Chapter Text
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject : Legibility of requisition forms
Dear Dr. Upland,
please refrain from filling out your requisition forms with a pink glitter pen. It makes them extremely difficult to read.
Sincerely,
Elphaba Thropp, MD
Resident
Department of Pathology
Shiz University Hospital
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject : Re: Legibility of requisition forms
Dear Dr. Thropp,
please refrain from writing your preliminary reports in that horrendibly messy handwriting of yours. It makes them extremely difficult to read.
Best regards,
Glinda Upland, MD
Resident
Department of Dermatology
Shiz University Hospital
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject : Re: Re: Legibility of requisition forms
Dear Dr. Upland,
it seems relevant that my handwriting, "horrendible" as it may be, is not a personal choice, unlike your choice of pen. Unless you somehow have a deficit of black or blue pens in the dermatology unit. In that case, please reach out to the secretary of your department, Ms. Clutch, regarding an order.
Sincerely,
Dr. Thropp
TWO MONTHS LATER
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject : Requisition forms
Dear Dr. Upland,
Could you provide any information on your requisition forms other than “skin biopsy”?
Sincerely,
Dr. Thropp
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject : Re: Requisition forms
Dear Dr. Thropp,
It is a skin biopsy. What else would I write? From a patient?
Best regards,
Dr. Upland
P.S. I’m glad you apparently no longer have trouble reading my writing.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject : Re: Re: Requisition forms
Dr. Upland, do you see consults when the only clinical information you’ve been given is “rash”?
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject : Re: Re: Re: Requisition forms
Yes, constantly. Less is more, or so I’m told. Perhaps you can use that principle as inspiration for your reports.
Regards,
Dr. Upland
FIVE MONTHS LATER
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]; [email protected]
Subject : Case report
Dear Dr. Thropp,
Dr. Morrible (in Cc) and Dr. Dillamond have suggested I write a case report about the patient with the pleomorphic dermal sarcoma. As the pathologist who caught the diagnosis, we would like to offer you the opportunity to offer your input as a co-author. I have attached a draft for everyone to review. Dr. Dillamond has already provided the images, so if you don’t have any major suggestions, I can submit later this week.
Best regards,
Dr. Upland
Attached: Case_report_G_Upland_et_al_V12.docx
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Case report
OK to submit.
Dr. M
Sent from my iPhone
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Great!
Dear Dr. Upland,
this is great! Very well-written, concise… looks ready to submit! Just address any comments Dr. Thropp has, no need to send it to me again.
Best,
Dr. Dillamond
--
Thomas Dillamond, MD, PhD
Professor of Pathology
Shiz University Hospital
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Case report
Dear Dr. Upland,
Thank you for this opportunity. I have attached my suggestions.
Sincerely,
Dr. Thropp
Attached: Case_report_G_Upland_et_al_V12_ET.docx
From: [email protected]
Forwarded to: [email protected]; [email protected]
Subject: Fwd: Re: Case report
This woman seriously wants me to rewrite the entire thing because she doesn’t like my sentence structure and I haven’t included enough 14 syllable histopathological terms only she knows. Hell is empty and the devils are here.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject : Re: Re: Case report
Dear Dr. Thropp,
Thank you so much for your input! I have attached the revised draft. Let me know if that’s alright with you and I’ll submit! The deadline for the special issue is in two weeks.
Best regards,
Dr. Upland
Attached: Case_report_G_Upland_et_al_V13.docx
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Case report
Dear Dr. Upland,
See attached.
Dr. Thropp
Attached: Case_report_G_Upland_et_al_V13_ET.docx
From: [email protected]
Draft to: [email protected]; [email protected]
Subject: Fwd: Re: Re: Re: Case report
If I knew where the pathology department was I would go there and strangle her.
This message is a draft.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject : Re: Re: Re: Re: Case report
Dear Dr. Thropp,
I have addressed your extensive comments (see attachment). Please remember that the deadline for the special issue is coming up on Tuesday. Thanks!!
Dr. Upland
Attached: Case_report_G_Upland_et_al_V14.docx
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Case report
Dear Dr. Upland,
Looks fine. I have added a few paragraphs elaborating on histopathological differential diagnoses.
Dr. Thropp
Attached: Case_report_G_Upland_et_al_V14_ET.docx
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject : Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Case report
Dear Dr. Thropp,
While I find the discussion fascinating, the paper is now over the word limit. Could you bear to part with any of those paragraphs or is all of it strictly necessary?
Dr. Upland
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Case report
Dear Dr. Upland,
I’d suggest removing the excessive description of the patient’s personal history.
Dr. Thropp
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject : Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Case report
It’s important to paint a picture of the patient in case reports.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Case report
I find the medical aspects of the case much more pertinent. I don’t care if she has a cat.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject : Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Case report
It was a very charming cat. I’ve seen pictures. But fine. I am attaching the final final draft. The submission deadline is tomorrow at midnight and I would like to submit it in the morning, so please let me know your thoughts until then!
Attached: Case_report_G_Upland_et_al_V15.docx
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Grammar
Are you using the Ozford comma or not? It’s inconsistent.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject : Re: Grammar
I have amended the draft throughout to remove the Ozford comma.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Re: Grammar
It’s much more precise to use the Ozford comma.
