Chapter One
In which there are random naked men and terrible ex-fiancés.
Ava…
I knew something had to change when I walked into our shoe-box sized living room and there was a naked man on the couch.
“Carla? For fuck’s sake! Again? Get him off the furniture! I sit there!” I screech down the hall.
“If it makes it any better, we did it on the counter, not the couch,” groggy Naked Guy offers.
The kitchen counter. That I am leaning on. Yanking my palm off the chipped formica, I pull my hand sanitizer out of my backpack.
“Why do you always think it’s me?” Carla stumbles down the hallway, not looking much better, dressed in what is probably Naked Guy’s t-shirt.
“Because it is always you.” I pull my hair up into a tidy ponytail. “Look, I have to get to the hospital. Please have the common decency to cover both the couch and this countertop with bleach. And anywhere else your private parts might have rubbed against.”
Naked Guy is pulling up his jeans, thank god. “Oh, there’s my shirt. I’m gonna need that, babe.”
“Yeah, sure,” Carla yawns, pulling it off and tossing it at him. It is the only item of clothing she had chosen to don for this engagement, and she sits her naked ass down on the couch, ruffling her hair. I leave before I set fire to one of our few items of furniture and her with it.
Seething quietly, I scan my phone, combing through the rentals in neighborhoods close to Bellevue Hospital on my way to work.
Twelve to eighteen hour shifts mean I have to be close enough to walk or take a short bus ride.
I lived out in Brooklyn in a nice place for a while until I fell asleep on the subway one night and was shaken awake twenty-six stops past mine by a MTA employee.
He told me that he was sorry, but I couldn’t spend the night on the train and offered me a list of nearby homeless shelters.
Living with three roommates is killing me.
I’m tired of fighting through Melina’s drying underwear, hanging like spiderwebs from every surface when I use our bathroom, or attempting to hide my takeout so Amber won’t eat it.
I could live with those little challenges.
However, Carla’s predilection for bringing random men home, having noisy sex, and then leaving them sprawled in our common area is my hard limit.
It’s bad enough that I’m not having sex, being forced to listen to her nocturnal adventures is piling on insult to injury.
“Focus,” I whisper, dodging a businessman staring at his phone.
“Time to focus. Nothing is more important than work. All your attention goes there.” My daily mantra is one I’ve practiced since college, when my ADHD bloomed into something thorny and unmanageable.
Meds help a little, just enough to let me pay attention to stitching up a head wound without being distracted by the screaming biker with a compound fracture in the next cubicle.
Marching through the sliding doors of Bellevue's staff entrance, I straighten my scrubs.
Focus.
***
“...then he shoots back with ‘Well, what if there’s a varicocele? How are you going to handle the Inguinal hernia then?’ And it’s like, for fuck’s sake Kevin, stop being such a constipated prick!
” Priya’s waving her sandwich around so aggressively that I have to dodge a little missile of aioli as it shoots past me.
“He was really questioning how you were conducting a standard herniorrhaphy?” I ask. “What an asshole.”
“Yeah,” she says, taking another bite of her ham and swiss sandwich. “I can’t believe you were going to marry that loser.” She watches me flinch. “Sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry,” I sigh.
Dr. Kevin Sinclair is a loser. And a misogynistic, condescending douchebag. Also, a cheater, which I discovered six weeks before our wedding when I walked in on him getting an ‘oral examination’ from an ICU nurse in the supply room.
“Working in the same hospital with him is bad enough, but he attempts to corner me at every possible opportunity,” I sigh, rubbing my forehead.
“He gets that fake, concerned expression and asks me how I’m doing.
Am I okay? Like losing him is the worst thing that could ever happen to me and surely, I must be heartbroken and distraught. ”
“I’d like to tell you I’m so sorry you caught him cheating and that you had to dump him, but I’m not.
” Priya’s blunt honesty is not always welcome, but she has a good point here.
“Some of the senior surgeons were taking bets on how long it would take you to figure out what a sleazy bastard Kevin is.”
“That’s just rude!” I say, feeling a hot flush of shame. I’m sure all the surgeons - the men, at least - believe my ex. After I ended our engagement, he spun the story that he bowed out because I was so unstable and jealous.
“I shut that down in a hurry,” Priya assures me, finishing her sandwich and taking the untouched half of mine.
“Gossipy bitches.” She may be one of the youngest general surgeons at Bellevue, but they’re all scared of her.
When Dr. Priya Singh starts shouting, everyone scatters like cockroaches when the kitchen light turns on.
Hunching my shoulders, I take a quick look around.
Gordi’s Sandwich Paradise is too close to Bellevue for us to be the only ones here from the hospital.
