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Friday morning, 10 a.m.
Max’s day was already off to a bad start. He was trapped in a Board meeting where the last agenda item was whether or not to renew Cassian Shin’s contract as head of trauma surgery for another two years. He’d had to sit there and listen to Karen go on and on about the improvements in patient outcomes since Shin took over, about how trauma surgery was one of the few departments that consistently operated within its budget, and about the fact that Shin had ‘a reassuring face, perfect for marketing campaigns,’ whatever the hell that meant. She was positively glowing when she gave her report to the Board and told them they’d be fools not to keep him.
“Max, anything you’d like to add?”
“Yeah, everyone thinks he’s great,” he mumbled with more sarcasm than he intended. Karen shot him the look of a disapproving mother, and he sat up straight, trying to recover. “Uh, I mean, Dr. Shin runs his department very well. He’s an asset to this hospital,” he added dryly and without even a hint of conviction.
Karen stared blankly at this bizarre and uncharacteristically quiet version of Max. “Piercing insight, Max. Thank you. Well, all in favor of renewing Dr. Shin’s contract?”
The vote was unanimous. Great. Two more years of Shin. Plenty of time for him to start having babies with Helen.
The truth was that Max didn’t know much about Shin. He rarely had cause to interact with the man. In a hospital full of constant problems, Shin and his department never really seemed to have any. So for a while, Max was grateful to just let him do his thing. That was until he’d walked in on Shin kissing Helen in her office about three months ago. Now he wanted to know everything about the surgeon. He was secretly hoping to uncover some horrible personal flaw—nothing that would endanger patients, of course, but something that would send Helen running. He’d read Shin’s personnel file three times and had done more Googling than he was proud of. He’d found nothing useful.
“Max, before you go, do you have a list of candidates for your new deputy?”
Another shiv. He pushed his hands into his pockets, scrunching his fingers into fists. “I’m working on it, Karen.”
“Work faster, Max.”
He scoffed and slipped out of the conference room before any of the other Board members could catch him. He made his way down to Pain de Vie before his morning rounds, ordering both his usual black coffee and a cappuccino for Helen, even though he had no specific plans to see her today. He’d taken to buying her coffee every morning lately on the off chance that he might bump into her. He headed to oncology first, but after covering every inch of the floor twice, he’d had to accept she wasn’t there. So today, like every other day lately, he ended up throwing away her coffee.
The fact that he couldn’t seem to find her anywhere in the hospital lately felt like further proof that the invisible tether that connected them was fraying. It began that awful night in her office when he’d asked her why she’d given Castro half her department. But during the worst of the pandemic, they’d worked together so closely again, and he thought they were repairing some of what was broken. What he had broken. But then everything started unraveling faster than he could catch the pieces. He’d walked in on her and Shin. Then she’d stepped down as his deputy last month. And since then, he hadn’t once seen her on their roof, even though he waited there for her every night as long as he could before rushing home for Luna’s bedtime. When he’d heard two weeks ago that she’d taken in her niece, he’d become determined to make that their new thing, talking about parenting. But the one time he managed to see her at the coffee cart and strike up a conversation about Mina, she’d barely made eye contact with him. She was even restricting his access to the quiet, unspoken realm they often occupied together. The only place he consistently saw Helen anymore was in his dreams at night. And the less her saw of her in reality, the more desperate and vivid those dreams became.
—
11:43 a.m.
Max was saved from his own thoughts by his pager telling him that he was needed in the ED. He hurried down for a consult with Dr. Walsh on a possible infectious disease case, and right as they were wrapping up, ambulances came screaming in with ten victims from a four-car pile-up. He stayed to lend a hand until the last of the patients were in surgery or admitted. It had been a meaningful distraction, but the second he walked past Lauren’s office and saw that she was sitting down to grab a quick bite, his brain reverted right back to the day’s fixation.
“Nice job in there, Bloom.”
“Thanks for the extra set of hands. We needed it.”
“Anytime. Happy to help.”
He leaned against the doorway, trying way too hard to act casual. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you, how are things working out with the new head of trauma surgery?”
“Wait. Did I miss something? What happened to Shin?”
