Fire & Water Read online

  “Ah yes, but it causes you to meet such interesting people.”

  * * *

  Two days later, well after dark, I was heading home after a grueling shift in the ER. These were my last days as an intern, and I was distracted with thoughts about what would come next. I stuffed my stethoscope into my lab coat pocket and fumbled for my keys. My Beetle sat like a chariot, waiting for me in the amber glow of the parking garage lights. Icy wind sliced through the garage. I pulled my mother’s Irish wool, cable-knit sweater up around my neck. On her it had hung so loosely she’d rolled the sleeves. On me the fit was snug, and the sleeves barely made it to my wrists. Though it had grown tattered with the years, wearing it made me feel close to her, and I couldn’t let it go. Cold bit through the thinning yarn.

  “Ahoy, Matey,” a voice came from behind me.

  His wiry silhouette and the dark shadow of his eye patch were all I could see, but I knew instantly that it was Jake Bloom.

  “Mr. Bloom, you’re looking better than the last time I saw you.”

  He continued in his pirate voice. “This here ship’s got a mighty fine sawbones.”

  “I hope you’ve seen your doctor for a follow-up, Mr. Bloom.”

  “Doctuhs…” he said, now in a comical Yiddish accent. “Have I seen doctuhs? I’m filthy with doctuhs.”

  After an especially rugged day in the ER, his playfulness was a balm. “No infection? No problems?”

  “Nah, you did a great job,” he said, sincerity returning to his natural voice. “Vision’s fine—as good as it was before, anyway. I’ll come out of this with just a small, manly scar adding character to an otherwise boring face.”

  His face, dark and expressive, was anything but boring. It was a face that seemed somehow to have more moving parts than most, with twitches and grimaces that formed expressions, instantly animating his every thought.

  “Good to hear it, Mr. Bloom. You got lucky.” I found my key and readied it for the car door.

  “I don’t believe in luck. And it’s Jake. Mr. Bloom is my father.” He feigned a shiver. His unpatched eye found my nametag and he squinted. “K. Murphy, M.D. K? Hmm?”

  “Katherine,” I surrendered.

  “I might’ve known. Katherine, Kate, Katie. Anything but Kathy.” He studied my face. “Fair skin. Dark hair. Irish surname. No, you’ve never been a Kathy. I’ll have to decide what to call you after I know you better.”

  My face betrayed me again, smiling against my will. Those stiff jeans were beginning to feel more comfortable.

  “So, Katherine, Katie, Kate. What are the chances of the beautiful doctor accompanying a one-eyed idiot for some midnight pizza and beer?”

  “Really, you shouldn’t drink with the medication—”

  “I’ve been off the meds since day one. Brought me down.” His face was gentle and inviting. “Besides, nothing says thanks to the doctor who saved your vision like brewed hops and processed carbohydrates topped with animal byproducts.” His eyebrows twitched and his smile gave him a hopeful, eager expression.

  A part of me felt cautious—was he just a flirt? A player? There were plenty of those among the doctors and interns. But this felt different, like it wasn’t rehearsed or something he did with any woman he met. I was flattered. “Sure,” I surrendered. “I didn’t get dinner. Pizza would be great.”

  The Front Room was the hangout for UC med students, not because the food was especially good, but because it was nearby and open late and the beer was cheap. Red and white plastic tablecloths and Chianti bottles cloaked in wax drippings donned each table. Kitschy rubber grapes dangled from the ceiling, and Frank Sinatra posters hung from imitation wood paneling.

  After nine on a Sunday night, the place still housed clusters of med students, all wearing scrubs; their way of telling the world they were on the way to becoming “M-Deities,” as Mary K called them. We sat in a windowed booth. Mario Lanza sang in the background.

  “So, I could ask all the usual stuff,” Jake said. “But then you’d have a boring story to tell our grandchildren.”

  His presumptuousness both irritated me and made my body hum.

  When the menu came, Jake pulled a mangled pair of wire-rimmed glasses from his shirt pocket that had an empty lens on the side that covered his patched eye. “First confession of my many flaws,” he said. “I’m blind as a bat. Now I’m blind as a one-eyed bat.” He looked up at the waiter. “You know what to do.”