It’s a charmingly retro space with red vinyl booths and a black and white checkered floor.
Gordi still presides over the meat section of the sandwich assembly line with a cleaver sharp enough to conduct an appendectomy.
“Relax, I did make sure there was no one within earshot,” Priya says. “Though the thing about that varicocele on the patient’s left testicle? When I cut into it, the blood shot up like a geyser. Kevin jumped back so fast that he knocked over the monitor, and-”
There’s a choked noise from the table next to us and I notice the burly construction workers sitting there are both decidedly green.
“Sorry,” I offer a weak smile. Their smiles in return are even weaker.
“Anyway, it was hilarious to watch,” Priya finishes the story and my sandwich.
“I’ll be honest, do you know the only thing I miss about that assface?
” I say, toying with my straw. “His apartment. It was so spacious. All those lovely windows and from the living room, you could see the sunrise over the water and it was magical. Did I mention that I woke up this morning to yet another one of Carla’s naked conquests in the living room? ”
“You really should get that girl into the clinic for a full STD panel,” she says wisely. “Just keep reminding yourself that while Kevin’s apartment is nice, you’d still have to share it with him.” We both shudder. “I have to go to the bathroom. Wait for me?”
“Of course.”
It is true. The only thing I miss about Kevin - may that cheating bastard rot in hell - was his place. I had been so excited to move into his apartment after the wedding and leaving my roommates behind to negotiate takeout theft and random naked guys without me.
I should have kept his engagement ring and pawned it.
“I enjoyed watching those tough men in hard hats racing for the door when your friend got down and dirty with the details.” The comment comes from the woman sitting on my right side, she’s wearing a mischievous smile and a polished red suit. A stockbroker, maybe, or real estate.
“If we ruined your meal, I’m sorry,” I chuckle.
“Not at all,” she shrugs. “I don’t have testicles.” We both giggle a bit. “I feel for you about the apartment dilemma, though.”
“I’m sorry, that wasn’t- I should learn to keep my mouth shut in public.”
“The Manhattan real estate scene is terrible,” she says sympathetically. “I’ve known people in desperately unhappy marriages who refuse to get divorced because neither one wants to give up the apartment. At least you had the emotional wherewithal to move past that temptation.”
“If you knew my ex, you would totally understand,” I say, gloomy again.
“I might be able to help,” she says, pulling a red card out of her purse. “I’m a real estate agent.”
Ah, here we go. A pitch on an apartment I will never be able to afford.
“I’m on the team selling a new luxury apartment complex on Broad Street,” she continues, smiling as she notes my pained, polite expression.
“I know medical personnel never get paid what they’re worth.
But you may be aware that all new construction downtown has to have a percentage of lower-income housing in order to get the building permits. ”
“I heard that,” I nod. “It’s a great idea.”
Six years of college and another two years of near-slave-labor wages to get my Physician’s Assistant degree, and yet I’m still in the “lower income” bracket. I can’t even be offended by her assessment.
“The project is sweetening the deal with even lower rates for first responders,” she says. “Of course, we’re getting another tax cut from the city for it, but I’m sure a small portion of the deal is from the kindness of the builder’s hearts.”
“Of course,” I agree gravely, fighting a smile.
“Anyway, if you want to email me, I can send you an application. We’re just opening this phase, so you’d be getting your request in early.”
Taking the card, I read her name, Cynthia Watkins. “It’s nice to meet you, Cynthia. I’m-”
“Ava Blue,” she nods at my hospital ID. “Unless you’re impersonating an overworked PA.”
“That would be me,” I laugh. Cynthia’s got a nice smile, she’s older, maybe mid-fifties with straight, dark hair and dark brown eyes. Her suit is expensive, and so is her haircut.
She stands up, gathering up her items scattered over her table. “I hope I hear from you. It’s always nice to have more medical professionals get what they deserve.”
“That’s very sweet of you to let me know,” I say, accepting a firm handshake before she marches out the door.
“Who was that?” Priya’s back, slathering on hand sanitizer. She always keeps a big bottle in her backpack.
“Oh, a real estate agent,” I say, holding up the red card. “She said she might have a lower-income slot in one of the new apartment complexes downtown.”
“Your luck is turning, baby!” Priya says, ever the optimist. “You’ll get that place and it’ll be nicer than mine, I’m sure.
” She’s offered to let me stay with her more than once, but while her apartment is beautiful, it’s filled to bursting with her husband, his mother, her mother, and a cousin going to NYU.
“Yeah…” I tuck the card into my wallet. “A miracle would be nice.”
***
Herniorrhaphy - hernia removal surgery.