Damage Undone

Chapter 8. Stranger Than Ever





Self-hatred was a new feeling for Susan.

She felt like a stranger to herself – and an enemy – when she woke, tangled in unfamiliar sheets and breathing in stale air.

She lifted herself on her elbow, checking out how the face of the guy she’d gone home with, Shawn something, looked in the light. He was cleancut, not the kind of guy she normally picked up in bars: he’d been wearing a suit, winding down after work – she never asked what kind of work. Lots of black hair, and full pouty lips, like a drummer masquerading as a professional. He must be ten years younger than she.

--I have good taste, she thought dispassionately.

She rose softly, trying not to wake him, showered in a hurry in the bathroom of his big, comfortable apartment, and tried not to hate the memory of last night. After all, she had had so many one-night stands before, had gone to a million bars and picked up a million guys who didn’t demand more of her than a night of good conversation and good sex.

But last night was different. She’d seen Mark just before he left, passing her at the admit desk with his step unsteady and eyes seeming to accuse hers, as if he could somehow read the thoughts in her head. The turmoil had only increased when she spoke to Elizabeth, to the point where she had to look away from Mark to protect herself.

This time she didn’t want to have a girls’ night with Abby or Jing-Mei; didn’t want to try to fill the sudden void with warmth, or friendship. She went to a bar knowing exactly what she’d do, knowing that she’d wake up like this and that whatever cold comfort she might have found wouldn’t last till morning.

As she searched in the bedroom for the watch she’d shed sometime last night, she heard a yawn and saw his eyes blink sleepily open.

“Watch?” she said quietly.

“There.” He pointed to a spot on the floor, near the wall.

Susan checked the time: she had a couple of hours to go home and change clothes.

“Need a ride somewhere?”

“I’ll take a cab.”

“I’ll call you sometime,” he offered perfunctorily.

She smiled kindly and said, “It was nice knowing you.”

*

“Thanks for coming,” Vic said as he and Romano emerged from the interview ahead of the rest of the Northwestern hotshots. He took Romano’s hand in one big paw and then slapped him on the back. “Thought we’d never snag you.”

“Haven’t got it in the bag yet, Vic,” Romano answered. “There’s still that small matter of the corner office to take care of.”

“You crack me up.” Vic exclaimed, again, to the desk clerk: “He cracks me up. You really do.”

“Did I really appear in public with you when we were younger?”

“Only when we were drunk. Now, come on, you don’t need a corner office. County only has you in that tiny closet, right? I’ve seen it. It’s a shithole, pardon my French.”

They stood outside the elevators – gold framed, Romano noted, not disapprovingly – and Vic rambled on about something inconsequential.

He had almost made up his mind to take the job. He’d never intended County to take the rest of his life; it had only happened that way because he managed to snag that COS post, but he had a career to think of.

Besides, if he told himself the truth, he’d stayed partly because of Elizabeth, and it was time to get a grip on reality. The two of them had more in their history than a lifetime could erase. Better that he get over her; there were plenty of places to work, plenty of people.

Just as he was bidding an almost affectionate good-bye to Vic, he heard a voice behind him, dripping honeyed sarcasm.

“Well, well, well. …If it isn’t God’s gift to medicine, right here in the halls of Northwestern.”

Romano turned around leisurely; he already knew the voice and the Texas twang its owner tried so hard to hide. “Cheryl,” he said, shooting her an amused look. “As kind as ever.”

In the flesh. She’d cut her hair, he noticed; it was curling about her ears now, and he was fairly sure it was blonder than it had been before. She must be nearly forty now; he couldn’t remember exactly.

She was smiling at him. “Robert, I should have known you’d have sniffed out the coziest places to work.”

“Actually, he hasn’t yet,” Vic interrupted, eyeing Cheryl with obvious appreciation. The years had been kind to her, although there were laugh lines. Still, she looked good for her age; and far be it from Vic not to notice. “I’m trying to convince him. I’m Victor Parker, by the way…?”

“Cheryl Winthrop,” she said, giving him her bone-cracking handshake. Good, Romano thought with private amusement; Vic would figure out this one was out of his league, and be on his way.

“I’m so sorry, I’ve got another meeting,” Vic said, shaking out his hand, but still smiling at Cheryl. “Hey, take over for me and convince Bob that Northwestern’s better than CCGH, will you?”

“It was nice to meet you,” Cheryl said with a small, sardonic smile.

She turned to Romano, who was still shocked at seeing her here. “Well,” she said softly. “It has been a long time.”

“What are you doing here?” he said, trying to cover his ground.

“I was just saying hi to Alex Veech in vascular,” she said. “My lunch date. Cancelled now. You surgeons are too damn busy.”

“Alex,” Romano mused, as the elevator doors opened and they stepped in. “Would that be a girl or a guy?”

“A woman,” she said automatically, as the doors slid closed.

They laughed, remembering the rhythm of their old conversations.

“Still holding your own on both sides of the fence, I take it,” he said silkily.

