Dead Med, page 13
When I arrive at the lecture the next morning, I notice that Dr. Conlon seems to be in a pretty good mood too. He’s joking around with the class more than usual, and even though he’s generally an animated teacher, I’m impressed by the enthusiasm he’s managed to whip up for the muscles of mastication. He really needed to get laid.
Truthfully, Dr. Conlon is a good teacher. Actually, he’s a great teacher. He’s patient and good at explaining tricky concepts, but most importantly, he so obviously loves teaching. This job is his life. And that’s why this is so perfect. As much as it will hurt his pride, when he figures out what I’m after, he’ll cave immediately. He won’t do anything to jeopardize his career.
After the lecture is over, I give the professor a five-minute head start to get to his office before heading over there myself. I’m pleased to see the way his eyes light up when I enter the room. I could probably get the keys to his car and all his credit card numbers if I wanted.
“Rachel.” He beams at me. “I was hoping you’d come by…”
I close the door behind me and lock it. A smile stretches across my lips. “How are you doing, Dr. Conlon?”
“Matt,” he corrects me.
In about five minutes, he’s going to hate my guts.
I cross the room to his desk. He pushes his chair back from the desk to allow me room to sit down on his lap. I settle down on his legs and wrap my arms around his neck. I bring my face close to his.
“Are you busy?” I ask him.
He shakes his head, “Nah, just some paperwork.”
This is the moment to drop the bombshell. But I see the way he’s looking at me and… somehow I just choke. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It’s not like Matt Conlon is the first professor to become smitten with me.
“What?” He’s looking at me, dark eyebrows raised. “Is something wrong?”
“Nothing,” I say, forcing a smile.
He starts to kiss my neck, and my body melts against him. His fingers slide into my hair, and it feels so nice. Maybe I don’t have to tell him right now. Maybe we can go one more time…
Oh my God, what’s wrong with me?
I have to do this now. Right now.
I pull away from him resolutely, trying to ignore the confusion on his face as I take a deep breath.
“Actually, there is something that’s sort of been on my mind…”
He frowns in concern. “What?”
“I just… I feel like I can’t stop thinking about my grade on that exam,” I sigh. “It’s really… distracting me.”
At this point, at least half of the professors would immediately say something along the lines of: Don’t you worry yourself about that grade. We’ll fix that right now. It saves both of us face if they volunteer to change my grade without having to be threatened.
But Conlon isn’t going for it. Damn. He has too much integrity. He’s not going to change my grade. He’s going to need to be persuaded.
This is going to get ugly.
“I’m sure you’ll do better on the next exam.” His face brightens. “I’d be happy to tutor you myself, Rachel. I do that all the time for students who are having trouble. It’s important to me that you do well.”
“Yes, but…” I run my hand over the inside of his thigh. “It’s going to be hard to pass with such a low grade on the first exam.”
“Rachel, honey.” He wraps his fingers around my wrist, stopping them from moving north. “I appreciate what you’re doing, but don’t you have some studying to do?”
Our eyes meet. And that’s when I realize it:
He knows.
He knows exactly what I want. And he’s not planning to make this easy for me.
Too bad he has no idea who he’s dealing with.
“Matt,” I say thoughtfully, “how do you think the dean feels about professors who have sex with their students?”
I watch him carefully for his reaction, expecting his face to drain of color. But it doesn’t. He looks completely calm and collected.
“They probably don’t like it too much,” Dr. Conlon says with a shrug. “I’ve heard of professors getting fired for that.”
“Really?” I say in mock surprise.
He nods. “Yeah, sure. And some of them end up wrecking their marriages too. I heard about a professor recently from another university whose wife left him after he slept with one of his students.” He smiles at me. “Actually, I believe he taught at your former university. Maybe you knew him? Dr. Michael Hirsch?”
Oh no. No, no, no…
He can’t know about that. It’s not possible.
