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Chapter 16
In The Air
Icalled it. I called it and then some. It was hard not to pay any mind to the rumor mill. Sara was back at work, though only allowed to do paperwork until her arm healed. She kept me in the loop of rumors, whether I wanted her to or not.
It was bad. Really bad. I knew she wouldn’t exaggerate or embellish. Luckily, Hector reverted to distancing himself from me and only approached me about work. It didn’t dissuade the rumors, though. I really did my best to ignore them, but after a few months of nothing changing, I was ready to scream. Or leave.
I couldn’t very well quit and leave my patients, but I could do the next best thing. I asked Mandy to clear my schedule for the next four days, and Dr. Stuart was more than happy to give me a few days off since I almost neverused any of my vacation time.
The East Coast Oncology Research Annual Conference was in two days. I hadn’t initially planned on attending, but it was the perfect reason to get away. I needed distance from the hospital, from the rumors, and most importantly, fromhim.
I called my assistant.
She picked up on the second ring.
“Mandy?”
“What’s up, Dr. Ramirez?”
“Please don’t kill me,” I said as I winced, even though she couldn’t see me through the phone.
“What did you do now?”
“I want to go to the ECOR conference.”
“I asked you about that months ago,” Mandy whined. “And you said you didn’t have the time.”
“But you just cleared my schedule.”
“I thought you were taking vacation time.”
“Well, I need to get away. Can youtry? I know it’s a lot to ask.”
I could hear her breath as she slowly let it out on the other end of the line. “Fine. I’ll see what I can do, but I’m not making any promises.”
“You are the most amazing assistant,” I said.
“If you want to compliment me, say I’m the most amazing artist.”
“That goes without saying,” I said. “Thank you, Mandy.”
Everything was booked last minute, but my amazing assistant managed to wrangle me late registration and did some sort of voodoo magic, I was sure, to get me a hotel room in the conference hotel that had been booked up for weeks.
I managed to get a window seat when I boarded the flight. I put my earbuds in, turned on soothing music, and leaned back. I wasn’t nervous flying, and the flight would ordinarily put me to sleep. I closed my eyes and tried to relax.
The plane hadn’t finished boarding when I felt a tap on my shoulder. “Not taken. Go ahead,” I said, assuming they were asking about the seat next to me, but I didn’t open my eyes. When the light tap repeated itself, I opened one eye.
“Mother f—,” I started to say. I pulled my earbuds out. “What are you doing here?”
Hector blinked at me from the seat next to mine. “I’m going to the conference. What areyoudoing here?”
“I was trying to get away from you,” I joked.
“Great minds?” he offered.
“More like fools seldom differ.”
“Oh, I don’t know. This could be fun.”
