Destroy (A Standalone Romance Novel) (4 page)

Allie came home that
evening with a big smile on her lips. She had been my roommate and confidante
ever since I moved to New York. We clicked the minute we met in chemistry class.
Soon afterward, to cut down on expenses, we moved in together and began six
long years of studying. We got drunk once in a while when the pressure would
become much too much to take. We went clubbing as often as possible, just to
loosen up. And every morning Central Park’s trails saw us jogging or walking to
get us out of our seats. We kept up with that insane but necessary routine with
indestructible faith that one day our names would be followed by those two
wonderful letters: “M.D.”.
 

Allie rushed to the
kitchen counter and said, “That’s it, girl! I’m moving, too.”

In a way, I was relieved.
At least I wasn’t going to leave her behind. Both of us were going places as it
appeared.

“Where?”

“Chicago,” Allie replied,
looking at me. She searched my gaze. She wanted my approval.

She got it. I dropped the
knife on the chopping board and gave her a big hug. “That’s great, Allie! A bit
farther than D.C. but I’m sure we’ll find a way to meet somewhere in between.”

“Yes, I know. But, you
know, Hattie, we’re both going to big hospitals. We’re lucky. I talked to Jerry
today and, poor guy; he’s been accepted in Portland, Maine. Can you picture
yourself working for some old duff in Portland, Maine?”

“Who says he’ll be
working with some old duff? Maybe the chief of surgery is a gorgeous blonde
with big tits.”

“I guess there’s always
hope, isn’t there?” Allie looked down at the crock-pot on the counter. “What are
you making?”

“Something hot and tasty.
Vegetable stew with all the veggies I could find at the market this morning.”

“It’s nice, isn’t it?”

“What is?” I asked,
adding yet a couple of mushrooms to the stew.

“Being able to go
shopping for our meals without having to grab an order of sushi from around the
corner before hitting the books for the night.”

“With that, I totally
agree. But there’s a lot I’m going to miss about the student life.”

“Like what?” It was Allie’s
turn to question my thoughts and reflections.

“Like not having to worry
about anything else than food, lodging, and studying. Now, we’re going to be
faced with making decisions with the lives of our patients. We are going to be
responsible for every single move we make. Good or bad, we will have to face
the consequences. If we don’t make mistakes in the first six months, I’m sure
we’ll be okay.”

“Gracious, Hattie, are
you sure you didn’t put any sour lemons in your stew? You sound like Professor
Devon. He was always talking like that–about assuming our responsibilities and
making sure of everything we did.”

“Exactly, Allie. And
although we didn’t like it, the old guy was absolutely right. We’ve got to be
blameless and ensure that we’re right before, way before we take the lives of
our patients into our hands.”

“I suppose that’s why
we’ve been admitted at big hospitals. I haven’t known either of us making any
sort of mistakes when we were doing our practicum.”

“Like the time I almost
diagnosed that woman with drunkenness before she passed out, when what she was
really suffering from was the start of hypoglycemic shock.”

“Yeah, I remember that
one,” Allie said, a smile draping over her lips. “Thank goodness I didn’t open
my mouth either. I was about to tell Dr. Vanier that we should let her sleep it
off for the night, when he examined her eyes.”

Allie and I recalled the
incident as if it happened yesterday. The woman would have died if Dr. Vanier
hadn’t intervened. That night, I went back to my books and crammed until dawn. “Let’s
hope we remember everything we learned; otherwise, we’ll be in trouble.”

“You can say that again.
Anyway,” Allie went on, “let’s plan our moving out of here as soon as we can.
But not before our farewell bash, of course!”

Spring was nearly over
and the weather was getting warmer. It was the right time to move. Allie took a
trip to Chicago and came back with a copy of a lease on her new apartment. It
sounded great and, looking at the pictures online, it was better than one could
have expected for the rent she was going to pay. As for me, I was going to do
the same the following weekend. I had been busy selling most of my furniture
and only kept the TV and stereo for as long as possible. Our closets were
practically bare and our moving boxes practically full. We were really moving
out and moving on with our lives.

