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Watching them maniacally pretend to bicycle around the room was hilarious, if not much help for guessingunicycle, but eventually I got it. When Mark mimicked lassoing Brandon, I lost it, barely managing to guess “cowboy” between fits of laughter.
Owen clapped me on the back as he returned to his seat on the other side of Tiffany. “Good job.”
“Better than Rosie,” Megan muttered.
“I didn’t know those movies!” Rosie protested once again.
“Who doesn’t knowPretty Woman?” Mark asked.
“How is thisPretty Woman?” Rosie splayed her hands and placed them on her shoulders, batting her eyelashes and imitating the hip-swinging walk Brandon had used when charades were entirely optional.
“Hey, I didn’t look that ridiculous!”
I eyed him. “Is it agoodthing if you made it look good?”
Mark threw a crumpled napkin at Brandon. “Work it,Pretty Woman.”
Brandon grabbed the phone. “My turn.”
These connections are great, I finally replied to Ellie. No, they weren’t Cassie, and no one might ever be. But these people didn’t care if I was rich or did a good job at work. I didn’t have to be perfect; they were including me to be nice, because that was who they were.
I wished there were an easy way to meet more people like them—people who weren’t forced into your orbit by work, who you could have fun with, who didn’t care about your name or your fortune. Everyone needed friends, and the Division of Urban Health officially said you were on your own for making them. There was nothing we could do about this epidemic: loneliness was a silent killer.
I straightened in my rickety folding chair. A killer app. There were apps for dating. Why not for making more platonic connections?
Owen patted Tiffany on the back, encouraging her in listing all the actors in the movie Jenna was flailing to guess even after the time had ended, although she’d been on a roll at first.
“Overboard!” Jenna finally got it. “It was on the tip of my tongue.”
I reached around Tiffany to tap Owen’s arm. “You’re an app programmer?”
“Yeah, some. Why?” He gave me a wry smile. “You have an idea.”
“Maybe. Let’s talk.”
It had been almost a week since I’d seen Davis, but I couldn’t stop thinking about him as I pulled up to Dr. Donaldson’s building for the fellowship farewell. Stupidly, I wished Davis would be there. I’d miss all my fellow fellows, sure, but I hated to think I’d never receive his ridiculous replies again—and never help heal the pain in his eyes.
Of course, I’d forfeited that right myself, so how could I complain?
I followed the directions Dr. Donaldson had sent—should I have called him Adam outside of work? With my fellowship ending in another week, we were basically already colleagues. He’d been my faculty mentor and the assistant director of our program, but how much did that mean in the last week of a fellowship when I already had my job lined up?
Suddenly I was twice as nervous—and it wasn’t at the idea of spending personal time with Dr. Donaldson. It was this NIH job.
The job was perfect. I was perfect for the job. Everything on paper was perfect. Half the other fellows that would be at this get together would have killed for this job. Or at least put down experimental animals with less than the appropriate amount of regret.
The job would be fine, I told myself as I rode the elevator up. Better than fine. Perfect.
And worrying would not help me get through this party.
I knocked on his door exactly on time. Hopefully I wouldn’t look like too much of a dork to those people who arrived fashionably late. Once again, I wished I’d stayed at home with Natalie and our niece and nephew, visiting again.
Adam—yes, I’d go with Adam—opened the door, and immediately it was weird. Obviously I’d seen him out of scrubs, two weeks ago at the gala, but I’d never pictured him in a sweatshirt and jeans. We’d traveled together four times, and I’d never seen him this casual.
“Hi.” I tried to say his name, but Dr. Donaldson felt too formal and Adam felt too weird.
He smiled broadly. “Hey, come on in.”
Maybe if I thought of him as Adam, saying it would be less weird. “Nice place,” I said.
