Dr. NEUROtic

  Dr. NEURO

  A St. Luke’s Docuseries Novel

  Published by Max Monroe LLC © 2017, Max Monroe

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Editing by Silently Correcting Your Grammar

  Formatting by Champagne Book Design

  Cover Design by Perfect Pear Creative

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  To Live PD: Thank you for making all-nighters possible. Your hookers, your meth pipes, your cars full of weed, and your sexy-ass high speed chases—all give us the will to push on and write another chapter, even when the sleep monster is calling.

  P.S. Special thanks for the creation of Sgt. “Sticks” Larkin.

  To Impractical Jokers: For reassuring us that there are real people out there as ridiculous as our characters (and ourselves).

  To TV: For being the holder of both of these gems.

  To Electricity: For allowing TV.

  To Thomas Edison (or maybe Benjamin Franklin. Frankly, Google wasn’t clear.): For inventing electricity.

  To Thomas Edison’s (Benjamin Franklin’s) parents: For “creating” Thomas (Benjamin).

  To you, dear reader: For reading this far into a pile full of dedication garbage. Your loyalty is remarkable.

  “I’m sorry, Nick. I know you’ve grown accustomed to us paying your tuition, but your father is a good man. He doesn’t shirk responsibility, and he wouldn’t want to,” my mom said gently.

  The kitchen chair was solid under me, I could feel its legs against my own, but somehow, I still felt like I was falling. My ears whooshed as blood pumped furiously from my heart and out, and I tried to make sense of what this meant for me. But none of it made sense—I couldn’t focus—and the unexpected news stung in a way I knew was probably unreasonable. I couldn’t help it, though.

  The bottom would surely come soon, and then I could concentrate on picking myself up again and figuring out how to fix all of my ailments.

  Right?

  I was studying to become a doctor, after all.

  “I don’t understand. How is Dad leaving his job a brilliant display of responsibility?” I demanded irately. And why does he have to do it now? I thought but didn’t ask. Some part of me knew my parents didn’t owe me this, but the young, selfish, throbbing pain piercing through my frontal lobe as I imagined what this would mean for my life thought otherwise.

  My dad was one of the biggest guys on Wall Street, a brilliant mind, and a talented moneymaker, and he was leaving to take over my grandfather’s hardware store. It was on its last leg, about to go under, and the store itself carried more debt than my parents did. In what world was this responsible?

  My mom’s face hardened slightly. My parents were one of those blindingly happy couples, more in love each day, and desperate to have just one more year together every year they had one. They’d be married sixty years one day, and they’d still be wishing for just a little bit longer. Any insult to my father, veiled, vague, or otherwise, was an insult to my mother as well.

  “He left his job to finish the one your grandfather left unfinished,” my mom lectured, her smooth, chocolate-brown bob swinging forward to cover her now pinkened cheeks. “He founded that company seventy years ago, and it’s a family legacy. He’s taking care of your grandmother, and he’s still taking care of us. We just won’t have as much freedom as we used to.”

  “Freedom?” I questioned as I pictured my life at the hospital now combined with another job on top of it. I didn’t have time to sleep as it was. “I can kiss my life goodbye. I’ve still got three years of my residency left, hundred-hour weeks, and now I need a job.”

  Her tone softened, but only slightly. You didn’t talk to your mother like an ungrateful asshole and get a cookie for it. At least, I never did. “You’ll get a loan, Nick.”

  My anger, rooted in the life my parents had spoiled me with up until this point, colored my words and set my mind.

  “Dad can do what he wants. But after I’m done with school, I’m going to make sure I don’t make the same mistakes,” I spewed, ruthlessly locking in my single-minded goal without scrutiny. I would provide for myself and my future family financially, as was my responsibility, and I would do it at any fucking cost.

  Famous last words, huh?

  “That job is across the country, Nick. I don’t even know how you can consider it. You’ll never see me or the baby!”

  Winnie wrapped her small hands around the ever-rounding surface of her stomach protectively as she argued with me about my future. She’d told me about the baby three months ago, about a week after finding out herself, and in about four more months, I was going to be a father.

  I’d panicked at first, frustrated by life’s timing and another hitch in my carefully calculated plans. I’d worked tirelessly, to the point of sleep deprivation, for the last three years to finish my residency, and the door to a life outside of exhaustion finally beckoned. I didn’t ever want to struggle this hard for money again. I wanted to work hard, but I wanted to do it where I was passionate—in neurosurgery. Not as a late-night bartender at an Applebee’s in Staten Island.

