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“I’m sorry,” Emily said. “You’re right. I’ve been too critical of you. I should have been focused on learning instead of picking apart your process.”
“Well, I never thought I would hearthatfrom you.”
“I have my own opinions about the way I want to practice medicine,” Emily said. “And some of those things aren’t ever going to change. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have anything to learn, and I know that. I should be making the most of my time here, learning as much as I can from you while I’ve got the opportunity — not making a fuss at every turn about how I don’t agree with the way you do things.”
“What brought this on?”
“You’rereallygood at what you do,” Emily said. “I always knew that. I know your reputation. But seeing you in action today… I don’t know. It really hit home for me just how amazing you are, and why people call you the best in the industry. It’s a privilege to be learning from you, Dr. Berger. Truly. I’m sorry. I can keep my opinions to myself from now on.”
Dr. Berger shook his head. “I’m glad you have that perspective, but I don’t want you to feel like you can’t talk,” he said. “The truth is that interns do bring new ideas into the medical field, and we’re supposed to be able to hear you out. It’s too easy for me to forget, sometimes, that other people have useful things to contribute, and to just shut them down. You did well today.”
“Did I really?”
“Don’t start doubting yourself now.” He gave her a rare grin. “We both know you have all kinds of confidence. Stick with that.”
Emily was stunned at the way smiling changed his whole face. It was like he was a different person — no longer the irritable, impossible to please Dr. Berger that she had come to know, butsomeone much more pleasant and agreeable, and even… she felt herself blushing…attractive.
She hadn’t really thought about Dr. Berger this way before, but she knew that now that she’d seen it, she wouldn’t be able to un-see it. She would always think of him as this handsome man.
And really, how had she failed to notice it? Had she been so intimidated by him that she had missed that angular jaw, those brown eyes that could be either warm or penetrating, those hands that were huge and yet deft and precise? She couldn’t believe she’d failed to notice him.
He was exactly her type.
Not that anything could ever come of it, of course. He was her attending physician. She knew she had to keep her distance. Still… there was no harm in looking. And now that she knew how good-looking he was when he relaxed a little, she thought she might make it her personal mission to help him relax a little more often.
“What do we do now?” she asked him.
“Rounds, I suppose.”
“You’re not on shift,” she reminded him. “And neither am I.”
“What point are you making?”
“We should get out of here.”
“You’re not starting that again, are you? I told you, I like sticking around the hospital at night.”
“They’re not going to let you back in the OR tonight,” Emily pointed out. “You’re not going to be given back-to-back surgeries. It’s strange that they even let you have that one, giventhat it isn’t your shift — but I guess the great Dr. Berger can get whatever he wants around here.”
“Something like that.”
“Look, let’s get something to eat,” she suggested. “You can give me a rundown of how I did in there. Let me know what I can improve on. I’m sure there must be something.”
“You want your performance critiqued?”
“Of course,” Emily said. “Wouldn’t you, if you were me? If you had just had the chance to go into surgery with one of the best in the business? It’s the only way I’m going to learn.”
“You haven’t been that receptive to my criticism so far,” Dr. Berger said.
“Okay, well, tonight I promise to just hear you out and not argue with you,” Emily said. “I’ll just listen to everything you have to say, all right?”
Dr. Berger actually laughed. “Well, this I’ve got to see,” he said. “You just listening and not arguing… you could probably sell tickets to something like that.”
“So you’re in?”
“All right, I’m in. Let’s go down to the cafeteria.”
“No, not the cafeteria,” Emily said.
