3. Collision #2
The words are out before I can stop them.
Her face hardens.
Right. Excellent. We’re doing great.
I head for the restroom before I make it worse. Behind me, I feel her watching every step, probably counting the number of ways a man my size can break a clinic before eight in the morning.
The restroom is small, spotless, and blessedly private.
I set my bag on the closed toilet lid and for one second, I let myself grin. This is completely juvenile.
It is also the first genuinely funny thing to happen to me since I left Boston, so I’m running with it. She hates me already.
Why not?
I pull out my white coat folded across the top of my bag. The embroidery sits over the left side of my chest, crisp navy thread against white cotton.
William “Doc” Bie, MD.
I put it on, tug the sleeves into place, and drape the stethoscope around my neck. I check my look in the mirror and see exactly what she is about to see.
A doctor.
Her doctor.
Her new boss, technically, though I have no intention of opening with that unless I want to spend my first day bleeding into a mop bucket.
I pick up my bag, open the door, and step out.
She is waiting in the hall with her back to me. Arms crossed. Feet planted. Files tucked under one arm. Guarding the clinical hallway from the dangerous oaf who might make a break for Exam Room Two.
“I thought I showed you where the waiting area is,” she says without turning around.
“You did.”
“Then why do I hear you standing there?”
“Probably the shoes.”
She turns. Her eyes land on the coat. Then the stethoscope. Then the name.
Everything about her face changes in an instant. Recognition. Horror. Denial. Fury. A flash of something that might be embarrassment if she were the kind of woman inclined to admit she has ever been embarrassed in her life
“No fucking way.” It comes out of her mouth, raw and immediate.
I extend a hand. “Dr. Bie, actually.”
Her gaze snaps to mine.
“You’re Dr. Bie.”
“Yes.”
“The new doctor.”
“That’s the rumor.”
“The doctor who bought Art’s clinic?”
The name lands between us with force.
Art.
Not Dr. Painter. Not the prior owner. Art.
Now I know where the live wire runs.
“I bought Dr. Painter’s practice,” I say carefully. “Yes.”
Her mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. For the first time since I met her, Annie Lockhart appears to be speechless.
It’s deeply satisfying.
Unfortunately, it lasts less than three seconds.
“Why didn’t you say who you were at the farmers market?”
“Because I’m not arrogant. What’s your excuse?”
“You’re not funny.”
“I have been told otherwise.”
Her eyes narrow again. Here we go. Round three.
I extend my hand. “William Bie. Most people call me Doc.”
She looks at my hand like I have offered her a dead fish.
“Annie Lockhart, and I’m not most people, Dr. Bie.”
“I know who you are.”
That does not improve her mood.
“Of course you do,” she says, then catches herself with a tiny flicker of irritation, probably with herself this time. “You read the employee paperwork.”
“I did.”
“And you didn’t think to introduce yourself before wandering through the clinic?”
“I thought the clinic was empty and came to get oriented before anyone arrived.”
“It was not.”
“Well obviously, I understand that now.”
She looks past me toward the restroom, then back at the coat.
“You went in there and dressed on purpose.”
“I did.”
She gives me a side-eye and I give her nothing else.
A sound leaves her, like a huff. “Fine. You’re early then.”
“So are you.”
“I work here.”
“So do I.”
Her expression could sterilize instruments.
“Come on.” She turns and walks toward the reception desk. “We might as well start before patients arrive.”
I follow her, wisely silent.
She sets the files behind the counter, powers on the computer, then reaches under the desk and pulls out a thick binder with a cracked black cover.
“This is the phone log. Art liked having calls written down here even when they were also entered into the computer. Patients know to leave specific kinds messages.”
“Why?”
“Because that is the way Art wanted it,” she says, then sighs.
“Mrs. Addison will say it is not urgent even when it is. Mr. Dickens will say it is urgent when he wants an excuse not to talk to his daughter. If Mara Tremblay calls and says one of the kids is warm, ask which kid before you tell her to bring them in. She has six, and warm can mean anything from a fever to they wore a sweatshirt in July.”
I absorb that.
Not a system, a language.
Annie keeps going, moving quickly from reception to the first exam room. “Room one is general. Room two has the better pediatric setup. Room three has the older table, but it is lower, so we use it for patients who have trouble getting up.”
She flips on lights as we go. I take in each room, but I watch her more than the walls.
This is not a tour. This is triage. She is telling me what keeps patients happy and safe, what keeps the day from collapsing, what Dr. Painter knew without needing a list.
She is also daring me to forget any of it.
“Do you have a current high-risk list?” I ask.
That stops her.
She looks over her shoulder. “For what?”
“Patients who need follow-up sooner than the schedule suggests. Unstable blood pressure. Wound care. Medication adherence issues. Uncontrolled diabetes. Anyone Dr. Painter was watching closely before he died.”