Crazy For You

She looked up. He was looking straight back at her. The first few days prior to starting med school had been hectic-- finding a place to live, never mind a roommate to share rent, the swearing in so tuition bills could go somewhere else, picking and choosing from those god awfully expensive medical textbooks, and then trying not to feel so alone, by going to all the get-to-know-you mixers for new students. She could feel her heart pounding in her ears.

But here he was—again, on the corner of Harrison and Kneeland, outside the steps of Tufts Medical School. She looked up at the historic buildings reaching ambitiously toward the sky, reflecting her own sensibilities, trying to look rather nonchalant, perhaps even like she hadn’t noticed him. But he had noticed her, and that’s what she wanted. He was standing there next to his twin, who looked nothing like him. Stuart had the sun in his hair, and a sculpted face like a Greek Helios, whereas Alan, obviously a fraternal, was too tall and lanky, spindly even, wearing a mop of brown curls.

“Hi Lizzie!” he waved. Catching up to him, she was breathless. “Stuart, right?” But of course, she already knew his name. With his wide smile, and friendly midwestern ways that invited you in like a picnic, he was the only person she remembered from the mixer last night. “Let me introduce you to Alan.”

“Oh, hello again,” Lizzie giggled, holding out a sweaty palm betraying her racing heart. Alan’s eyes under his furrowed brow revealed a singular suspiciousness. Who was this Lizzie moving in on his other half? But Alan had done himself in by being too smart for his own good. He was a first-year med student across town at Hahvud. Lizzie and Stuart exchanged furtive glances. It would be so much easier without Alan, she thought. They shared a little small talk although it was especially awkward under Alan’s penetrating gaze. He seemed to hang on every word. Alan of course was trying to exert his hold over Stuart. I mean c’mon, they shared the same embryonic sack. Of course, he might be a little overprotective. Surely sharing a womb counts for something, maybe even closer than a roommate, she questioned? Now, there was a moon tide trying to pull Stuart away to his corner. Lizzie was blushing, and it was obvious that Stuart was taken with her small, upturned breasts that stood at attention through her white oxford, the naivete born out of a hair flip of satiny brown hair across narrow shoulders, and the spray of freckles that skipped clumsily across the bridge of her nose.

After a few more exchanges and a promise to meet up later for dinner in the hospital cafeteria, they broke apart with nary even a look back on both sides. The July day wore on as if it had the right of the summer solstice to promulgate its length of stay. At the bookstore, Lizzie threw “The Walking Cadaver” (portable color photographs of real live, well actually dead, cadavers) in her book bag and headed across the street.

When she finally made her way up four floors in the stuffy elevator to Tufts’ flagship hospital cafeteria, it reeked of overbaked Cod and limp steamed vegetables. Was that cabbage? In the heat of Boston’s July, she felt as sweaty and warm as the overcooked fish and wondered if she had pit stains on her white close-fitting button down. She wiped an errant brunette strand from her forehead just as he turned around. Stuart was already in the check-out line next to pay for his Chef’s Salad. The fan directly positioned in front of the cashier, fanned his platinum hair, causing him to swipe what looked like an aureole. Her heart sped. Wow, he was a remarkable specimen! Of course, he couldn’t shake Alan, she thought, who seemed to always be tugging at his brother’s shirttails like a puppy in need of going out.

She caught up with them, and they stole some seats at the end of a crowded table, bustling with white coats. There was a litany of pagers going off like a symphony of sirens. Chatter. Sally Ride had just made history as the first woman astronaut in space, only a month ago. Every Breath You Take played overhead, and Lizzie thought she wouldn’t mind being stalked by this 22-year-old first year if it ever came to that. Did she think that out loud?

They caught each other up on the events of their day, and then their lives, which spilled out in front of them as if they had had to pack a whole lifetime into one suitcase before reaching “Mecca.” His kind and earnest smile made her feel she could share all her inadequacies and not feel judged. He liked her warm, dancing brown eyes, and crooked smile and the way she looked away, putting her hand to her neck whenever she was embarrassed. Lizzie wasn’t like the girls back home in Missouri. She was Boston smart, but had a certain humility, quick to admit to any uncertainty in herself.

