going.” Joss continues to scowl at the invitation. “I mean, duh. Asher, the girl broke your heart.

Why would she even invite you?”

“We’re friends. And she didn’t break my heart, really. Not on purpose.” I scratch my neck. “She didn’t even know. I read into

something that wasn’t there.”

The truth? She didn’t take me seriously. Same as Katherine. No one takes me seriously, it seems. I’m not even sure I take me seriously. That’s the theme of my life—work, women, whatever. Not serious. Not important. Not good enough. Feel like

a bit of a fraud if I’m honest.

Hoping the new stint in therapy will help.