Mike Hirsch was a middle-aged guy who was just as unattractive and balding as Mr. Pritchett had been, and he also happened to teach my biology class in college. He’d believed I really liked him and had thrown a fit when I suggested he alter my grades. I’d been forced to place an unfortunate phone call to his wife. The call to the wife always came first because a call to the university would have been much more of a scandal. Of course, as soon as I called his wife, Mike realized I meant business.
But how the hell does Dr. Conlon know about that? Nobody knows. Except, of course, for Mike Hirsch, Mrs. Hirsch, and me.
“He’s pretty pissed off at that student who wrecked his marriage,” Dr. Conlon continues. “Would you believe he was angry enough to call some of the professors here to personally warn us about that student? As if any of us would be dumb enough to get taken in by something like that.”
Oh, Christ.
I climb off Dr. Conlon’s lap and back away, staring at him. He’s not smiling anymore, that’s for sure.
“Personally,” he says, “I wouldn’t worry anyway. I’m not married, and I’m the only disabled member on the entire faculty and have been for quite a while. I can pretty much get away with whatever I want. I mean, it’s not like they’re going to think that I seduced my student, right?”
“You knew all along,” I breathe, shaking my head.
“Well, it was nice of Dr. Hirsch to give me that heads-up,” he says. “But when you came in here yesterday wearing that short skirt… Come on, do you think I’m stupid, Rachel?”
I can’t believe this. Of all the professors I’ve been with, I can’t believe Dr. Conlon is the one who finally caught on to me. The entire time we were having sex yesterday, when he was acting so grateful and amazed, he knew exactly what I was up to. It was all an act. I’m furious.
“Congratulations,” I say. “You figured me out.”
I storm off in the direction of the door, but before I get there, I hear his voice.
“Hold on, Rachel. Where do you think you’re going?”
I turn and see him playing with the handle of his cane.
“What?” I say irritably.
“You’re still failing anatomy,” he reminds me. “What do you expect to do about that?”
I hate him. I really truly hate him.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Pop a bunch of pills till I stop breathing so none of this matters?”
Dr. Conlon’s face darkens. He doesn’t seem to appreciate my joke, probably because there were several students who really did that. But honestly, I’m not entirely sure I’m joking.
“I’m holding special tutoring sessions,” he says. “For the students who did abysmally on the exam. I’ll email you the times—I suggest you show up.”
“I guess I don’t have much of a choice now, do I?” I snap at him.
“Nope.” He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Good luck, Rachel.”
Yeah, I’m going to need it.
37
Remedial anatomy is the most humiliating experience of all time.
It’s me, Victor Pereira, and Marissa Dunne. We are apparently the dumbest three people in the whole class. Dr. Conlon instructed us to arrive at the anatomy lab at four p.m., so here we are, standing in front of a dead body, waiting for him to show up.
I don’t care for Victor or Marissa. Marissa is a real girly girl. She has these long, long eyelashes and wears so much mascara on them that I’m a little worried her eyelashes might smack me in the face. She’s also wearing high heels in the lab, which is just ridiculous. Victor, on the other hand, always seems like a ball of jittery energy and talks so fast that he trips over his words.
I really wish I weren’t here.
“I didn’t know you were failing anatomy, Rachel,” Victor says when I walk in.
“Yeah,” I mumble, not wanting to get into a conversation with him.
“I know,” Marissa agrees. “I totally thought you were really smart.”
Where the hell is Dr. Conlon?
He shows up a few minutes later, dressed in blue scrubs, clutching his cane in his left hand. I can’t help but notice that his blue scrubs make his eyes look so blue. I shift slightly in my sneakers—I need to stop thinking about him being attractive. Especially since I hate him.
“All right then.” He gently tugs the plastic off the body in front of us. “Let’s get started, okay?”
Victor and Marissa nod eagerly. I just stand there and glare at him.