“Oh…um…no, he’s here. He’s still pretty new though, right? Not really part of the New Amsterdam family yet…”
“Max, he’s been here over a year. Through the pandemic.”
“Yeah, well…how are things going with him?”
“Great. It took us a minute to find our rhythm. I’m an adrenaline junkie and would sleep in this ED if you’d let me. He is calm and Mr. Work-Life Balance. But he is a hell of a surgeon and great under pressure. We’re in really good hands.”
Ugh. Max really didn’t want to think about Cassian’s hands or what he did with them, but now that’s all he was thinking about.
“That’s great to hear,” he said, but the sentiment didn’t reach his eyes. He turned to sulk away, but Lauren called him back.
“What’s it gonna be this time, Max?”
“I’m sorry?”
“When Helen stopped being your doctor, you went after Floyd at that M&M. She just stepped down as your deputy, and we’ve all been on edge waiting for that fuse to blow. And now you’re down here asking about her boyfriend.”
“I’m not…errr…are they dating? I had no idea. That’s…good for them. No, I was just checking in on all my department heads.”
“That’s fine. Deny it. Keep moping around like someone stole your favorite toy. But if I were you, I’d man up and tell her how you feel. Fast. Mr. Work-Life Balance is probably making life plans.”
—
2:45 p.m.
“Floyd!” Max jogged to catch up to him in the hallway, slapping a friendly hand on his back. “Great save today. I was in the ED on a consult when the auto accident came in. Heard you just got out of surgery and that you brought that kid back from the brink.”
“Thanks. It was a close one. But he’s stable, and I think he’s gonna make a full recovery.”
“That’s amazing, man. How are you adjusting to full-time trauma surgery?”
“The surgery part has been great actually. It’s nice not to know exactly what I’m walking into each day, and I’m learning a ton. I haven’t totally caught up to the pace yet. Like I miss having a predictable schedule and a regular lunch break, you know? But it’s such a small complaint.”
“Yeah, I never really learned the art of the regular lunch break. So, how’s your new boss? How’s it working for Dr. Shin?”
“Oh, he’s great! Shin is like the calm at the center of the storm, you know? Perfect temperament for trauma. He’s also a willing and patient teacher. If I had to give up running my own department, I’m glad it’s to work for someone like him. And hey, did you know that he is a seriously accomplished jazz pianist?”
Max’s shoulders slumped. Of course he is. He probably takes Helen to dark, romantic jazz clubs, and arranges for the band to ‘spontaneously’ invite him up to play.
“That’s awesome,” Max mumbled.
“Hey, while I got you here, you up for a drink tonight?”
“I’d love to, man, but I can’t. I just got Luna home from her grandparents’ house. And besides, I’m not really dressed for some stuffy New York bar.”
“Come on, I need to get out of the house. I’m a grown man living with his mama and often times these days, his mama’s boyfriend. I gotta blow off some steam and could really use some guy energy. And don’t worry about your clothes. We’re headed to a dive bar that Bloom used to frequent as a resident. She had me and Sharpe going there for a while too. They’re insisting it make a comeback.”
“Sharpe’s going?” He blurted out a little too eagerly and it didn’t escape Floyd’s notice. “Err…I mean…Sharpe, Bloom, you…it’s uh, it’s a group thing?”
Floyd stopped walking and raised an eyebrow. “What? I’m not good enough for you?”
“No! No, I just…”
“It’s fine, man. I get it,” he said, offering a knowing smile.
“What? No, uh, hmph, there’s nothing to get…”
Floyd didn’t follow whatever soap opera was going on between Helen and Max, but he wasn’t blind either. He also wasn’t going to push like Bloom. “Yeah, they’re coming. Casey too. Iggy has a thing with his kids tonight, but I think Sharpe was going to see if Agnes wanted to come along. It may end up a whole big group thing.”
Max wondered if this was his chance to get time alone with Helen or if Shin would be there too. If Shin came, maybe it would be a chance to demonstrate to both of them how much better he knows Helen than Shin does. On the other hand, witnessing their chaste waltz at the blood drive had made his skin feel like it was on fire. If he had to watch Helen sitting close to Shin in a booth with her hand on his thigh, Max thought he might actually die. But if this was the only way he could see her and be near her, he was going to take it.
