Code Blues (19 page)

"No way. I've been held prisoner at St.
Joe's."

"Yeah." She paused and added, "I know the
feeling. I'm at the Children's for peds."

"How's that?" I hadn't visited the
Children's Hospital yet.

"Good. The clinics are easy, but we do a lot
of emerg. When you do the noon to ten p.m. shift on the weekend, it
doesn't leave much time to do anything else."

"I'll say!" I noticed a book peeking out of
her straw tote bag. "What are you reading?"

She showed me. "It's on the history of
Japanese art."

"Are you an artist?" I've always wanted to
draw, but never managed more than crude cartoons. Henry is my only
significant legacy.

She shook her head. "I like to paint. I
wouldn't call myself an artist."

She was pretty modest. "Are you more
interested in the cultural history?"

She nodded. "My parents brought me to Canada
when I was five years old. I don't remember Japan very well, but
I've visited three times."

"You speak the language?"

She nodded.

"Well, I don't speak Chinese. My parents
thought it was more important for me to learn French."

She wrinkled her nose. "That's too bad."

"I guess. But if I really wanted to, I could
learn. I just haven't bothered yet." My mind flitted to Dr. Kurt. I
wanted to bring up the autopsy report, but couldn't think of a good
segue. "I'm glad that we're going out tonight. It'll be fun."

She smiled and touched her glow stick.

"Maybe we'll run into other residents." I
glanced around the subway car. I could see my own reflection in the
windows, but no St. Joe's people.

She nodded. "I'm always running into people
I know downtown."

Time to ease delicately into investigation
mode. "That's cool. Our class seems pretty tight."

She shrugged, a lift of her slim shoulders.
I've always been small-boned, but Tori made me feel almost
oafish.

I flashed her a smile. "Like you said, at
lunch, there's a lot of history I don't know about. Life in the big
city." This was her cue to start gossiping.

She studied me from under slightly raised
eyebrows. "Be careful, Hope."

Guilt stabbed my stomach. "What do you
mean?"

Her dark eyes didn't waver. "Alex."

I countered, "What about him?"

She shrugged.

The subway screeched to a stop and jerked
open its doors. Tori stayed mute until we started up again and the
recorded voice announced the next stop. Then she shook her head. "I
don't know either of you very well."

So? But I bit my tongue.

She said, "It's none of my business. Let's
talk about something else."

I shook my head. "Let's finish this. What do
I have to be careful about?"

Her eyes creased in thought. "You seem like
someone who is very...passionate."

Blood rose into my cheeks. "And Alex
isn't?"

"I don't know him very well. Really." She
glanced around the subway car.

I was making her uncomfortable. I'd never
get another word out of her. "Okay. Forget it. What bands are we
going to see tonight?"

Her shoulders relaxed. "I haven't seen the
program, but it's usually a Latin American band at the main stage.
You know, like the Buena Vista Social Club?"

"Sweet. I like them."

We got off at
Place-d'Armes
, along
with a third of our subway car. In Montreal, the people waiting for
the metro didn't stand aside to let you off as polite Torontonians
did. Montrealers just stood there, blocking you, and tried to shove
on as soon as possible, jamming the doors. Kind of a barometer of
the city.

Otherwise, the July night felt just about
perfect. After the heat of the day, the evening bathed us in
breezes and the last of the sun's warmth. We walked past the
Holiday Inn, which was topped by an ornate, Chinese pagoda-style
roof. Otherwise, Chinatown seemed to consist of restaurants and
some stores selling teapots and Hello Kitty.

The Jazz Festival was set
in the heart of downtown, along Ste-Catherine. It took us only
minutes to walk to
Place-des-Arts
. The road had been
closed to traffic. White tents lined Ste-Catherine, and fellow
pedestrians streamed alongside us. We could hear the music already,
a trumpet punctuating the air.

Tori darted to one of the first tents and
grabbed us a program. "Want to go to the main stage?"

"Wherever the action is." I grinned at her.
She smiled back.

People emerged from the
beer tents with armfuls of plastic tumblers. One lucky café was
only about a block away from the action. Its
térrasse
bulged into the street,
allowing people to eat and listen to music.