Stuart learned that Lizzie was first generation medical student. Her family was from Holliston, a Boston suburb. Her mom had put herself through nursing school and had given Lizzie the admonition growing up, “Always be the doctor, not the nurse.” Because for nurses it’s always, “Another day, another fifty cents.” Lizzie was better known to her family as “Elizabeth”, but one aunt always called her “Liz” or “Lizzie” after Liz Taylor. Lizzie took a room at the dorm, Posner Hall, and was on a $300 a month stipend in addition to full tuition and books covered by the US Army. She had applied and had won a scholarship to all three branches-- Army, Navy and Air Force, but picked the Army because her dad’s friend said that Walter Reed was a good hospital, and that she should pick it to do her residency. Lizzie got to choose from all the books at the Jumbo Bookstore, because Uncle Sam was paying. Lizzie was twenty-three the exact average age of all students in the entering class that would graduate in 1987.

Stuart was from Missouri, but his link to Boston was that his dad had graduated from Tufts Medical School back in his day, 1958. Stuart was born during his residency in General Surgery at Mass General in 1960. His Dad had become an orthopedic surgeon but moved to the Midwest after he found Boston Medicine too overcrowded for his liking. Stuart would be a general surgeon. His Dad used to take him into the OR with him starting when he was twelve to scrub in and learn how to suture. “I guess that was allowed back then” is all he could say about that, when Lizzie couldn’t hide her shocked expression.

The two friends really got on quickly, liking each other. Despite Alan attempting to butt in occasionally with his story, the two practically saw only each other. Being the first in her family to try her hand at Medicine, Lizzie was anxious, and Stuart was just the balm she needed to steady her nerves. Lizzie didn’t know what kind of doctor she wanted to become. When she was a younger child, her family didn’t have enough money to go to doctors, despite her mom being a nurse.

As Fall took off in a mixture of anxiety and excitement, like a jumbo jet leaving for Rome, the two got caught up in separate air streams. Stuart liked hanging out between Anatomy and Histology with other surgeon wannabes in the student lounge and shoot the S-H-I-T. Lizzie liked to sit outside on the steps and eat the knishes sold at the mom and pop snack bar, chatting, and getting fresh air and natural light to combat the fatigue that came with endless back to back lectures in the main auditorium.

Late one evening, right before the seminal Anatomy practicum, the biggest exam of their lives for first- years, the two found themselves all alone in the Anatomy lab. Well, all alone meaning along with approximately fifty corpses in all different stages of decay. The air was rife with stench and anticipation. They were the die-hards. She, because she couldn’t ever take a break, knowing if she failed out, she’d have to pay back all her military scholarship. He, because he needed to eventually get into a Harvard residency program. How could he go home the “B” twin, when Alan had already sewn up Harvard Medical School, a buttress that would forever prop up his CV? Stuart approached Lizzie, a little sheepishly given that a couple months had gone by without even trying to get back in touch. They had only shared infrequent smiles when passing in the hallways.

Lizzie remembered it a bit differently. Back in September, a group was heading up north to Pinkham Notch for a weekend of leaf peeping. He had asked her to come along. But it was right before the first Anatomy exam. Although Lizzie wanted a romantic relationship with Stuart, she knew she had to leave it all on the table. This first would be a litmus test that would foreshadow how the next four years would follow. It was too risky to wager an MD degree over a fledgling relationship that would probably lead nowhere. Stuart of course could breathe easier. He had already tallied a significant number of hours in the OR despite his novice status.

“Can I walk you home, Lizzie?” he asked feeling half guilty, half hopeful. Lizzie wasn’t one to hold a grudge, and besides, she still felt under the spell of those pale blue pools she couldn’t wait to dive into. They were magic. He was magic. She remembered he was not just easy to look at. He had been like balm, telling her once she was the smartest student in their class, and reassuring by asking the time-honored aphorism, “What do they call the person who graduates last in their class? Doctor.”

“Hey, what you got in here?” he laughed picking up her book bag. “I remember you have a thing for books,” he added, referring to the heaviness of her bag he fought to carry to get back into her good graces. The talk was easy, heading south on Harrison Ave toward Posner Hall. Both were laughing. He reached out and she let him hold her hand. Unfortunately for both, it was only steps from the Anatomy Lab to the dorm, and it was already time to say goodbye, for God knows how long this time, she thought.

“Lizzie, I know you want to study, but how’s chances of you taking a study break and come with a few of us to Jack Carrol’s game at BC tomorrow night? Afterall, it is a Friday night, and the practicum isn’t until Monday.” She didn’t need convincing this time.

She met him at the Bleachers on the BC soccer field. Jack was already warming up with his teammates. This was a Boston College alumni homecoming night game. Jack was good-looking. His father was another doctor. It was rumored his college girlfriend made him put a ring on her finger before starting med school, and there was a June ’84 wedding already planned. She was taking no chances of losing him.