  And finally, a week ago, the answer had come. A job offer that would set me up for the next five years and put me on the fast track to being a big name, big changemaker, and big moneymaker in modern medicine.

  I hadn’t even considered that Winnie would react this negatively.

  “It’s at the top hospital in California, Win. People work ten years to get in there. They scheme and fight, and the Neurology Department wants me. How can I not take this job?” I explained, practically keening with the desperation to make her understand.

  “Get a job here,” she argued. “New York has great hospitals, and St. Mary’s already offered you a job.”

  “For half the money,” I scoffed. “It doesn’t even compare.” And
it didn’t. If I took the job at St. Mary’s, I’d hardly be better off in five years than I was now. I’d still be paying off the remaining balance of my student loan, for shit’s sake.

  “It’s here,” Winnie stressed, tears running down her fresh, young face and leaving a trail in the smooth surface of her light makeup. She had the kind of eyes that cut you with their melancholy and fueled you with their happiness, but this was bigger than that.

  This was about more than us, and more than some pseudo-ideal picture of us as a happy, suburban family.

  She didn’t know what it was like to be the kid of someone who didn’t have money, so I had to look to the future for both of us. I didn’t want our kid to have to fight so hard for everything.

  Some might call it spoiling, but to me, it just seemed right.

  In the end, we could never understand each other. I swore she was wrong for her way of thinking, and she thought the same about me.

  I left the next week to take the job in California—to make something of myself, and ultimately, to make something for them.

  One day, they’d understand.

  They had to.

  Taxis buzzed past me going sixty and screeched to zero in a heartbeat at the command of a traffic light turned red.

  Impatient horns honked their love language, tempering the restless drivers as they waited to be released from their hold and jockeyed for position.

  Pedestrians littered the sidewalks, and street vendors sat behind their tables doing their best to convince passersby to snag their goods.

  And a mid-seventies man with a hunchback and a pink tutu over a thong combed the sidewalk in front of me, offering to do a dance in exchange for some booze money.

  I’m back, bitches.

  New York City—the one and only city that always felt like home. And, good God, she was just as gorgeous and eclectic and stubborn and vibrant as she was the day I’d left her some twelve odd years ago. Sure, I’d visited—the old girl’s stubborn lure was too strong to resist in her entirety—but it wasn’t the same as knowing this was where I’d be living from here on out.

  Everything had come full circle, and the job that had once stolen me away from the Big Apple had finally led me right back to my favorite place in the entire world.

  Chase Murray International, or CMI for short, was my employer, and I’d been working for the world-renowned firm ever since I’d graduated from NYU. Specializing in international marketing and advertising executives and elite healthcare professionals, we only scouted the most sought after CEOs and talented medical professionals in the world.

  My specialty: physicians. Surgeons, to be specific.

  Even though my degree from NYU was in business, and I had zero healthcare experience, I’d proved over the years that I had a knack for finding only the best surgeons. And I was even better at convincing them to leave their current place of employment and relocate to a hospital that needed and desired their expertise.

  It wasn’t necessarily what I’d planned out for my career, but over the years, I’d grown to love the freedom my job allowed.

  I worked my own schedule, set my own hours, and had the capability of doing everything on my own time.

  And it was a lot less physically strenuous than something like stripping. Instead of spending my time keeping my figure trim, I wooed people by taking them out to dinner.

  Food for the win!

  It was a dream, to be honest. And the only negative I’d found was the demand for relocation.

  But CMI had made some changes, and now, I’d be permanently in New York with the occasional need for travel.

  Not to mention, I’d finally be able to utilize my separate savings account that I’d not-so-creatively titled “house fund.”

  Ever since I’d started working for CMI, I’d been stockpiling money away for the hope of purchasing my own home, but I’d never stayed in one place long enough to even consider looking for a house. But now, I was back in my city, and not only would I be enjoying the sights and sounds and energetic vibe, but I’d also have my eyes wide open for real estate.

  Fingers and toes and legs crossed I find something sooner rather than later, because living in a sardine-box-sized apartment in Chinatown is no easy feat.

  “Hey! Watch it, lady!” a cabbie shouted out of his window as I crossed the street, and then honked his horn twice for good measure.

  I startled, nearly dropping my briefcase to the ground, but then, then I smiled.

  New York. Good God, she was beautiful.

  The lights of Times Square danced and swirled in the late afternoon sun as I headed toward the subway station on 42nd to catch the Shuttle to Grand Central. I’d taken a detour, the long route, so to speak, but it was all in the name of seeing and breathing and just living my city again.