From: [email protected]
Draft to: [email protected]
Subject : Re: Re: Re: Grammar
Dr. Thropp I swear to fucking Oz
This message is a draft.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject : Re: Re: Re: Grammar
Okay. I have added the Ozford comma back in. Thank you for your very, very helpful suggestions. I am submitting the paper now. Good night!
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Grammar
It’s morning.
From: [email protected]
Draft to: [email protected]
Subject : Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Grammar
I HAVE BEEN UP ALL NIGHT ADDING AND DELETING COMMAS
This message is a draft.
TWO MONTHS LATER
The issue with new chiefs, Glinda thinks, is that they’re always so Ozdamned motivated.
Not that there’s anything wrong with motivation! She is a very motivated person, generally. Not only generally, fundamentally. She’s not exactly the first in the office but she always makes it to morning report and most of the time her hair isn’t even wet, which, for Glinda, is a pretty incredible feat. She writes case reports. She recruits patients for all the studies, even that weird one on fish oil supplements Dr. Morrible is pushing. She comes in on her day off when ShenShen is too hungover to work or Pfannee has to take his dog to the vet again.
So yes. Glinda, despite not being the most punctual person, is definitely one of the more motivated ones.
Chief Diggs is too, apparently. It’s July, and a sweltering heat has settled low above the ground that makes leaves wilt and the dirt outside crack. Patients sit listlessly in the waiting room, dabbing sweat off their faces. Glinda’s attending, Dr. Greyling, brings a cooler of ice cream in for everyone and what hasn’t been eaten after ten minutes melts into a sad puddle. Everything that can grinds to a halt and yet Chief Diggs bounces across the auditorium during grand rounds and summons the residents to his office, one-by-one, to “get to know them and their interests”. He’s big on interdisciplinary exchange, improving communication with the other departments in the hospital. All good things. As he talks at her about his plans for the dermatology department, she finds herself nodding along in genuine agreement. She thinks, oh, it’s wonderful to have a chief who’s so motivated. She nods and nods and nods.
Even as he starts talking about improving interdisciplinary communication between dermatologists and pathologists. Beyond tumor boards and swapping requisition forms and biopsy reports.
Even as he talks about a dermatopathological symposium and various events that someone will have to organize, someone who is motivated. Someone who has career ambitions.
“I’m very interested in an academic career,” Glinda says.
Desperate, she thinks.
“You are?”
“Oh, yes.” Glinda nods again. She’s not even lying, which is the sad part.
“I’d love to get you on this project,” he says, almost leaping over his desk with enthusiasm. “The pathologists are on board—I’m thinking a lecture every two months or so, and then the symposium of course. It shouldn’t be that much work, you can get event management to help you. And of course I’ll consider this type of initiative, when it comes to protected research time.”
Glinda swallows and fiddles with the clip of her work phone, heavy in the pocket of her scrubs.
No more groveling at Dr. Morrible’s feet. No more late nights going over her proposals, wondering what she’s doing wrong. Somehow there is never funding for protected research time. For Glinda, at least.
“I’d be thrilled to help,” Glinda says, flashing Chief Diggs her most brilliant smile.
“Wonderful.” His teeth are nearly as white as hers. “I’ll send you an email. We can set something up with the pathologists! Exciting, huh? I always wonder how it is for them, to come out of their basement. Have you ever seen one before? It’s like sighting a minor celebrity. And they’ve got this brilliant resident on the project, truly fantastic. She’s applied for this research exchange at Ozford, and…”
Glinda tunes him out. Though this is the first time she’s spoken to Chief Diggs directly, she knows how men in his position like to hear themselves talk. She punctuates his monologue with appropriate “hmm”s and smiles, and eventually he dismisses her with a kindly handwave.
She tries not to think about how much work this will be. She has time. So much time. She gets home from the hospital by 6 P.M. most days and by 7 P.M. the restlessness starts to creep in. Not to move, to do something. So she opens her laptop and logs into her work email, hoping that someone will have sent her something to work on. If they haven’t, she tries to keep up with the current literature or listen to a dermatology podcast. She tries not to look at the clock in the corner of her laptop screen until her eyes are falling closed, and if by that time it’s 10 P.M. she can do her 45-minute skincare routine and go to bed.
Dimly, she is aware that she could use the time for other things— cleaning her apartment or cooking ahead or calling her parents more than once a week. Not that she wants to do any of those things, but they belong to a normal life, don’t they? More so than the boxes of takeout she has stacked on her kitchen counter that she only remembers to throw away when the smell spreads in the room.
Not that she’s not good at work-life-balance. She goes to the gym twice a week. She goes to yoga once a week. She tries to keep up with shows but the TV blares stuff she can’t concentrate on, and mainly she ends up on her phone, scrolling aimlessly down, down, down. She goes to the same quiz night one Friday a month, with a gaggle of friends/acquaintances who have interchangeable personalities. They answer questions about sports teams and pop culture in a smoky bar, drinking watery cocktails. She checks her work email in the bathroom like she’s having an affair. Then she slinks back to her friends with her phone like a brick in her pocket, and as she ducks her head when they ask her what she’ll be doing on the weekend, she pretends it’s not because she plans to sit by her computer refreshing her email, but because of a scandalocious lover who will greet her in the alley behind her apartment building and run callused hands over her shoulders and have lips that taste like rain.
