“Yuri, I’m getting a little sick of-”
“I’m getting a little sick of the way you think you can just do whatever the hell you want and it’s never going to affect anybody,” she says. “It’s not just your career you’re putting at risk with everything you’re doing with Grace.”
“Yuri, I’ve told you that if anything happens and I lose my job, I’ll keep you on payroll until you’re able to find something else,” I say.
“Yeah, but have you considered that maybe I like my job and I don’t want to have to look for something else?”
“I get where you’re coming from, but what exactly do you want me to do about it?”
“Break up with her. That pretty much solves all your problems right there.”
“I thought you liked Grace,” I say, feeling a tinge of déjà vu.
“That couldn’t possibly be less relevant,” she says. “What is relevant is that you know I’m right. You know that you should break up with Grace before something really stupid happens because you couldn’t keep your dick out of your patients for-”
“You are way out of line,” I interrupt. “I don’t know what’s going on with you today, but I’m sick of hearing it. Go home, Yuri.”
“I told you,” she says. “If you’re here, I’m here.”
“That’s not the way it works. I’m your boss. If I tell you to go home, you go home.”
“I’ve always been here,” she says. “I get that you and Melissa knew each other from way back whenever, but Grace? Seriously, what the hell were you thinking?”
“Yuri, go home,” I repeat.
“Don’t you fucking get it?”
“No, I don’t ‘get’ why you’re acting this way,” I tell her. “What I’m sure of is that I’ve reached the end of my patience for it, though.”
“Fine,” she says, bending down behind her desk and lifting her purse. “Go ahead and do what you want, but I hope you know this shit is going to backfire on you so hard-”
“Just go,” I interrupt. “I really don’t need an editorial.”
“When did you get to be such a dick?” she asks as she turns and walks out the door, slamming it on her way out.
What the hell was that all about?
I make sure the door to the waiting room is locked before I head into my office. Yuri still has her key, but if she keeps acting this way, I don’t think there’s much of a chance that she’s going to be hanging onto it that much longer.
Maybe it is the Huntington’s. I’ve noticed a certain vitriol slowly creeping into her over the last couple of months, and as far as I can tell, it came out of nowhere. I know enough about the disease to know its general progression, but I’m hardly an expert on it.
Regardless, I’m here now and I’ve got the office to myself, so I sit down at my desk and get to work.
After a while, I stop glancing up at the clock. They told Grace that her appointment shouldn’t take any more than half an hour, but they almost always misjudge that sort of thing.
The biggest part of being a doctor nowadays is all the paperwork. There’s paperwork for pretty much everything.
Office supply ordering forms, medical supply ordering forms, patient’s files, dictations, notes, insurance forms, more insurance forms, no-insurance forms, partially-insured insurance forms, insured-through-multiple-carriers insurance forms…it goes on and on.
By the time I get caught up, my mind is sufficiently numb that I’m looking at the clock for a solid minute before it registers what time it says.
3:23 P.M.
Grace has been in with the trial doctors for nearly four hours.
Time got right the hell away from me, but I would have expected a call or a knock on the outer office/waiting room door long before now.