Dr. Conlon starts wrestling a glove onto his left hand while he says, “For starters, can you guys tell me the five major branches of the facial nerve?”
Crickets chirp.
“You don’t have to know all five of them,” he adds. “Just one. Can you tell me one branch?”
“Ophthalmic?” Victor guesses.
Dr. Conlon pauses in his attempt to pull on the glove.
“Uh, well, no. The eye movement is controlled by three other cranial nerves. Do you know which ones those are?”
More crickets.
“Cranial nerves three, four, and six,” he says as we stare at him blankly. Well, he’s got his work cut out for him. Good luck, Dr. Conlon.
“I knew that,” Marissa says.
“Oh, okay,” Dr. Conlon says, not sounding like he believes her. “Anyway, the branches of the facial nerve are the temporal, zygomatic, buccal, mandibular, and cervical. There’s a mnemonic: To Zanzibar By Motor Car.”
At least this time, the mnemonic doesn’t involve sex.
Victor crinkles his nose. “Where’s Zanzibar?”
“I think it’s in Australia,” Marissa says.
“Actually, it’s in Africa,” Dr. Conlon says patiently.
“Who’s heard of Zanzibar?” Marissa says. “Zurich would be better. That’s in Switzerland. I went to Zurich in college with my boyfriend.”
“Um, fine,” Dr. Conlon says. “You’re welcome to use ‘To Zurich By Motor Car.’”
“And what’s a motor car, anyway?” Victor adds. “Isn’t that just the same as a car?”
Okay, I can’t take another minute of this.
“God, Victor, who the hell cares?” I snap. “This is the dumbest conversation I’ve ever heard in my entire life!”
All three of them stare at me. Long enough that my cheeks start to burn.
“Sorry,” I finally say.
I sneak a look at Dr. Conlon, and I could swear there’s a tiny smile playing on his lips.
“All right,” he says. “Let’s get back to work.”
Yes, this session is humiliating. But at the same time, wow, I learn a lot about anatomy. As much as I hate Dr. Conlon right now, I have to admire how patiently he explains everything to us. Victor and Marissa have plenty more ridiculous questions in the queue, but he fields each of them expertly and doesn’t even make them feel like they said something dumb.
When the hour is up, Dr. Conlon dismisses Victor and Marissa.
“Why don’t you clean up here, Rachel,” he says.
“Why me?” I shoot back at him as the other students hightail it out the heavy lab door.
He regards me for a minute. “We’ll take turns.”
“Wonderful,” I say.
He pulls the glove off his left hand. “I’m glad you came today, Rachel.”
“I didn’t have a choice, did I?”
“You always have a choice,” he says. “It’s just that this time, you made the right choice.”
I guess he’s implying that I made the wrong choice when I slept with him. Then again, I didn’t hear any complaints at the time. He’s the one who banged his student, so I wish he’d drop the holier-than-thou attitude.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “I have no intention of making that particular bad choice ever again.”
Dr. Conlon nods, and maybe it’s my imagination, but his cheeks seem to flush slightly red. It’s kind of satisfying to see him lose his composure, if only for a split second.
38
The sessions with Dr. Conlon are going well. Even Marissa and Victor are asking fewer dumb questions, and I know what I’m doing in the anatomy lab for a change. And Dr. Conlon notices the difference, which I have to admit sort of makes me happy.
“Dr. Bingham,” he says to me in the lab. “What’s the terminal branch of the external carotid artery?”
Mason is poised to shout out the answer the second I falter, but I’m not going to give him that chance.
“The superficial temporal artery,” I answer, much to Mason’s surprise.
Dr. Conlon beams at me. “Excellent.”
It’s weird how he acts like nothing ever happened between us. Like we didn’t have mind-blowing sex in his office, right down the hall. Like he’s just my anatomy professor and he’s just proud of me for studying hard and getting the right answers—nothing more.