As we swam upstream through an increasingly
thick crowd, Tori grabbed my hand. Even with the glow sticks, she
wasn't risking separation. I had to turn sideways and twist through
the mob. One guy, who held four tumblers of beer above his head,
two in each fist, accidentally dripped brew on my hair. I
squealed.

The guy yelled,
"
Pardon
!" and
escaped.

Tori squeezed my hand, threw me a
sympathetic look, and tried to pull me ahead.

I brushed my hair off as best I could
one-handed. My hand, hair, and neck felt stickier by the second. I
now smelled like Labatt's Blue.

I don't even
like
beer.

As far as I could see, not one drop had
fallen on Tori. When we were out of range, she called, "Are you
okay?"

I nodded. There are naturally neat girls,
the ones whose hair always looks freshly combed, the ones who eat
spaghetti while wearing white linen dresses without any fear of
spillage. That was Tori. And then there were girls like me. We're
not slobs, but we have to work at looking polished. We're more
likely to attract beauty disasters, like smudged mascara when it's
not '80s night. Or beer in the hair.

A wasp dive-bombed my head. I ducked and
hollered.

Tori tugged me through the horde. I think I
helped part the crowd because I waved madly at the hornet, my glow
stick jerking through the air.

At any rate, we got reasonably close to the
stage and far away from the wasp. I relaxed into the music. A dozen
band members dominated the black-draped stage. The drummer played a
steady rhythm. The saxophonist wailed. Three trumpeters tooted an
answer. Then a man playing the pan flute dropped to his knees,
piping his heart out.

I cheered. Tori gave a sharp whistle and we
grinned at each other.

A grandmotherly woman in front of us,
complete with white curls, raised her hands above her head like she
was praying to Jesus.

By the time the drummer rattled out his
five-minute solo, I had forgotten the smell and press of the crowd
and the beer in my hair. I started to sway and air drum. Before the
solo broke, I was out and out dancing.

I was outdoing the Jesus lady. This was what
I wanted from Montreal. A party in the street.

A black guy grabbed my hand. I hesitated,
startled, but he smiled and lifted our hands above our heads,
gesturing for me to twirl. So I did, laughing. He took both my
hands in his and hummed under his breath, leading me through a few
more turns. The crowd moved aside a little, giving us room to
move.

I hesitated, but he loved it. He tried to
count me through some swing moves, including kicks. I wasn't half
as good as he was, but for once, I didn't care if I made a fool of
myself.

My dance partner had a round, fine-boned
ebony face and long, lean limbs. Out of the corner of my eyes, I
saw his friends alternating between laughing at us and breaking
into dance themselves.

The guy spun me into an embrace. I could
smell him, dusky, in a pleasant, mysterious way, my face close to
his neck, and then he spun me away and bowed. His friends clapped
him on the back and pulled him off. Within a minute, he'd
completely disappeared in the throng.

I wiped my forehead. The crowd turned back
to the band, swaying to the beat. A black man in sunglasses was now
singing in rapid-fire Spanish, one hand on the mike, the other
raised in the air. The Jesus woman closed her eyes and hummed
along.

If I hadn't been still been breathing hard,
my dance with a stranger might have been a dream. I searched for
Tori and found her off to the right. She was chatting with a petite
woman with short, tousled brown hair. I said, "Hey there."

The woman turned. She looked strangely
familiar. I couldn't quite place her, though. She had a tiny nose,
like a bump with nostrils, and hollow cheeks. Her eyes didn't quite
meet mine.

Tori stepped in. "Oh, Vicki. I don't think
you've met Hope Sze. She's one of the new R1's. Hope, Vicki."

"Pleased to meet you?" said Vicki. She had a
wispy voice that curled up on the end.

I stared at her. Vicki. Could it be Kurt's
fiancée? She was wearing black, head-to-toe, but that wasn't so
unusual in Montreal. "Hi, Vicki. Did I just talk to you on the
phone?"

The woman glanced around uneasily. "I don't
think so?"

Her voice didn't match my caller's. This
woman's was wispy, more child-like. Tori cut in. "Vicki's been in
mourning after...the incident at our hospital." She turned back to
Vicki. "We're so sorry. I'll call you."

