“Let’s celebrate,” David said. “Let’s have lunch at the inn.”
A few minutes later they were sitting at a cloth-covered table with a view of the river. David and Angela each ordered a glass of white wine. Nikki had a cranberry juice. They touched their glasses.
“I’d like to toast our arrival in the Garden of Eden,” David said.
“And I’d like to toast the beginning of paying back our debt,” Angela said.
“Hear, hear!” David said, and they drank.
“Can you believe it?” Angela asked. “Our combined income will be over one hundred and twenty thousand dollars.”
David sang a few bars of the song “We’re in the Money.”
“I think I’ll call my dog Rusty,” Nikki said.
“That’s a wonderful name,” David said.
“What do you think about me earning twice what you do?” Angela teased.
David had known the barb would come at some point so he was prepared. “You’ll be earning it in your dark, dreary lab,” he teased back. “At least I’ll be seeing real, live, appreciative people.”
“Won’t it challenge your delicate masculinity?” Angela continued.
“Not in the slightest,” David said. “Also it’s nice to know that if we ever get divorced I’ll get alimony.”
Angela lunged across the table to give David a poke in the ribs.
David parried Angela’s playful gesture. “Besides,” he said, “that kind of differential won’t last much longer. It’s a legacy of a past era. Pathologists, like surgeons and other overpaid specialists, will soon be brought down to earth.”
“Says who?” Angela demanded.
“Says me,” David said.
After lunch, they decided to go straight to the hospital to let Caldwell know their decision. Once they presented themselves to his secretary, they were ushered in right away.
“That’s fantastic!” Caldwell said when they informed him of their decision. “Does CMV know yet?” he asked.
“Not yet,” David said.
“Come on,” Caldwell said. “Let’s go give them the good news.”
Charles Kelley was equally pleased with the news. After a congratulatory handshake he asked David when he thought he’d be ready to start seeing patients.
“Just about immediately,” David said without hesitation. “July first.”
“Your residency isn’t over until the thirtieth,” Kelley said. “Don’t you want some time to get settled?”
“With our debt,” David said, “the sooner we start working the better we’ll feel.”
“Same for you?” Caldwell asked Angela.
“Absolutely,” Angela answered.
David asked if they could go back to the office he’d be assigned. Kelley was happy to oblige.
David paused outside the waiting room door, fantasizing how his name would look in the empty slot under Dr. Randall Portland’s name. It had been a long, hard road, starting from the moment in the eighth grade when he’d decided to become a doctor, but he’d finally made it.
David opened the door and stepped over the threshold. His reverie was broken when a figure dressed in surgical scrubs leaped off the waiting room couch.
“What is the meaning of this?” the man angrily demanded.
It took David a moment to recognize Dr. Portland. It was partly due to the unexpectedness of the encounter, but it was also because Dr. Portland had changed in the month since David had last seen him. He’d lost considerable weight; his eyes seemed sunken, even haunted, and his cheeks were gaunt.
Kelley pushed his way to the front of the group, reintroduced David and Randall, and then explained to Randall why they were there. Dr. Portland’s anger waned. Like a balloon losing its air, he collapsed back onto the couch. David noticed that not only had Randall lost weight but he was pale.
“Sorry to have bothered you,” David said.
“I was just getting a bit of sleep,” Dr. Portland explained. His voice was flat. He sounded as exhausted as he looked. “I did a case this morning, and I felt tired.”
“Tom Baringer?” Caldwell asked.
Dr. Portland nodded.
“I hope it went okay,” Caldwell said.
“The operation went fine,” Dr. Portland said. “Now we have to keep our fingers crossed for the post-op course.”
David apologized again, then herded everyone, including himself, out of the office.
“Sorry about that,” Kelley said.
“What’s wrong with him?” David asked.
“Nothing that I know of,” Kelley said.