Page 2 of Dr. Grump's Surprise Baby

“I am. I actually came here hoping to work with Dr. Berger,” Emily admitted.

“I’m sure you’re not alone!” Sara said. “I might have done the same thing if I hadn’t grown up here. Have you met him before?”

“Never. But I’ve read so much of his work that I feel like I have.”

“I’m surprised you’re just an intern,” Sara said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well… I was up late last night studying the profile sheet of everyone we’re interning with,” Sara admitted. She blushed. “Now you must think I’m a huge nerd.”

“I think it’s good to be a huge nerd in this line of work,” Emily assured her. “That kind of attention to detail could save a patient’s life one day.”

Sara beamed.

“But what was in my profile that makes you surprised I’m an intern?” Emily asked.

“Well, it’s just that you’re a few years older than the rest of us,” Sara explained. “Everyone else in our group is twenty-five and twenty-six, but you’re twenty-nine.”

“Ancient, right?” Emily chuckled. “I started med school a few years late.”

“Oh, how come?” Sara asked keenly.

“Personal reasons. Family stuff.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Sara blushed. “I wasn’t trying to gossip. I overstepped, didn’t I?”

“No, you didn’t know it was personal,” Emily said. “You were being friendly. It’s all right. Tell me about you, though. What got you into medicine?”

Sara brightened and began to share her story as the two of them finished changing into their scrubs. More people began to trickle into the changing room to get ready as well. It didn’t seem as though any of the other interns had been quite as eager for this day as Emily and Sara had been, and Emily had a feeling that Sara might be her closest friend within this group. Even so, she was looking forward to getting to know the others as well, especially since she didn’t yet have a group of friends in Chicago.

Sara leaned close. “Are you all right, by the way? The way he called you out when you showed up late… I would have died. I’m so sorry.”

“It was embarrassing,” Emily agreed. “But it’s my own fault for being late.” She was glad that Sara, at least, didn’t seem to be judging her for that. “There was traffic,” she explained.

“I know,” Sara said. “I saw the report. I have an app that lets me know which roads around here are congested on any given day.”

“There’s an app for it?”

“Yep. I guess you wouldn’t know about that, since you’re not a Chicagoan.”

“I wish I had! I would have found a different route to work!”

“Well, I’ll give you the name of the app and you can download it,” Sara said. “Then you won’t have that problem again.”

“Thank you,” Emily sighed. “Today was a real mess. I don’t want to disappoint Dr. Berger.”

“Oh, I’m sure he’ll forget about it in no time,” Sara said. “It wasn’t your fault you were late!”

“No one else was,” Emily pointed out.

“Well, you’re not from around here,” Sara said. “It makes sense that you would struggle on your very first day of work in a new place. Surely Dr. Berger understands that.”

“I get the feeling he’s not in the business of being understanding about things,” Emily said. “Besides, he had a point. Patients can’t wait around just because I haven’t figured out traffic patterns yet. I have a responsibility to be here on time. Although I will say, he shouldn’t have made that crack about me looking for my mascara.”

“You aren’t evenwearingmascara,” Sara said.

Emily laughed. “Good point,” she said. “Though I wouldn’t expect him to notice something like that.”

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