“Okay, I’ll see if I can find a sitter on short notice.”
Floyd slapped Max on the back. “That’s what I’m sayin’. We’re meeting in the lobby at 7.”
—
8:30 p.m.
They’d been at the bar for an hour, and Max had spent that whole time sitting in a booth with Floyd and Casey talking about…sports? Max wasn’t really sure. His thoughts were consumed with finding a way to get time with Helen before the night was over. Shin had mercifully not come, but so far, she’d spent the entire evening in a corner dancing with Lauren and Agnes. He’d tried not to watch her, which was impossible when she was moving the way she was, flooding his mind with all kinds of ideas about how they could move together. He couldn’t tell how much of the warmth spreading throughout his body was from watching her dance and how much was from the two whiskeys he’d already finished. But the buzz he was feeling was compounding his desperation to be near her. He was pretty sure that if he could just get her to look at him and talk to him for a few minutes, the world would start to feel right-side up again. So when he saw her break away from her group and walk over to the bar alone, he excused himself from the guys and sidled up next up her, giving her shoulder a nudge with his, looking for any point of physical contact he could safely make.
“Hey,” he said softly. “Having fun dancing?”
“Hey. Yes, it’s just what I needed tonight.”
“How do dance in those things?” He asked gesturing toward a pair of three-inch heels that he was sure cost more than everything he was wearing combined.
“Years of practice.”
It was just like the other day at the coffee cart. She was there, but she wasn’t. She was pleasant, but there was no warmth. The bartender came by and they each ordered another drink.
“No Shin tonight? He seems like a guy who’d relish getting out of the hospital. I hear he’s all about the work-life balance.”
“Not tonight,” was all she said in response.
Max had been annoyingly passive aggressive about Shin for weeks, and she refused to take the bait. He clearly hadn’t heard about their break-up, and she wasn’t doing this—whatever this was—with him tonight. Helen took her drink from the bartender, and turned to make her way back to Lauren and Agnes.
“You play darts?” Max blurted out, desperately trying to keep her from leaving. He expected her to keep walking, but she turned back and for the first time all night, looked at him. She was interested, but was trying not to show it.
“I can hit the board,” she said with a practiced innocence.
“Wanna give your feet a rest and play for a bit? We could make it interesting, give it some stakes…”
His suggestion sparked fond memories from a time in her life when she felt lighter and freer, a version of herself she wished she could be again. “$10 a dart?” she proposed, one eyebrow slightly raised.
The whiskey responded for him. “I don’t want your money, Helen.”
The gin answered for her before she could think better of it. “What do you want?”
You. Always you. “How about a little friendly game of truth or dare?”
Max’s plan—if it could even be called a plan—was simply to try and remind her that she actually liked being around him. And if he managed to use the game to get some information out of her, so be it.
If she’d had one less drink, Helen would’ve known better than to say yes to drinking and truth-telling with this mess of a man. But lately everything felt so hard, and she didn’t want to think. She wanted to let go, just a little bit. Besides, she knew she wasn’t the one in any real danger in this situation. This might actually be fun. “You’re on.”
Helen handed Max a dart, insisting he throw first. “Show me what you got.”
Max hit double 11, then Helen threw for 13 points. A smug smirk washed over Max’s face. “I probably should have told you beforehand, I used to play darts with my grandpa when I was a kid. He had a board in his garage.”
“I can tell,” she replied. He somehow missed the hint of sarcasm in her flattery. That’s right, she thought. Get comfortable.
“So, Helen…truth or dare?” He wiggled his eyebrows for added effect.
“I’ll take truth.”
“Truth, truth…Okay, here is something I’ve always wanted to know. How did Dr. Sharpe become Dr. Helen?”
She took a big sip of her drink. “That is very long story. Short version? When I was a fellow, my boss sent me to speak on a panel here in New York to share some of our research. And I may have gone a little off script and…forcefully and politely discredited this old snake oil salesman who was on the panel.”
From her phrasing and the way that she was smiling recounting the memory, Max knew that she was downplaying it; Helen had clearly eviscerated him.
