Page 104 of The Vegas Lie
Mrs. Saraci
Today, we ordered our lunch from a Turkish restaurant. I got hummus and a döner gyro with yogurt sauce.
Dr. Lucas Saraci MD
Did you suggest the Turkish restaurant?
Mrs. Saraci
I sure did.
Dr. Lucas Saraci MD
Almost used another one of those things.
The emotion icons.
Mrs. Saraci
Now you’re trolling. You know what they’re called. ?? ??
Dr. Lucas Saraci MD
Emoji is a ridiculous word.
Mrs. Saraci
So is kerfuffle. And I can see you using kerfuffle.
“Excuse me, Dr. Saraci?”
More than five minutes ago, he’d dismissed the class. This was supposed to be his personal, quiet time before he had to deal with anything else related to school, teaching, or students. The school didn’t allow him to lock the door, but for the safety of their students, they might have to consider bending that rule.
He looked up.
The dark-haired student in front of him paled.
“Dr. Saraci, I just wanted to tell you that I admire your story, and I even came to Johns Hopkins because you teach here. I aspire to be like you one day.”
They expected him to beam and flush, his eyes like stars dusted with glitter over a compliment he’d received too many times to count, almost verbatim.
“Where was I born?” he asked.
The student cleared her throat. “Ah…um…Turkey, but you grew up in Baltimore. That’s why you came back here to teach after attending medical school at Georgetown and then doing your residency at Mount Sinai. ”
“Where in Baltimore?”
“Harbor East, right?”
In no interview, podcast appearance, or book had he ever mentioned what part of Baltimore he was from. People always assumed Harbor East or Fell’s Point because they were on the wealthier side, but seeing as how he’d fabricated his entire childhood, it would take submarine-level deep diving for someone to learn he was from West Baltimore.
The truth was that he grew up in a ranch-style home with four bedrooms and one bathroom, a roof that leaked during every storm, pet chickens in the backyard, and a chainlink fence that couldn’t keep air out if it tried. Today, if dropped into a different neighborhood, that same rinky-dink house would be considered charming, especially after jacking up the price by four or five hundred thousand.
“You want to be a surgeon?” he asked.
The student nodded. “Yes, I do. When I was a kid, my mother had a disease that doctors kept telling her was all in her head. By the time it showed up on her tests and scans, she had to be rushed into surgery. The surgery was botched, and even though a different surgeon went in to fix it, she died a few years later from complications from the first procedure. I was ten.”
His demeanor went from a rusty metal pipe to rabbit’s fur.