In between packing and
running errands, some of our friends came over to spend a bit of time with us.
One person in particular made sure he was available at a moment’s notice. Robin
had been a little more than a friend for some two years at that point. I
wouldn’t say he was my boyfriend, but we always had great sex together. Going
to medical school and sacrificing most nights to studying didn’t mean that a
girl pronounced a vow of celibacy as soon as she stepped through the doors of
university. And for me, Robin had been my answer to my occasional sexual urges.
He was good in bed, and he loved to see me enjoy myself. He was a beautiful man
(not as good-looking as Jeff, mind you, but he would make the grades anytime).

Our last night together
was a memorable one. We knew we wouldn’t see each other again. Robin had been
accepted at L.A. Medical Center and working at opposite end of the country
wouldn’t make for a flourishing relationship. So we were both hungry to make
our lovemaking last as long as possible. It was four in the morning when we
finally caught up with some sleep.

When I got off the plane
at Dulles airport the next morning, even as tired as I was, a fleeting thought
crossed my mind.
Where is Jeff now? What
is he doing?
I hadn’t forgotten our night together, but I hadn’t thought
about him in months. He was definitely a fond memory.

Getting to the
neighborhood surrounding the hospital, I asked the cabbie to stop at the
nearest McDonald’s to pick up the local paper. I took it out of the box and ran
my gaze down the classifieds. There were only three apartments that really fit
the bill. As for the internet, the choice wasn’t that much broader. Since one
of the criteria was to find a place as close as possible to the hospital, I
asked the cabbie to drop me off in front of the nearest rental building to it.

I looked up at the three
floors fronting a small yard and wondered how happy I would be to live here.
Never mind the answer to my question; I could not be a chooser since I was
still a beggar. The landlady was a buxom woman who seemed used to young people
passing through
, as it were. She didn’t
seem to trust the fact that I was a medical practitioner now. For her, a doctor
should be able to afford a better place than what she had on offer at the
moment.

Nevertheless, she took me
through the apartment. It was more spacious than I had expected. The bedrooms
were large enough to fit a queen-size bed and the kitchen was modern and well
maintained. The stove, fridge and dishwasher were all brand new by the looks of
them, which was something important to consider. There’s nothing more annoying
than a dishwasher breaking down in the middle of the night and flooding the
kitchen before you open your eyes the next day.

“So, what do you think?”
Mrs. Camborne asked me. “Do you think it’s big enough?”

“Sure is,” I replied,
smiling. “I’ve got two more places to visit and I’ll call you later this
afternoon…”

“Well, if it’s still
available.” she countered, shrugging her shoulders.

“Of course. Anyway, I’ll
phone you and let you know one way or the other.”

When I came down the
stairs and walked onto the sidewalk, I turned around. I looked at the building
again. It was an older construction, but, like everything else in the place, it
seemed to have been well maintained.

As I walked down the
street to the second address, I noticed an older couple holding hands, ambling
their way in my direction. I smiled at them as we crossed path. They returned
the smile, which made me happy. This looked like a friendly and peaceful
neighborhood.

The second house was
charming. The apartment occupied the entire third floor. One of the bedrooms
was definitely small and the kitchen was missing a dishwasher.
If two people have to share this place,
I
mused;
I don’t think I want to be left
with washing someone else’s dishes.

So, even though I loved
the outside of the house and its meticulously maintained front yard, I had to
give this one a miss.

The third apartment was
altogether less appealing. It was a bachelor pad
withut
a spare bedroom. Having your roommate sleep in the living room was definitely
not on.

And that was that. Of the
three apartments available for rent near the hospital, Mrs. Camborne’s was the
one I had to rent. An hour later, a copy of the lease in hand, I phoned for a
taxi to pick me up. Since the nearest taxi stand was located at the hospital,
four blocks away, I didn’t have to wait. By seven o’clock that night, I was
back in New York, watching TV with Allie. Since most of our cooking stuff was
already packed, we were back to eating take-out-Chinese.

