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Since his return to work Langdon had been avoiding her, as if the mere acknowledgement of her existence might plummet him right back into rehab. Being who she was, Trinity took this as a challenge. She gave herself a point for every time he couldn’t prevent eye contact with her and two points for each time he addressed her by name; three points if the words “Dr Santos” sounded as if they physically hurt him to say. She was ten hours into a shift and only two points up when he came into the bay where she was debriding an unconscious patient’s back. Car vs pedestrian and the pedestrian had lost, badly. Langdon saw her and immediately wheeled around to leave.
“Hey, Dr Langdon!” she called. “I actually wanted to ask you something.”
He turned back around, stared into the middle distance and nodded towards the wall. Trinity waited.
“Yes, Dr Santos?” he said at last. Two more points, baby.
“Yeah, so I was wondering,” Trinity said. “Like obviously I get why you feel weird around me, but it’s kind of affecting me professionally? You’re not giving me any cool cases, because you’re barely talking to me.”
Langdon started to say something, but Trinity cut him off. “No, don’t even worry—like I said, I get it. Um, but I thought maybe if I did something nice for you, that could cancel out the whole, you know, ‘reporting you for stealing drugs’ thing.”
Sometimes when Trinity was being a real bitch it felt like flying: the danger of it and the glorious freewheeling artistry, knowing exactly where to probe and when to retreat. She had the wind rushing in her hair now.
“Something nice,” Langdon said, sounding deeply sceptical. “What, you want to bring me cookies to apologise for ruining my fucking career? No thanks.”
“I don’t bake,” Trinity said. “Although Whitaker does, so cookies could possibly be arranged. But actually I was thinking more that I could try and help you out with Mel.”
He visibly recoiled. “I don’t need your help with Dr King.”
“Um, seems like maybe you do? And I'm friends with her, and I have an amazing idea.” A swooping feeling in her stomach, the ground far below and gravity was reaching for her but it was failing, she was untouchable. “What if, I start a rumour that you have just an absolutely massive dick.”
Langdon appeared to start doing some sort of breathing exercise. Possibly he’d learned it in rehab. Inspiring. Trinity continued, “Now you might be thinking, how would I even have that knowledge? Great question, I wouldn’t, I’m a woman of taste. But I do go out sometimes, so I could just tell Mel that I was at a bar near the hospital and saw a graffiti in the bathroom—no, a graffito? is that the singular?—anyway, I could just tell her that someone had written it on the bathroom wall. I’m thinking, and I can’t lie, I’m pretty proud of this one, ‘DR LANGDON? MORE LIKE DR HANG-DONG. CALL FOR A GREAT TIME.’”
For a brief glorious moment Langdon was speechless. Then he pointed at her and said, “This is sexual harassment.”
Trinity laughed. “Yeah, for sure report it, I’m sure our lord and saviour Dr Robbie will deeply care.”
“What was that?” asked Dr Robbie, appearing from nowhere like some sort of malevolent pop-up toy. Jesus. Well, perhaps that gave her an opportunity.
“Dr Langdon was just telling me that he wants to move past our little difficulty by actively mentoring me,” Trinity said. “Which I think is really cool of him. I definitely accept.”
Dr Robbie looked at Langdon with his eyebrows raised. Langdon was a drug addict and, some might say, a whiny little diva bitch, but he wasn’t entirely stupid. “Yeah,” he said. “I, uh, look forward. To working with Dr Santos.”
Two more points, and now Langdon wouldn’t be able to ignore her anymore. Call that a good piece of work. Trinity was smiling as she got back to picking gravel with her tweezers.