Could I Have This Dance? (7 page)

Claire ran her fingers through her newly cut hair. Even though it had been a week, the absence of her long blond hair still surprised her. She had traded her flowing locks for a more efficient style, just off the collar. Feminine, for sure, but without the time hassle that long hair required. She looked at her fingers, long and spindly, adept at the craft she pursued. Her styled nails were the last thing she’d given up. She’d cut them last night and removed the last traces of the chartreuse polish she loved so much. She clicked her fingernails on the resident handbook in her lap and winced at their appearance.
Oh well,
she thought,
surgery isn’t the place for attractive nails. And internship isn’t about fashion; it’s about survival.

Claire quietly studied the faces of her fellow interns, vaguely aware of Dan’s voice saying something about “chain of command.” The other terns seemed relaxed, laughing at the O-man’s expressions. She forced herself to smile, belying her anxieties.
There are twelve of us. Only eight next year. A third of us will be cut! And there are only two women here … Beatrice Hayes and me! Have they ever had two female chief residents in one year before?

Beatrice was well-moneyed. Her father was an academic dermatologist across town, a fact Claire learned in the first two-minute conversation with “Bea.”
“And what does your father do?”
Beatrice’s eyes had seemed to focus on a spot two inches above Claire’s forehead.

“He’s retired Navy.”

Claire’s gut churned with the memory.
Why did I say that? It’s technically the truth, I suppose. My father was in the Navy once.

Bea was composed, reeking of self-confidence. Here, at an informal gathering of the new house staff, she was dressed in a sharp gray business suit.
We’re in the minority here, Bea. And they won’t likely finish us both. So it’s you or me. One of us is going to get the axe … and it’s not going to be me!
Claire pulled her eyes from her competition, abruptly aware that she had been clenching her jaw.

Dan’s wild gesticulations prompted her to refocus. “There are no guarantees that you will make it. But you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t the best. All of you represent the cream of your medical schools, the pride of your hometowns.”

He obviously hasn’t visited Stoney Creek.
Claire looked at the interns again.
We’re the cream?

Dan seemed to be wrapping things up. “Let me conclude with a quote from Dr. Jonas Salk, the man responsible for the polio vaccine. ‘The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more.’” He pounded the podium with a meaty fist, jerking his small audience to attention. “And remember what Arthur Rubinstein replied when questioned by a passerby, ‘How do you get to Carnegie Hall?’ ‘PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!’” Dan’s voice was near stadium volume. “And so it is here,” he preached, towering forward over his underlings. Then, abruptly, he lowered his voice and glared at the terns, who were all pressed back into their seats. “Practice,” he whispered. “Practice.”

The chief resident paused for a moment, as if waiting for applause.

There was none. In fact, the terns were so silent, apparently shocked by Dan-the-man’s theatrical conclusion, that they just sat, unsure of their next move.

After the awkward pause, Dan cleared his throat and pointed to a side table, where a dark-haired man in a three-piece suit offered a nod. “Bill Joiner, our Ethicon suture rep, has brought each of you a knot-tying board. I would strongly suggest that you take one home and don’t waste any time before you become proficient at one-and two-handed ties. The surest way to be tossed from a case is to show a deficiency at the basics.” He held up his hands. “That’s it. Make sure you know where you are supposed to report in the morning. And the tern reception tonight at the Bay Club is
not optional.” He paused for a moment, as if caught in a memory of his own. “Take it from me. Stay away from the punch. Getting drunk is no way to make a first impression on Dr. Rogers.”

The crowd started dispersing as Dan added, “Let me see Doctors McCall, Hayes, Button, and Neal.”

Claire gathered her things and joined the other named physicians in front of the small podium. She held her hand up to Dan. “I’m Claire McCall.”

“I’m Dr. Hayes,” Bea responded, following Claire’s lead.

The two other interns nodded. “Wayne Neal.”

“I’m Howard Button.”

The large resident beamed. “My new terns. You four have been assigned to the trauma team. And for the next three months, it’s
my
trauma team, and you’re
my
terns. We’ll rotate every other night with two terns on each night. We only have one call room for the terns on this team, so I’d suggest keeping McCall and Hayes on the same night. Not that you’ll ever see the inside of a call room,” he added with a tense smile.

