Page 13 of Keeping It Professional

“Well, how is she? You best friends yet?”

I tried to laugh and it came out half a wheeze. Maybe I’d overdone it on the rowing machine. I’d lost track of time, and the gym clock read noon. Could it really be that late?

“What time do you have?”

Brian snorted. “Around noon. Deflecting much?”

“I’m not deflecting, just tired of her crap. We had a whole fight in the ambulance bay.”

“A fight?” Brian whistled. “Like, fists? The whole bit?”

“Yeah, Brian. I punched her right in the face. Then she stabbed me with a lancet, and yeah. We’re in jail. You got fifty bucks to come bail us out?”

“Hilarious. But, seriously, you sure you’re okay? A fight in the bay doesn’t sound much like you.”

“You haven’t met her. You don’t know what she’s like.” I dug out a water and chugged half the bottle. It churned in my stomach, and I swallowed hard. “She’s a week on the job and she thinks she knows better. Thinks because I’m efficient, I don’t have compassion. She has noidea… what? What’s so funny?”

“I’m not laughing,” said Brian, though he had been. Still was. “You know who she sounds like?”

“No, who?”

“Like you.”

I bellowed, indignant, but Brian cut me off.

“No, hear me out. I don’t mean you now. I mean us ten years ago, when we were starting out. Youhatedyour partner. Thought he was so slow. And I was the same, with Dr. Baby. We thought we knew everything and our teachers knew nothing. What do you call that, the Dunning-Kruger effect. We grew out of it, didn’t we? She’ll learn, too.”

My stomach lurched again. I closed my eyes, feeling sick. “But we learned the hard way. By screwing up.”

Brian’s chair creaked, and I heard a door shut. “You’re worried, aren’t you?”

“Well, yeah, that she’ll kill someone.”

“No, not about that. I meant, about her. You and I both know you won’t let her kill anyone, but I think you’re worried she’ll see how shecould. You’ll catch her about to push the wrong meds through IV, or blow up someone’s stomach with a misplacedbreathing tube, and you’re scared it’ll hit her and she’ll fall apart.”

I tried to respond, but my mouth had gone dry. I gulped some more water.

“It’s how we learn,” said Brian. “From our mistakes. And if she can’t handle hers, it’s best she finds out.”

He was right, but the finding out, and the guilt that came with it — the long nights awake, reliving those screwups…

“Wouldn’t it be better if I scared her off first? If she never had to go through all those sleepless nights?”

“That depends,” Brian said. I could hear him pacing. “If she’s really that terrible, just wrong for the job, then yeah. The sooner she goes, the better. But what if shecouldbe good? Could she? Be honest.”

I tried to think, could she, but I felt too sick to focus. Even if she could learn, what would it cost her? That sunny smile of hers? That bright, cheery laugh? The way she hummed to herself as she wrote up her scene reports, and waggled her pen around when she got stuck? I tried to remember if I’d ever laughed like she did, like I didn’t have a care in the world.

“She’s good with the patients,” I said at last. “She knows how to talk to them, even the assholes.”

“Well, that’s a start. And I think— Hold on.” I heard the door open, then a hushed conversation. Then Brian was back. “Look, I’ve got to run. But, you sure you’re okay? Is this about?—”

“No.” I cut him off before he could bring up my brother. My screwup, which cost him his life. This wasn’t about that. I was fine. I wasfine.

“She just drives me nuts, is all. Don’t worry. I’m good.”

“All right,” said Brian. “See you at bowling Sunday.”

He hung up and I sat with my head in my hands, breathing through my nausea. My whole body hurt now my rush had worn off, my knees throbbing to tell me I’d pushed it too hard. That was my problem, not anything else. I’d been doing just fine, just fine. I had my routine now, work, friends, the gym. The past, well, I’d dealt with it and I’d moved on.

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