Lizzie was surprised that no one else had arrived yet. They were alone. She shivered. Without hesitation he took off his jacket and put it around her shoulders. There was a chill in the October night air and a degree of mischief too. Their practicum would be on Halloween. The class’s Halloween party will be that night. After spending three hours in a round robin identifying tagged obscure vessels, and parts of the body in Latin, like the philtrum, olecranon, and acetabulum, they would get their bone boxes. Each bone box held the remains of a skeleton from India. That night, they were expected to put the skeleton together as would be players in a crazy childhood game of Operation.

There was a promise of a kiss. He confessed no one else had been invited but her. They had to stand close together face to face on the T home because the subway was packed on a Friday night, with lots of students heading for bars. He lost himself in those languid brown eyes, and she wanted to jump into the deep end of those blue pools that to her felt safe. But she was waiting for an invitation. He put his muscular arms around her. Lizzie was waiting to hear he wanted her to come back to his apartment. But Stuart was taking it slow. She needed to hear that he wanted her as much as she wanted him, but it never came. Lizzie thought back to the ovarian cancer when she was seventeen that turned out to be genetic. Most of Lizzie’s aunts had died from the disease. Before her sexuality could even begin, it felt over—cut out by a surgeon’s scalpel. She didn’t want to be asked about her scars, but tonight, she was willing to take that risk.

***

When the email burst across her screen announcing to save the date, Lizzie knew she wouldn’t go. Tufts Medical School 35th reunion. She hadn’t been to her 5th, her 10th, or even the Big Silver 25th. Why now? Covid lock-down had been crazy scary. A million people had died. So many people were acting off kilter and had become shut-ins, longing for connection even if it meant joining virtual chats on Zoom. That’s when she got the text on LinkedIn. He had messaged her out of the blue, three and a half decades later. Truth is stranger than fiction, she thought. Of course it had to be on Halloween, October 2020.

“Hey, remember me?” it read. “I thought I would reach out and try to scare you. Boo! Remember that Halloween party first year? Bone box? Text back if you do.” Of course, Lizzie remembered him. She thought about him every year when her husband and children vacationed in North Conway on Columbus Day. What could have been if Lizzie had just accepted his invitation and had gone leaf peeping? Would they have slept together?

When they talked, it took three hours on two separate occasions to get caught up. Reminiscing. And then there was the present. Two marriages and four children with his first wife for him. One marriage, two adopted children from China and a whole mess of kids for her as a pediatrician. There was something igniting that “spark” again. Covid caused some sense of urgency in anyone who lived through it, hadn’t it? It was like stories she had heard about WWII, when soldiers were going off to war. They needed to marry the girl they loved, because it was life or death.

Lizzie was brave enough to ask what had happened to them. He was real enough to acknowledge that they were a “them.” But he blamed everything on fate. In his mind, they had fallen into different social circles, and it didn’t help that their rotations were on completely opposite schedules. When he was on Surgery, she did Internal Medicine, and vice versa. She told him she had worn a blue dress, the color of his eyes, at the graduation dinner the night before Commencement, trying to find what they had lost by recapturing his attention. But he shared he was preoccupied by an unhappy relationship with his soon to be first wife who was a nurse he had met on one of his surgical rotations.

He asked, would she ever go to one of their class reunions? It was true she had fantasized about getting herself on the local reunion committee. She was a hometown alumna. When Stuart approached the table to register, she would be there wearing the low-cut blue sequin dress. She would lean over the table to look for his name badge and feign any recognition, until he said, “Lizzie it's me,” in that soft, soothing voice that was unmistakably his.

At the reunion, there was only six of them, three men and three women. It was May, 2022, and remnants of Covid still hung in the Spring air. Few alumni wanted to take the plane trip to Boston exposing themselves. Masks were only then being deserted. Still, he was there at the top of the stairs, already waiting for her outside the Ballroom of Boston’s Four Seasons Hotel. He hadn’t changed much. To her, he would always be twenty-two. Yes, he had a few more silver streaks, and he had a middle age stockiness that became him. He thought she was as beautiful as ever, cutting a slender figure with a lissomness that was unmistakably hers. He picked her up and twirled her, then she tried to do the same. She was surprised and caught off guard when he put his arm around her waist for the 35th reunion photo right in front. He squeezed her tight. Then, Lizzie heard the chiming of plates announcing the dinner hour. Eighties Madonna and baked Cod wafted in from the room next door where they were setting up service. “Soon we two are standing still in time. If you read my mind, you'll see I'm crazy for you.” He thanked her for making it one of the best days of his life.

“I love you, Lizzie, but I can never leave Karen,” is the last she ever heard from him.