Emergency Room Part 3

Diana walked back to Mary. I learned one thing tonight, she thought. I'm not likely to become an Emergency Room psychiatrist.

Mary entered the patient as Unknown.

And she is, thought Diana. n.o.body knows her name, her heart, or her despair, and that's how she wants it.

To be completely unknown. Surely the ultimate horror.

It was a thought that required talk, and the only person Diana knew well enough for talk was Seth. She would forgive him for his past sins and his present arrogance and go for a c.o.ke after all. They would discuss Unknowns. It was the sort of philosophic topic that college freshmen could kick around for days.

She found Seth among the medical students who were giving reports. Seth had taken off his volunteer jacket and was standing in his white b.u.t.ton-down collar s.h.i.+rt and dark tie, arms folded casually across his broad chest, back propped against the wall.

He was pretending to be a medical student.

Volunteers were known exclusively by their salmon-pink jackets. He didn't have one. n.o.body would recognize him as the college kid who volunteered Mondays.

And the medical school was so big, the students probably didn't know each other any more than Diana knew everybody on the undergraduate campus.

If the Attending asked Seth a question, which Seth certainly could not answer, and he was caught, what would happen to him?

But what if he weren't caught? If Seth were a.s.signed an actual task - like drawing blood - would he really dare try it?

To Seth's left was a tiny Chinese woman, who could not weigh a hundred pounds, and whose black hair was as thick and long as a draft horse's tail. To his right was a weedy, stooped young man with lopsided gla.s.ses, a cartoon of the nerdy scientist. Behind the nerd stood a handsome wide-jawed blond man, central casting's television doctor. Next to the blond was a young woman who was wonderfully pretty. Somebody you could be best friends with, somebody who laughed a lot.

Somebody, thought Diana with a surprising twitch of jealousy, that Seth could have a crush on.

The medical students s.h.i.+fted in order to study a doc.u.ment the Attending held. Sure enough, Seth moved next to the very pretty girl, and they smiled at each other.

"Volunteer!" shouted Meggie, waving a pharmacy sheet.

Seth didn't move. Miss Pretty Medical Student was busy borrowing a pencil from Seth's s.h.i.+rt pocket. She was having much more fun extricating the pencil than listening to the Attending. Seth likewise. Their eyes met and his black shock of hair moved a little closer to her long gleaming brown hair. Seth's computerized smile began spreading.

I hope you get caught, thought Diana, taking the drug order only because pharmacy runs were better than asking psychotic women for their phone numbers. I hope Miss Pretty Medical Student asks to see your ID. I hope the Attending asks you to draw blood and they arrest you for a.s.sault when you try it.

Seth looked up and Diana curled her lip at him.

He just grinned and mimed a pa.s.sionate kiss. Diana remembered the real kiss the night of the difficult date, and thought - Why wasn't I nice?

Both Meggie and Miss Pretty Medical Student blew Seth a kiss back.

Emergency Room 6:23 p.m.

THEY WERE SEWING UP the hand of a boy who had ripped his palm open on the broken gla.s.s of a car window. He'd probably been trying to take the stereo out, but n.o.body commented on this. The students crowded eagerly around the bed on which the boy sat, feet dangling, pale and s.h.i.+vering with fear. n.o.body likes the thought of needles st.i.tching in and out of their very own personal flesh.

The pretty brunette was regarding Seth with cheerful, but slightly speculative eyes. Either she wanted to flirt more intensively, or she wanted to check his photo ID.

If they catch me, it'd go on my record, he thought. n.o.body at this hospital would laugh. Responsible future doctors don't masquerade. Pretending to be a medical student could stop me from being accepted at medical school.

I'm not chicken, he told himself quickly. I'm sensible.

He wondered if girls - particularly girls named Diana - thought sensible was more interesting than daring. He managed to drift away as the real students trooped after the Attending. There was confusion in the eyes of the pretty doctor. She was wondering why Seth wasn't standing next to her.

I could have gotten away with it, he thought.

But there was not enough room around the bed for Seth to join them. He leaned against the wall just beyond the curtain, alternately chewing himself out for not being an imposter and congratulating himself for having enough brains to back out now.

He listened to a clear but shaky narration, the voice of a very nervous student addressing a patient for the first time. "Now, I'm going to - ummm - give you a shot first, to kill the pain, and I'm - um - going to do this - um - very slowly - and - um - you tell me - um - if it hurts."

A nurse near Seth was laughing. "The old, I'm-going-to-do-this-very-slowly trick."

"Trick?"

"When you've never done something before in your life, you have to do it slowly," said the nurse. "But now the patient thinks the wonderful doctor is doing it slowly because he's kind and understanding." Her face changed.

"Hah. Show me the medical student who is kind and understanding. They're all pushy and grasping."

It was what Diana had said. He didn't want to be pushy and grasping, but he wanted to be a doctor, and sweet slow-moving types did not get into medical school. Reluctantly Seth took his volunteer jacket back from where he had tucked it, behind stacks of folded blankets.

He considered the air kisses. Forget Meggie. But the pretty medical student - truly hot. Probably around twenty-three or four. Seth imagined dating a woman four or five years older, with four or five years more experience. Forget medical experience. Think s.e.xual experience. This was so rewarding, he stayed with the vision.

Diana's kiss was the one he wanted and he did not want it in the air. Maybe the air kisses made her jealous. He decided to see if Diana had had a change of heart and headed for the Admitting Nurse's desk. Insurance was back behind there and he could air kiss over the gla.s.s barriers and make Diana's heart race.

Right.