  Hell, twelve years ago, I would’ve avoided Times Square like the plague. All of those tourists milling about, crowding the sidewalks, and making it damn near impossible to get anywhere faster than at a snail’s pace—nauseating.

  But not today.

  Today, I celebrated. I strolled past Times Square with my earbuds pumping Taylor Swift’s “Welcome to New York” in my ears and a giant, stupid smile on my face. I’d only been back a week and was still living out of cardboard boxes inside the small apartment I’d rented in Chinatown, but I couldn’t be happier because New York.

  It was the best city in the world.

  Most of us were exiles, looking for something we didn’t find in our small town or another city that just couldn’t give us what we needed. Even Paris or London or Los Angeles. No other city compared to the Big Apple.

  It was the city that asked nothing of us, except that we make ourselves brand-new.

  No other city demanded that.

  Other cities asked us for nothing because they had nothing to give in return. They wanted you to stay close to Mom and Dad. They made it easy to have the white picket fence, the minivan, and two point five kids. But they didn’t bring you to life.

  New York, though. She didn’t negotiate with biological clock-ticking terrorists.

  Instead, she demanded to be entertained, and entertained in return. And you could believe, for a certain time, that New York was going to recognize you, that New York would reward you, that New York would confirm what you had suspected all along about yourself—that you were special.

  It was a city attributed with godlike qualities, and for good reason. I had never felt more blessed and more cursed, alternately, in a single day than the way I'd felt here.

  Chicago, where I’d spent five years of my twenties, was like a warm bathtub.

  But, New York, well, she was the ocean.

  Black pumps in overdrive, I reached the corner of 42nd and Broadway and click-clacked my way down the subway stairs until I was safely inside the Shuttle. And, three trains later, I was standing in front of the entrance doors of St. Luke’s.

  I had a neurosurgeon by the name of Dr. Nick Raines to charm, impress, and sway toward a brand-new, state-of-the-art hospital in Los Angeles. Sure, it was thousands of miles away from his current home base, but I’d done my research. The man had only settled down at St. Luke’s a few years ago, but prior to accepting his position as Chief of Neurosurgery, he had traveled all over the country—starting in good old Californ-I-A. It wasn’t a sure thing, but a history of willingness sure was helpful.

  And his track record was unbelievable. The man was an enigma in his already difficult field. He took the cases no one else wanted to take, and he still managed to keep his success rate in the ninetieth percentile. That was practically unheard of when it came to brain surgeons.

  But, even though relocating Dr. Raines to Los Angeles would end in one hell of a commission bonus, he wasn’t my only ace in the hole when it came to neurosurgeons in New York. I’d learned early on as a headhunter never to put all of your eggs in one basket. Even though Kennedy Medical Center was convinced they wanted Dr. Raines as their new Chief of Neurosurgery, I knew he wasn’t th
e only good fit for them.

  I had three more candidates on my list, and one in particular, Dr. Sylvia Morris, was already looking for a relocation to the West Coast to be near her family.

  Through the entrance doors and onto the elevator, I made my way toward Dr. Raines’s office, located in the Medical Arts Building off the east wing of the hospital. Before I reached the fourth floor, I turned off my music, slipped my earbuds out of my ears, and slid my phone into my purse.

  A young, perky redhead of a receptionist sat behind the desk inside of his waiting room. She smiled jovially as I pushed through the office doors and walked inside.

  “Good afternoon,” she greeted. “How can I help you?”

  “Hello—” I glanced discreetly at the name tag on her scrub top “—Jenna.” Her smile grew wider. I was in the business of knowing what people wanted, and everyone wanted to feel like they were someone, not just some nameless face behind a desk. “My name is Charlotte Hollis,” I explained. “I have a four o’clock meeting scheduled with Dr. Raines.”

  Jenna scrolled through the calendar on her computer. She clicked the mouse a few times before smiling again in my direction. “Dr. Raines is running a little behind with a patient, but it should only be about ten minutes.” She hopped up from her seat and gestured me toward the door beside her desk. “If you’d like to follow me back to his office, you can wait for him there.”

  “Sounds good.” I nodded and followed her lead.

  Jenna led me down the hallway until we reached the large office tucked away in the back. A big mahogany desk sat in the center, and behind that, a floor-to-ceiling window. “Just make yourself comfortable,” she instructed and pointed toward the two leather chairs sitting in front of the desk. “Dr. Raines should be back shortly.”

  “Thank you, Jenna,” I said before she shut the door behind her.

  I set my briefcase on the floor beside one of the chairs and walked over toward the window.

  The busy streets were filled with yellow cabs. Central Park. Manhattan.