Chapter 9 Grace
CHAPTER NINE
Grace
My eyes are focused on the Styrofoam container holding some leftover salmon rolls.
Accompanying it is a single serving of miso soup and a pair of chopsticks.
All of it a reminder of last night. Andrew did the respectable thing by sitting with me until we finished our sushi and left, leaving me the leftovers.
“For your lunch tomorrow,” he claimed. He told me about his day at work and the irksome errand he ran picking up his boss’s car from the shop, adding an inconvenient coffee run to it when his workload had already piled high on his desktop.
He asked how long I’ve had Buster when Buster nudged his nose into Andrew’s hand, begging for some food, and I told him his sad adoption story from the humane society.
We exchanged a few surface-level stories, not diving too deeply into subjects that left us knowing details about the other that felt too personal.
Things I shouldn’t know about him and things he shouldn’t know about me.
During the brief moment when we forgot—or rather set aside—our confusing tryst, it felt nice to have company.
I enjoyed having someone to wind down and share a meal with instead of the frigid silence and Buster’s insistent eyes.
It made my night feel light and fun rather than the usual morose tone it carried until I went to bed, alone.
When I finally walked him to the door, he bent down and placed a small kiss on my cheek.
It didn’t feel underhanded or misleading.
It felt like I was saying good night to someone I cared about.
Someone I considered a friend. I went to bed with a hollow divot in my heart.
Like Andrew scooped out a small chunk and took it with him, making me want to know if he got home safe.
“Hey!”
My head perks up at the sound of my coworker entering the breakroom. I instinctively sit up straighter, as if I’ve just been caught red-handed with the thoughts of Andrew brewing in my head.
“Hey, Jayne.”
Jayne, the other social worker in our ER, plops herself in the seat across from me. “What are you having today?” she asks, peering over my lunch.
“Just some leftover sushi. You?”
She procures a large glass Tupperware container from her lunch bag. “Matty made some alfredo,” she tells me, showcasing the appetizing pasta her husband made. “Want some?”
“I’m good,” I tell her, shaking my head.
I start poking away at the sushi, remembering how delicious it all tasted.
Surrounded by Andrew’s warm laugh and easy conversation, I didn’t feel ambushed.
His presence didn’t feel like an imposition and waves of regret kept hitting me unexpectedly.
He was sitting in front of me, thoughtfully chewing on a piece of edamame, and I kept thinking about him leaving.
How sad I’d be to see him go home. Since he left, with a painfully wistful smile, I’ve been trying to come up with ways to make it happen again.
But, of course, I hadn’t thought of exchanging numbers with him.
With my confusing refusal to entertain another night with him, having a more concrete form of contact felt risky and almost immoral.
I look at the clock on the wall to see my lunch hour is up. I start collecting my trash, leaving Jayne with her double serving of alfredo.
“I’ll see you on the floor?”
“Dr. Noah wanted to talk to one of us,” she informs me as I’m stepping back out. “I told him we’d check in with him when either one of us are back.”
“Dr. Noah…” I repeat, trying to place a face to the name. “Why don’t I remember who that is?”
“The new one from Vegas?”
“Oh!” I respond. The sharp jaw and light stubble dressed in navy scrubs suddenly comes flooding back to my memory.
His badge actually reads Dr. Santos, but he prefers everyone to call him by his first name, Noah.
I guess Dr. Noah is what everyone settled on.
“Okay, yeah. I remember. Did he say why?”
“Something about placement for a patient? I think he was sent in by the nursing home he was at, and now they aren’t taking him back.”
“Okay.”
I leave the break room and head out onto the ER floor in search of Dr. Noah. He’s exiting treatment room four, ripping off a pair of gloves, when I catch him.
“Dr. Noah,” I say, familiarizing myself with calling him anything else besides just Noah. “I’m Grace Han, one of the social workers. Jayne mentioned you needed one of us?”
“Yes, hi.” He extends his right hand, and I immediately take it. His warm smile is all charm, making me wonder how likable and effective his bedside manners are. “Nice to finally meet you.”
I smile a polite smile, keeping with my professional demeanor, instead of asking what he means by “finally.” “Was there a patient you needed to discuss?”
He walks to the nurses’ station, keeping his head ducked low, and I follow.
A considerate sign of discretion. “I have an eighty-six-year-old male sent in by his nursing home. He had a fall which led to a large gash on his forehead I just stitched up, but when I looked into sending him back to the facility, they’re giving me the runaround. ”
“Has the nurse attempted to reach out?”
He nods. “But they’re giving her the runaround as well.” He reaches across the nurses’ station and grabs a stack of papers. “These are the records from the facility. Maybe you’ll have more luck talking to them.”
