Her fantasy ended and reality set back in again. She set her sights on her speech notes, but none of them made sense to her sleep-deprived brain. Unable to focus, she tossed the notes aside and rested her head back against the wall.
The last few months had been a whirlwind. She had recovered from her own surgery from almost a year before, returned to the heavy work of neurosurgery far too soon, and not long after that, had performed possibly the most difficult procedure of her career on the man she just made love with. “Complicated” was putting it mildly. Looking at the vent cover with sleepy eyes, June wondered if it was possible to crawl in and escape back to simpler times.
She realized she had dozed off when she felt something on her cheek. Opening her eyes, Jack was kissing her.
She smiled. “Hey.”
“Hey to you too. Been up long?” He turned on the coffeemaker.
She grabbed the notes from where she had flung them. “Long enough to decide my talk is utter crap and that I’m a fraud as a surgeon.”
“And that’s why you’re sitting on the floor in the dark? So you can feel sorry for yourself?”
“Not sorry, just…overwhelmed.”
“We can go through your talk a couple times this morning, if you like.”
She looked down at her notes again. It wasn’t the talk that was overwhelming her. “It’s just neuro-babble. Not terribly interesting except to other neuro-babblers.” She wadded the notes into a ball and tossed them away. “And probably not even interesting to them.”
Jack handed her a cup of coffee. He found the notes and unwrinkled them, reading for a moment. “And you have PowerPoint to go with this, right?”
June pushed her way up and went to her briefcase. Taking out her laptop, she set it on the small dining table and found the program she wanted. She dragged two chairs around for them to sit.
“Why don’t you just give the talk to me right now? I can watch the laptop screen from where I sit.”
“Yeah, sure, I guess I could. Let me check my notes for a moment.”
“No. Just give the talk. You already know everything you need to give the presentation.”
“But…”
“You have only about thirty seconds before you lose me.”
She turned the laptop so he could view while sitting at the table, and she stepped a few feet away, keeping the mouse in her hand to shift slides.
“Good morning. My name is June Kato from Mercy Hospital in Los Angeles.” She clicked to the next slide.
“You have twenty more seconds until I start thinking about something else,” Jack said.
She smiled. “My talk today is Neuroscience and the Golden Ratio.”
“Ten seconds,” he muttered, taking a drink of his coffee.
June filled her half-hour time allotment with barely needing to stop to think.
“So, what did you think of my talk?”
Jack tilted his head. “Good information. The slides were well organized, thoughtful.”
“You make it sound as exciting as a book report.”
“It lacks punch. Build some interest as you go along. In a way, you’re telling a story, even if it’s only about brain surgery.”
“Only brain surgery?” she asked sharply. She gave him an impatient look that reflected her lack of sleep. “There’s a very good reason very few surgeons attempt third ventricle surgery. It’s not so easy, and too many things can go wrong in a hurry. There is nothing only about it.”
“That’s not what I meant…”
She felt the need to change the subject. “What time is your presentation today? I know mine’s last on the bill.”
“A little after lunch. Actually, I need to get started on some prep work.”
“Rats. I’m still hungry.”
“There should be fruit and cereal in the kitchen.”
“I was thinking of something else…”
“I’m doing something right then.” He grinned.
“You still have my vote next year.”
“I’m not sure what that means, but I should shower and dress.”
She frowned and rolled off him onto her back. “And that loses my vote.”
He left her in bed where she laid sprawled, the blanket covering only her legs, the pillow under her head. She watched him take clothes out of the closet to wear after his shower, stacking them in neat and tidy piles. When he turned around to face her, she saw him naked in the light for the first time, not as a patient in a hospital bed, but as a man sharing a bedroom with her. She easily could have gotten aroused.
The ventilation system kicked on and the same clatter came from the vent near the kitchen.
“May I ask you a question?” Jack asked.