  The waiter nodded and stepped away.

  “You’re trusting the waiter in this place?” I whispered. “They’re used to groups of drunk med students in here.”

  “It’s all taken care of.” He grinned. “It seems you’re not used to being pampered.” I couldn’t decide if he was suave or just arrogant.

  I picked wax off the Chianti bottle. “This is pampering?”

  “A little faith, Dr. Murphy.”

  “So, what do you do?” I asked. “Are you really an artist, or is that just another of your multiple personalities?”

  “All right,” he said and leaned back in his chair. “I guess we’re going to do the boring first-date stuff after all.”

  “Who said this was a date?”

  “You knew it was a date or you wouldn’t be here.”

  It happened again, that feeling of being caught. He was arrogant, but also self-effacing; cocky, yet wholly vulnerable.

  Just then, two plates arrived. In front of me was a delicately thin mini pizza topped with butter-browned scallops, goat cheese, pine nuts, and fresh basil, with a bright yellow nasturtium blossom in the center. Jake’s pizza was equally beautiful, with curled pink shrimp sitting atop a spiral of ruby red, roasted tomatoes. The waiter uncorked a bottle of Pinot Grigio and poured two glasses.

  I stared at Jake, who wore a smirk. “This is not standard Front Room fare. What, did you hire a chef?”

  “In a manner of speaking. Taste it.”

  I bit into a slice and the rich flavors filled my mouth; the scent of basil was hypnotic.

  “And?” Jake looked at me like a puppy awaiting a well-deserved treat.

  I took another bite. All I could do was groan.

  “I take it you like?”

  I opened my eyes, not even aware that I’d closed them, and wiped my lips. “I want the name of your chef.”

  Jake held out his hand. “Jake Bloom. At your pleasure.”

  “You?”

  “Hey, I brought the good groceries. Tipped the cooks. And voilà! They let me play in their sandbox.”

  “All assuming that I’d agree to come here with you. And what if I’d declined your invitation?”

  “Then I’d be sitting here all alone with this great food, weeping into my wine glass. Here,” he said, holding up a slice of his pizza. “You have to try this one, too.”

  I took a scrumptious bite from the slice he held before me. “So?” he asked.

  I didn’t want him to know I had become entranced, but, though I tried, I was unable to act nonchalant. Being with Jake was unlike any first date I’d ever had, though confessedly my experience was limited. Jake was relentless with his questions throughout the dinner. He wanted to understand me, my thoughts, my life, to know about everyone in my life who loved me. He reached across the table with ease, helping himself to morsels from my plate like we’d known each other for years. He probed until I told all about growing up in San Francisco in my dad’s pub, and about the motley family that raised me.

  “And your mom?” he asked.

  The story I usually told about my mother now had an apocryphal addition, as of a few days before. I’d called my dad to tell him that I needed a break from the pub crowd—some time to sort things out—and I hadn’t spoken to him since. “She died when I was little.”

  Jake stopped chewing and stared at me. “And?”

  “What and? There’s no and.”

  “Your face says there’s an and.” He wiped his lips with his napkin and tilted his head to one side. “Your words are so—careful. Bu
t your face, it shows everything. This isn’t old pain. This is a fresher wound.”

  Suddenly, I felt like I didn’t have enough clothes on. I pulled my mom’s sweater across my chest.

  “We orphans have a way of finding one another, don’t you think?”

  I’d never thought of myself as an orphan. With so many surrogates who had stepped in after my mother died, a shortage of parental figures had never been a problem. But when I thought about Mary K—my closest friend—we were orphans of sorts, even though her parents were all alive.

  “And you?” I asked diverting his inquiry. “How is it that you are an orphan?”