“The moderator happened to be a reporter from The New York Times, who knew the head booker at The Today Show, and before I knew it, I was in the studio doing a segment on breast cancer. And it just…” she trailed off. “Um, it was just the right time to leave London and be someone else.” She ended the story abruptly, and Max saw her walls go up and she disappeared again in an instant. She quickly turned her back to him and went to retrieve the darts from the board. “Your throw.”
Seven points.
Helen examined the board closely and lined up her throw. Then, just for added effect, she turned, looked Max straight in the eye, and threw the dart into the outer bullseye. His eyes widened in disbelief and she let out a devilish laugh.
“Helen Sharpe, where did you learn to throw like that? Wait, shit, did you let me win that first round?”
“Uh, uh. You haven’t earned a question,” she said playfully, letting him know she was fully in control.
He realized that he probably wasn’t going to get to ask her another question all night, but he suddenly didn’t care. She was being playful, playful with him. He wanted to live in this feeling.
“I’m in trouble, aren’t I?”
“Oh I plan to learn all your secrets tonight!” She said it with a laugh and meant it innocently enough, but as soon as the words left her mouth, she felt the danger in them and quickly tried to recover. “So what’s it gonna be, Max? Truth or dare?”
“Well, after that ominous warning, I feel like I should probably choose dare.”
“You sure about that?”
“I think so?”
“Alright, Dr. Goodwin, I dare you to stand on that chair right there and sing, ‘I’m a Little Teapot,’ loudly and for all in this bar to hear. With all the gestures, please.”
She looked positively pleased with herself, and he was grateful for the alcohol in his system. He shook his head, laughed, and took one more swig of his drink. Then he loudly cleared his throat, “Excuse me everyone, can I have your attention for a moment?”
Max proceeded to sing loudly as instructed. She expected that he’d just sing the verse that everyone knows, but he really committed to the assignment and sang the lesser-known second verse as well, no doubt something he had learned from one of Luna’s albums of kids’ music. Most people in the bar glanced over for a second, and then ultimately ignored him. Some people were already drunk and didn’t care. For others, this was far from the weirdest thing they’d seen in New York today. There were a few groans and boos, none louder than Lauren’s, and he was pretty sure it was Casey that threw a chicken wing at him. One very drunk man came over to sing with him. When Max finished, he took a bow to the applause, which was only coming from his duet partner. He heard Helen shout, “Bravo!”, and he turned around to see that she was filming him with her phone.
“Just in case we need something extra special for the video package at this year’s fundraising gala.”
“Helen!” He tried to snatch her phone away, but he didn’t really care about the video; it was just an excuse to break the touch barrier between them. She wiggled loose from his grasp and tucked her phone into her back pocket.
“Sorry, all mine, Dr. Goodwin. Behave yourself and I might just keep it to myself. Your throw.”
“You don’t fight fair.” He took his turn. Nineteen points. Helen hit the bullseye properly this time.
“Truth or dare?”
“Well, truth, obviously.”
“Hmmmm…What’s your most embarrassing moment?”
“Besides the one you just filmed?”
“Come on, for real.”
“Hmmm…okay. Sophomore year in undergrad, I had this big crush on my chem lab partner, Alex. I’d been working up the nerve to ask her out all semester. I decided to go old school and write her a really romantic letter—about how I felt every time I saw her walk into the lab, the whole thing—and slip into her bag on the last day of class. But when the big day came, I couldn’t find the letter anywhere in my backpack. I got frazzled and just left. A couple days later, I went to the chemistry department to check my final grade. Professor Montez saw me and called me into her office to tell me in no uncertain terms that while she was flattered by my note, it was completely inappropriate. Turns out, I had never written Alex’s name on the letter, and it had gotten stuck inside my take home chemistry final. I didn’t even try to explain. I just ran out of her office as fast as I could and arranged my schedule so I never took another one of her classes.”
Helen smiled, “I guess you should be grateful there weren’t pictures with the letter.”
“No, just my heart and soul on the page. But now you’re making me very curious about your most embarrassing moment." He raised an eyebrow, intrigued. "Does it involve pictures?”