When she gets home on those nights, she’s usually tipsy and can usually sleep without all the thoughts that ghost around her head, worries about never getting funding or a real project, getting stuck in case-report-third-authorship limbo.
She calls her parents every Saturday, for exactly twenty minutes because Momsie starts to ask about a boyfriend—oh, sorry dear, I mean girlfriend of course, it’s so hard to adjust— around minute 23 and Popsicle starts to ask about how her research is going around minute 27. On Sunday she gets brunch with Pfannee and ShenShen, some weeks, and when she doesn’t, she sleeps in and gets up in the early afternoon with her stomach grumbling. Every four months she drives three excruciating hours one-way to her parents’ house in Frottica, then back on that Sunday. She stops at the same fast-food place every time, the same paper crinkling backwards from her burger as she eats. She has in-house weekend call twice a month for 24 hours and knows exactly how many snacks to pack so she gets through it unscathed.
And between all of that, there is still so much time.
So yes. Glinda’s perfectly balanced life can perfectly accommodate this task.
--
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Symposium
Dear Thomas,
I have finally found a resident to support your team with the symposium! Dr. Upland is very motivated and eager to help. I’ve Cc’ed her so your resident can coordinate a meeting with her—sadly I’ve forgotten her name but I’m sure you can forward this.
Cheers,
Oscar
--
Oscar Diggs, MD
Chief of Dermatology
Shiz University Hospital
Senior Editor, Journal of the Ozian Academy of Dermatology
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Symposium planning
Dear Dr. Upland,
Wonderful to finally get the project going – we’ve been trying to organize a dermatopathological symposium for years, so Chief Diggs’s funding has been an Ozsend.
Dr. Thropp is organizing everything from our side – and you’ve already worked together on that excellent case report, so I don’t need to introduce you further. She’ll be in touch with you soon about a meeting.
Best,
Dr. Dillamond
ONE WEEK LATER
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject : Planning?
Dear Dr. Thropp,
Will you be in touch with me about a meeting soon?
Best regards,
Dr. Upland
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Planning?
Dear Dr. Upland,
I wasn’t aware this was time sensitive. Here is a doodle. Please fill it out by Friday.
https://doodle.com/group-poll/participate/b8LpE9zd/vote
Sincerely,
Dr. Thropp
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject : Re: Re: Planning?
Dear Dr. Thropp,
It’s only the two of us, could you send your availability for the next few days? I think that’ll be easier than going back-and-forth with a poll.
Best regards,
Dr. Upland
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject : Re: Re: Re: Planning?
Or I’ll make a suggestion. Tomorrow, 5:30 P.M. I assume you know where the dermatology unit is located? In case you don’t, it’s in the building across from outpatient dialysis. I can pick you up at the nurse’s station, my office is rather out of the way.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Planning?
That works. You don’t need hyphens for “back and forth” if you’re using it as a verb, only as a noun (e.g. “I’m trying to avoid the back-and-forth”). See you then.
From: [email protected]
Draft to: [email protected]
Subject : Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Planning?
I am going to poison you in your sleep
This message is a draft.
She dreams that she sent the draft accidentally, and that Dr. Thropp replies with a 3,000 word analysis on which poisons could theoretically be ingested in sleep, and whether those would kill her or not. Glinda’s heard that a way to tell if you’re dreaming or not is to try to read something, but for some reason Glinda has always been able to read in dreams, so when she wakes up there’s a thirty-second window where she’s not sure if all that really happened or not. Then she snaps back to the reality of the clothes scattered across her carpet and sunlight streaming onto the empty part of her bed.
Vaguely, she considers calling in sick for the first time in three years. Then she gets up. She considers calling the meeting off, pushing it to next week—but Dr. Thropp won’t change in that time, so there’s no point. It’s best to get it over with. She’s never seen Dr. Thropp in person—she imagines a severe mouth set in a permanent frown and wrinkles from staring into a microscope—but she’s made ShenShen cry at least once on the phone, not to mention countless unpleasant emails.
For the briefest of moments, she considers bowing out of the project entirely. Sorry, Chief Diggs. Something came up. Too busy! Plan your symposium yourself. It’s a wild fantasy, and so she discards it between turning on her coffee machine and opening the cereal box. Protected research time will make choking down her distaste at everything Dr. Thropp stands for, with her ridiculous grammatical accuracy and pedantry, worth it. It’s probably very easy to do research in pathology. No clinic to cover, no consults from Surgery at 3 A.M. that just say “Cancer???” with a picture of a blurry brown smudge on an arm, which upon careful inspection turns out to be chocolate frosting.
Emboldened, Glinda heads to the hospital with time to spare and sorts through all of the day’s to-do’s before even Biq, the student intern, arrives, with his eternal fluttery energy and overlarge eyes.
“Fancy seeing you here this early,” Pfannee comments dryly as he steps into the room a solid twenty minutes before morning report. “Or did you not go home?”
