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nonromantic friendship with a male, although Lynn’s boyfriend, Carl Vandermeer, had come in at a close second. Lynn had confided to Karen that Carl initially had a lot of trouble accepting the situation.
    It had all started innocently enough and was based on the alphabetical proximity of their surnames, Peirce and Pender. As a consequence, from day one Lynn and Michael had been thrown together for everything that required medical students to pair up, mostly for labs and physical diagnosis. Although never romantic, they became a real team, somewhat like a brother and sister, making sure they had the same rotations, covering for each other, and studying together to the partial and unintended exclusion of others. The result was that Lynn and Michael had been saddled with the nickname “the twins.”
    “Really? Orthopedics?” Karen continued, with disbelief. “It caught me totally by surprise, as much or more so than if you had told me you were going into urology. I always thought you were sure to become one of those brainy internal-medicine people.”
    “I don’t know why it should have been a surprise,” Lynn responded, sensing a bit of the old hurt feelings on Karen’s part. “You of all people know that I was always a jock in high school and college, especially with my interest in lacrosse. Sports have always been a part of my persona. But what sealed the deal was doing orthopedics as my elective this fall. It surprised me how much I liked it. To me it is happy medicine, at least for the most part. That’s appealing.”
    “But the surgery,” Karen complained with an exaggerated expression of distaste. “It’s not like what people expect surgery to be. It certainly wasn’t for me. It’s like a bunch of carpenters with hammers and saws, banging in nails and then having X-ray come and see where they went. Whereas ophthalmology! What a difference! That is surgery at its best: precise, bloodless, and you get to sit downwhile you operate.” Everyone knew Karen was off to Emory in Atlanta for a residency in ophthalmology.
    “To each his own,” Lynn said. She was not going to be baited into a comparison of the two specialties.
    “And you are staying here?” Karen asked, with continued incredulity. “Actually, for me that was even more of a shock. I thought you were destined for some Ivy League–affiliated hospital, like Mass General in Boston, considering your rank in class.” Everybody knew that Lynn was very near the top of the class, scholastically. She and Michael were always neck and neck in the ranking: two peas in the pod in more ways than one.
    “I’m going to leave both internal medicine and the Ivy League to Michael,” Lynn said, acknowledging her partner’s coup. Michael smiled contentedly at the recognition. Everyone at the table knew that few people got a slot at Mass General and Harvard from Mason-Dixon University School of Medicine, whose stated goal was to supply well-trained physicians for South Carolina and its environs, and not for medical academia. “For me, I’m happy staying right here at Mason-Dixon,” Lynn continued. “And you should talk, Karen. Emory for ophthalmology! Not too shabby.” It was also common knowledge that, academically, Karen was in the top ten of the class as well.
    “Everybody knows why Lynn is staying here for her residency,” Ronald said with artificial disdain. “Like the angel, she traded in her harp for Carl Vandermeer’s upright organ!”
    There was another burst of laughter, this time at Lynn’s expense, although she too was smiling. She pelted Ronald with a balled-up napkin as he basked in the glory of having again gotten everyone to laugh over the same mildly salacious joke.
    “Am I to gather that you and Carl Vandermeer are still going to be an item come graduation?” Karen questioned while struggling to control her laughter. The group’s outburst had againattracted disapproval from others in the coffee shop. It was, after all, a