Costars (New York City Bad Boy Romance) (46 page)

“Call it an early birthday present,” Yuri
says.

“Seriously, I can’t have you working when
you’re not on the clock. Hospital policy is very clear on that,” I tell her,
and I hear her response before she even says it.

“Hospital policy is pretty clear on a lot
of things,” she says.

“Go home, Yuri,” I tell her. “I’ll see you
on Monday.”

“I don’t want to go home.”

“It doesn’t really matter where you go,” I
tell her. “You’re not on the clock. Go wherever.”

“What happened to you?” she asks.

“What are you talking about?”

“You used to be so caring, so on top of
everything. I never thought I would say this, but I think I liked you better
when you were with Little Miss Fake Tits,” Yuri says.

I’m really starting to lose my patience,
but it does occur to me that Yuri might simply be having a bad day.

“Have you been exercising?” I ask her.

“Sometimes,” she says. “When I feel like
doing it and I’m not busy with something else. What does that have to do with
anything?”

“Nothing,” I tell her. “You know, it’s
best to be consistent, especially with your core exercises.”

“You’re not my doctor.”

“No, but I am your boss and your friend.”

“Isn’t that just the thing to melt your
heart into a little puddle at your feet,” she mocks. “Oh,
I
get it. You think I’m being irrational and, if I’m being
irrational, it’s probably something to do with my Huntington’s. Am I in the
ballpark?”

I open my mouth, but don’t get a chance to
answer her.

“You know, that’s right up there with
asking a woman if she’s on her period. It’s just plain rude and it makes you
look like a total fucking idiot,” she says.

“If that’s not going on,” I start, “then
what the hell is your problem today?”

“I’m on my period,” she says. “Okay,
really, I’m not, but you were nice and ready to believe that, weren’t you?”

“Yuri, I’m getting a little sick of-”

“I’m getting a little sick of the way you
think you can just do whatever the hell you want and it’s never going to affect
anybody,” she says. “It’s not just your career you’re putting at risk with
everything you’re doing with Grace.”

“Yuri, I’ve told you that if anything
happens and I lose my job, I’ll keep you on payroll until you’re able to find
something else,” I say.

“Yeah, but have you considered that maybe
I
like
my job and I don’t want to
have to look for something else?”

“I get where you’re coming from, but what
exactly do you want me to do about it?”

“Break up with her. That pretty much
solves all your problems right there.”

“I thought you liked Grace,” I say,
feeling a tinge of déjà vu.

“That couldn’t possibly be less relevant,”
she says. “What
is
relevant is that
you know I’m right. You know that you should break up with Grace before
something really stupid happens because you couldn’t keep your dick out of your
patients for-”

“You are
way
out of line,” I interrupt. “I don’t know what’s going on with
you today, but I’m sick of hearing it. Go home, Yuri.”

“I told you,” she says. “If you’re here,
I’m here.”

“That’s not the way it works. I’m your
boss. If I tell you to go home, you go home.”

“I’ve always been here,” she says. “I get
that you and Melissa knew each other from way back whenever, but Grace?
Seriously, what the hell were you thinking?”

“Yuri, go home,” I repeat.

“Don’t you fucking get it?”

“No, I don’t ‘get’ why you’re acting this
way,” I tell her. “What I’m sure of is that I’ve reached the end of my patience
for it, though.”

“Fine,” she says, bending down behind her
desk and lifting her purse. “Go ahead and do what you want, but I hope you know
this shit is going to backfire on you so hard-”

“Just go,” I interrupt. “I really don’t
need an editorial.”

“When did you get to be such a dick?” she
asks as she turns and walks out the door, slamming it on her way out.

What the hell was that all about?

I make sure the door to the waiting room
is locked before I head into my office. Yuri still has her key, but if she
keeps acting this way, I don’t think there’s much of a chance that she’s going
to be hanging onto it that much longer.

Maybe it is the Huntington’s. I’ve noticed
a certain vitriol slowly creeping into her over the last couple of months, and
as far as I can tell, it came out of nowhere. I know enough about the disease
to know its general progression, but I’m hardly an expert on it.

Regardless, I’m here now and I’ve got the
office to myself, so I sit down at my desk and get to work.

After a while, I stop glancing up at the
clock. They told Grace that her appointment shouldn’t take any more than half
an hour, but they almost always misjudge that sort of thing.

The biggest part of being a doctor
nowadays is all the paperwork. There’s paperwork for pretty much everything.

Office supply ordering forms, medical
supply ordering forms, patient’s files, dictations, notes, insurance forms,
more insurance forms, no-insurance forms, partially-insured insurance forms,
insured-through-multiple-carriers insurance forms…it goes on and on.

By the time I get caught up, my mind is
sufficiently numb that I’m looking at the clock for a solid minute before it
registers what time it says.

3:23 P.M.

Grace has been in with the trial doctors
for nearly four hours.

Time got right the hell away from me, but
I would have expected a call or a knock on the outer office/waiting room door
long before now.

I pull out my phone and dial her number,
but it just goes to voicemail.

Something’s wrong.

There’s no reason she should be this far
over her time unless something’s wrong. Even if her appointment went late and
she didn’t want to stop by the office because she didn’t want to risk anyone
catching onto what’s going on between us, she could have stepped outside the
hospital for a minute and given me a call or sent me a text.

Now, her phone is off. Sure, it’s possible
that her battery is dead, but — I’ve just got to get out of here.

