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“Then I’d say you’re lying. I told you about my test scores and my lack of commitment to surgery.”
“Let me ask you a question. If you could go back in time, would you have stayed away from Angela, sparing you this pain and pressure? You could match anywhere in the country, to any specialty, and she’d never have to worry about losing her fellowship because of you.” Her expression was serious.
“Not for a second,” he answered immediately.
“Which is why there are no better candidates. You quit your grown-up job, undercut asshole residents and attendings as a powerless third-year, and banged the hottest fellow you could find. Not counting when you snuck out of the hospital to confront a terrorist-gunman. You’re a maverick.” Kandal went back to washing dishes. “Make yourself useful and stack.”
“Those are NOT good points. Angela, not me, faced down the gunman and saved the Fire Chief,” Michael protested, stacking the dried dishes. “I’m the one who outed our secret in the ER and almost got her kicked out of fellowship. I didn’t save her. She saved herself.”
“Angela definitely didn’t deliver a baby in the parking lot or figure out the Fire Chief had been drugged with Haldol and was going into SVT after he gave you a concussion. Most medical students couldn’t have done that.”
“Most medical students wouldn’t have put themselves in those positions to start with. Calling me a maverick is not a compliment.”
“Take it from the person who changed specialties and slept with my mentor’s husband and married him. If anyone was the black sheep maverick, it was me. Yet here I am, general surgery clerkship director.”
He neatened a few glasses into a row. “You want me to take the Trauma-ER rotation a lot. Why?”
“Because you have the potential to be a very good ER doctor or a very good surgeon. We have to help you figure out which one is right for you. I hope you pick surgery.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then I’ll still write you a kickass letter of recommendation. You’re inventive and tenacious in your own right. You’ve always shone on the clinical sections of your rotations, the place where it counts, more than your scores on the Step 2 exam.”
“Step 2 is supposed to show your mastery of clinical knowledge,” he parroted the endless drone of his review books, reminding him hourly of the importance of this exam.
“If that were true, dermatology has one of the highest scores, and they don’t even carry stethoscopes.” Kandal finished the last dish. “Besides, if you impress a program director enough, they’ll move heaven and earth to get you. Just ask radiology.”
“I don’t want to be a radiologist,” Michael declared.
“Yes, but Radiology just poached a second-year resident from pediatrics.”
“They can do that? Who?” Michael startled.
“Not telling, though I’m sure between Nora’s perfect memory and Raj’s consumption of every bit of gossip he can sink his teeth into, it won’t remain secret for long.”
“Only if I tell him to check. Besides, I believe Raj is already serving his purpose tonight, isn’t he? They might well announce the story of the dinner party where Steadman got dumped on the PA system.” It hadn’t escaped him that Raj had been excluded from most of the arguing and enjoyed his ringside seat to the Attending Fight Night.
“His subtly is famous.” Kandal shrugged. “Why don’t you go visit Angela and the new puppies?”
“I should. Thank you, Clerkship Director.”
“Anytime, just stop calling me that. Here, I’m Eliza, in the hospital, I can be Kandal,” she explained. “And neither Eliza nor Kandal will discuss your concerns with Angela. Don’t worry.”
“Thank you.”
“Oh, and tell her Scottie and Emma would love to adopt one of the puppies when they get back. Odds are good Stella and Alex will take another one now that they’re going full reformed bad-girl with a nice guy.” She winked at him. “Never hesitate to make lemonade out of lemons.”
“You ladies are trouble.” Michael shook his head. Angela’s girls were indeed tornadoes, forces of nature for sure.
Chapter 21
He climbed the stairs to the guest room with a lighter heart. Kandal wasn’t a liar. She wouldn’t hold his comments against him.
His wife was sitting on the floor, out of the saree and in more comfortable T-shirt and tap pants. She sat a good three feet from Taussig and her two little orangish-brown puppies.
“Does this make me an unfit mother who is also a stripper?”
“For your failure to anticipate an event we didn’t believe to be possible without angels, three kings, and shepherds?”