“You’ll have to win a round to find out. So…finish the story. What happened with Alex?”
“We went on one date the next semester. Turns out, we had absolutely nothing to talk about besides chemistry.”
“And Professor Montez?”
“Oh well, she will always be the one who got away. But I hear she is retired and very happy with her grandchildren.”
Their laughter was interrupted by the chime of Max’s phone, alerting him to new text messages. “Sorry, I have to check this. Luna is with a new sitter.” Max smiled down at whatever he was reading on his phone and quickly fired off a few texts.
“Everything okay at home?”
“Yeah. Luna is sound asleep. The sitter was just giving me an update on their evening.” Max sighed. “It’s really hard leaving her with someone new, you know? Hard to trust people with your world.”
Helen frowned and nodded almost imperceptibly, remembering all the times he had turned down her offers to help with Luna. Easier to trust a stranger than me?
Max registered Helen’s expression, but didn’t know quite what it meant. He felt the energy change between them in an instant. He wanted to ask her about it, but he was worried that she would put an end to their game and their evening if he did. So he grabbed the darts instead and handed one to her, hoping to go back to their game and however she planned to humiliate him next.
Max threw for 16 points, while Helen hit her third bullseye of the night. She looked at him, sadness and anger replacing whatever joy and levity had been there moments ago. “Truth or dare?”
If he wanted a reset on the evening, he would have chosen dare. But something told him that she wanted to ask him something and that he shouldn’t ignore it. “Truth.”
“Why have I never watched Luna?” The question came out in a hurt whisper, but she never looked away from him.
He wasn’t sure what question he was expecting, but that wasn’t it. “Helen…”
“I offered all the time. I’m not a stranger.”
“No. No, of course you’re not.”
“So?”
“So, I was trying to find my rhythm in the beginning. You know me, too stubborn to accept help. Thought I had to do it all alone.”
“But you took help from Luna’s grandparents, and Iggy and Martin, and…parents of Luna’s friends.” They both knew she was talking about Alice. “So why not me?”
He didn’t want to gaslight her and tell her she was crazy when she wasn’t. He also didn’t know how to explain such a complicated thing simply.
“It was just too hard.” It was the only truth he had to offer for the moment, and he said it quietly, looking down at his feet. Helen felt so angry. Angry at him for not being able to give her more of an answer. Angry at herself for being mad at him for how he grieved. Angry that she still felt so hurt about this.
No part of their conversation felt like a game anymore, except that it felt exactly like a different game they’d been playing for three years. Still, he was unwilling to give up being near her tonight. He stepped away and reached up to retrieve the darts from the board, and that’s when she finally noticed it. His naked finger.
“What happened to your wedding ring?” She blurted it out before she could consider whether she wanted to know the answer or whether she wanted to talk about it in the middle of this crowded bar.
When he turned around, he still saw her anger from a moment before, but he also saw something else. Something that told him the question wasn’t coming from a concerned friend or from a place of old wounds. It was a remnant of feelings he’d feared were gone, but perhaps were not. And it sobered him right up. Is the door opening, just a little? Do I try to walk through it now? He moved toward her slowly, an echo of the way he had crossed her office last year.
“I took it off,” he said simply and softly.
“When?”
He towered over her small frame, making sure to let his fingertips linger on hers as the dart exchanged hands. “You don’t get to ask two questions, Helen.”
He threw for 18 points, and she hit triple 20.
“When?” She repeated.
“Do you remember two weeks ago when Evelyn Davis was at the hospital? Right before we decided to get rid of the VBAC calculator?”
Helen nodded, puzzled as to where he could possibly be going with this.
“She was going to check herself out AMA, and I was trying to convince her to stay. Her husband rightfully pointed out that we weren’t really listening to her. And to emphasize his point, he asked me if I’ve ever loved a Black woman.”
He paused to let his words sink in. “I took it off later that night.”
Max held her gaze until he was sure that she understood his full meaning. Helen stood silent and frozen, except for her heaving chest. Whether it was the drinks or the atmosphere or the desperate feeling he’d had for more than a year that she was slipping away from him and taking his future with her, Max felt emboldened to keep going, like he had nothing left to lose.