“Oh, I was home,” Glinda says. “And at the gym. And I tried out that new Vinkan place that opened last month—”
“I really don’t know how you do it,” he says, rifling a hand through his hair. “You’re too good.”
She doesn’t tell him that she ordered the food and ate it on her couch in front of her open laptop. “Thank you.”
They both fall silent. The only sound in the room is their typing, the rhythmic clack-clack as emails are answered and nurse’s reports are reviewed. Glinda finishes typing with a burst of energy and triumphantly turns towards Pfannee. “Is ShenShen in today?”
“I think she’s doing consults,” Pfannee says.
Glinda frowns. She’s doing consults tomorrow and ShenShen has the unfortunate tendency to recommend observation for 24 hours before reconsulting dermatology. “Ah.”
“Why?”
“No reason,” Glinda says lightly. Then she drops her voice into a stage whisper. “I wanted to update you on the symposium thing.”
“I still can’t believe you agreed to that.” Pfannee pulls his mouth outwards, so that it stretches flatly across his face. “Like, that’s free work, Glinda. As in you working for free. You do know you have, like, worker’s rights?”
“It’s for research,” Glinda retorts. “Don’t look at me like that; you have a day a week to work on your stuff. May I continue?”
“I acknowledge my privilege,” Pfannee says solemnly.
“Thank you.” Glinda straightens herself on the chair, letting her animated expression drop. “I’m meeting Dr. Thropp today.”
Pfannee gasps. “In person?”
Glinda nods miserably. “Yes.”
“Where?”
Glinda motions vaguely around the room.
“You’ve invited her into our hallowed halls?” Pfannee screeches. “Dr. Thropp? The pathologist that made fun of your pens? The one that made ShenShen cry because she didn’t know what ‘multivacuolated’ meant?”
“I don’t know where the pathology department is,” Glinda says crossly, “and I get lost easily. I’ve never been in the basement. And you know there are tunnels in this hospital, Pfannee. Tunnels!” She pauses for effect. “Do you want me to wander forever? Do you want my ghost to be stuck in this hospital with my angelic voice echoing through the wall for the rest of eternity?”
Pfannee considers this for an offensively long time. “I don’t want her to sit on my chair,” he finally huffs. “Can you tell her not to?”
“No,” Glinda says. “I cannot tell an adult that another adult does not want her sitting on his chair.”
Pfannee crosses his arms.
“I need to get this done so I get protected time,” Glinda laments. “It’s not fair Morrible hates me for no reason. She gave ShenShen a clinical trial. ShenShen! You know I love her but ShenShen doesn’t even like research!”
The door opens and Biq pokes his head into the room. “Morning!”
“Biq, could you please wait outside?” Glinda’s grateful she’s not facing him, so he doesn’t see her twist her eyes upwards in annoyance. “I’m discussing some very sensitive medical information with Dr. Phan.”
“I did my confidentiality training—”
“Personal medical information,” Glinda says, teeth clenched.
“Oh.”
He disappears.
“Can you tell him you have a weird mole, if he asks?” Glinda threads her hands together on her knee and looks at Pfannee expectantly. “I’d say it was my mole, but I think he has a crush on me and I don’t want him to think I want him to look at it, you know?”
“You think everyone has a crush on you,” Pfannee replies. “But fine.”
“I do not.” Glinda swats his arm. “Anyway. I’ll try to keep Dr. Thropp out of your chair but I can’t make promises I can’t keep; that’d be dishonest.”
Pfannee sighs but acquiesces with a nod.
“But I have to get through it,” Glinda whines quietly. “Oz, Pfannee, what am I supposed to do?”
“Smile. Be nice. I thought the pathologists loved you?”
“Only the ones I know from my rotation,” Glinda pouts. “And that was ages ago, they were still in that terribly ugly interim building. And it took bringing in a baked good every three days. I barely left my kitchen for weeks.”
Pfannee shrugs. “You could bake for Dr. Thropp?”
“She probably only eats oatmeal cookies. Or she’ll think I’m trying to poison her.”
“I’m sure you’ll figure something out.” Pfannee pats her on the arm before turning back to his computer. “Oh, and you could let our intern in.”
“Right.” Glinda strides over to the door and opens it, staring down at Biq who’s huddled on the ground reading something. “You can come in, I guess.”
“Do you have anything for me to do?” he says, shooting upwards. “ShenShen said maybe I can do a biopsy later? You could help me?”
“We’ll see,” Glinda tells him.
--
The nerves ebb and flow over the day. She taps her foot on the ground incessantly in morning report, freezing as Dr. Morrible sends her a questioning look. Rounds are chaotic enough that she pushes her meeting with Dr. Thropp neatly out of her mind, onto the pile of repressed and irrelevant information where every detail she ever crammed regarding rapid-progressive glomerulonephritis lives. She thinks about it very, very briefly before lunch and nearly loses her appetite, but Pfannee manages to distract her with a story of yet another disastrous date, so it’s okay. After lunch she does a biopsy with Biq, making sure to stand very far away as she coaches him on how to put on sterile gloves. Then she sits in her office and starts on tomorrow’s discharge summaries, sends Dr. Morrible a follow-up email about her project proposal, reviews the proofs for the case report. When she sees Dr. Thropp’s name it all comes flooding back, all the nervousness tinged with a slight nausea.
