Chapter 3: The First Day
Susan had asked for a start day of two weeks following her interview. She needed time to find an apartment and move her belongings from the Texas panhandle to New Jersey. She called her daughter and told her about her new job and where it was. Laura was sad to see mom sell the home and move, but she understood her mother's need for a change of scenery. The last year had been difficult and with her away to college, living in that house alone must be difficult. New Jersey was pretty far from home, but Laura knew it was for the best. Mom was actually closer to her at the University and she would easily be able to visit during the Thanksgiving break.
Monday morning found Susan entering Princeton Plainsboro. She headed straight to Dr. Cuddy's office as she had been instructed. As she was preparing to walk in, he was walking out. She watched him as he walked, leaning heavily on his cane, through the clinic area to the elevators. She opened the door to Dr. Cuddy's office who seemed a little surprised. "You're early," she said. Susan replied that she didn't want to make her first impression a bad one by being late on the first day. Dr. Cuddy smiled and took her to her new laboratory. It wasn't much of a laboratory, at least not yet. It was fairly small as laboratories go. It had two sinks, one for hand washing near the door and another in the cabinetry. There were cabinets along one wall with a fume hood and a biological cabinet and scattered in no particular order in the room was a lab table, desktop computer, an old chemistry analyzer, a water purification system, a flow cytometer, an automated microscan for bacteria identification and a few other smaller pieces of equipment one would expect to find in a laboratory.
Susan was instructed to arrange the laboratory however she wished and as she discovered items that she needed, to let Dr. Cuddy know and she would arrange for purchasing to obtain the items for her. After she was finished putting her lab together, then she and Dr. Cuddy would go visit the diagnostic department head together. Did she think she could have the laboratory put together by the end of the week? Susan thought that she would have most of it together, but it depended on what kind of maintenance the chemistry analyzer needed. She had worked with this particular model before and knew it to be a work horse, but it was also cantankerous when left to sit. It was obvious that this one had sat unused for a very long time. As Dr. Cuddy started to leave, Susan spoke. "Dr. Cuddy, would it be possible for me to get a sampling of the case files for Dr. House's patients over the last three years? I'd like to be able to look through them so I can get a general idea of the testing that he orders. I'd like to be prepared for most of the tests he wants."
"How did you know it would be Dr. House that you were working for?" Dr. Cuddy asked.
"Well, it's not rocket science. Both your website and the directory in the hall indicate that Dr. Gregory House is the department head of Diagnostics. And while there is no photo posted on the website, your reaction when I walked in your office told me that the man with the cane was him." Of course Susan didn't tell Dr. Cuddy that she had already figured out who Dr. House was prior to her interview. Just looking at him, it was obvious to her. Dr. Cuddy's reaction simply confirmed her theory.
Dr. Cuddy smiled, "You and Dr. House are going to get along fine."