"Nice work, everyone," I say, handing my nurse the newest in high-tech surgical lasers. "Now, go home and get some rest. Tomorrow we do it all over again."
I exit my O.R. as Frank Sinatra sings the last stanza of New York, New York. All surgeons have their "go to" surgery music and mine is any song sung by Frank Sinatra. He has a boldness that is contagious and when someone's life is in my hands a little extra faith in oneself never hurt. My name is Kate Matthews. I'm twenty-nine years old and North America's leading neurosurgeon. I am also the youngest practicing neurosurgeon in the world, performing cutting-edge surgery on patients who have been given little to no chance to live. I love life and my life is my job.
While my patient is transferred to ICU, I give his family the good news that their patriarch is in stable condition, and that we expect a full recovery. They hug me and thank me. In the end, I'm just doing my job - the best job ever. Have I already mentioned how much I love my job?
"Hey, Kate, let's get a drink," Mark says to me, snapping my bra. Mark Friendly, R.N., my surgical nurse of choice, adolescent friend I never had, and general pain in my ass. He always gets a drink post surgery and he always asks me to join him. I never do.
"Oh come on. You and thus we, never take a break. Don't you feel the walls closing in on us?"I look around at the bustling halls: nurses admitting patients, doctors tending to wounds, and families hugging one another. How does he not see what I see? These white walls, which are supposedly closing in on us are pristine and hold within them the possibility of scientific advancement.
"Mark," I turn to him and give him my best in disappointed looks, "how does one justify taking a break from saving a life?"
"Doesn't mean we can't have a life," he scoffs.
"Really? I guess I didn't get that memo...ever."
Mark always stares at me when we work. He claims he is in love with me, but really he is in love with the idea of me. He has a type and I'm not it, so he flirts with me and pretends I'm his perfect woman when really I'm nowhere close to what he really likes: a woman that drinks, has lots of sex, makes vulgar jokes, and if given the opportunity would quit her job and run off to Fiji with him, just because he asked.
OK, now he's staring a little too intently.
"What?" I bark.
"You know you'll be on it. One drink isn't going to change that."
I pretend not to know what he's talking about.
"On what?" I ask, while signing off on one of the many legal documents involved in cutting open someone's brain.
"You know what: the surgery that could define your career and bring international attention to this hospital."
"It will define someone's career," I say to him, gritting my teeth as I swallow the cold hard truth of how the medical field actually works. "Rumor has it they're flying in Dr. Bodhi Wells, so there is nothing to celebrate."
"Bodhi who? Never heard of the number two neurosurgeon in the world."
"Number one," I mutter, pushing down the bubbling resentment deep inside me. The resentment that stems from knowing that a hot surgeon from another country is going to fly into New York and act like he's training me in a technique I basically helped create. Only to fly off the next day to god knows where and taking with him all the glory of completing the newest in laser neurosurgery, because he's in his early forties and because, yes, I'm going to say it: he's a man.
"But you're better looking," Mark says, smiling at me with a childish grin.
"If only that were true," I snap back, feeling a little annoyed that the handsome, playboy, genius, Dr. Bodhi Wells has that on me too.
"OK, it's a tough call, but seriously, maybe you'll both be on it. You've used the new fiber optic and he hasn't. "
"Only because he's been too busy traveling the world saving victims of IEDs. He's a saint and a genius. I can't compete." I sign off on the last of thirty documents and turn to Mark. I'm going to have to give him my most sincere look to pull this off.
"Listen, if I'm on the team then great. But if Bodhi Wells is involved, he will be the lead on it, and I will be a fly on the wall. End of story."
"Oh my god, you are the worst liar," Mark laughs in my face. "You hate being the one who has to step aside after all the work you've put in. You've given everything to be the lead on that surgery, and if you don't get it a huge injustice has been served. And I, for one, will quit nursing. I'll become a bank teller, or a handy man, or a secret agent in Wyoming."
"You'd be good at all of those things, but you'd be a better nurse," I smile back at him. "And thanks, Mark. You're a good friend. I really do mean that."
He's right. If I'm not the lead then all my sacrifices will have been for nothing, including having had no social life to speak of since birth.
The smell of Shalimar nearly drops me to my knees as Dr. Grace Meadows shoves her arm between Mark and me to grab a chart.
"Hi kids. So, when's prom again?"
