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here,” he said, switching to her suggestion.

    “Yes, you’re doing great,” Lily said, crossing her fingers. And he did seem to be getting the hang of things. Her neck was cramping with tension, and she tried to relax. She glanced up at the clock, as- sessing his time. He was almost on track.
    “Australia’s got wonderful beaches,” the gas doc said. “Never been there,” Lily answered. She couldn’t afford it. “Try it sometime.”
    “I don’t know. I think that long a plane ride might kill me. I get antsy after six hours.”
    “Take a Xanax and upgrade to first class.”
    Easy for someone who made all that money to say. “Tranqs don’t do much for me except make me hyper.”
    “Really?”
    “Yep. Like putting hyperactive kids on Ritalin. Exact opposite ef- fect.”
    Dr. Help-Me looked over at them. “You know, Wilder, I bet you’d look pretty good on a topless beach.”
    Definitely better than you would , Lily thought. No way was she going to venture into sexual harassment territory while he had one of her laparoscopes in this woman’s abdomen. “How about we just finish up here and call it a day?” she said. “There’s all weekend for swim- suits.”
    “I thought you were going to take me to lunch. I might want to approve that order, but I really can’t make a decision on an empty stomach.”
    Lunch. Two hours of his knees poking hers under some trendy café table. But if he came through on this order, she’d earn a seven- hundred-dollar bonus, and that second territory she wanted might be within reach. “I guess there’s time to grab a quick bite.”
    He gave her a wink. This Portly Short, a set of jowls on him like a bulldog, and married , not that that small inconvenience seemed to have made a dent in his overinflated ego, winked. “Your technique’s really improving,” she said, hoping a little flattery might redirect the heat.
    “I graduated from USC, didn’t I?”
    Probably at the bottom of the class . Lily mustered up a response: “Go Trojans.”
    Finally Dr. Help-Me clamped the last staple and yanked her company’s instruments free. The scrub nurse shut down the taping equip-

    ment, and Lily heard the whirring sound of it rewinding. “By the way,” he said. “You’re both full of it when it comes to beach vaca- tions. Hands down, it’s the Cook Islands. Otherwise you might as well go roast hot dogs at Huntington State Beach with the masses. Well, she’s finished. Clean her up and send her to postop.”
    The assistant surgeon stepped in as Dr. Help-Me strode toward the OR doors. “Lily?” he said. “Our lunch?”
    The assistant surgeon cleared his throat. “Doctor? Could you step back here a moment?”
    “Are you deaf? I said, she’s ready for postop.” “No offense, sir, but I—”
    Lily turned to look at the patient. The woman’s color had gone as pale as bone, shocky, really, and her abdomen seemed more disten- ded than could be due to the pumped-in gas used to inflate the cavity. What was the problem?
    Then her pressure dropped, and the anesthesiologist began to scramble. Frantically he forced air into her lungs. “Oh, my God, Charles, I think she’s bleeding out.”
    Dr. Help-Me pointed a finger. “I’m the surgeon here.” “Then start behaving like one!”
    He yelled out an order for plasma, and Lily’s knees felt as if someone had loosed them from the hinges. The smoke doc was right on target: That was exactly what was happening. Dr. Help-Me had probably sent a staple through the aorta. Contrary to what the gen- eral public believed, the aorta did not end at the heart but, like a tree trunk, extended down the abdomen and then branched into major arteries serving all the organs. This one-hour routine surgery was going to end in a funeral.
    Lily swallowed hard, watching them try to save her, never once looking away. Those were her instruments; this was her job. And that was—or had been—a woman’s life.
    When situations turned critical, the OR