Vicki gave me a wide-eyed look before she
allowed a middle-aged woman to draw her away.

Tori cocked an eyebrow at me as a sax solo
speared the night. I had to yell above it. "Someone called me this
afternoon. She said she was Vicki."

Tori shook her head. "Why would she call
you?"

"I left my number on the OB/gyn ward." That
sounded pretty nuts, so I added, "I wanted to give her my
condolences. You know. After Kurt died. She was, uh,
screaming."

Tori's eyebrows knit. She stared at me and
shook her head again before turning back to the music.

"What?" I yelled.

She gestured at the stage, but I'd lost my
taste for the music. I kept trying to read her face, and finally
she got sick of it and hiked her thumb. "Let's get a drink."

I nodded. She didn't take my hand this time
as we burrowed our way back out. After about a block, the music
dimmed and flattened, but we could walk side by side and talk at
low volume. She said, "There's a lot you don't know about the
people here. Everyone is very friendly, but—"

"Hope!" a guy bellowed.

I turned automatically. One advantage of an
uncommon name, when you hear someone calling, it's for you.

Tori sighed, but I soon spotted the cause of
the commotion. Alex was almost pushing people aside as he tunneled
his way out of the mob. "Hooooooope!"

Tori stood there, silent and expressionless.
I said, "We'll talk after, okay?" But she gave a little shrug and
watched Alex approach. He was wearing a faded red T-shirt and
beaten-up cords.

I was in a silly mood after dancing with a
stranger. Less likely to probe into the past, more "Girls Just
Wanna Have Fun." Spotting Alex's shaggy, chestnut head still gave
me that zing. I put my hands on my hips and called, "What about
Tori?"

"Toriiiiii," he yelled, but turned down the
volume as he neared us. Still, a few passers-by shook their
heads.

His eyes were on me. "Fancy meeting you
here." He leaned forward. Now wise to Montreal ways, I pursed my
lips for the greeting kiss, but he pressed his cheek against mine
and started to hum, one hand settling on my waist, the other
clasping my hand in the air.

Wow. I was doing impromptu dancing for the
second time in fifteen minutes. I felt like Sleeping Beauty in a
very crowded, urban forest. Alex wasn't as skilled a dancer as the
previous guy, but I felt more nervous in his arms. I nearly tripped
over a tent peg. He caught me, embracing me so tightly that I had
to hold my breath, feeling dizzy.

At last, he loosened his hold. Secretly
disappointed, I started to back away. Then his arms tightened again
and he stepped forward, tipping me backward. I gasped but kept my
balance. At the last second, I even kicked my leg in the air,
Hollywood-style.

He brought me slowly back to earth, his face
filling my vision. His grey eyes were suddenly serious. I bit my
lip. When I was back on my feet, he pressed his face toward me,
nearly nose-to-nose, until I went cross-eyed. "Stop it," I
breathed.

He pressed a long kiss on both my cheeks and
released me. I crossed my arms so I wouldn't look like I wanted his
touch.

More formally, he turned to Tori. "Hi."

"Hello." She just stared at him. He leaned
forward from his waist and pecked her on each cheek. She accepted
it, but made no move toward him.

She didn't have to say it out loud. She
didn't trust him.

I was beyond caring. I always wanted a guy
who could dance. Ryan never did more than a reluctant, slow-dance
shuffle.

"What are you girls doing here?" he asked,
his eyes moving to me.

Tori waved at the main stage. "The
usual."

"We're getting drinks," I piped up.

"Well, then, allow me." He made a bow toward
the nearest beer tent. "My treat."

Tori shook her head. Her face was so blank
that I told him, "The dance was enough."

Alex said grandly, "Not nearly enough." He
turned his gaze on Tori. "Come on. One drink. I insist." He offered
us each an arm, making crooks at his waist.

I'd never liked those pictures where a
tuxedoed man escorting two women, one on each arm. Plus Tori's
reserve was starting to trickle through. I was mad at Alex. I was
supposed to be making him pay for lying about Mireille.

I said, with dignity, "Tori and I are having
a girls' night out."

Alex's face fell so comically that I wanted
to giggle, but I suppressed it. He was a liar, I reminded myself.
Ixnay.