27. Emma
27
EMMA
T he alarm went off with its annoying, repetitive beeping sound. With a groan, I rolled over and pushed myself up and out of bed.
Apparently, it was another glorious day in L.A., but how would I know? In my desperation to get out of New York, I had not left myself any time to acclimate to the West Coast. I thought apartments in New York were expensive, but the cost of living in L.A. was absolutely through the roof. My dreams of finding a small, furnished bungalow to rent near the beach—just that, a complete dream. Bungalows didn’t exist near the beach anymore.
Finding a place that was furnished and within a price range I thought was reasonable was insane. And I needed a car, but I didn’t give myself time to go car shopping. I certainly hadn’t researched public transit enough. L.A. had decent public transit, but it wasn’t like New York where I was only a block or two away from a bus or subway line at any given moment. In L.A., you were either on the bus route specifically, or you were desperate for a car. And I was desperate for a car.
The cost of getting to and from work, while not exactly exorbitant, was beginning to cut into my budget in a way I had not accommodated for.
None of these were actually horrible problems. I was simply not prepared for the reality of L.A. The sun was always out, the weather was beautifully warm, I never needed a jacket, and there were a big ocean and a beach out there somewhere. Only, I hadn’t given myself adequate time to do or see any of these things.
What I had managed to see of L.A., I hated to admit, seemed like the worst of it. Every morning, the Uber I took to work got stuck in traffic, and the traffic never seemed to let up. It was constant in the morning and constant in the evening when I got off work.
And the hospital?
That was another mistake. In my eagerness to run away from the mess I had made with Marcus—and the mess that I made with Kevin—I should have come and visited first. The hospital was not warm and welcoming. It was an older building without any of the modern upgrades I had become so used to at Manhattan Memorial.
I appreciated that during my first week I wasn’t thrown straight into the deep end of the trauma department. Instead, I was given an orientation to how they ran things at St. Cedars. But I was a trauma surgeon, and after two weeks, they still had me trailing behind a hospitalist, taking notes as if I were an intern or only just now starting my residency.
“Dr. Chen, do you have a comment?”
I looked up at Dr. Burnett. “Pardon?”
“You had a comment?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Are you sure? It sounded as if you had thoughts regarding the patient’s treatment.”
I smiled at the patient and shook my head again. “No, not at all.”
I did have thoughts about the patient’s treatment. But my concerns weren’t necessary. They would have only caused the patient unnecessary worry, as they were mostly about the protocol of communication between the department where she had initially been treated in the emergency room and her admission to the hospitalist’s care.
“Are you sure?” he asked again.
I sighed. “I do have questions, but they aren’t in regard to the patient’s care.”
“A good hospitalist should be knowledgeable in all aspects of their patient’s care,” was his response.
I smiled, nodded, and agreed while we were still in the room. It wasn’t until after we left that he paused and confronted me again.
“What was that all about?” he asked, nodding back toward the room.
I shook my head. “Nothing. Her post-surgical care seems to be just fine, as I mentioned.”
“Yeah, but you were thinking something.”
I was, but again, my concern had nothing to do with her current treatment but her earlier treatment. “The patient was in for a scheduled procedure, yet her intake forms indicate she went through the ER. I didn’t think that was something that needed to be brought up in her presence. I was simply curious why intake had occurred in that department.”
He nodded in understanding. “I understand you were a trauma surgeon.”
I nodded.
“So, what made you change your mind? Too rough?”
I lifted an eyebrow in his direction. “I didn’t change my mind. I still specialize in trauma surgery, specifically, pediatric. Only now, I also want to be part of the team that helps to make policy so that we know patients are being treated properly when they come through the emergency department. Thus my concern over planned surgical intake going through that department.”
He looked at me quizzically. “Then why are you here? Why are you on the hospitalist rotation? This is something we typically only do with new residents or when a new hospitalist joins the team.”
It was my turn to look at him quizzically. “Honestly? I thought this was just the hospital’s way of providing orientation.”
He hummed and nodded. “Well, shall we?” He indicated the next patient’s room.
