“Good morning,” a woman’s voice on the other end said. “This is Caroline from the Young Scholars Program at Johns Hopkins. May I speak to Alexandra Walker?”
“Speaking,” I said. I held the phone away from me for a moment and cleared my throat hurriedly, making myself sit up straight. Just hearing the words “young scholars” was enough for me to start feeling some giddy butterflies in my stomach. Maybe she was calling to give me a last-minute reminder, or an official, day-before welcome.
“Oh.” She cleared her throat, and I could hear some papers rustling on her end. “I’m sorry to call so early.”
“I was awake,” I assured her, hoping that my voice wasn’t contradicting this as I spoke. “And I’m incredibly excited to start the program tomorrow.”
There was a pause, and I heard the papers rustling again. “Yes,” she said, and then I heard her take an audible breath, the kind you take before something painful is about to happen. “About that. I’m so sorry, but we’re going to have to withdraw your acceptance to our program this year.”
I froze, and felt myself blink twice. “Excuse me?” I asked, turning the volume up on my phone and pressing it harder against my ear, figuring I must have just misheard her.
“Yes, I’m afraid . . .” On the other end, the papers rustled again, and my heart started to beat very fast, like I’d just downed my daily latte in one gulp. “It looks like Dr. Rizzoli has withdrawn his letter of recommendation. And since we did not have another on file for you, your place went to one of the students on our waiting list.”
“What?” I whispered, my hand gripping the phone so tightly my knuckles were turning white. “I don’t understand. I mean, this must be . . . There has to be something else I can do.”
“I’m afraid there isn’t. Your spot has already been reassigned. And I’m sorry for the late notice, but Dr. Rizzoli didn’t send us the e-mail until last night,” she said. I could hear the relief in her voice, like she’d gotten the hard part over with. She could see the finish line and just wanted to be off this call with me. “Your deposit and your tuition will of course be refunded.”
“Wait,” I said, not even having anything to follow this but somehow needing to keep her on the phone, to try to figure out some way around this. Because this couldn’t really be happening. It couldn’t.
“Again, our apologies,” she said, and I could tell how much she wanted to wrap this up. “You will be more than welcome to apply for next year’s program, of course.”
“But—” I said, willing myself to think faster. “I . . .”
“Have a nice day.” A second later the call was disconnected and I was staring down at my phone. The whole conversation, completely wrecking my summer plans and possibly jeopardizing my future as a doctor, had taken two minutes and thirty-three seconds.
My heart was still beating hard, and I had a desperate, panicky feeling flooding through my body. I needed to do something. I needed to fix this. Somehow, I had to make this okay again. These things had to be reversible. This couldn’t be over.
I looked across my room, the early-morning light slanting through my blinds, and saw my suitcase, the one that I’d packed last night, after having practically memorized the “What to Bring” section of my informational documents. Somehow, seeing it there was enough to steel my resolve. I had packed. I had made plans and built my whole summer around this. Some woman named Caroline was not going to stop all of that with a two-minute phone call.
I pulled up my contacts and scrolled through them. I didn’t have a number for Dr. Rizzoli, only an address from when I’d sent him his thank-you note. This whole thing had to be because of yesterday’s press conference. There was no other explanation for why he would suddenly be trying to distance himself from anything to do with my father—in this case, me.
But if he’d sent an e-mail undoing this, he could send another one putting things back into place. There was still some time, after all—the program didn’t start until tomorrow. This could all still be okay. I just had to convince him that this had nothing to do with my dad and that he needed to contact the program and tell them the e-mail had been a mistake, sent accidentally from the drafts folder, in an Ambien haze, whatever—I didn’t care what he told Johns Hopkins. But he had to reverse this. He had to.
And I had a feeling he’d have a lot harder time telling me he couldn’t if I was standing in front of him.
I pushed myself out of bed and ran toward my closet.
• • •
Twenty minutes later I sat in my car, across the street from the house of Dr. Daniel Rizzoli. He lived on Sound Beach, over by the water. The closer you got to the water, the nicer the houses got—gorgeous and huge and intimidatingly fancy, and Dr. Rizzoli’s was no exception. The last time I’d been there, it had been for a fund-raiser for my dad. The house’s gates had been flung wide, there had been candles in lanterns lining the driveway, and valets in white coats running around parking cars.
My phone buzzed in the cupholder, and I looked down at it—it was a text from Palmer. She and Tom were going for breakfast at the diner in case anyone wanted to join them. I didn’t know why they were up this early, but I also didn’t want to get distracted by a text exchange. I had to focus. I put my phone facedown on the passenger seat, then flipped open the visor mirror of my car and gave myself a last look. I’d wanted to look like I was competent and deserving of a recommendation, but not too dressed up, considering it wasn’t even eight yet. I’d gone with dark jeans and a button-down, and since I didn’t want to waste time doing something with my hair, I’d pulled it into a knot on top of my head. I slicked on a tiny bit more lip gloss, then dropped it in my bag and flipped the visor up.
“Okay,” I said, taking in a breath, holding it for seven seconds, then letting it out for ten. It was actually the only thing I’d taken away from Camp Stepping Stone—a way of making your heart rate slow and calming yourself down. I used it whenever I was preparing to do something stressful. But while this was not the most pleasant thing I could imagine doing today, at least I was prepared. I’d turned the radio off and practiced my speech the whole way over. I had answers lined up for all the arguments I could imagine Dr. Rizzoli making. I could do this. I took a breath, opened the door, and stepped out into the sunshine. “Hello, Dr. Rizzoli,” I murmured under my breath, practicing. “Good morning, Dr. Rizzoli. Sorry to bother you . . .” I nodded. That was the one. I straightened my shoulders and headed for the house.
I was halfway across the street when I heard the dog.
There was the sound of loud, joyful barking, and I turned around and felt my eyes widen. A large white fluffy dog was galloping down the road, tongue flying sideways out of its mouth, limbs landing in a haphazard pattern that seemed to send it listing to the side and then scrambling for balance every few steps. There was a leash dragging on the ground behind it, the plastic handle scraping along the asphalt with a dull hiss, occasionally bumping over rocks, but the dog was alone—there was no indication that there had been a human on the other end at some point. I looked around, starting to get concerned as the dog zigzagged back and forth across the road. This wasn’t a busy street, but I still didn’t think it was a good idea for this dog to be running loose.
“Here, um, you,” I called, gesturing toward myself and feeling incredibly self-conscious about it. “Come here.” The dog stopped and looked at me, then sat down right in the middle of the street, which I didn’t think was an improvement. “Come on,” I said again, gesturing to myself again as I took a small step closer to it. The dog leaped up and ran a few steps away, then sat down again, and I could see his long tail thumping on the ground. Clearly, he thought we were playing a game, and he seemed thrilled about it. “Okay, just stay,” I said as I started to move toward him slowly. I was only a few feet away from the leash that was lying on the ground. If I could get ahold of it, I could at least try to figure out what should happen next.