It stays for the rest of the day. She tries to distract herself by watching the pair of pigeons that live outside her office window. They coo and warble at each other and are delightfully round, but even they can’t save her mood today.
She sends Biq home early and pretends not to notice his obvious disappointment. Pfannee gets through the rest of his tasks before leaving, too, and ShenShen breezes by to inform Glinda of all the follow-up consults she’ll get to see tomorrow. And so Glinda sits in her office as 5:15, 5:20 rolls around, watching the pigeons cluck around each other and build a very bad nest that consists of a few twigs and a wayward leaf. Still, they’re trying at least. To make do with what they have. Even though it’ll probably end in cracked eggs. There’s a kind of peaceful acceptance in the way they hop around the windowsill.
Maybe Glinda should accept things, too.
Enough, she thinks. Now she’s sitting here relating her sorry career trajectory to birds.
At 5:25 exactly she flutters up to the nurse’s station. Milla waves from behind the counter. “Glinda!”
“Milla!” Glinda leans towards her. “My favorite nurse!”
Though Glinda often claims someone is her favorite nurse, Milla is actually her favorite nurse.
“Are you on call?” Milla asks, typing so quickly her fingers blur. “We want to order pizza tonight, you can join if you want?”
“No,” Glinda says. She tries not to break into a grin. When the nurses like her, it makes up for Dr. Morrible ignoring her emails, Dr. Greyling’s disapproving look when Glinda doesn’t remember minutiae of a patient's personal history. “I’m doing overtime. But thanks for asking.”
“Ugh,” Milla groans and stops typing. “Again?”
Glinda shrugs. “Chief Diggs wants me to organize a symposium.”
“A symposium?” Milla shudders. “Do you hate your apartment or something? Is that why you’re always here?”
“I don’t even know,” Glinda says absentmindedly. “I mean, my apartment is fine. Full of dead plants, but I like to say they remind me to live life to the fullest.”
Milla’s face lights up when she laughs. She laughs easily. It’s one of Glinda’s favorite things about her, and what makes her Glinda’s number-one-top-favorite-favorite nurse. “Well, don’t stay too long. I won’t give you any pizza.”
“That’s fair,” Glinda says. “And how’ve you been?”
Milla opens her mouth to answer—probably not too good, she’s recently split from her boyfriend—but then the phone rings. She glances apologetically at Glinda and picks up, cradling the telephone in the crook of her neck so she can continue typing her report. “Dermatology unit, Nurse Taube speaking… no. I mean, I don’t think so? Let me ask.” She looks up at Glinda. “Glinda, are we admitting a patient?”
“No,” Glinda says. “At least not that I know of. Why?”
“It’s the receptionist downstairs,” Milla says. “There’s someone in the clinic who wants to come onto the unit. She says she has an appointment with you, but we don’t have—”
“Yes, I’m meeting with someone from the pathology department,” Glinda says, slightly irritated. “Why doesn’t she come up? There’s signage, for Oz’s sake.”
Milla nods and turns back to the phone. “Dr. Upland does have an appointment with another doctor… but you’re sure she’s a patient?”
There’s a murmur on the other end.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” Milla whispers, holding the receiving end of the phone closed with her palm. “I think the receptionist is really confused.”
Glinda groans. Does Dr. Thropp want a personal escort onto the dermatology unit now? “I’ll go downstairs.”
“Sorry,” Milla calls out after her, but Glinda shoots her a smile. No hard feelings. It’s all Dr. Thropp’s fault, anyway. She pads downstairs quickly, running her hands along the railing of the staircase. It’s almost the most exciting thing she’s done today. How sad that is, she thinks, before arriving at the front desk of the clinic. It’s mainly empty at this point, no obvious pathologists standing around. A young woman in not-quite-business casual is turned towards the wall, studying a flyer advertising for a cat sitter. The message board really isn’t meant for that, but apparently no one’s had the heart to tear it down.
As the woman reaches a hand up to tear a strip off the flyer, Glinda gapes.
Her hand looks green.
No, it is green.
Oh, Glinda thinks. She can write a case report about this. And she’s here before the resident on call! Dr. Thropp will have to wait, emergencies first and all that. Even a pathologist would understand. “Hello,” Glinda says brightly, moving towards the woman. “I’m Dr. Upland. Can I—”
The woman turns around completely and Glinda is struck by how bright her eyes are, the lift of her cheekbones. Astonishingly full lips. All green. Braids pulled into a tight bun. Glinda notices things like that; it’s part of her clinical assessment. “Finally,” the woman says, rather curtly. “Your receptionist seems to think I’m trying to break in.”
“Break in?” Glinda laughs nervously. “Why would you want to do that?”
“That’s an excellent question,” the woman says. “Considering there’s nothing of value in a dermatology unit.”
Glinda blinks.
The woman sighs.
Glinda blinks again. “Dr. Thropp?”
“Yes,” Dr. Thropp says. She coughs slightly, then extends a hand out for Glinda to shake. Overall, she has a good handshake. Firm. Not too tight. Her hands are pleasantly dry, not like Biq’s, which always seem slightly clammy no matter how warm it is.