“If you don’t mind,” I started, “since I’m not a future hospitalist, and as far as you’re aware, this isn’t standard procedure, I want to check in with HR, make sure something didn’t get missed. Then I’ll catch up with you.”
He nodded, seemingly unbothered. “You should be able to find me out here making the rounds.”
I nodded, giving him a brittle smile before high-tailing it down to administration.
Sylvia had that same bright smile she had possessed during all of our Zoom meetings. “Dr. Chen, how is it going?” she asked as I stepped into her office.
“Actually, I have a question for you about that,” I said as I stepped in and took a chair. “I was just shadowing Dr. Burnett.”
“Oh, yes, he is one of our hospitalists. He’s very good at his job.”
I nodded in agreement. “But I have a question for you,” I admitted. “He seemed a little… confused. Maybe not confused, but concerned as to why I had been put on his schedule in the first place.”
Sylvia’s smile didn’t change. It was completely frozen in place.
“You see, I thought that I had been assigned to work with him just to get an introduction to the hospital and everything, which made sense last week. But this is my second week, and I haven’t been in the ER department for more than a quick show-around.”
I frowned. “Wouldn’t it be better if I were actually working in my department, seeing how procedures and policies work there? Since that would be where any of my suggested changes come into play?”
Sylvia made a thoughtful humming noise as she contemplated what I was saying. “That does seem to make sense when you put it that way.” She paused. “I’ll see what I can find out.”
I thanked her. “If you need me,” I said, holding up my phone, “you know how to contact me.”
At least that aspect of the two hospitals was the same. They both used the same messaging feature, so I didn’t have to download and learn a different app.
Sylvia had no answers for me, and when I tried to locate the hospitalist in charge of the ER department, I was met with a lot of confused stares. Not only had they not known to expect me, but they also hadn’t even been aware that a new person had been hired for their department. This was beginning to not look very good.
I spent the rest of my day shadowing Dr. Burnett. He was good at his job, I would give him that. He would make a great mentor for any resident just getting used to working in a hospital and learning bedside manners, dealing with scared, hurt, difficult patients. But we both knew I was just wasting somebody’s time. The only problem was, I wasn’t exactly sure whose time was being wasted at the moment—mine, his, or somebody else’s.
It was clear I had no idea what I was doing in L.A., and I was beginning to think that no one else knew what I was doing there, either.
I missed New York. I missed my grandmother.
“Great,” I muttered as a cockroach scuttled across my path when I opened the door and turned the light on to my apartment. Maybe that’s what people meant when they said L.A. was no different. The bugs certainly seemed to be the same.
I set water to boil so I could make tea and looked at the time. It was late in New York, but not so late that I didn’t think Grandmother would be up. As the phone rang and I waited for her to pick up, I questioned whether it was too late to call.
“Emma,” she greeted me.
Relief washed over me in a flood. “Hi, Zumu,” I said.
“You sound so tired. Why haven’t you come to see me?”
“I moved to California, remember?”
“Oh, I thought you were just talking nonsense. You really did it?”
“I really did it.”
“Have you met any movie stars yet?”
I loved her enthusiasm. “No, not yet. Maybe next week,” I joked.
“Well, you need to tell me if you meet any,” she said.
“Of course, you’ll be the first person I tell.”
It was so soothing to hear her voice. “Would you be upset if I came back to New York before I meet any movie stars?” I asked.
“What? What do you mean?”
“I don’t think L.A. is right for me. I… I don’t know what I’m doing here.”
“Have you gone to the beach yet?”
“I haven’t even gone to the beach yet. All I do is work.”
“And you went all the way to L.A. to do that? You could have done that here in New York. You haven’t met any actors, you haven’t even gone to the beach, and you haven’t even gone surfing! What was the point of going to California?”
I laughed. As if I would know how to surf. But she was right. I hadn’t done anything different in California that I couldn’t have done in New York. And there were plenty of hospitals in New York I could have found a job at—only, the odds of my running into Kevin were much higher there than here.
“You still have your apartment, right?”
“I think so. I was going to lease it out, but…” It was something I was going to have to think about.
As I listened to Grandmother telling me about the crazy things her neighbors were up to—stories I didn’t think I would ever hear happening in L.A.—I realized I had a big decision to make.