“I don’t mind sharing call quarters with a guy,” Bea interjected quickly. “I don’t want any special treatment.”

Claire stayed quiet.
I’m not sharing my call room with a man.

Dan raised his eyebrows. “Uh. Okay. I’ll decide how to divide the duties in the morning. We need to meet by six A.M. in the SICU.”

“The SICU?” Howard scratched his forehead.

“As in Surgical Intensive Care Unit. Second floor, directly across from the MICU, the Medical Intensive Care Unit. Come early and wear scrubs. This isn’t a street clothes type of rotation.”

The four nodded. Bea leaned toward Dan. “See you tonight?”

“Wouldn’t miss it. The Bay Club has great food. And this reception is your first chance to meet the house staff outside the confines of this place.”

Claire made her way to the Ethicon display to receive a knot-tying board. She already had one, but another would be nice. Besides, maybe she’d send it back home to her cousin who was showing an interest in medicine. The board had several tall thin cylinders mounted on a plastic base. At the bottom of the transparent cylinders, a small hook had been mounted. The object was to tie a knot around the small hook, simulating the placement of a knot within a small body cavity or through a small incision. Claire had been tying practice knots since the first week of medical school. Surgery was the whole reason for her medical training. She’d never considered anything else.

She greeted Bill, the sales rep, who immediately turned his attention away from the other interns to the only women in the group.

“I’m glad to see a few women in the ranks this year,” Bill began. “I was beginning to think I’d never see another in this program. The one they matched last year didn’t last six months.”

“They only take the best,” Bea snipped. “And not many females are cut out for this.”

Claire eyed her pensively.
I’m surprised to hear that chauvinistic junk from you.
She changed the subject. “Thanks for the knot board.”

“Where’d you go to med school?”

He was clearly focused on Claire, but Bea interjected. “Yale.”

Bill seemed to be appreciating Claire’s blouse. She cleared her throat, hoping to lift his eyes to her face. “I attended Brighton University.” Then she backed away and turned for the door.

Bill called out, “See you ladies tonight.”

Claire walked out with Bea, Howard, and Wayne.
“He’s
going to be at the Bay Club?”

Wayne chuckled. “Ethicon picks up the whole tab for the intern reception every year. I suppose they think it will make us buy their products.”

At the end of the hall, Bea made a right turn. “I think I’ll go to the SICU and review some patient charts.”

Wayne shook his head. “Not me. They don’t own me till tomorrow.”

Howard kept plugging toward the front entrance. He looked at his watch. “I’ve got sixteen hours of freedom left. Just sixteen hours.”

Claire waved weakly in Bea’s direction, who was either suddenly interested in getting to know her new patients, or competitive enough to want to shine on the first day. Claire thought momentarily of following her, then skipped to catch up with the others. She knew her life would change drastically soon enough. Why rush the torture?

For most of her life, others had told her it couldn’t be done. Little girls from Stoney Creek just don’t grow up to be surgeons. Little girls should grow up to be mothers, housewives, help out on the family farm. Maybe a few could be teachers at the elementary school. Or maybe become nurses to help make ends meet when income at the shoe factory proved inadequate. But little girls don’t become surgeons, especially not girls with a father like Claire McCall’s.

For most of her life, she had refused to listen. Now, as she mingled with the other new interns, residents, and surgery-attending physicians at the exclusive Bay Club, she imagined any number of circumstances that could again block her goal. She surveyed the scene, feeling suddenly misplaced, a
country girl at a sophisticated city gala. Music from a live string quartet drifted around the tuxedoed men and their wives wearing sequined dresses. A Volkswagen-sized glass chandelier hung in a massive foyer over a fountain containing enough coins to keep Claire in groceries for a month.

She analyzed each of the other eleven interns with a critical eye, imagining their strengths and weaknesses and wondering which eight would make it to the next year. Six were married; two had children. Two were already MD, PhDs, with multiple publications in the surgical literature. Three were Harvard grads. One was from Southern California, two were from University of Michigan, one from Yale, one from Duke, two from Johns Hopkins, one from Georgetown, and one from Brighton University: Claire.