Glinda stares, still a bit dumbfounded at this green woman with her young face and round glasses. “Have you always been…” She clamps her mouth shut.
Dr. Thropp closes her eyes very briefly. “Go on.”
Glinda fiddles with the hem of her scrubs. “Green?”
Nostrils flaring a bit, Dr. Thropp exhales. “Yes. I have. And I didn’t eat grass as a child—”
“Oh, I’ve actually read that that’s healthy,” Glinda interjects desperately, “because of allergen sensitization or something.”
“—I’m not seasick. I don’t photosynthesize. I don’t want to be examined or touched or photographed and I do not want a cream or a lotion or anything else you dragged out of some back cabinet.” She fiddles with the strap of her shoulder bag. “I should print that on a card for dermatologists. It’d save time.”
Glinda feels slightly dizzy. “Good we got all that out of the way, then,” she says, trying to smile normally. “Well. Lovely to have you. Thank you for coming here.”
“I don’t have my own office,” Dr. Thropp says. “So I assume it’s better here. To talk.”
“Oh, I don’t have my own office either,” Glinda says cheerfully. “I really like it though, it’s so lonely otherwise. And this way everyone can chat and the students can ask questions whenever they want.”
Dr. Thropp gazes at her.
Glinda clears her throat. “But everyone else is home right now,” she adds quickly. “So it’s like I have my own office and it’s really quiet and everything.”
They ride up in the elevator, though Glinda regrets not taking the stairs as soon as they step in together. An unpleasant silence settles in over them. It reminds Glinda of an unwashed blanket provided by a friend, a friend who really should have proper bedding and a guest room at this point in life but doesn’t. That’s neither here nor there, though. They still don’t talk as Glinda leads Dr. Thropp past the nurse’s station, waving briefly at Milla and mouthing help me behind Dr. Thropp’s back, or when they weave their way through the hallways jutting off at strange angles.
When they’re finally in Glinda’s office—and Pfannee and ShenShen’s and Biq’s, lamentably—Dr. Thropp sets her bag down on the floor, next to Pfannee’s white coat that he never wears and ShenShen’s white coat that she wears every day. She retrieves a giant notebook out of it and clutches it close to her chest, idling awkwardly by Glinda’s desk. The room is flooded with sunlight at this hour, a warm golden color.
“You can sit,” Glinda offers, finding the shuffle of Dr. Thropp’s feet unbearable.
Dr. Thropp takes a tentative step towards Pfannee’s chair.
“Oh, not there,” Glinda says hurriedly, fighting the urge to kick herself. “Here, sit on my chair. It’s better. Ergonomic, you know. It’s so important to sit comfortably.”
Dr. Thropp settles onto Glinda’s chair like she doesn’t trust it not to collapse under her. Glinda tries not to roll her eyes. As if she’d stoop that low. Hoping that Pfannee will appreciate her efforts, she sits down on his chair and crosses her legs, smiling faintly.
Silence again. Oz, this could have been an email.
“So I know we don’t really know each other,” Glinda starts, because someone has to say something, “and email communication is—so difficult.”
Dr. Thropp nods.
“I thought it’d be good to, you know. Clear the air.” Glinda smiles again, more genuinely this time. Maybe a bit too much tooth.
“We don’t have to do that,” Dr. Thropp says. “We can work.”
“Right.” Glinda looks down. Clean slate, then. She looks back up at Dr. Thropp and tilts her head. “I have to say, though, that I didn’t quite imagine you’d look like… this.”
“Because I’m green?” Dr. Thropp rolls her eyes. “Oz, can a dermatologist ever focus on anything else?”
“No, not at all,” Glinda says quickly, feeling a very warm blush bloom in her cheeks. “Not because of the green! Because of the—the—”
“You’ll be relieved to hear that you look exactly as I imagined, Dr. Upland,” Dr. Thropp says flatly.
Glinda swallows. “What does that mean?”
Dr. Thropp puts her notebook down on Glinda’s desk and grabs her backpack again to burrow around in it. “Like a dermatologist.”
“What do dermatologists look like?”
“Well,” Dr. Thropp says, finding whatever she’s looking for and sticking her head back up, “like someone who uses a pink glitter pen.” As if to punctuate her remark, she waves a black pen in Glinda’s face. “Not sure if you’ve seen one of these before, but they’re standard in most industries. Blue is an alternative.”
So not a clean slate, then. Glinda feels her blush getting more intense, but it’s more indignation than embarrassment. She’s always been a person who blushes easily, much to her chagrin. “Hm,” she sniffs. “I take it back. You do look like a person who hates whimsy. I suppose a pathologist has enough time to worry about pen colors.”
“Right,” Dr. Thropp concedes. Then she chuckles to herself, and it’s the most infuriating sound Glinda’s ever heard. “I’m sure prescribing cortisone for several hours a day is very taxing.”
“How incredibly original,” Glinda says, “but sadly inaccurate. Just the other day I gave someone an antibiotic.”
Dr. Thropp snorts. “Did you have to consult Infectiology for that?”
“Says the person who probably hasn’t spoken to a patient in the past five years,” Glinda snaps. Her entire face must be red, or at least a very dark pink. Her heart races. “Though I suppose that’d violate your oath to do no harm.”
