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It’s not like I feel a shudder of revulsion. I don’t throw the note across the library or slam it down on the counter or bury it in the recycling bin. I don’t feel anything at all. Placing the note from Dr. Moreau on the counter, I look at the card that was also in the envelope. I guess it’s a postcard, but it’s fancy. Elegant. An invitation for a student orchestra to accompany Theodore B. Halverson at a concert at the end of October. A concert held here at Chamberlain.
We often get to be a stop on people’s tours: authors come and do readings, political pundits give lectures, bands sometimes play sets in the auditorium if their bassist or drummer (or, more likely, their agent) was a student.
But this is special. Theodore B. Halverson—the man who took Broadway by storm, winning a Tony award and selling out every seat in the runaway hit musical for two solid years, then bowed himself off the stage and went on tour as a soloist. His voice could melt stone. He’s amazing. I’d love to see him in concert again.
But the idea of sitting in the orchestra pit, staring up toward his feet, accompanying him as he radiates charisma and perfect pitch?
Not interesting.
Not even a little bit. Nothing about sitting in the pit with a bunch of high school students, even students as talented as the ones who will surely play, appeals to me. And I’m not being a snob. At least, I don’t think I am. I wouldn’t want to play with the Boston Pops or the New York Philharmonic or the London Symphony, either. It’s just not what I do anymore.
I drop the postcard on the counter on top of Dr. Moreau’s note and get started with my day’s work.
3
GRAYSON
Kimberly, my nurse, has lived in town for a couple of decades. She and her husband ran a family clinic before the hospital was built ten miles away and offered him a job. It’s hard to keep a small practice open when the EastMed Healthcare System is your competition. I’m very lucky that Chamberlain prioritizes having a clinic on campus, or I’d be working for the big system as well.
After Kimberly’s two kids graduated from high school, she started working here as Dr. Rankin’s nurse, so when I took over the clinic, she was really the one in charge. She helped me figure out an appropriate estimation of how long each office visit should last. She manages the files and the appointment system. She sits at the reception desk and smiles and watches. Aside from all that, she’s an incredibly competent nurse, and I know I’m lucky to have her.
Which I tell her regularly. Even though she knows.
She knows everything.
And somehow, she knows something changed with me today.
She’s checking tomorrow’s appointments on her tablet as she leans back in the desk chair. “How was your visit with Miss Whitney?” She asks this without making eye contact, in the way you’d hold out a handful of granola near the ground for a woodland chipmunk while looking up at the leaf pattern in a nearby tree. Creating a sense of safety so the little animal will approach without fear.
I’m not completely comfortable being the chipmunk in this metaphor, but this is my life these days.
“It was entirely professional and none of your business,” I tell her with a smile.
She turns now, facing me with that perfected look of omniscience. “Are you ready to admit it now?” she asks.
I shake my head, but I’m still smiling.
She lets out a dramatic sigh. “Come on, Grayson. You’re my only entertainment these days. Give me something to work with.”
“You need a hobby.”
Nodding, she slaps her palms on her legs. “You are my hobby. This is my hobby.”
“Working at the clinic?” I ask, picking up a pen from the cup on the desk and running it through my fingers and over my knuckles. It’s a trick I learned in middle school, and it shows up when I feel nervous. Why am I nervous? This is Kimberly. She’s not judging me. I drop the pen and pick it back up. “Does that mean I don’t have to pay you anymore?”
She knows I’m playing dumb.
“No. You definitely need to pay me. And my new hobby is watching you fall in love.”
I drop the pen, and she catches it in midair. Great reflexes.
“Nobody’s in love,” I tell her. But I can still feel myself grinning. “Besides,” I say, totally crossing a line I will never be able to cross back again, “even if I was interested, you just don’t date your patients.”
She nods seriously. “You’re absolutely right.Inever do.”
I pretend to grumble. “You know what I mean.”
She lowers her voice to a whisper. “Oh, I know. I knowall.”