He loved to listen to Barbie question incoming patients. She was so cool. Nothing frazzled this woman. Seth wanted to be exactly like her, so no situation that walked up, was wheeled up, or got dragged in would make him bat an eye.

She was a large woman, and wore even larger scrubs, so she looked as big and green as a tank. She was chewing cinnamon gum, a habit Seth mostly observed in the ambulance crews. The aroma kept you from getting nauseous when you had to take a deep whiff of your own patient.

A youngish man sat in front of her complaining of severe chest pain. "What have you been taking?" asked Barbie, scrawling on the patient information sheet.

"Nothing," said the young man.

"Gimme a break," Barbie said irritably. "What were you drinking?"

The young man looked away.

Barbie chewed on her pen along with her gum. "My man, if you're having a heart attack or if your best friend stabbed you, how am I gonna know? You think I read minds? Talk to me or get out of the way, there are people in line behind you." She didn't even sound interested, and of course the worst thing when you get to an emergency room is if the nurse is not interested, so the man answered after all. "Vodka."

"How much?"

"Prob'ly - um - half a bottle."

"This your usual amount?"

"Yes."

"You eat anything today?"

"I had some lunch."

"What are you smoking?" said Barbie.

"Crack."

The nurse rolled up the man's sleeve to take his blood pressure. Tracks on the arm were visible. "What are you shooting?" she said.

"H."

She would not tighten the blood pressure cuff if he had just shot up, because the scab on the vein might burst. "What pills?" she said. "You swallow anything?"

Wow, thought Seth. The guy smokes crack, drinks vodka, does heroin, and takes pills. Talk about full-time activity. He wondered what Barbie saw, that he had not, knowing right away what was going on here.

"Nothing today. But - but - I think I OD'd," said the young man nervously. "I think I'm dying."

"You might be," agreed Barbie. "I mean, you poly-abuse like this, what do you think is gonna happen? You think your heart is just gonna shrug?"

Apparently the guy was in trouble, because Barbie didn't make him wait a single minute, but called an aide to wheel the addict back into Medical. She never glanced after him but turned to the patch from an ambulance that burst metallically from the speaker behind her desk. At the same time, three lines were ringing at Knika's desk. Seth listened greedily to everything.

"We are inbound to your facility with a two-seven female complaining of severe abdominal pain," shouted the patch. "Patient states she has had fever two days, currently at one oh three. Upon palpation abdomen is rigid in lower right quadrant. Patient currently receiving ten liters of oxygen and has line of normal saline. Blood pressure 140 over 100. Pulse 100. Respirations 30."

"Roger," said Barbie. She beckoned to the next patient slouching near her and began filling out two forms simultaneously: the new patient at her desk and the incoming. "What's your ETA?" she said to the ambulance.

"Fifteen minutes."

"Roger."

Seth murmured to Knika, "What's a two-seven?"

Knika gave him the sort of look Seth hated most. You're in college and you can't deduce what a two-seven is? "The patient, cupcake," said Knika, "is twenty-seven years old."

Cupcake? She dared called him cupcake? He who was going to go to medical school? He would never speak to Knika again. Or go near her desk. He walked away.

"You gonna say thank you, maybe, for the explanation?" said Knika.

Seth stopped, turned, took a deep breath, pasted a smile on his face and said, "Thank you, Knika."

"Hey, cupcake, any time."

Barbie hung up, laughing. "He gets into medical school, Knika, he's gonna snub you."

"Oh, no," said Knika. "I'm destroyed. Another white doctor snubbing me? Can I live through it?"

In his burning ears Seth heard Diana accusing him of becoming a doctor in order to have people admire him and treat him with awe. Telling him how pushy and arrogant he was.

He sat on the edge of Knika's desk. "When I go to the cafeteria, I'll bring you back a cookie." The hospital bakery made enormous, terrific chocolate chip cookies.

She laughed. "You gonna bribe your way out of this, cupcake?"

"Could you call me Seth instead of cupcake?"

"Nope. I never call teenagers by name. It gives them airs. They think they're worth something."

Routes 14-A and I-95 6:25 p.m.

"I CAN?" SAID ALEC reverently.

"Sure." Alec's cousin punched him lightly. "Just don't hurt it. You would not believe what I paid for this baby."

The motorcycle was absolutely beautiful. Huge, heavy, gleaming, powerful - everything Alec had ever yearned for in a bike. And his cousin, decked out in leather - everything Alec had ever yearned for in clothes.

The girls were on the sidewalk, giggling. Alec didn't much like any of the three girls present, but they were still girls. Alec yearned for girls probably twice as much as for a motorcycle, which was a lot, and both seemed equally impossible to get.

He never understood girls' laughter. What were they laughing at?

He tried to believe they weren't laughing at him, they were just laughing, but whenever he looked their way, they dissolved again into giggles and he could not feel attractive, just stupid.

He had only been on a motorcycle twice before. This one was far heavier and more powerful.

His cousin was grinning.

Three girls were giggling.

The sun was hot and the pavement stretched out black and s.h.i.+mmering with heat waves.

Alec got on the bike. It was like a living creature beneath him. He could have taken its throbbing pulse. Its heart ached to accelerate, to leave a patch on the road. His new jeans were deep indigo blue against the glittering purple of the metallic paint job his cousin had special-ordered.

"Wear a helmet," said one of the girls.

Alec's cousin laughed. "You think he's a sissy or something?"

"You're supposed to wear a helmet," she said, her voice whiny and dictatorial, like a teacher n.o.body wanted to have.

Alec took off.