  “Oh, now that’s a tragic tale. Broken home.” He looked up and gave a theatrical sniff and wiped an invisible tear. “Parents divorced when I was three. I grew up with my father. At least, in his custody, accompanied by a parade of stepmothers, each younger than her predecessor. I left home when I was seventeen and the stepmother du jour was twenty-three. Figured it was only a matter of time before I passed them up. My mother left when I was small. Died when I was in boarding school. One of my old nannies called to tell me about it. My father… well, now there are not really words to describe him, though many have tried.” Jake looked up at me and shrugged. “I believe more in family of choice than family by blood. My dad and I settled into an acceptable distance after a blow-up of biblical proportions. Family is me and Burt for the last ten years. Burt Swift. Great man. Aussie swagger on the outside, pussycat at heart. Brother by choice and partner in crime.”

  “Yeah, Mary K, my housemate, is like that for me, I guess.”

  “Is she a doctor, too?”

  “Yeah. We’ve been friends since our undergraduate freshman year. She’ll be doing a residency in—” I stopped myself.

  Jake stopped eating again and looked into my eyes. “Another fresh wound?”

  Before I knew it, I was telling him all about Mary K’s diabetes and her decision to decline her residency in transplant. “She’s home from the hospital now. Like it never happened. Won’t accept any care at all. But that’s Mary K.” I struggled for words to define my prickly, affection-intolerant friend. “She’s sort of a paradox.”

  Our conversation drifted, weaving easily between topics of music and art, politics and medicine, and though I was enjoying it, images of one of my ER patients from earlier that day kept popping into my mind.

  “What is it?” Jake asked. “Something is troubling you.”

  I shrugged, trying to appear casual. “Just a little tired, I guess. I had a patient that really got to me today. It happens.”

  Jake’s face was an invitation. “Tell me about today.”

  The restaurant had nearly cleared, but for a few lingering students sharing a pitcher of beer at the bar.

  “An ambulance brought in an unconscious woman, probably a prostitute, found tossed out of a car alongside the 101 freeway. SF General was overloaded, so they brought her to us. She’d been stabbed, her face and throat slashed. We’re not a trauma unit, but the EMTs didn’t think she’d make it to General. Everyone worked hard on her, but she arrested and we couldn’t save her.”

  Jake’s hand rose to his throat and his forehead creased. He seemed to feel the slashes in his own flesh as I spoke.

  “Look,” I said. “Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this. ER is pretty grisly stuff. I’m around doctors all day. They’re thick-skinned and—”

  He shook his head. “No, no. Tell me about her. Give me the whole picture. I’m trying to see her.”

  I hesitated, but his expression compelled me to say more. “She came in with a blood pressure of—”

  “No,” he whispered. “Not her medical picture. Tell me about her. Tell me about what you felt trying to help her. I’m trying to imagine doing what you do.”

  Looking into his open face, telling Jake about this patient felt natural. I’d seen many deaths since starting med school. I kept thinking I’d get used to it. Everyone else seemed to. “She was tiny. Maybe a hundred pounds. Looked about eighteen. She came in as a Jane Doe, so I don’t even know her name. I just hope—”

  “That she didn’t know what had been done to her?”

  How had he done it? Finished a sentence I’d barely begun—a thought I’d barely let myself think. My throat tightened.

  Jake pulled details from me: the mocha color and buttery texture of her skin; the graceful curve of her shoulder; her lavender nail polish and silver angel ankle bracelet; the Hello Kitty necklace that was covered in her blood.

  My medical cohorts had offered their obligatory words of comfort for losing a patient—best you could do, must’ve been her time, can’t save ’em all. They’d mouthed sympathies, then quickly changed the topic.

  Jake wore the loss of my Jane Doe; it was etched on his face. “Her pain is over now,” he said. “It will stay with you a while, I know. Now you’re the keeper of the last memory of her.”

  This simple statement caused me to tear up. Silence lingered between us, not uncomfortably, but like a pleasant fragrance. Unlike my colleagues, Jake cracked no joke to break the tension, didn’t change the subject or offer saccharine words of comfort. He simply grieved with me.

  I wiped my eyes with my greasy napkin. “Not exactly sanitary.”

  He smiled kindly and I felt exposed for changing the mood so abruptly.

  The waiter brought a tray with three different desserts. “Don’t tell me you made these too,” I said, grateful for the break.

