19. Emma
19
EMMA
U s? Right, I didn’t think so. There was no us, and yet here I was constantly thinking about there being an “us”, me and Marcus. That was a very bad idea, and I needed to stop thinking like that immediately.
I didn’t know how to let Marcus know that while I did like him, there was nothing going to happen between us. It just wasn’t a good idea, at least not while we worked at the same hospital, in the same department.
But there had to be a professional “us”. We had to work together, maybe not every day, but close enough, in the department, in surgery. And we had to start working on that intake protocol if there were ever going to be one.
My thoughts drifted in and out of focus on my task at hand, checking my emails. Mostly, I received general announcements for the hospital—small retirement parties being held in different departments, updates and daily specials on the menu in the cafeteria, alerts to testing of critical safety systems—nothing that necessarily pertained directly to me or my patients.
Until I came across one requiring my presence, requesting a presentation.
I shook my head, wondering what it was about. I didn’t recognize the email sender it came from. I clicked to expand the preview, thinking it might be something like an invitation to a speaking engagement, an invitation to make a presentation at a school, or a speaking engagement for a graduation.
As my eyes flowed over the words, my blood turned cold.
The review board was politely demanding my presence in the form of a request.
What the hell?
I continued to read.
‘ We understand that you have developed an intake protocol that would involve third-party resources, and we have questions regarding …’
They had questions regarding how something like that would be implemented and the legality of making requests to the emergency services crews.
“I don’t know how it’s gonna work!” I yelled at my computer screen. I didn’t know how it was going to work either. Marcus and I hadn’t managed to coordinate even the briefest of meetings to discuss what aspects of an intake protocol we even wanted to address.
How the hell did the board find out about it?
I scrolled back up after reading the email again and looked at who sent it. It hadn’t come from the president of the board, and it hadn’t come from any of Manhattan Memorial’s representatives.
I returned to the body of the email and read over it again just to make sure I understood exactly what was being requested. They definitely wanted my presence by Thursday afternoon to lay out the details of the proposed protocol.
But we hadn’t proposed anything yet. I was confused. Had Marcus been talking to someone on the board about seeing a need for such a plan? And if he had, why were they requesting me to make a presentation? In all honesty, this was Marcus’s baby. He should be the one making the presentation.
I scrolled down to the bottom of the email to see if there was a signature, and I let out an irritated sigh. No signature. Just one initial—K—followed by a phone number.
Damn it. Kevin.
This was exactly his style. Somebody must have mentioned to him that we wanted to develop a protocol to streamline the intake of trauma patients. Instead of waiting to find out more information, he comes barreling in, demanding all the answers immediately.
He could have just sent me an email asking about it. Instead, he’s going to involve the entire board and make me look bad. Damn it. He was doing this on purpose. He had to be.
I took the email, hit Forward , and directed it to Marcus.
‘ I guess he is going to make some trouble for us professionally. I don’t think we have time for a meeting to hash this out. Can you send me any and all thoughts you may have had? I’ve got forty-eight hours to put together a presentation .’
I hit Send and then pulled up the department schedule.
I saw that my hours for the presentation were already blocked off, but in the moments immediately prior to that, I needed to be in the emergency room taking care of patients. That wasn’t going to work for me.
If I needed to do a presentation in forty-eight hours, I was going to need more time. I certainly couldn’t be on the floor for at least an hour beforehand. I would be too distracted and not properly prepared by the time I made it to the meeting.
Damn it, damn it, damn it.
This had Kevin’s manipulation all over it.
I continued to clear out my inbox, seething over Kevin’s audacity at putting me on the spot for a presentation on a protocol I was pretty certain he damn well knew had not been developed.
The next email came from Saint Cedars in L.A. I highlighted it before deleting it, expecting it to just be another one of their newsletter updates.
I had reached out to their trauma team years ago when Kevin and I had first broken up, and somehow, that brief email exchange had landed me on their mailing list, where I received updates once a week or so.
I briefly glanced at the subject line as my cursor hovered above the trash can icon, and just as I hit Delete , my brain registered what the subject line had been.
“What the hell? Wait, wait, no!” I yelled.
I quickly hit the Undo command to bring the email back to my inbox. Once it was safely returned, I immediately double-clicked and opened it.
“Took you long enough,” I muttered to my computer monitor.
It seemed that they had a potential opening. They wanted to talk to me about it.
“Your timing sucks.”
I flagged the email so that I would remember to come back to it and formulate a response. I didn’t have time for this. I had to pull together talking points, and I should probably put together a slide deck for the review board. The clock was ticking, and I didn’t have enough time to do everything that needed to be done.
I picked up the phone and dialed James Collins, the hospitalist in charge of our department.
“Hey, James,” I said as soon as he picked up.
Much to my relief, he was able to rearrange the schedule so that I could maximize work hours for the protocol proposal and presentation.
I had hoped to get a moment to have a conversation with Marcus to confirm he had seen my email and that he had ideas I could throw into a slide deck. But our schedules and patient loads kept us from being able to much more than nod in acknowledgement of each other’s existence. Fortunately, that evening, he had sent me a good, solid page of ideas that I could use.
I managed to get my schedule shifted so that I had office hours. I spent way too much time on this presentation as it was, and my office walls felt as if they were closing in on me. The morning of the presentation, my office was entirely too confining as I fleshed out my slide deck to accompany my talking points for the presentation. I packed up my laptop and notes and headed to the atrium. After a quick stop at the cafeteria for a large cup of caffeine, I set up and began working.
There was something about the open sky above me and all the plants that helped my brain function properly.
“What are you so keenly focused on?”
“Oh, hi,” I said as I looked up. Marcus had startled me. My heart pounded a little faster, and it took me a second to catch my breath.
“This stupid presentation.”
“Oh, right. That’s today.”
“I still don’t have any idea how they found out about it. You didn’t talk to anyone, did you?”
He shrugged. “Maybe, but nothing in an official capacity. More along the lines of sharing thoughts. And if I had, why would they have reached out to you?”
I smirked. “To make me scramble.”
At that moment, his smart watch buzzed, and he checked it.
“Yeah, that’s me. Looks like we have incoming. I think you’ll do just great. Come find me after you’re done. I’ll buy you a drink, or a coffee, and you can tell me how it went.”
I watched him saunter off. Now was not the time to admire his broad, square shoulders or speculate at what his backside looked like under that white doctor’s coat. I had a presentation to finish and hopefully practice at least once before I had to head up to the conference room.
When the alarm on my phone went off, I braced myself. It was time to face the board. To face Kevin. It was time to go talk about the need for intake protocols on trauma victims and how that would improve our ability to provide quality care.
I think I held my breath the entire walk from the atrium to the conference room because I didn’t let it out until I saw Kevin’s smirking face when I stepped inside.
One look at him, and I knew. This was going to be a farce at my expense. Maybe I did have time to follow up with that offer from LA.