More silence. Then Dr. Thropp laughs, and it’s a full-throated sound. Mocking. Derisive. Like the due to the sample’s small size, we cannot confidently rule out carcinoma in her reports, or every snide nitpicking comment she left on the case report.
“It’s wonderful you’re having a good time,” Glinda says. “But I’d like to go home at some point, so can we please get back on topic?”
“Fine.” Dr. Thropp opens her notebook. “Dr. Dillamond didn’t tell me much.”
“I had a meeting with Chief Diggs last week,” Glinda says. “He’s thinking of having the symposium in September and we can do whatever we want for the lecture series. With his approval, of course.”
Dr. Thropp raises her eyebrows. “Lecture series?”
“Yes. The bimonthly lectures.” Glinda’s heart has slowed a bit, the thudding from earlier now an echo in her ears. “He’s reserved the auditorium for it.”
Dr. Thropp takes notes in that horrendible chicken-scratch handwriting that’s made Glinda gnash her teeth in frustration dozens of times. “And Dr. Dillamond’s approval?”
“His too, I guess.” Glinda frowns. “But it is Chief Diggs’s funding.”
“Of course it is,” Dr. Thropp mutters. For the sake of civility, Glinda pretends not to have heard. Scratch, scratch. Glinda tilts her head. How in Oz can anyone read that? All of Dr. Thropp’s letters consist of the thinnest lines, fallen in on each other like a house in demolition.
“Do you have any ideas already?” Glinda asks, drumming her fingers impatiently on Pfannee’s desk.
Dr. Thropp looks up. “I didn’t know there was a lecture series. This is the first I’ve heard about that.”
“So… no ideas?”
“No.” Dr. Thropp purses her lips. “I thought we were going to discuss a timeline for planning the symposium today.”
“Okay,” Glinda says brightly. “We can do that.” She logs into the computer quickly and opens her calendar. “We need to find a venue, like, yesterday. Thankfully” –she shrugs humbly— “I had the foresight to email Lora from the event management department last week—”
Dr. Thropp sighs. “Could you please Cc me on stuff like that?”
“You hadn’t reached out at that point,” Glinda says, annoyed. “I didn’t know how involved you wanted to be.”
“Of course I want to be involved.” Despite her overall very youthful look, Dr. Thropp is good at wrinkling her forehead. “I’m doing this as a personal favor to Dr. Dillamond. Chief Nikidik—” She inhales sharpy. “Never mind.”
Glinda’s ears perk up. “You can tell me; I can keep a secret.” She never gets to hear about extradepartmental drama these days, ever since she broke up with Fiyero and was cruelly cut off from the inner workings of the ED, despite him promising they’d still be friends. And they are friends, but not to the point that he’ll dish on who’s hooking up with whom. Ugh. It’s probably the thing she misses most about the relationship, that and not getting harassed by Momsie about being single.
“I will not,” Dr. Thropp says smoothly.
“Fine, be that way.” Glinda refocuses onto her calendar. “So once we have a venue we can finalize the date. I think the deadline for the abstract submission should be at least six months in advance so we have enough time to go over everything and make a schedule.”
Dr. Thropp’s lips flatten slightly. There’s a scraping sound as the pen scratches across the paper in a circle. “Does he want a poster fair?”
“Yes.” Glinda opens a blank document on the computer and starts typing. “You don’t have to take notes, by the way, I can send this to you later.”
Dr. Thropp betrays no sign of having heard anything she said. “How long is this event supposed to be?” she asks.
“Two or three days?”
More scratching on that poor piece of paper. “Shouldn’t you know?”
“I don’t know everything,” Glinda mumbles. She braces herself for another snarky remark but nothing comes. “Chief Diggs wants to see how the lectures go, to gauge interest. We’re supposed to reserve the venue for three days.”
Dr. Thropp tips her head slightly. Is that agreement? Maybe a twitch of muscle.
“So we have about six months before the abstracts are due, and the abstract submission period could be around 3 months?” Glinda clicks through all the pages of her calendar. Sure, there’s already a meeting scattered here and there, a conference she wants to go to, but she’s not sure she’ll get time off for it yet. Between those events, there is only that empty white time-space she has to get through, the yawning gap staring her right in the face. “So that leaves us over three months to get a website up and running and generate enough interest to get people to submit. And we need a peer-review committee, but I hope Chief Diggs will help us with that.”
“That sounds plausible,” Dr. Thropp says stiffly. Glinda is about to grin in triumph when she clears her throat. “Have you ever done anything like this before?”
“No,” Glinda admits. “Have you?”
Dr. Thropp shakes her head.
“Well, I’m sure it’ll be fun,” Glinda says. “And easy, once we get the hang of it.”
Dr. Thropp stares at her dubiously. “And you’re basing this assumption on… what?”
“I have a good feeling,” Glinda lies. “And besides, even if it’s not fun and easy we don’t really have a choice, do we? So we might as well pretend.”
Seemingly considering it, Dr. Thropp looks down at the page, now covered in handwriting that seems more glyphic than anything else. “So… what’s next?”
