The Queen of Hearts(20)

Graham, who had been assigned to the internal medicine service in the adjacent veterans hospital, weighed in. “The med students do everything at the VA,” he said. “All the blood draws and EKGs. Whether we have any idea how to do them or not.”

“So, it’s one procedure after another all day?” Georgia asked.

“Well, no,” Graham admitted. “I spend a lot of time in the smoking room with the old guys.”

Emma looked alarmed. “You don’t smoke,” she said.

“I know,” Graham said. He smiled at her: an easy, happy smile. “But I like listening to them tell their stories about the old days. They’re great guys. Some of them were on the beach at Omaha, or they fought in the Mekong Delta. They know stuff we can’t imagine.”

“Well,” Georgia said. “I’m bored. The good thing is that I can definitively rule out peds as a career. I need more action. Speaking of which, let’s leave the Casanovas over there and head out. We can take the Cam.”

We glanced at the guys. They seemed to be making progress; they had moved from the bar to an inexplicable grouping of club chairs clumped in a curvilinear arrangement facing the bathroom doors. The chairs had once been chenille-covered but now were so thread-worn and grubby that patches of stuffing had emerged, resembling scattered mold spores. This did not deter the guys at all. They were clearly misrepresenting themselves as clean-cut, functional doctors, judging by the rapt, admiring expressions on the undergrads’ faces.

“That’s going to end badly,” I pointed out. “Let’s go.”

After we purloined the Cam’s keys, there was a brief skirmish over who was most fit to drive. (Hands down, this was Emma, who rarely drank alcohol.) En route to a more glamorous locale, I found myself daydreaming about Dr. X. Since our interaction in the garage last week, I had watched him eagerly at the hospital, memorizing every curve and plane of his beautiful face, every intonation of his words, but we had not once been alone together and he did not seek me out. Still, when he looked at me, I could discern an extra layer of meaning in his glances; his face didn’t convey the same interest when he spoke to Ethan, the other med student on our service.

It would have been splendid to be able to drop a little conversational bomb with the girls: Did I mention that my chief asked me out? They’d blow my eardrums out with their excitement. But it would have been foolish to bring it up now, after some generic flirtation. The entire hospital, down to the last comatose patient, would know every detail in about thirty seconds if I told my friends, and then thirty seconds after that, it would get back to him and he’d think I was a delusional blabbermouth.

—

“Good morning, ladies,” intoned a male voice. Graham. He sounded unusually . . . upbeat. Graham was the stoic variety of guy, big and quiet, although sometimes he’d pipe up with a zinger that would leave the rest of us howling. His father was rumored to have a business empire worth gazillions from the manufacturing of some widget, but Graham dressed like a homeless guy and didn’t display any overt signs of wealth, so it was hard to say whether this was accurate. I glanced up at him from my location on the living room carpet, where I was curled up against Georgia.

“Hope everybody slept well,” Graham said.

“Why are you so chirpy, Graham?” Georgia groaned. “It’s the crack of dawn!”

“It’s eleven o’clock, George. I’m starving. I couldn’t wait any longer to wake you guys.”

“To make us breakfast?” Georgia mumbled hopefully, having fully returned to a prone position with her face smashed back into the hideous shag carpet.

“Uh, no,” Graham said. “Let’s go to Twig and Leaf.”

“Graham, you don’t even have a couch. How are you living like this?” I queried, looking around the desolate space.

“Oh, this isn’t my place. It’s Mack Wolfson’s, but he already left. C’mon, princess,” he said, nudging Georgia with his toe. She looked like she might bite him, so he hastily shifted to Hannah. “If we can find it, the Caminator is rolling out in five.” He strolled out.

“What the . . . ? Has anybody ever seen Graham so peppy?”

Hannah abruptly leapt to her feet, startling everyone. “Wait, Graham!” she called. “Where’s Emma?”

With a trace of envy, I noted the glow in Graham’s voice as he answered.

“She’s with me.”

—

Twig and Leaf was, predictably, packed with bleary-eyed students. While waiting for a table, I sidled over to Emma and gave her a discreet but enthusiastic nudge. “What’s going on with you and Graham?” I whispered. “I thought you said it was over?”

“Can’t hear you,” Emma shouted. “What’s over?”

Graham looked at us. “Um,” I said. Vivid morning sun streamed in through the restaurant’s big windows, animating everyone’s features and lighting up Graham’s ugly, migraine-inducing striped shirt. He smiled at me.

After an eternity, a booth finally opened up and we dive-bombed in, not bothering to wait for it to be cleaned.

“Oh, Zadie,” said Graham, draping an arm around me. “I heard something interesting about you and your chief resident yesterday.”

“What?” I said, excited.