Each intern seemed so much more capable than she. Everyone was so articulate and proper. How had she traveled so far out of her league? Maybe it was all some huge computer mistake. Claire politely declined a third offer of punch, held up by a young man with a white shirt accentuated by a black bow tie, and mulled over the possibility that the computer matching program had gone awry, placing her in this elite program by mistake.

This is ridiculous,
Claire mused.
I ranked this program number one, and they obviously ranked me high on their list, too. There’s no mistake here. I’m just as capable as these Harvard grads.
She sighed, listening to a fellow intern make a reference to an article he’d read in
The New England Journal of Medicine.
She drifted away from the small crowd to sample the hors d’oeuvres.
Didn’t that guy know we were supposed to be on vacation since med school graduation? It sounds like he spent the last two months in the library.
She smiled at the thought of the long hours she’d spent studying in the two months since her stormy graduation.
The others are just like me.

“You must be Elizabeth.” A tall man with gray hair and a relaxed smile held out his hand. Claire knew who he was immediately: the general surgery residency director, Dr. Tom Rogers.

She shook his hand firmly. “Yes, but I prefer to be called Claire. It’s what I’ve been called all my life.”

“E. Claire.” His grin widened.

“Yes, sir.” She shrugged, reading his thoughts. “I’ve lived with a name that sounds more like a French pastry than a surgeon. And I grew up in a town so backwards that you couldn’t even buy French pastry there.”

“Yes. Oh,” he chortled. “Eclair.” He took a sip from a tall glass and dropped his smile. “You’ll be starting on one of the busiest rotations, our trauma service.”

“So I hear. But at least I get to work with Dr. Overby.”

“Dan-the-man,” Dr. Rogers responded reflectively, a hint of a smile returning to his face. “You’ll be glad for your sense of humor, E. Claire. Bring it with you tomorrow. You’re going to need it.”

Claire parked her aging Toyota in the driveway and fumbled with the keys to her rented brownstone house. She’d left the party early, but not until the program director preceded her, just in case he was watching.

She opened the door, adjusted the thermostat up, and opened a window in her second-floor bedroom for ventilation. She’d chosen the house after a marathon weekend search. The apartments close to the university were less expensive, but run-down, and appeared unsafe, a haven for drug pushers or worse. The houses further out were expensive, and the commute would be too long. Here, three miles from the hospital, seemed just about right. The rent was more than Claire wanted to pay, absorbing half her intern salary, but safety and peace of mind were worth the extra cost. She didn’t have anything else to spend money on anyway. She was single, at least for now, and had no children, and her surgical residency would put a damper on any expensive social activity. Being too busy to spend money did have its advantages.

She looked at the answering machine. No messages.
At least he could call me for once.
She chewed her lower lip.
He’s still sore about how I left him after grad.

She changed into a cotton football jersey, her normal sleeping attire. It was John’s, of course, and the comfort she received from it had little to do with its warmth. It was nine o’clock, too early for bed, but getting too dark for a jog.

Claire adjusted a small picture on her desk, one of her and John at U-Hall at a basketball game a few years earlier. John’s dark skin tone contrasted with hers, and her long blond hair cascaded onto his shoulders as the couple put their heads together for the snapshot.
I miss my hair. I miss John. I miss his arms around me, the way he smells, the way he makes me feel.

She sighed and picked up Sabiston’s
Textbook of Surgery.
It was a massive book, almost eight pounds. She had wanted the more manageable two-volume set, but couldn’t afford it. So she settled for the single volume and the added benefit of a biceps workout. She turned to a chapter entitled “Trauma: Management of the Acutely Injured Patient” and quickly lost herself in a discussion of airways, fluid resuscitation, and shock, paying close attention to the yellow highlighted areas from her previous reading.

At ten, the phone jarred her eyes from a gruesome photograph of a man with a crossbow injury to the neck. She welcomed the diversion. “Be John. Be John,” she whispered. “Hello.”