Under the Knife(36)

He’d told her (he’d never been self-conscious about his faith), and they’d struck up a conversation. He’d seen her around the OR, but they’d never met. He couldn’t recall what they’d talked about. All he could remember was how taken he’d been with the trim surgeon confidently planted in front of him, hands on hips, chin thrust forward, her long black hair pushed away from her lovely face by her surgical cap. The cap had seemed set back on her head at a jaunty angle. How could a shapeless paper surgical cap be jaunty? But it was jaunty on her.

Spencer had never believed in love at first sight. Still didn’t. He thought it was bullshit. Great for cheesy songs and movies. But real life? No way. You could want somebody right away, sure. Lust after them. Spot them from across a room and experience an instantaneous attraction.

But love? Love wasn’t that easy. It took time, and effort. Up to that point in his life, Spencer had been in love only once, during college, and maintaining that relationship had felt like constant work: as if feverishly writing a term paper he could never seem to finish. And he’d watched his parents, who loved each other more than just about anyone else he knew, soldier through plenty of tough times.

So all he’d known for certain after his five-minute-long conversation in the supply closet with Rita was that he’d wanted more than anything to get to know the attractive woman with the jaunty cap better. So he’d asked her out to coffee.

She’d said no.

Hadn’t even bothered to sugarcoat it.

No, thanks.

End of conversation.

She’d spun on her heels and stridden away, calling out something like nice meeting you or see you around the OR over her shoulder. That had been it.

Except that it hadn’t.

Because he hadn’t been able to get Rita out of his mind. She’d burrowed into it and stuck there, like a splinter under his fingernail.

Her confidence: That’s what had hooked him more than anything, as surely as a fish biting down hard on a baited line. He’d always found confident women appealing. He’d decided that he wasn’t going to take no for an answer. In this sense, he’d modeled himself off his parents. He knew the same had happened to his father after he’d first met his mom in a bowling alley near the small college in eastern Washington where they’d both been students. According to his parents, the bowling alley had been the hub of their social universe. Bowl was what the kids did because apparently there hadn’t been much else, especially in winter. Bowl and drink. Probably screw, too, which was left unsaid: Spencer didn’t like to dwell on that because it was his parents, after all.

His mother was outgoing, popular, and vivacious; his dad was taciturn, but with a wicked sense of humor. His mom and dad agreed that at first she’d given dad the cold shoulder. She’d thought him an arrogant ass because he’d had so little to say. But dad had kept at it; and it was, she liked to say, his sweet perseverance that had worn her down. Spencer, being an only child, and thus the one person benefiting most from their eventual union, felt grateful for his dad’s sweet perseverance.

So Spencer had persevered (sweetly, if he did say so himself) until Rita gave in and agreed to go out with him.

If it had been Rita’s confidence that had first hooked him, it had been her toughness that later sunk the hook deep into him. Surgery was grueling. It could kick your ass. Some nights, Spencer was so exhausted he could barely drive himself home from the hospital before dropping into catatonia in front of the TV, nursing a warmed-over frozen pizza and a few beers.

But that schedule never seemed to get to Rita, who seemed to have a limitless reservoir of energy and was tougher and more tenacious than just about any surgeon he’d ever met—and over the years he’d run across some hard-core, hard-ass surgeons. She was absolutely devoted to her patients, practically sweated blood for them. It was obvious she loved to operate and reveled in the intellectual and physical challenges of taking people apart, then putting them back together again. But he learned that she loved the patients even more.

Devotion to their patients: They were much alike in this respect. It was one of the many reasons why he’d fallen so hard for her, the hardest by far of any woman he’d ever met in his life. And why he’d thought they’d made such a great couple.

“Doc?” Bogart said.

Until that horrible night a year ago, when Rita had told him they didn’t.

“Doc? You okay?”

Spencer opened his eyes and looked up. Bogart and Sheila were staring at him.

“Oh, sorry.” He cleared his throat and smiled sheepishly. “Amen. I get … ah, carried away sometimes, Mr. Bogart.” He turned his smile toward Sheila. “Pastor.” It wasn’t an outright lie, but enough of one to make his conscience give him a sharp poke. His cheeks burned.

Lying about praying, Spencer Wallace? For shame. If you were a Catholic, that would cost you, like, twenty Hail Mary’s and ten Acts of Contrition.

Bogart smiled. “I understand, son. I’d much rather have you praying too hard for me if you know what I mean.”

After finishing with Bogart, Spencer lingered around pre-op, hoping to catch a glimpse of Rita. He counted it a good day when he was lucky enough to see her at work, and an even better day when they exchanged polite hellos in passing.

But she was nowhere to be found this morning in pre-op—which was strange since he knew she was operating today. He left disappointed but holding out hope that he might be able to sneak into her OR later during the auto-surgeon operation.