Chapter 17 #2
I craned my neck. Had I seen her before? Was she another resident?
“Don’t mind Bill. He’s still bitter he didn’t get accepted to med school,” the aunt confided. She raised her voice. “We’ll have another drink here!”
The physician snorted. “They’ll take anyone now. Not like in my day.”
The residents exchanged looks over their steaks.
“I’m not a doctor,” I said. “I’m an English teacher.”
“Too bad. Cause I’d love to play doctor with you.” Bill smirked. “But you can give me detention anytime.”
His fleshy thigh pressed mine under the table.
“Do that again and I’ll stab you with my fork.” Oops. Maybe it was time to lay off the cosmos. Although they were delicious. I took another sip. “Actually, I met Chris at a bar. I took one look at him and thought…and thought…”
“You found your meal ticket for life,” Cousin Bill said.
I glared. But I was an adult woman in a grown-up setting. I could not, after all, stab him with my fork.
My gaze strayed to the head table. Chris looked so at home, surrounded by love and ranks of silver forks, in his starched white shirt with his starched white parents. Another Dr. Harris. The chandelier gleamed on his new haircut, his perfect profile.
When I met him, I’d thought I’d found my One True Love. My Gilbert Blythe.
He leaned over to say something to the pretty girl, and the sight of the two golden heads so close, so alike, made my beef filet stick in my throat.
I took a boozy gulp. “I thought I’d like to get to know him.”
His aunt looked at me with pity in her eyes. My soul shriveled. “Server!” She thrust a diamond-ringed hand in the air. “Two more cosmos.”
—
I spooned up the last of my champagne sorbet.
The piano man was playing something soft and jazzy, like you’d hear in a doctor’s waiting room. Across the table, the residents were eating their way through the yuzu meringue pie (deconstructed, of course). People were beginning to push back and get up from their seats.
“Almost time for the father-daughter dance,” I said gaily.
Which I would never have. My eyes swam with easy tears. No crying. This was a party. I reached for my cosmo.
The elderly physician frowned in my direction. “Doing rounds, Dr. Harris?” he asked.
I swallowed hastily.
“Something like that,” Chris said smoothly, coming to stand beside my chair. He smiled around the table. “Will you excuse us a moment?” He put his hand under my elbow, helping me up like a lover or an aide in an assisted living home.
“Sorry you were stuck back here on your own,” he said when he had me in a corner. I swayed toward him. His hair was so short. The side of his neck, which I’d kissed a thousand times, looked bristly.
“It was fine. It was fun. Your aunt is a hoot.” With very good taste in cocktails.
“Still, you didn’t come all this way to spend time with Bill and Aunt Judith.”
I stared into his beautiful hazel eyes. Why had I come? Right. He was graduating. Finishing his residency. Moving to Atlanta.
I waved away his apology. “We have all weekend.” Not about me. “Tomorrow’s the big day, anyway.”
“Ah. Yes. Tomorrow.”
“The graduation ceremony.”
“Anne.” He hesitated. “Graduation…It’s not like undergrad.”
“I wouldn’t know,” I reminded him. My ceremony had been live streamed.
“It’s basically a bunch of boring speeches over lunch. Just for the residents.”
“And their guests.”
“Immediate family only.” He gave me a wry, intimate smile. “You know how hospitals are. They don’t want to foot the bill for any more people than they have to.”
I did not, in fact, know how hospitals were. But I knew Chris. “You don’t want me there.”
“Anne.” He sighed. “I didn’t know you were coming.”
“Do you want me there?”
The tiniest of hesitations. “Let me talk to the department assistant.”
“Sure.” I waited.
“I’ll be right back.”
I nodded, not trusting my voice to speak. I stood alone, the alcohol buzz fading, as he threaded his way through the crowd. I shouldn’t have come.
“Anne, isn’t it? Hi.”
It was the girl from the center table, Chris’s dinner companion, dressed in white lace like a bride, her blond hair in perfect waves.
“Hi…”
“Lauren,” she supplied with a bright smile. Taking pity on me. “We met before the pandemic. I’m at the hospital with Chris.”
“Right.” I pulled myself together. “Nice to see you again.”
“Isn’t tonight lovely? Pam and Bradley really pulled out all the stops.”
Dr. and Dr. Harris. She called them by their first names. “Lovely,” I echoed.