As she looks up, there’s something hazy in her eyes. She looks a little lost, even. Glinda finds herself leaning in the slightest bit, wanting to understand it better. Then Dr. Thropp blinks and there is only impatient assuredness in her face.
Glinda swallows. “The first lecture,” she says. “We have a venue. Chief Diggs said catering—some snacks, you know. Coffee. I can email Lora about that—I’ll put you in Cc, of course.” She waits for Dr. Thropp to smile or something. Accepting that it won’t happen, she continues. “And we need a topic. And a speaker.”
“I’ll think of some suggestions over the next few days,” Dr. Thropp says. “I’ll email them to you.”
“Great!” TO-DO, Glinda types into the document. Both – Brainstorm possible topics for lecture series and speakers (by Friday). Dr. Upland – email Lora about catering for lecture, follow up on venue for symposium. Dr. Thropp – email Dr. Upland suggestions for lecture series.
“I mean, don’t you also have to email me your ideas?” Dr. Thropp sits back in the chair and crosses her legs. “You’re not approving my suggestions; we’re reaching a consensus.”
“Oh!” Glinda coughs. “Yes.”
She adds email Dr. Thropp suggestions for lecture series to her to do’s.
“You could put it under ‘Both,’” Dr. Thropp suggests, “or write ‘brainstorm and send’—”
“It’s just an overview,” Glinda says. Glinda loves lists. She needs lists, and so she knows how to write one so that it supremely satisfying to work through it. Small goals, so she can tick things off often.
“Overviews should make sense.”
“You’re very welcome to restructure the list as you see fit.”
“I have my own.” Dr. Thropp holds up her notebook with her indecipherable handwriting. “See?”
“Then leave mine alone,” Glinda says. “Oz. I’ll send it to you anyway, in case you forget something. Because I’m nice.”
Another awkward silence. Better than them exchanging snippy comments, at least. Though there’s a bit of a thrill to it, Glinda has to admit. It makes the time go by. As Glinda ponders this, a pigeon warbles outside the window. Tap tap tap, her beak goes against the glass. On instinct, Glinda snaps her head around to look.
“Seems like you have a visitor,” Dr. Thropp remarks, but there’s something that could almost be categorized as a faint smile on her lips. It’s fascinating, how it makes her face change. She’s not only amused, there’s something else behind it, too. In the way she sits up and leans forward. An intellectual curiosity, perhaps.
“Oh, she lives here.” Glinda waves at the pigeon, who looks at her in confusion. “At least she tries to. With her husband. Or partner, not sure if they’re into labels like that.”
“Pigeons mate for life,” Dr. Thropp says.
“Good for them,” Glinda remarks. Good for you for knowing that, she thinks. “I don’t know, maybe these are weird, though. They’re terrible at nests.”
Dr. Thropp gets up and crosses the room to the windowsill, looking through the glass at the saddest collection of twigs Glinda’s ever seen in her life.
“It was actually really sad last year,” Glinda says. “They had an egg and it was windy and it fell. My intern saw the whole thing and she cried so much I had to send her home early.” She tries to sound light, but instead her voice comes out all subdued and thick. Nor was a sweet intern. Smart without being pretentious, hardworking but not pushy. Lamentably, she decided to become a cardiologist, which Glinda is trying very hard to forgive her for. And it was very sad to see the pigeons huddled up against each other in the rain, eggless and nestless. “They’re kind of a mess, I guess,” she says, embarrassed about her obvious display of emotion. She flicks her hands up in the air. “My incompetent office pigeons.”
“Pigeon nests look like that because they’re used to nesting on rock faces,” Dr. Thropp says. “That’s also why they seek out flat surfaces. They’d only need a few twigs on a rock; it’s more stable.”
“But the eggs always fall,” Glinda points out. “At least I’ve never seen baby pigeons around.”
“Maybe.” Dr. Thropp walks away from the window, towards her bag. Mercifully towards her bag. “But they’re not incompetent. They’re not in their natural habitat.”
“Right.” Glinda rubs the bridge of her nose. “So I’ll send you an email with what we talked about today and I guess we’ll be in touch.”
“I guess.” Dr. Thropp stands, looking a little lost again, in front of the door to Glinda’s office. She picks up her bag almost as an afterthought and slings it over her shoulder. It’s all very… not practiced, but measured. Almost careful.
Oz, why is she still standing there. Glinda grimaces inwardly. “Do you want me to walk you out?”
“I can find it on my own,” Dr. Thropp says.
Then what are you waiting for? Glinda thinks. Whatever is going on in Dr. Thropp’s mind, it seems as far away from her as a pigeon’s natural habitat. “Have a good evening, then,” she says after a moment, turning back to the computer.
“You too.”
Glinda hears the door open, then close with a click. Oz, what a strange woman. Protected research time, she tells herself. She gives herself a few seconds to sit with her head in her hands, enjoying the silence in her office. She doesn’t have a headache exactly, more like a faint buzzing around her skull she can’t quite place.
Outside the window, the pigeon coos. “You think she’s weird too, right?” Glinda asks.
The pigeon tilts her head. The shape of her beak is almost elegant, the way it curves down. Then she turns away from Glinda, her neck shimmering in the sun.
“That’s what I thought,” Glinda sighs. Then she gets back to work.