Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
The click of the receiver settling in its cradle felt louder than it should have. Marie kept her hand on the phone a beat longer, her fingertips resting on the cool white plastic, as if the connection might hum back to life if she willed it.
As Teresa emerged from the bathroom with a bottle of pink nail polish, she asked, “So, was that him?”
Marie turned. Their apartment was older than her or her roommates—a narrow three-bedroom off East Boulevard, with hardwood floors that creaked in the right places, a radiator that hissed when it had opinions, and a couch salvaged from Teresa’s aunt.
The afternoon sunlight splayed across a worn thrift shop rug in the living room, illuminating the eclectic space.
“That was him,” she admitted, a little giddy that he hadn’t waited days to call. A hint of nerves had been in his voice, but also something genuine—an eagerness that matched her own.
Diane popped her head around the kitchen doorway, a wooden spoon covered with sticky but yummy cookie dough in her hand. “Him who? The hot guy from last night?”
“Yup.” The corner of her mouth twitched before she could stop it.
“What’s his name again?”
“Charles Sawyer, but he said everyone calls him Chuck.”
Teresa patted the cushion beside her on the couch, her bracelets clinking with the motion. “Sit. Status report.”
Marie crossed the room and sat, tucking one foot beneath her. “We’re having dinner on Wednesday. A new place on Hawthorne—The Laurel House.”
“Ooh,” Diane called from the kitchen, where she was obviously still following the conversation while she baked. “I heard about that place—it’s fancy. That’s not just dinner—that’s a date.”
Teresa leaned forward, eyes bright with mischief. “A real date, at a brand-new restaurant? Look at you, breaking out of the library and into the wild.” She tossed a pillow toward her. “Next thing we know, you’ll be wearing a full face of makeup on a Wednesday.”
Marie caught the pillow and set it in her lap, amusement tugging at her mouth. Eyeliner was the most she’d worn during the week in the past four years—anything more felt like a luxury she couldn’t afford between classes, studying, and clinical rotations. “Don’t get carried away.”
“Oh, I’m already there. You’ve been buried in textbooks for so long, I was starting to think you’d sworn off men entirely. It’s good to see you acting human again.”
Diane peeked around the corner to the kitchen with a smirk. “Says the woman who was wining, dining, and still acing every exam in med school like it was nothing.”
Grinning, Teresa rolled her eyes. “Balance, sweetheart. Some of us are good at multitasking.”
Marie arched a brow. “And here I thought we all took the same Hippocratic Oath, not a social one.”
Laughter filled the room—easy and familiar, born of four years spent studying side by side, surviving caffeine, cadavers, and clinicals together.
The three of them had met during the first brutal semester of medical school and clung to one another like lifelines ever since.
After graduation, they’d each taken a detour abroad for a final elective rotation—Diane in Mexico, Teresa in West Africa, and Marie in the Philippines.
The experience had been exhausting and unforgettable in equal measure.
Now, with their residencies at Queen City Medical Center only weeks away, they were together again, ready to face the next storm.
“You really like him,” Teresa said finally, her voice softening.
She stared at her reflection in the oval mirror above a sealed fireplace that hadn’t seen a flame in years. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright, and her hair looser than it had been when she’d twisted it into a bun that morning. For someone who’d barely slept, she looked... alive. “I do.”
The oven door slammed shut in the kitchen. “You sound surprised.”
“I am,” she admitted. “A little.”
Her roommates didn’t press. They’d all brushed off their share of med school flirtations, though Marie had always been the most guarded about it. She’d worked too hard to risk distractions—at least that’s what she’d told herself. But something about Chuck felt different.
“It’s been a long time since... anything felt easy,” she said finally. “He’s easy to talk to. Not in that smooth, practiced way most men use—he listens. Really listens. For once, I felt like someone was interested in who I am, not just how I look.”
Teresa made a soft approving sound. “And he called when he said he would. Men who keep their word are an endangered species.”
“He called the next day,” Diane said as she perched on the old upholstered chair that clashed with everything else in the room.
She was there for only a second when the teakettle whistled, summoning her back to the kitchen.
“That alone puts him ahead of ninety percent of the male population these days.”
Marie’s hand found the knit throw draped over the couch and picked gently at a loose thread.
Wednesday glowed in her mind like a small neon sign.
Dinner, then what? She could see two paths stretching ahead.
One was brutal and clearly marked—three years of general surgery, three more of plastics.
Being on-call during overnights once or twice a week.
Seventy- to eighty-hour weeks, maybe more.
The other path wasn’t marked at all. It was just Chuck’s voice in that diner at one in the morning, low and sure, and the way time had folded in on itself.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” she murmured, not meaning to say it aloud.
Teresa turned. “Ahead of yourself, how?”
“Residency starts in a month,” Marie said, then sighed heavily. “Six years if I get what I want. General first, plastics after. It’s going to take everything I have.”
“And you think there’s no room in that for a man?”
“Historically speaking?” She shook her head. “Women in surgery aren’t exactly encouraged to have lives. And you know we have to work twice as hard as men to get noticed and respected.”
“Historically speaking,” Diane parroted, reappearing with two mismatched mugs, “history can mind its own business.” She handed Marie a mug that said World’s Best Grandma in faded script—another thrift item in their mostly secondhand apartment.
“Ease up, Teresa. She’s already nervous enough without you analyzing her like a case study. ”
Teresa made a face at her before reaching out and squeezing Marie’s forearm. “Does he know what you’re walking into? What the next six years of your life are going to look like?”