“Are you in love with Cassian?”
His confession and subsequent question had abruptly tipped the balance of power between them back in his direction, something he always seemed to be able to do no matter how hard she fought to maintain control. But she took a deep breath and held on.
“You haven’t earned a question,” she said, repeating her warning from earlier, only this time it wasn’t playful, and it carried a double meaning.
He sighed, resigned to his impending loss. Still, he concentrated like his very life depended on how he threw this next dart. Double 12. His best throw of the night. Helen looked at his profile for a long moment like she was trying to make up her mind about something. Then she threw, making an obvious show of missing the board entirely, letting him know she was in control of what happened next. His eyes darted from the board back to her.
“I broke up with Cassian before Mina arrived.”
Even though that was a better answer than he had even dared hope to hear, he didn’t feel the complete sense of victory he thought he would. No matter what he wanted for himself, he also never wanted Helen to feel pain. And suddenly, with the permission she’d just granted, they dropped the pretense of their dart game.
“Are you okay?”
“About Cassian? Yes.”
Now or never. Determined not to repeat his mistakes from a year ago, he stepped forward confidently, reaching out for her with both hands. “Helen…I…”
She quickly put up a hand, cutting off both his words and his impending touch.
“Max, I’m drowning. I don’t know what I’m doing with Mina. And having her here is bringing up a lot of painful stuff about my family. I stepped down as deputy because I’m just…barely hanging on. I could really use a friend right now.”
She looked at him, her eyes pleading to please, please see that she was right on the edge of losing it and to not push her to talk about Mina until she was crying in this dingy bar. Pleading to please, please not ask her to start something with him right now that she wasn’t in any condition to start because she would if he asked her to; she wanted him, them, that much. Pleading to please, please be her friend again because when he wanted to be, he was capable of being her very best friend. And pleading to please, please not lose this newfound courage and clarity and to ask her what he wanted to ask her sometime in the future.
Max miraculously understood almost everything she was silently trying to communicate. She was looking straight into him, granting him access to their shared, unspoken realm that he’d been locked out of for far too long. He felt hope returning to his body, and it was like the oxygen he needed to breathe. Their timing was out of sync like usual, but perhaps they were finally on the same path. While he hadn’t been able to handle whatever she had going on with Cassian, this—her overwhelm or her grief or whatever it was that she was struggling with—he could handle. He would wait, like she had once waited, as long as she needed him to.
“One more question…”
She sucked in a breath, tensing to whatever was incoming.
“Where did the posh Helen Sharpe learn to throw straight bullseyes?”
The left side of his mouth curved up into a half smirk. She laughed and let out the breath she’d been holding. For the first time all night, they genuinely relaxed in each other’s company. For the first time since that awful night in Helen’s office, they could let their guards down; it was safe to be close again. And for Max, to have her attention in any capacity, to have access to her eyes and what was behind them, to be able to make her laugh, to be asked to support her…that was enough. For now.
“I didn’t grow up posh, Max. Quite the opposite. I paid my rent during university hustling darts. I had to keep switching pubs when the regulars would catch on to me.” She grinned and her eyes filled with mirth and pride.
He could picture it. A 19-year-old Helen, as self-reliant then as she is now—partially by choice, partially by circumstance. In a room full of people—largely men—who underestimated her, who couldn’t see everything she was. And Helen, using it all to her advantage. How could anyone not see her? He wished he’d known her 20 years ago. He prayed he’ll still know her 20 years from now.
“Listen, this is the first night I’ve had a sitter for Luna in ages. I’m not ready to go home just yet. How about I buy us another round and you tell me all about this dart-hustling college girl while I school you in pool?”
He was cute to think he’d win at billiards, she thought. Had he learned nothing from the last hour? She wasn’t ready to go home yet either though, not when all that was waiting for her was Mina’s awkward silence and the lonely memories of family that hadn’t wanted her. And the chance to be near Max in an honest and uncomplicated way in this crappy bar was the closest she’d felt to content since before the pandemic started.
“Gin and tonic, please.”
He smiled and let out a full body sigh, and with it more than a year’s worth of tension and fear. “Coming right up.”