“Not on your life,” Pia said, with emphasis, hoping he’d get what she intended as a definitive message. He shrugged and smiled and gave a little silly wave as if Pia had been gracious rather than scathing. She was beginning to think that Vance was one of those men who reveled in rejection. Irritably, she repositioned her earplugs and went back to her reading. When she heard her name being called again, Pia was momentarily livid, wondering what she was going to have to do to get him to leave her alone. Tearing out her earpieces, she looked up to see Rothman’s assistant, Dr. Yamamoto, standing in front of her flanked by a young man and woman in newly laundered, dazzlingly white lab coats.

“Miss Grazdani,” Yamamoto said. He was a slight man with what appeared to be a kind of half-smile frozen on his face. “I would like to introduce our new students with us for the month.”

Dr. Yamamoto was often held up within the medical center as a perfect example of how opposites attract. He was well liked, soft-spoken, considerate and communicative, always encouraging people to address him as Junichi: the positive to Rothman’s negative. Also in contrast to Rothman, he was casually dressed as always, in a Hawaiian shirt beneath his wrinkled and not-too-clean lab coat. If there was one nod to his playful side, Yamamoto was said to be the originator of elaborate and brilliant practical jokes stemming from his graduate student days involving one particularly pompous medical student’s expensive fool’s errand to a “convention” in Geneva that never was. On the serious side, Dr. Yamamoto’s most important characteristic was his complete and total devotion to Rothman and Rothman’s work. What was accepted around the medical center was that Rothman was the brains and Yamamoto was the worker bee. They were yin and yang.

“Perhaps you know Lesley Wong and William McKinley,” Yamamoto said.

“Like the president,” the young man said. “But call me Will.”

Will stepped forward, a big smile on his face, hand outstretched. Columbia University Medical School had about 640 students spread over four years of training. In general the first two years were primarily spent absorbing the science of medicine with progressively more and more time creatively devoted to introducing students to patients. The third year was the principal clinical year with the major attention devoted to internal medicine and surgery. The fourth year was mostly rotations in various clinical subspecialties combined with electives according to each student’s personal interests. At Columbia the emphasis was on academic medicine. Lesley and Will were fourth-year students in Pia’s class. Both thought they had a new interest in research, which was why they had been assigned to spend a month in Rothman’s lab.

Pia took Will’s outstretched hand and stood up.

“Pia. Grazdani.” She noticed that Will was tall, even a little taller than George, who was above average. Like George, Will had blond, unruly hair.

“You’re George’s friend, right?” Will said.

“George? Yes, of course.”