I scan them over briefly, and my shoulders sag at the name of the facility. “They’ve done this before,” I inform Dr. Noah. “I’ll reach out to his next of kin, and we can go from there.”
“Great. Thanks.”
I offer a smile, gratitude for going the extra mile when this kind of undertaking is usually left for the nurses or social workers.
We’ve had a revolving-door effect when it comes to ER doctors.
I’m not sure if it’s a hostile work environment I’m not exactly privy to or if the last two ER doctors just have had other reasons that caused them to leave our ER within three months of becoming employed, but I hope Dr. Noah doesn’t follow their path. “How are you settling in?”
He chuckles, cupping the back of his neck. I notice a small dip hollow in his left cheek, a subtle start to a dimple forming. “Do I have that fish out of water look?”
“No,” I immediately dispute, worried I may have offended the new physician. “I heard that you moved here from Vegas, and I was just wondering how they’re treating you.”
“Well, no initiation hazing from the nurses just yet.” He lifts both his hands and crosses his index fingers over his middle fingers. The witty, flippant gesture makes me laugh.
“Let me know if they do,” I tell him, returning his playfulness in equal measure. “I’ll make sure to put them in their place.”
He laughs, reminding me that I’m at work, and this conversation has somehow veered into flirting territory. “Thank you.”
“I’ll let you know if I get anywhere with…Mr. Davis,” I say with the patient’s face sheets in my hand, my professional guise slipping back on as I take a quick glance at the demographics.
He nods, dipping his chin with the absence of a double—or triple—chin. A noticeable contrast to Harold the Accountant, but not unlike Andrew. “I appreciate it.”
I walk back to the office Jayne and I share to be welcomed by my phone ringing and immediate attempt to erase the unsolicited thoughts of Andrew.
The thoughts I have trouble shaking from my head, though Harold the Accountant and his wife list seem to have leisurely walked away without a single look back.
I answer the phone, leading to more calls on the ER floor.
The hours following my lunch turn busy. Though it should be a nice distraction from botched setups from my mom and illicit one-night stands, I feel it isn’t as effective as I hoped it would be.
By the time the day is over, after an emotionally draining meeting with a woman dealing with her dementia-ridden mother and discussing options for respite care, Andrew remains at the forefront of my brain, settling into the comfy grooves as if he lives there.
In particular, this thing he does with his fingers when he traces irregular shapes over my pulse point and trails up to my shoulder and around my neck, making every muscle in my body turn to Jello.
By the time my day is over, I dump an imaginary bucket of cold water over my head. A pathetic attempt to wash away those tempting thoughts of Andrew and his hands. I hook my tote bag over my shoulder and head back to the ER floor in search of Dr. Noah.
“Hey, Betty,” I say, trying to get the attention of the charge nurse. “Is Dr. Noah around?”
“He just left. Why? What’s up?”
I hand her the face sheet Dr. Noah gave me earlier with a sticky note taped to it. “For Mr. Davis,” I tell her. “I got a hold of his son out in Montana. He reached out to the facility with a very scary lawsuit threat, and they are ready to take him back as soon as he’s cleared with you guys.”
She breathes a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness. He’s been crying about where his kids are, and I’m this close to sharing a pack of tissues with him,” she says, holding her pinched index finger and thumb up in front of me.
“We need to figure out what’s going on with that facility,” I tell her, remembering that this isn’t going to be the last time we hear from them in this manner. “We can’t keep trying to find placement with this much short notice, and they need to get familiar with the term ‘patient dumping.’”
“I know. I’ve already emailed the director.”
I nod. “I’m heading out.”
“Hey,” Betty calls, stopping me in my tracks.
“Hmm?”
She smiles, clasping her hands in front of her. “Dr. Noah asked about you.”
My brow furrows. “What about me?”
“Just…how long you’ve been working here, where you’re from,” she answers offhandedly. “If you were single.”
“He asked if I was single?” I ask with skepticism, knowing Betty tends to occasionally stretch the truth.
“No,” she admits. “But I could tell that he wanted to, so I told him you were.”
I roll my eyes. “Betty, let’s leave the bad matchmaking to my mom.”
She ignores my bitter comment and asks, “Why? You don’t think he’s cute?”
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “I haven’t thought of him that way.”
“Well, we have,” she admits. “We’re taking bets on how long it’ll take Natasha to make a move on him.”
“Natasha from radiology?”
She nods eagerly. “You know she has a thing for hot, young doctors.”
I roll my eyes, shaking my head as I turn to walk away. “I’ll see you in the morning, Betty.”
“Bye, Grace!”