It brought back ample
memories. But none
so
vivid as the one of us eating
greasy egg rolls on top of my bed with our anatomy books opened in front of us,
trying to memorize the name of every single bone in the human body. It took us
a couple of hours and quite a few forkfuls of chicken Chow Mein before we
reached our goal. But we were thoroughly happy. We had the world by the tail.
Our future was traced; we just had to follow the arrows to reach our
destination. Now that we were at the starting line of another run, another marathon,
we were going to part ways.

“Don’t they say that parting
is like dying a little,” Allie remarked with sadness in her voice.

“Sure, but they also say
that distance makes the heart grow fonder, don’t they?”

Our farewell party was a
huge success. Since five of our friends were also going to different parts of
the States, we decided to pull our resources together and have a huge bash at
Michael’s house. The guy was loaded. His house in the Hampton’s would have been
large enough to host a party five times the size of ours. We invited everyone
to come for a pool-party. The weather couldn’t have been better. It was warm
and perfect for a swim. Once everyone had enough sun-tanning and drinks around
the pool, we moved to the terrace of the house where everybody spent most of the
rest of the night eating, drinking some more, and passing out.

I must say, I was
plastered. When I woke up the next morning, I thought the ocean waves were
actually crashing through the house, so intense was my headache. My stomach was
not faring any better. I needed some Alka-Seltzer in a big way, and some
strong, black coffee.

Michael and Allie had
been up for some time already by the looks of things. When I got to the
kitchen, they were ready with all the remedies known under the sun for
hangovers. None really works until your system has had time to absorb the
alcohol you consumed during the night. But one had to have faith and try.

I must admit Michael’s
concoction, which he appropriately called a “red eye”, worked like a charm on
my digestive system. When I asked him what it contained, he said, “I’m not
going to tell you because just the thought of it will make you throw up.”

I knew Canadians had some
tricks up their sleeves when it came to drinking (or sobering up quickly), and
since Michael was a true-blue Canuck, he must have gotten that recipe from his
grandmother, or maybe his grandfather; who knows.
What ever
was the case, I felt a lot better when I left the kitchen to have a shower and
change into the jeans and t-shirt I had brought with me.

A few hours later, after
we had repaired the minor damages our guests had done to the garden and
house–inevitable when you’ve got over fifty people roaming your place and pool
for hours on end–and cleaned the kitchen, Allie and I left that piece of paradise
to return to our place.

It wasn’t going to be
“our place” for much longer, though. We were due to leave on Wednesday, the
first of August. Our moving boxes had been picked up by the transport company
and we each hoped that we received our own boxes at the other end. I wouldn’t have
known what to do if I received Allie’s belongings in Washington, D.C., and if
she received mine in Chicago.

“Are you nervous?” Allie
asked me as we were comfortably ensconced in the backseat of the taxi that was
taking us to the airport. Allie’s flight was an hour apart and probably at
opposite end of the airport from mine.

“A little,” I replied
quietly. Truth be told, I was nervous as a bride on her wedding night. My
insides were churning up all the possible scenarios that my mind was throwing
at it. There wouldn’t be any relief in sight until I had at least one day under
my belt as a medical practitioner.

Thank goodness the flight
to Washington, D.C. was not departing from a gate anywhere near the one I had
gone through on my way to Nebraska. Yet thinking of Jeff was inevitable.
Although this was Wednesday morning, there were quite a few people at the
departure gate. Most of them I figured were regular commuters who had business
to attend to in D.C. on a weekly basis. As I looked around me to see who was
likely to sit in the seat next to mine on the plane, my eyes rested on two
ladies who appeared intent on discussing what looked like knitting patterns in
a magazine. I silently prayed to God that they wouldn’t be allocated the seats
beside me. I don’t think I could take even an hour of their endless prattles.
But, I guess the good Lord must have listened to my prayer, for I had a couple
of businessmen taking the seats next to mine. They didn’t say a word during the
whole flight. As soon as they sat down, they opened their
laptops and began working. I read the next couple of chapters of
my Stephen King book in blessed peace and wondered what the next day would
bring.