The only thing I couldn’t ignore were the looks he gave me.
Searching, piercing.
He didn’t make any sexual comments, not after that first day. I thought he might’ve been embarrassed.
But when he said I could help him change his scrubs, the image of getting on my knees to pull them down broke into my mind, and I couldn’t get it out of my brain.
He drove me crazy. I despised him, and each day was somehow worse than the day before.
And yet I kept coming in, and I never once complained.
After a week, I staggered into the lobby at five in the morning like always, but found it empty. I stood there, a little confused, looking for Piers, but the place was deserted.
I heard the sound of heels on the marble floor and turned as Chief Resident Monica came toward me. She looked exhausted, her hair messy and up in a half-fallen bun, her clothes rumpled, deep bags under her eyes. She forced a smile and held up a hand.
“Hey, Lori, right?”
“Hi,” I said. “Good morning.”
“How’s it going?”
“Not too bad.”
She stood a few feet away, smiling a very forced smile. “Great, well, uh, so Piers sent me down to get you.”
“Really?” I tilted my head in confusion. “Is something wrong?”
“Oh, no, not at all, he’s just prepping right now and couldn’t come himself. I think his exact words were, ‘Hey, you, blondie, you’re the resident wrangler, right? Get your ass downstairs and find my damn resident.’ So here I am.”
“God, I’m sorry. He can be such an asshole.”
She laughed nervously. “I know, but he’s a genius, so what can you do? Anyway, I think he wants you in surgery three, so let’s go before he gets mad.”
I followed Monica to the elevators, feeling confused. This hadn’t happened before. Normally, his first surgery wasn’t until eight, and I didn’t know what was different about today.
But I felt a spike of excitement as Monica showed me to the surgery suite. I stepped into the prep room and peered in through the window as Piers stalked around the table, speaking with his nurses and the anesthesiologist.
“Get scrubbed,” Monica said, waving. “And good luck.” Her smile slipped on that last word before she ducked out.
I stood there feeling stupid for exactly five seconds before I threw my stuff down in the corner and started prepping.
I knew how to do this. We’d gone over it a hundred times in school. Still, I wished someone was here to make sure I was getting it right. I scrubbed in, washing my hands and arms, then got my gown and hat on—then scrubbed again for good measure. I went into the surgery suite, feeling jittery, nervous, and scared, but full of excitement—I was finally going to get to watch Piers work, finally getting to stand in the room and assist. This was what I’d been training for, what I’d been waiting for this whole time, and I was almost brimming with energy.
Piers gave me one look and all that energy flowed away.
“You,” he barked at me, “in the damn corner. Do not speak. Do not move. You watch. You keep your mouth shut. As far as I’m concerned, you’re furniture, and if you make me realize you’re a real human being, I swear to whatever fucking deity you believe in, I will cut you. Do you understand?”
Everyone stared at me. The nurses, the anesthesiologist. I felt blood rush to my cheeks.
“Yes,” I said in a small voice.
“Good.” He turned away and began marshalling everyone like a general on parade.
I did as instructed. I stood in the corner of the room, behind him and off to the side where he couldn’t see me, but where I could watch what he did. The nurses gave me sympathetic looks, and the anesthesiologist—a young guy with red hair and a kind smile beneath his surgical mask—gave me a reassuring wink. At least, I thought it was meant to be reassuring.
I felt like an idiot.
But soon the patient was wheeled in, and all my discomfort disappeared.
I had no clue what procedure I was about to witness. I knew Piers specialized in cardiac surgery, but I hadn’t been told what exactly we were doing that morning, and nobody seemed inclined to fill me in. The man on the table was older, in his late sixties at least, a thin white man with stark black hair and bushy eyebrows, probably dyed. He looked nervous, but put on a brave smile, likely already on a drug cocktail, and Piers nodded at him, eyes intense and fierce.
“I’ll see you soon, Mr. Short,” he said.
The patient only smiled. The anesthesiologist took over from there, putting Mr. Short under. Once they confirmed everything was prepped and ready, the procedure began.
I’d seen skilled surgeons do their work in med school. I sat in on several intricate procedures, and been impressed with the poise and ability of the men and women doing their jobs. But none of that even came close to what I witnessed with Piers.
It was like watching a pianist at the top of his ability. Each movement was short, exacting, and elegant. His hands moved with incredible precision, and a heavy hush fell over the room as he worked. It took me a bit to understand what was happening, but it became clear that he was placing a stent.
It was a relatively routine operation, though Piers somehow made it seem like a performance. The nurses danced around him, giving him what he needed as he went through each step, working by the book, but doing it in a smooth, fluid manner.
There was a different between a deft touch and a heavy one. A mediocre surgeon could still do most procedures with little or no problems, but it was a whole different thing when a truly exceptional surgeon did his work. Healing times
