“Well? Are you going to tell me what happened with that patient, or do I have to guess?” she asks.
“Dr. Kaufman is going to take her to surgery.”
She raises her eyebrows. “He doesn’t want to wait for the CT results?”
“No,” I say.
Dr. Zaleski takes another sip of coffee and mutters something under her breath. “Where’s my coffee?” she finally says.
“Oh…” I look down at my hands, like if I wished hard enough, a Styrofoam cup of coffee might magically appear. “I’ll get it for you right now.”
She nods curtly. “Now, please. You’d think I’d only have to tell you once…”
Less than two weeks to go…
I sprint down the hall to the kitchen, where they have a machine filled with hot coffee that is constantly brewing. I grab one of the Styrofoam cups and press the button to dispense coffee. Of course, nothing happens. That’s exactly what kind of night I’m having.
“Problem?”
I whirl around, nearly dropping the cup on the floor. A slim woman in her late twenties wearing a pair of scrubs is standing behind me, her dark hair piled on top of her head. The ID badge on her chest reads Rachel Bingham, MD, Psychiatry Resident. It’s very late, but her eyes are bright, and she doesn’t seem the slightest bit tired.
Unlike me. Even mybonesare tired. I didn’t think such a thing was possible until my third year of med school.
“The coffee machine won’t work,” I grumble.
She arches an eyebrow. “Why are you drinking coffee at midnight?”
“It’s for Dr. Zaleski.”
“Okay, then. Why are you Dr. Zaleski’s coffee slave?”
“I don’t mind getting it for her.” I don’t want it getting back to her that I’ve been bad-mouthing her behind her back. The residents talk amongst themselves, even between departments. “And she’s got a lot to do.”
“Here,” she says in a voice much kinder than my own resident’s voice, “let me help you.”
Dr. Bingham takes the coffee cup from me and fiddles with the machine. A minute later, the coffee machine starts dispensing piping-hot black liquid. I let out a sigh of relief. Dr. Zaleski definitely would’ve screamed at me if I came back to her without coffee. If I couldn’t get this machine to work, I would have had to hide in a supply closet for the rest of my shift.
Dr. Bingham turns her back to me as she finishes filling up the coffee and places the Styrofoam cup on the counter. “She takes it black, right?”
“How’d you know?”
“Just a guess. She’s always so hyper when she calls us for consults. You’d think she was on speed.”
I snicker. “Dr. Zaleski onspeed? No way. She would never take that kind of chance. They do random drug tests all the time here, and she would wreck her entire career.”
She nods. “Yes, you’re probably right. It would be very stupid, wouldn’t it? Anyway, you better get her this coffee before it gets cold and she screams at you again.”
She isn’t wrong. I reach out to take the coffee cup from the counter, but that’s when I see it. A sprinkling of white particles dissolving into the black liquid. I squint down at the cup, trying to figure out what they are. But before I can, Dr. Bingham retrieves a plastic lid and pops it on top of the cup.
I start to ask her about what I just saw, but then I shake my head. What am I supposed to say?Hey, why were there little white specks in the black coffee?I’ll sound nuts. It’s probably a visual hallucination from lack of sleep.
The psych resident picks up the cup of coffee and holds it out to me. “Good luck tonight,” she says.
As I take the coffee from her, our eyes meet. A chill runs down my spine, although I’m not exactly sure why. I can’t help but think that I didn’t imagine those white specks in the coffee. While she was turned away from me, Dr. Bingham had a chance to do whatever she wanted to that coffee.
But why would she? Ihadto have imagined it. Imusthave.
After all, who would want to drug Dr. Zaleski?
THE END