“I told him the basics last night.” Marie took a sip of the tea, flavored with a good dose of honey—just how she liked it. In a way, it was odd—she didn’t like her coffee sweet, but her tea needed that extra touch to take the edge off. “He didn’t flinch.”
“Well, that’s good,” Diane said. “What does he do again?”
“Real estate. His mom’s an agent—he grew up with it. He’s saving to start his own firm someday.”
Teresa’s eyebrows rose. “Ambitious. I like him already.”
“He was in the military after high school,” Marie said. “Got his degree while he served.” The facts had stuck with her. “He reads people well, but he doesn’t use it like a trick. He pays attention because he’s curious.”
Diane set her tea down on a side table. “Curious is good. Curious listens.”
Marie thought of the way she’d paused before answering some of Chuck’s questions, and somehow he seemed to understand it meant she was thinking, not stalling.
And how he’d matched her drink at the bar without turning it into a performance.
The taxi and the way he’d paid without making a point of it.
Don’t argue—you’ll ruin my reputation as a gentleman.
It’d been playful and sincere all at once.
Teresa nudged her. “So are you going to let yourself like him, or are you going to build a fortress out of rotations and surgical schedules and hide behind it?”
“That fortress is real,” Marie said softly.
“Sign-outs, pre-rounds, rounds, noon conferences, admissions, discharges, labs, and endless paperwork. Somewhere between all that, we’re expected to eat, maybe sleep.
I didn’t fight this hard to end up average.
I’ll be the only female first-year resident aiming for plastic surgery.
” She hesitated. “I can’t afford to burn out. ”
“And where does Chuck fit in that math?” Diane asked, not unkindly.
She set the mug down on the stack of Reader’s Digest back issues they used as a makeshift coaster. “That’s the problem. I don’t know. I only met him last night, and part of me already wants... more. That’s not smart—it’s a distraction.”
“Since when are you only allowed to be smart?” Teresa said. “You’ve been smart for four straight years.”
“Try twenty-six,” Diane added.
The radiator clicked. Outside, a car rumbled past, its sound fading into the hush that came with Sundays in their section of the city. The quiet left too much room for thinking.
Marie let her head fall against the couch cushion, her eyes closed.
She tried to imagine herself six months down the road—scrub cap on, notes crammed into her pocket, making decisions in a voice that didn’t shake.
She could see it clearly. Another image came to mind—coming home to a light on, a male voice asking, How was your day?
and really being interested in the answer.
That picture flickered like a TV with bad reception.
Teresa tapped her sock-covered foot on Marie’s thigh. “He asked for Wednesday. You said yes. That’s all you owe the future today.”
Diane brought her mug to her lips, the steam fogging her glasses. “Amen.”
Marie sighed. “What if the timing’s wrong?”
“What if, for once, it isn’t?” Teresa countered.
Hard to protest when someone says the thing you were already thinking.
Marie stood, carried her mug to the kitchen sink, and set it down.
The scent of fresh chocolate chip cookies was more potent in there.
The window above the basin framed a strip of winter sky and the top of a bare maple.
A sparrow bounced along the sill, gave a quick shake of its feathers as if waking itself up, and flew off without hesitation.
“Okay,” she said to the glass pane.
Diane bumped her hip, then grabbed a mitt and opened the oven door. “Okay, what?”
“I’ll go to dinner with Chuck and give whatever it is between us a chance.
” She turned on the hot water and grabbed a sponge to clean out her mug as a tight knot under her sternum eased a fraction.
“And I’ll be honest about the long hours and how little free time I’ll have and let his reaction tell me what I need to know. ”
Teresa wrapped her arms around her from behind in a quick squeeze.
“You’re allowed to have something good.” She let go and grabbed a cookie off the plate Diane was filling.
“Ow—too hot!” She dropped it back, earning a mock glare from the baker that clearly said she should’ve known better.
Marie shifted to the side, turning the faucet to cold so Teresa could stick her hand under the stream.
“One day I’ll learn,” Teresa muttered, wincing. “But I love them when they’re still gooey. Anyway, if you ever bring Chuck here, warn him the radiator sounds possessed and the walls are thin.”
She huffed out a breath—not quite a laugh, but close. “I will definitely warn him.”
“My father will want to meet him,” she said after a brief pause, the weight of that truth landing like it always did. Protective, principled, and family-oriented. He would measure Chuck in handshakes, eye contact, and respect.
“Bring him here first,” Teresa said. “Ease him in before Sergeant O’Toole runs him through the gauntlet.”
Marie didn’t answer right away. Her mind drifted to how good it felt that he’d called that morning and wanted to see her again soon.
Diane spooned more cookie dough on the baking sheet. “What are you wearing?”
“I haven’t thought about it.” She had. “Maybe the navy dress.”
“Perfect. And wear your hair down,” Teresa decreed.
“For The Laurel House, she should wear it up,” Diane responded. “And I think she should wear the green dress. It’s sexier.”
“The navy one is sexy and classy. Best of both worlds.”
Marie leaned her hip against the counter and let their bickering fade into background noise. Beneath it, something steady and bright threaded through the days between now and Wednesday.
She crossed to the wall beside the fridge, where a thirteen-month calendar hung from a small nail.
With a pen, she wrote Dinner with Chuck—7:00 in the square for the fifth of December.
Flipping to the last page that introduced the new year, she stared at January second.
“Residency starts!!!” was underlined three times.
Her residency was a guarantee. What was happening with Chuck wasn’t—but it was a possibility.