“Well, that is a gift some of us are born with,” she answered, just as pleasantly. “Kind of like sensitivity, or… height.”

“Oh, the exquisite subtlety of that one just hit me over the head with a frying pan,” he groaned.

“What, no one dares insult you over at your hospital?”

“Not quite no one,” he said.

She caught his expression when he imagined Elizabeth, and her laughter pealed in the closed space of the elevator. “Oh, man.”

“What?”

“I have never seen you smile like that, Robert.”

“I’m not smiling.”

She cackled softly to herself, enjoying his discomfort. “All right; if I pay for lunch, will you tell me who the hell you were just thinking about?”

“You can pay, but I’m not a talker.”

Cheryl exhaled deeply. “That much I already knew. Well, let’s eat anyway, shall we? It’s been a long time.”

“All right. You still paying?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll choose the place.” He’d take her to Doc Magoo’s, just to make her vegetarian life difficult in revenge for all the strange brussel-sprout-y places she’d dragged him to years ago.

Cheryl rolled her eyes.

“I’d just been thinking about you,” he said.

“Really.”

“You ever…?”

She grinned. “Never.”

--Goddamn smart-ass feminists, he thought.

“So what’s with the job hunting? Midlife crisis?” Cheryl asked.

“Maybe,” he said. “I’d let myself get too attached to the place. Should’ve moved on to something more my style a long time ago.”

They stepped out of the elevator.

“By the way, Robert?”

“Yeah?”

“What happened to all your hair?”

*

“You’re right, she has patellar tendinitis,” Elizabeth told Kovac after examining his patient’s knee. “But surgery’s not indicated for this type.”

Luka looked back at his young patient, seeming concerned. “There seems to be a lot of dead tissue.”

“I’d still treat it conservatively,” she said. “Surgery is really best when it’s the main body of the tendon.”

He seemed about to argue further when Lydia opened the door to the next-door trauma room. “Dr. Corday?” she said. “Dr. Greene needs a hand on this scalp lac.”

Elizabeth’s first instinct was to run. It had been a long time since she’d seen Mark. “Uh – I’m on lunch break,” she said.

“Romano’s not here, and the others are busy. Can’t you do it?” Mark called from behind Lydia.

She took a deep breath. “Yes, I’m coming.” To Luka, “Tell her to come back if the pain increases.”

Mark stood straight and looked up at Elizabeth. “Thanks,” he said.

She nodded briskly and stepped to the other side of the partial scalping on the table. Quickly figuring out what he was doing, she joined in, speaking as little as she could. Across the gurney she could see Lydia watching, curious. –God – she thought crossly – can’t they just leave the gossip alone for one bloody moment?

Breaking the silence, Mark suddenly said, “How’s Ella?”

“All right. Not talking yet.”

“There’s a new aquarium opening this weekend. Can I take her to see it?”

“Of course,” she said, feeling guilty that he was asking so timidly. “Mark, I didn’t mean to steal your daughter – I just –” She recalled that they weren’t alone and stopped, chagrined. They could have this conversation another time.

He looked up from his stitching and said with a little mischievous smile, “Now, can you show me your tip?”

Surprised, Elizabeth recalled using that line, way back in the first days of their relationship – when she, although wary of starting another relationship, had given into an impish whim and flirted with him over another scalp lac. She smiled at Mark, at the modern version of him: balder, older, scarred. “Got it.”

They finished in a more friendly silence. Elizabeth wondered why they couldn’t be good to each other while they were together. She had forgotten that behind his infuriating passivity, he was someone she could like.

“I’ll call you to set up the time,” he said before she left. “I won’t bring Rachel. It’ll be just the two of us.”

She didn’t answer that, except with a smile and a wave as she pushed her way through the door. Finally, lunch. She hadn’t been so hungry in her life; it was hard not to respect Robert a little more for dealing with ridiculous administrative problems like that med school student she’d met with this morning.

Doc Magoo’s was quiet today, she mused as she came inside and went straight to the counter. It was a cold day, too cold for March. Might snow later, even.

“Coke and a hamburger,” she told the waiter, tiredly. She had even begun to eat like an American now, she realized.

Waiting for her food, she found herself leaning her head on her hand. Taking care of Ella without Mark, even with Chris’s help, had begun to seem like too big a burden. Yet the thought of going back, of returning to the marriage that had made both of them miserable and endangering her child to boot, was still unthinkable. She knew that soon she’d have to admit to herself that she and Mark were never going to make it work.

--Mustn’t think of it now, still have hours to work and you don’t want to be upset… Elizabeth shook her head, trying to find something else to ponder; and her eyes met a dark, cool gaze that held them fast.

Robert Romano, she thought, looking back at the man sitting at the other end of the counter with a puzzled smile. What was he doing at Doc Magoo’s, since there had been something so important to keep him away from that meeting this morning?

