AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The walls are the dark blue of Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night. He has a bookshelf and a filing cabinet on one side and a glass case of achievements on the left. Awards and honors the hospital has received over the years from the medical community. Framed photographs of him shaking hands with important people—politicians, society men.
My dad takes his place behind his desk—stained oak, decorated. His diplomas hang on the wall over his shoulders like bodyguards.
Nadine takes the chair on his left—a high back, usually my spot of choice, but it’s fine. I settle into the one beside her. Neither of us look at each other.
My father strokes his beard once, as he always does before launching into a serious conversation. “Nadine,” he starts, “we’re so glad you could join us for dinner, as always.”
“Happy to be here.” She smiles and crosses one leg over the other, like she’s the guest on a talk show.
My father’s eyes shift to me. “I got the promotional images back from the production company. Take a look.”
He pushes a folder across the desk, and I open it up. I fan out four shiny prints. They share the same header, “On the Cutting Edge with Dr. Jason King,” and the subtitle, “As seen on the Dr. Mazie Show!” The images are different, though: there’s a few of me with my hands in the middle of a pretend surgery.
It’s so fake, so put-on, and the images make my stomach churn in a bad way.
Nadine leans in, and her arm brushes against mine. She taps her nail on a photo: one of me sitting on a stool, my sleeves pulled up at my elbows, stethoscope hanging around my neck, smiling for the camera. “That’s my favorite,” she says.
I’m not quite sure why she’s here, or why she has an opinion in the matter, and it rubs me the wrong way. I close the folder. “So what next?” I ask.
“Next, they’re flying a small crew to Lighthouse Medical. They’re going to interview you, as well as a few staff members. If that goes well, they’ll pitch the footage to their team.”
Nadine’s phone buzzes at her side. She shifts her attention, pulls it out, and starts going through it while my father talks.
My skin buzzes. He would never allow me to disrespect him like that.
But he doesn’t seem to notice her. Instead, he leans in and continues. “It is, essentially, the final test, so needless to say, the interviews have to go well.”
“Understood.”
“This segment could bring in big investors,” my father continues. “We could build out the hospital. Update our equipment. So it’s important that we make a good impression. As a united front.”
“What does this have to do with me?” I ask, even though I already feel the inkling, a trickle of dread sliding down the back of my ear.
My father comes out and says it: “I need you two to pretend to be married for the interviews.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I scoff. “We’re divorced.”
“It’s for the camera,” my father continues.
“No,” I say. “Absolutely not.”
“It’s important that we show a—”
“United front. Yeah. You said that.”
My father is—as always—a stone. Impenetrable. Calm. Meanwhile, I’ve always been the uncontrollable one. The temper. My anger rises like a storm.
“Did you agree to this?” I ask Nadine. Even I can hear the snap in my tone, like a rubber band pulled too far.
She says it like it’s nothing: “Celebrities do it all the time. Brad and Angelina. Tom and Nicole.”
She doesn’t even avert her eyes from her phone when she talks to me. It’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
“This?” I motion to her and her phone. “This is the kind of shit that drove me crazy. Can you look at me when you talk to me?”
Her dark eyes flicker to me and narrow. Like my father, she has no inflection when she says, “Are you angry with me, or are you angry with the situation?”
“Try all of the above.”