Dr. Conlon gave us an extra-credit assignment to offer a little more leeway to help us pass the class. I complete the assignment a day before his deadline and head to his office after class to hand it in. I guess I’m being a bit of a suck-up, but I want to show him that I’m trying. The fact that he cares so much makes me want to do well in the class.
When I get to his office, the door is open. Voices are coming from inside, and I recognize Dr. Patrice Winters, the class psychologist. She’s always sending out these irritating, touchy-feely emails, telling us to reach out to her anytime. I’m sure she doesn’t want another of us to overdose.
“Thanks so much, Patrice,” Dr. Conlon is saying. “These look delicious. Peanut butter is my favorite.”
“Is it?” Patrice replies. “Well, please let me know if you like them.”
I watch them for a moment, and suddenly, my heart starts to pound. Oh my God, the two of them are hooking up! How did I not realize that before? It’s so painfully obvious.
And for some reason, I feel a sharp jab of jealousy.
“Is there anything else you like?” Patrice asks him. “For the next time I get motivated to bake?”
That’s when Dr. Conlon lifts his eyes and sees me standing in his doorway. A smile instantly lights his face. “Rachel! Come on in.”
Patrice, hovering in front of Dr. Conlon’s desk, looks like she wants to murder me. There’s a plate of home-baked cookies on his desk, presumably contributed by Patrice.
“Hello, Rachel.” She glances down at her watch. “I better go, Matt. I’ll talk to you later.”
Patrice stomps out of the office, slamming the door rather dramatically behind her. Dr. Conlon hardly seems to notice. Men are so dumb about stuff like that.
“Are you dropping off the extra credit?” he asks me.
I’m clutching the papers in my hand. But instead of handing them over and getting the hell out, I say to him, “Are you hooking up with Patrice?”
Dr. Conlon’s blue eyes widen. He looks so flustered that it’s sort of adorable.
“Rachel,” he stammers. “That’s… that’s not an appropriate question.”
“So you are then?” I press him.
“No!” he says sharply. “I’m not.” He adds, “Really.”
The rush of relief upon discovering that Dr. Conlon isn’t hooking up with Patrice surprises me. I look down at my hand, which is still clutching my extra-credit assignment. The papers are getting all crumpled in my fist. I hold it out to him. “Here.”
As he takes the papers from me, his fingers brush against mine. And I can tell from his face that he notices too.
39
About half the tutoring sessions with Dr. Conlon take place in the lab and about half are in his office. Today, we’re having an evening session in his office, even though it’s Friday night. If I had a social life, I’d be pretty irritated. But luckily, I don’t. And neither does Dr. Conlon.
When I arrive, all three chairs in front of Dr. Conlon’s desk are empty. I raise my eyebrows at him, and he says, “Victor and Marissa both couldn’t make it.”
“Oh?”
He nods. “Victor was sick, and Marissa was… uh, I don’t remember what excuse she made up.”
I smirk at him. “Yeah, Friday night is not ideal for most people.”
“Clearly,” he acknowledges. He smiles at me. “Thanks for showing up.”
“No problem,” I say. “I have no life either.” Dr. Conlon raises his eyebrows, and I feel suddenly embarrassed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to say you had no life.”
“No,” he says. “That’s pretty accurate.”
I force a smile. “Maybe you should ask out Patrice.”
I don’t know why I said that. I don’t want him to ask out Patrice. I hate Patrice. She doesn’t deserve someone like him. I’m relieved when he just shakes his head.
“Can I ask you something?” I say.
“Something about anatomy?” he asks hopefully.
I shake my head.
“Maybe you better not then,” he says. He adds, “Not that I can stop you.”
He’s right.
“I have to know. Were there other students that you’ve… you know…”
His eyes widen. “No! God, no! I’d never…” He stops midsentence, realizing what he was about to say. “What I mean is… that thing between you and me, that’s not… in character for me. I’m not that type of person.”
He looks so embarrassed that I have no choice but to believe him.