I leave the papers where they are on my
desk and it’s all I can do to remember to turn the lights off on my way out.

My keys are in my hand and I open the door
to the outer office just in time to see Dr. Preston, Dean of Medicine, coming
down the hall toward my office.

“How are you today Dr. Preston?” I ask,
locking my door.

“Would you mind if we talk for a minute?”
he asks.

“You know,” I tell him, “I was just
heading out-”

“Let’s talk in your office,” he
interrupts. “It’ll only take a minute.”

I quickly unlock my office door again and
flip the lights back on.

“Does it matter which room we’re in?” I
ask.

“Not particularly,” he says, closing the
door behind him and locking it. “Do you have a patient named Grace Miller?”

“Yeah,” I answer. “Why? What happened?”

“I was hoping you could tell me,” he says.
“I’ve been hearing all sorts of stories about what’s been going on in your
office over the last little while, and I wanted to give you a chance to explain
yourself.”

“What do you mean?”

“Jace,” he says, “now’s not the time to
cover your tracks. Now is the time to be perfectly honest with me. Right now,
I’m thinking that’s your best shot at saving your job.”

I sit down.

“What have you heard?” I ask.

“Why?” he rejoins. “So you can confirm
everything I tell you and deny anything else?”

“I’m asking because I don’t know exactly
what you’re talking about and I’d rather not go off on a tangent unless there’s
some reason for doing it.”

“You’re sleeping with a patient,” he says.
“Is that a fair statement?”

“She’s not a patient,” I tell him.

“Oh, I know she’s in our clinical trial on
JH813,” Dr. Preston says. “From what I hear, though, the two of you had an
inappropriate relationship before she was in the trial. Speaking of which,
weren’t you her diagnosing physician?”

My blood runs cold in my veins.

I never thought I would actually get the
question, but there it is and I have to make a choice. Either I lie and put
myself in even more jeopardy, not to mention throwing Dr. Marcum under the bus
for doing me a favor, or I tell the truth, spare Dr. Marcum, and possibly lose
everything I went to med school to accomplish.

“Yes,” I tell him.

“I see,” Dr. Preston says. “And how long
have you been a doctor?” he asks.

“I got my license about two years ago,” I
tell him.

“Are you aware that one of the
stipulations for patients to be in that trial is that they must have had the
disease for five years or more?”

“How do you know that Grace hasn’t had her
oligodendroglioma
for five years or more?” I ask.

“I know that she wasn’t diagnosed until
just a few months ago,” he says. “Do you have any compelling reason to believe
that she has, in fact, had her condition for significantly longer than she’s
been exhibiting symptoms?”

“It’s hard to say,” I tell him. “
Oligodendrogliomas
are notoriously slow-growing, especially
in phase two where Grace is.”

“So your position is speculative. Did you
know that one of the other conditions for entry into the trial is that the
patient must have been on chemo and/or radiation for a significant portion of
their five or more years with the condition?”

“Define significant,” I answer.

“Dr. Churchill,” Dr. Preston says, “I hope
you know that I’ve always liked you and respected you as a doctor. You
graduated top of your class and your connections, specifically through your
former professor Dr. Marcum, have provided you with the opportunity to have
your own office in this hospital at a very young age and without the seniority
that many of the other doctors in this hospital have. You do know, however,
that having your own office does not exempt you from disciplinary action from
this hospital at large or by me directly, do you not?”

“I’m aware,” I tell him.

“In fact,” Dr. Preston continues, “you
must be aware that any breach of hospital policy, ethical codes of conduct, or
the law is grounds for disciplinary action, up to and including my
recommendation that your license be revoked either temporarily or permanently,
I assume.”

“Yes,” I tell him.

“That being the case, let me ask you
again: Did you knowingly involve your patient, Grace Miller, in a trial for
which she didn’t qualify because you have a sexual relationship with her?”

“She’s doing really well in the trial,” I
tell Dr. Preston, as if that’s going to make any difference.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
he asks. “Not only have you put your career at risk, you’ve put this hospital,
not to mention the clinical trial for JH813, at risk.”

“It was the right thing to do.” I’m
already fucked. I may as well say what I think.

“In no way is that statement true,” Dr.
Preston says. “You leave me no choice but to suspend you pending a hearing
regarding your disturbing conduct, Dr. Churchill, effective immediately. Also,
I should inform you that your patient has been removed from the clinical trial
of JH813 and her results have been discarded due to the manner in which she was
included in the trial.”

“You can’t kick her out of the trial!” I
shout. I’m not even trying to save myself anymore.

“I don’t know what you and she have
discussed, but it must have occurred to you that this would happen if you went
down this path,” Dr. Preston says, scratching his recently shaved face. “We
have rules for a reason, Dr. Churchill. They’re not only for the protection of
the hospital or for companies that may be doing drug trials, they’re also there
to protect patients, and even you as a doctor. What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that I had a chance to
help someone that needed help,” I tell him.

“Would she have died had you not put her
into the trial?”

“Maybe not immediately,” I tell him, “but
no matter how slow
oligodendrogliomas
in this phase
may grow, there’s always the chance that they’ll progress to anaplastic
oligodendroglioma
or that, given enough time, it could
cause an event that would prove fatal, so yes, I do believe I was doing the
best thing for my patient in these circumstances.”

“You seem to have a rather high opinion of
what you’ve done. In what way did your sexual relationship treat her
oligodendroglioma
?”

Yeah, he’s got me on that one.