“Of course, they’re so proud of him. You must be, too.”
I was still holding my drink. I took another sip. “So proud.” Honesty made me add, “Not that I had anything to do with it.”
She twinkled at me like an angel on top of a Christmas tree. “Chris told me how supportive you were. I mean, as much as you could be. Because of Covid. That was such a hard time.”
“Hard,” I repeated.
“Chris was amazing. We were thrown into the trenches together totally unprepared. Well, who could have expected a worldwide pandemic our first year out of med school? I guess you could say I was his work wife. Extreme circumstances bring people together.” Another twinkle.
“Totally professionally. Not that I don’t sometimes wish…
But we are both totally focused on our careers. In case you were worried.”
Three totallys, counted the part of my brain that was working. Did that make it more or less true?
“Why would I be worried?”
“You’re so confident.” She patted my arm. “I must say, I admire you sending him off to start his fellowship without you. I could never do a long-distance relationship.”
“No, really. Why should I be worried?”
She gave a tinkling laugh. “You’re so funny. I guess Chris told you I’m going to Boston Children’s.”
“He didn’t mention it, no.”
“That’s why tonight is so special. All of us together one last time…Of course, we’ll see each other at work for the next two weeks. But this is our chance to celebrate. It was so generous of Pam and Bradley to include everyone. Tomorrow will be special, too, of course. Very personal. Intimate.”
I nodded. “Family only.”
“And significant others,” she said with a sparkling look. “You must be looking forward to seeing Chris get his award. This kind of event gives you a whole new perspective and appreciation for your loved one, doesn’t it?”
A new perspective. “Totally.”
“And here he is! Are you ready?” she asked Chris. She turned back to me. “A bunch of us are going to Streeter’s. You’re welcome to join us.”
I swallowed. “I can’t.”
“It’s been a long day,” Chris said apologetically.
My brain buzzed. He was going to tell her he couldn’t go out with the others tonight. Which kind of sucked for him. For them. On the other hand, we hadn’t been alone in forever. We needed to talk. “I don’t want to ruin your evening.”
“So, I’ll see you later,” he said at the same time.
I blinked at him through a cosmo haze. “You want me to…wait for you at the apartment?”
Lauren glanced from me to Chris. “I’ll just be over there.” Very tactful. Classy.
My stomach lurched.
He watched her go, shining and elegant, before turning back to me. His shoulders were stiff in his crisp white shirt. “I’m staying here tonight.”
My thoughts swam. “At the hotel.”
He nodded without meeting my eyes. “But if you need a place to stay…I mean, it’s kind of last-minute. Everything’s probably booked. But you can use my place. You know the code.”
Sudden clarity pierced the sober part of my brain. He was not choosing me. This Chris—evasive, dismissive, uninvested—was not the boy I knew, not the man I loved. But this was who he was. Or who he was becoming. Or…was this who he had always been, and I’d simply refused to see?
Maybe I was the one who had changed.
He smiled at me, his old, familiar Chris smile, and my breath stopped. “It’s the least I can do, after you came all this way.”
I opened my mouth. In my mind, I could hear Joe’s voice. “I never have to wonder where I am with you. How you feel. What I did wrong.” His smile warmed my memory. “Saves guesswork.”
I looked at Chris. “You asshole.”
His smile vanished. “If this is about lunch tomorrow—”
“Not that. Not only that. There’s no room for me.”
“I understand your feelings are hurt.” His voice was cool and formal. “But the department needed a head count a week ago.”
“I’m not talking about seating arrangements.” Crap. I seemed to be crying. “There’s no room for me in your life.”
He took a step closer. “Don’t make this my fault. You’re the one who broke up with me. I thought you wanted what I wanted. I thought you’d be happy for me.”
“You asked me—you told me—you were moving to Atlanta. I needed some time to think.”
“Can you lower your voice, please?” His glance went beyond me. He shook his head, very slightly, at someone over my shoulder.
Story of our relationship, right there. The whole time I was picturing our future, he was always looking past me at something I couldn’t see.
“Right.” I took another fortifying gulp of my drink. “Not about me.”
“What did you expect?” He ran a hand through his hair, and something unguarded in the gesture raked my heart. “Why did you even come?”
“To wish you luck, I guess. And…” I hiccupped. “To say goodbye.”