Strangers

thing is that it didn't affect your skill. You were as smooth as ever. First ' rate. That's the key. You've got to use tension to your advantage."
        "I guess I'm learning."
        He grinned. "As usual, you're being too hard on yourself. I'm proud of you, kid. For a while there, I thought maybe you'd have to give up medicine and earn your living as a meat cutter in a supermarket, but now I know you'll make it."
        She grinned back at him, but the grin was counterfeit. She had been more than tense. She had been seized by a cold, black fear that might easily have overwhelmed her, and that was much different from a healthy tension. That fear was something she had never felt before, something that she knew George Hannaby had never felt in his life, not in an operating room. If it continued, if the fear became a constant companion during surgery and would not be dispelled… what then?
        

    ***
        
        At ten-thirty that evening, when she was reading in bed, the phone rang. It was George Hannaby. If the call had come earlier, she'd have panicked and assumed that Johnny O'Day had taken a serious turn for the worse, but now she had regained her perspective. "So sorry. Missy Weiss not home. I no speak the English. Call back next April, please."
        "If that's supposed to be a Spanish accent," George said, "it's atrocious. If it's supposed to be Oriental, it's merely terrible. Be thankful you chose medicine as a career instead of acting."
        "You, on the other hand, would've done well as a drama critic."
        "I do have the refined and sensitive perspective, the cool judgment and unerring insight of a first-rate critic, don't I?
        Now shut up and listen: I've got good news. I think you're ready, smart-ass."
        "Ready? For what?"
        "The big time. An aortal graft," he said.
        "You mean… I wouldn't just assist you? Do it entirely myself?"
        "Chief surgeon for the entire procedure."
        "Aortal graft?"
        "Sure. You didn't specialize in cardiovascular surgery just to perform appendectomies for the rest of your life."
        She was sitting straight up in bed now. Her heart was beating faster, and she was flushed with excitement. "When?"
        "Next week. There's a patient checking in this Thursday or Friday. Name's Fletcher. We'll go over her file together on Wednesday. If things proceed according to schedule, I would think we'd be ready to cut on Monday morning. Of course, you'll be responsible for scheduling all the final tests and making the decision to go ahead."
        "Oh, God."
        "You'll do fine."
        "'You'll be with me."
        'I'll assist you… if you feel you need me for anything."
        "And you'll take over if I start to screw up."
        "Don't be silly. You won't screw up- "
        She thought about it a moment, then said, "No. I won't screw up."
        "That's my Ginger. You can do whatever you set your mind to."
        "Even ride a giraffe to the moon."
        "What?"
        "Private joke."
        "Listen, I know you came close to panic this afternoon, but don't worry. All residents experience that. Most have to deal with it early, when they begin to assist in the surgery. They call it The Clutch. But you've been cool and collected from the start, and I'd finally decided you'd never clutch up like the rest of them. Today, at last you did. The Clutch just came later for you than for most. And though I imagine you're still worried about it, I think you should be glad it happened. The Clutch is a seasoning experience. The important thing is that you dealt with it superbly."
        "Thanks, George. Even better than a drama critic, you'd have made a good baseball coach."
        Minutes later, when they concluded their conversation and hung up, she fell back against the pillows again and hugged herself and felt so fine that she actually giggled. After a while she went to the closet and dug around in there until she located the Weiss family photograph album. She brought it back to bed and sat for a time, paging through the pictures of Jacob and Anna, for although she could not share her triumphs with them any more, she needed to feel that they were close.
        Later still, in the dark bedroom, as she lay balanced on the thin edge of wakefulness, she finally understood why she had been frightened this afternoon. She had not been seized by The Clutch. Although she had not been able to