  “’Fraid not. Brought these from Lucca’s. This would be cheesecake, chocolate torte with hazelnuts, and tiramisu. I’m guessing the chocolate is your pleasure.” Though I said nothing, he smiled. “Chocolate it is.”

  It made no difference which I’d chosen because we both sank our forks, at will, into all three of the treats.

  “So, you’re finishing your internship soon. What’s next?” he asked, taking a bite of creamy tiramisu.

  “Yup, two more days. I’m taking a few weeks off for the first time in my life, and then I begin residency.”

  Jake froze with instant, unedited pain on his face. “You’re not moving away to the Amazon or the Mayo Clinic or something? I don’t think I could stand it if you broke my heart so soon.”

  Coming from anybody else, this intensity would have scared me off. But when I looked into Jake’s eyes—or rather his eye—an electric surge coursed through my body. The surge passed between us and hummed distractingly between my legs. I gathered the remnants of my voice. “I’ll be staying put at UCSF, pediatric surgical residency for the next five years of my life.”

  The creases between his brows smoothed, and he wore the face of one who’d just unraveled a mystery. “Right here up the hill from your dad’s tavern?”

  “Corny, huh? I guess I always pictured myself here.”

  Jake quieted my explanation with the touch of his hand on mine. “Pediatric surgery?” He fingered his eye patch. “I’ve been told by more than one person that I needed to grow up. And I needed a surgeon. I guess I lucked into the perfect doc, huh?”

  “As long as there are dopes who don’t wear safety goggles, surgeons will have job security.” I wagged my finger at him.

  He tucked my scolding finger gently back with its siblings, then brought my hand toward his lips. His kiss was tender. “Something you gotta know about me, Kat, before you and I go any further. I always work without a net, whatever I do.”

  I had to look away, afraid my face would say more than I was ready to tell him. I was falling for this guy. Too soon. Too fast. So unlike myself. Something in me sensed that by falling for him, I was opening a part of myself—a tender, vulnerable part that was altogether new.

  Impatient busboys, who’d already turned the chairs upside down onto tables, finally shooed us out. Jake slipped money into their hands as we left. We stood in the frigid night air in front of the restaurant at two in the morning. Our foggy breath hung in front of our faces.

  Suddenly, Jake appeared agitated. “Damn!” he huffed
, looking around in a panic. “I don’t want to go, but—it’s kind of weird, I sort of have something urgent I have to do right now.”

  I was glad that darkness hid my face. “Oh, hey. It’s late,” I stammered. “I’ve got work tomorrow—or, today. Thanks for the great food. Hope your eye heals quickly—”

  He looked away from me as if his next words were to be found somewhere in the freezing darkness. In the blue light of the winter moon, Jake’s profile was in contrast to the silver clouds of his breath. He searched the edges of my face and his fingers brushed my hair away. He looked at the night sky. “I really have to go,” he said. Then, without another word, he bounded away like a deer frightened by a gunshot, leaving me to walk up the hill to get my car.

  * * *

  The next day I went through my shift in the ER and then to bed that night with an ache in my belly. I woke berating myself. It was just one stupid date—a diversion. I had my residency to look forward to—a coveted surgical residency at one of the country’s leading hospitals. Everything I’d worked toward. Who needed a guy? Who needed some impetuous, flaky guy?

  The following day I found myself grasping for the focus that usually came easily. Dad and Alice had both left me messages, and I’d returned their calls. But our conversations had a stiffness that had never been there before. While I knew they’d covered the truth of my mom’s death to protect me, the newfound presence of deceit rankled me. Mary K and I saw little of each other because of our schedules. I found I was grateful for the solitude. What little sleep I got was filled with dreams that toggled between fitful and erotic. Whenever there was a lull in the ER, despite my resolve, thoughts of Jake spun webs around my mind.

  With patients, I could concentrate. Crisis provides focus. Adrenaline moments upstage all else in the ER: hunger, pain, exhaustion, even passion. But when I was able to tell the wife of a patient that her husband had not had a heart attack, just a simple bout of indigestion, the look on her face made me want to tell Jake all about her. I made mental note of the crinkles at the corners of her eyes and the smell of bath powder when she hugged me in gratitude. Jake would want details.