Still looking at her, he addressed a few words to a companion – Elizabeth could only see the back of a head of blonde cropped hair, and a slender, petite body. Then the other woman turned to face forward, and she caught a glimpse of a pointy chin and small, turned-up nose. But Robert’s eyes were still focused on Elizabeth.

A waiter plopped her hamburger unceremoniously down in front of her, and Elizabeth, forcing herself to ignore her self-consciousness, began to eat, looking straight ahead. When she allowed herself to check Robert again, he wasn’t watching her.

Sinking back into a reverie, this time about Ella and her dilatory language skills, Elizabeth ate her hamburger unthinkingly till she heard the smooth voice say, “How’d that meeting go this morning?”

She looked up. Robert was sitting alone now, although there were still two plates where he and his friend had been sitting. “Fine,” she said. “You skipped out on me to meet a woman for a lunch date?”

He chuckled – perhaps at her palpable annoyance. She wasn’t jealous. Just upset that she had to fill in so that he could have a social life. “No, no. I was at an appointment. I just ran into Cheryl by chance.”

“Oh?” she said. “Where’d she go?”

“Cell phone,” he said, rolling his eyes and nodding outside, where Elizabeth recognized the blonde talking into a chic silver cell.

Elizabeth nodded, nonchalant.

“You know that woman I was telling you about – the fiancée?” he said.

“That’s who you meant?” Elizabeth said.

“Yeah.” He smiled wryly. “Hadn’t seen her since it ended.”

“She’s pretty.”

“Says you are, too.” He looked down at his coffee. “Saw me looking at you.”

Elizabeth felt herself flushing. Then he lifted the coffee to his lips, and as his hand curved around the front of the cup she caught a glimpse of old cuts on his hands.

Still there. She felt her eyes widen, remembering the feeling of his hand supporting her neck, the taste of that kiss, the look on his face when she pulled away –

No. She wouldn’t do this. She needed to remember all the other things. Don’t worry your pretty little head, as she tried to help Allison Beaumont. Hey, who looks out for ya, touching her hip with possessiveness that made her seethe, as he knew it would. Lizzie this, Lizzie that (Lizzie, you and I are a match made in heaven…)

She pulled herself up short and cast around for something to say.

“What’s she like? This Cheryl, I mean.”

His eyes were darkly amused at her discomfiture. “Smart as all hell,” he said. “First of all. And a little too PC for my tastes. Too easy to rile her up – but she was one of those people that you know are all right, just from looking at.”

“She seems sweet,” Elizabeth agreed.

“You look surprised,” he noted.

“Well, yes,” she admitted frankly. “She doesn’t seem like your type at all.”

“What’s my type?” he said, a dangerous note in his voice. “Sharper-tongued, maybe, with curlier hair? Bluer eyes?”

Elizabeth flushed, ashamed of her own egotism, and transparency. She had been thinking of herself. “I was thinking of that woman you brought to my – to my wedding.” Walking up the aisle she’d noticed the pair out of the corner of her eye, wanting to laugh at the incongruity: the tall, gracious, be-hatted blonde, and the man who had just told her she was beautiful, standing beside her like a village patriarch…

He accepted that. “So you mean dumb and decorative.”

“Yes,” she said, laughing. Then, more soberly, “Did you love her?”

“I was ready to marry her, Elizabeth. What kind of person do you think I am? --No, don’t answer that. I did love her.” He took another sip of coffee and said distantly, “I was an easier sell back then.”

“So what happened?”

“She broke it off.” He added with a self-deprecating shrug, “Ran away and broke my heart, the whole goddamned story of the ages.”

“Why?”

“Don’t know.”

“Sure he does,” came the smooth, lyrical voice from behind Elizabeth. They both jumped to see Cheryl, standing behind Elizabeth with her hands on her hips. She was speaking to Elizabeth, but her eyes and her mocking smile were focused intensely on Romano. “I did it because I wanted a family, not a lifetime of trying the same locked door. The man doesn’t know how to tell you what he’s feeling. Or doesn’t want to, or didn’t think I was worth it.”

She finally looked at Elizabeth with a mischievous little grin. “You think it’s hard working for him, try waiting for him.”

Awkwardly Elizabeth gave her a tight smile, avoiding Romano’s eyes. His sigh was almost inaudible as he put down his fork. “So this is what people mean when they say “girltalk.” You two done sharing yet?”

“I have more stories, but that’s the best one,” Cheryl said silkily. She winked at him with a mixture of affection and leftover melancholy, and bent to kiss him good-bye, near his mouth. “Nice running into you, Robert,” she said with a kind smile.

“Always a pleasure,” he returned.

When she had gone, Romano gave Elizabeth a level, defensive glare. “Might want to close your mouth there, Lizzie. Not that it isn’t attractive to watch you gape, but the entire restaurant can tell how shocked you are.”

Elizabeth closed her mouth, unthinkingly obedient. He grinned humorlessly. “Your docility today warms my heart.”

Then he flicked a twenty onto the counter and strode out the door.





Chapter 9: Dancing Around Reality