Grace is a highly in-demand anesthesiologist who thinks that my being a surgeon is the funniest thing on earth. She hates me because I'm younger than her and just as successful. She's one of those women who hate other women, so rather than applaud other women's achievements she sees their success as a threat to her own success. You know the kind of woman who has kept our gender from taking over the world and making it a better place. She's competitive in all things, and if she can't compete with someoneâlike get younger instead of olderâshe sets out to destroy them. It doesn't matter that she is drop-dead gorgeous, smart as hell, married to a hot professional baseball player, has two smart and equally beautiful teenage kids, and makes more money in one day than most women do in their whole lives. Grace Meadows will never be happy with what she has achieved unless her success is directly related to someone else's failure.
"I don't know," Mark shrugs, as he tries to nonchalantly lean onto the nurses' station desk. "Are you chaperoning again this year, Mrs. Meadows?"
Grace slams the chart back onto the counter and leans into Mark, her lips coming dangerously close to his now quivering ear lobe.
"You may be slightly younger than me, but you have wet dreams with my face all over them, don't forget that," she whispers.
Mark tries for a quick comeback, "How could I forget? They're recurring." But by the time he blurts it out Grace has already sauntered off.
"Sounds like a nightmare to me," I add, watching her sashay her way into the elevator. I'm about to say something snarky when a deep voice stops me, "Hi, Doc! Dr. Matthews?"
I turn around and come face to face with an attractive man who I could swear I've never seen before in my life.
"Chad. I'm Chad. You just met me." His white teeth grin ear to ear. "You just performed surgery on my uncle. I was with my family when you gave us the good news that he is going to be alright."
Just because I save someone, that doesn't mean I have the capacity to remember every single member of their family I've hugged.
"Oh, right," I lie. "What can I do for you?"
"I'd like to take you out for a drink," he continues, "and thank you properly."
What does that even mean? Thanking me properly would be a handshake and a big check with my name on it. Anything other than that isn't proper, it's actually completely inappropriate.
"I appreciate the gesture, but I was only doing my job," I assure him. "No need to thank me again." And with alcohol, no less. I doubt any drink could be considered the equivalent of the services I rendered by saving his uncle.
As I do my song and dance, I'm finding that not only do I have to find the right words to let this guy down easy, but I am now forced to do it with a straight face while Mark is performing some kind of charades-like Martha Graham interpretive dance behind him to communicate that I go out with this Chad guy. Mark can be a bit meddlesome.
"Come on, you look like you could use some fun," Chad goes on, showing no sign of knowing how unbelievably unflatteringly that sentence comes across. "A lot of stress being a brain surgeon, I bet. I'm pretty fun if you give me a chance, and I'm not really one to take no for an answer."
How do you tell a guy that saying he doesn't take no for an answer is more of a red flag thrown than an arm twister? I feign thinking about his proposal as Mark continues his charades. And then it hits me: the perfect solution to this madness.
"Chad, thanks so much for the invitation, but I'm exhausted so I wouldn't be much fun. But I'll tell you who would love to get a drink with you."
Mark's face drops as I suggest to Chad that he properly thank the very talented surgical nurse, Mark Friendly, who was on the surgical team and was the real hero in the room. And with that, I get the satisfaction of watching Chad and Mark walk out of the hospital together. Everyone got what he or she wanted. Well, at least Mark and I did. Chad may have drawn the short stick.
Dr. Strong walks past me on his way out. "Tomorrow morningâmeeting?"
"Yes, sir," I say, "Looking forward to it."
He winks and exits the hospital. He winked. Does that mean I'm on the team, or I'm not? I'm going to be analyzing that wink all night. Ugh. Why did he have to wink?
I jump into a waiting taxi and head home. As I ride through Manhattan, I rest my head on the window and watch the lights and people intermingle into one. I try to convince myself that, no matter what that wink meant, I saved another life today and earned a night of sitting on my couchâwhere I plan to eat a bag of Doritos, drink a glass or two of Pinot Grigio, and pass out watching Jimmy Fallon.
Some might think, poor Kate she is all alone drinking white wine and watching TV. When is she ever going to find that special someone to fulfill her?
This is what I say to all those concerned mothers, friends, patients, and my nosey little sister: my life is great just the way it is. I don't need a boyfriend complicating its perfect simplicityâsleep, eat, work, eat, and sleep. Sex and love would interrupt that pattern in a serious, and most likely messy, way. We'd go out because he needed to. We'd have dinner plans with other couples, because going home would mean we'd have to deal with each other. Family obligations would run amuck. And conversations about when and if we'd get married would ruin our sex life. Not to mention the birth control discussions that would arise, putting one of usâmeâin a situation where I'd have to alter my hormones to keep from derailing my entire career path. I just hope it my life stays the way it is and I earn a spot on that surgical team. If that doesn't happen, then not even chips, white wine, and Jimmy Fallon will be enough to make this girl smile.
Now, let's get back to analyzing that wink.