Code Blues (23 page)

Now that Tori had left, withdrawing her
not-so-silent disapproval, I hugged the memory of Alex to myself,
starting with his surprisingly gentle touch. The way he washed and
dried my hair. How well we fit together when we danced. The way he
looked at me, like I was the only woman in the universe. His smell.
His lean chest. The light in his eyes when he let me look at him
shirtless.

The memories made me clench my teeth. I
wanted him bad.

Now my brain kicked in. Rebound guys are bad
news. Hell, even without Mireille, Alex was bad news. Caution. Do
not enter. I didn't need Tori or my mother to tell me that.

But Alex and Mireille broke up in December.
Half a year ago! He had to be mostly over her. I could be the final
step, the shot in the arm.

I pressed my knee against the cool,
corrugated metal side of the train wall like I was trying to tattoo
its irregular pattern on to my skin. But really, I was trying to
forget about Alex.

I couldn't.

Chapter 13

In the emerg the next day, I was too busy to
brood about the boy. Anu showed up in her white coat. She rolled
her eyes and fanned her three geriatrics consults at me. "That's
the problem with geri at St. Joe's. There are too many
patients!"

"Yeah, sorry," I said, since two of them
were ones I'd referred to her. But Dr. Wiedermeyer had pointed out,
"If they can't walk, they can't go home. Any elderly patient with
no pressing medical issues, or with multidisciplinary problems,
goes to geri."

I tugged at the sleeve of my white coat that
I didn't normally wear. I whispered to Anu, "This is so I'll get
more respect from patients."

She laughed and held out her hands toward me
in a grand gesture that showed off her own white coat. Mine had a
worn iron-on transfer for St. Joe's above the front pocket, but
hers had McGill embroidered in black and red thread. Hers looked
more expensive. Anu said, "I think it helps. But they still ask me
how old I am!"

One of the R2's had told me she now wore
pantyhose on internal medicine and the patients had stopped asking
her age. So, in addition to my white coat, I had abandoned my
greens and was wearing a fitted, ultramarine blouse and white,
pleated skirt which fell about mid-thigh. I drew the line at the
pantyhose, since it was July, and St. Joseph's didn't seem to have
any functional air conditioning. I usually saved this skirt for
going out, but the female doctors in Montreal wore sexier clothes
than I was used to. I figured the skirt was legit, especially under
my white coat, but kept the coat partially buttoned, just in
case.

Anu grabbed the chart for bed number 11, and
said hello to Tucker, who was further down the counter, in the
psych corner. He grinned at us. "Hello, ladies." He stood up and
moved closer to me. He'd cut his hair into a flat top, with the
gelled ends sticking up.

"Hi," I said, trying not to stare at the
tips of his blond hair. They reminded me of a stiff field of wheat.
Maybe wheat after it had been attacked by freezing rain.

"You like my hair?" His hand rose up toward
the back of his head.

I recognized the self-consciousness of the
gesture. "Kickin'."

He smiled. "Yeah?"

I had to smile back. "Yeah." I'd seen him
around a fair amount, working on the psych patients, but we hadn't
really talked.

He rested his elbows on the white block in
the middle of the nursing station. It was like a rotating shelf for
forms, a paperwork lazy-Susan. "Can you tell me anything about the
guy in 14?"

I shook my head. "Not my patient. Sorry." He
seemed to want more, so I added, "The psych nurse probably knows
all about him, though."

"Yeah." He didn't take his elbows off the
shelf-thing.

I glanced around. I didn't see Dr.
Wiedermeyer, but I didn't want him to think I spent all my time
chatting with my friends instead of working. Competition was pretty
fierce for the emerg year. I pointed to the clipboard in my hand.
"Well, I guess I'd better go see this patient."

"Yeah." His hand strayed to his hair. Then
he remembered that he didn't have much to flip any more, and his
hand crept back down to the shelf thing. "You want to go to
lunch?"

Sometimes residents eat together in our
lounge, or, more rarely, in the cafeteria, but Tucker was frowning
at me now, and pressing his palms against the shelf.

It percolated through. The dude was
uncomfortable. He was asking me out.

Maybe I should lay off the miniskirts.
"Sorry. It's a zoo in here." I gestured at the charts of waiting
patients. On the acute side, the nurses lined the charts on one
counter, against the Plexiglas. The red plastic cards jammed under
the clip on the clipboard denoted the order they were to be seen.
There were two charts. Not exactly a zoo, but a good enough excuse.
"I probably won't be going for a while."

"It's okay." He coughed into his hand. "I'm
on psych. I can go any time." He glanced around. A blush crept up
under his collar. The unit coordinator, a middle-aged woman with a
spiky 'do and an eyebrow piercing, was giving him the evil eye.

The guy needed a break. Alex who? "Okay," I
said, and smiled at Tucker.

He smiled back. He wasn't bad-looking. Just
a player, and not my type. "Here's my pager number." He grabbed a
progress note sheet to scribble on.

"Wait!" I grabbed my navy notebook and
flipped it open in front of him.

He gave a low whistle. "Am I in your little
black book now?"

The unit coordinator was giving me the evil
eye now. I glowered at him. "That's my medical notes book. I'm just
trying to save paper. Those progress notes—oh, forget it." The
progress notes he'd reached for were printed on carbon paper, so
he'd be wasting two sheets instead of one. But I should have let
him kill a tree and save me the embarrassment.

"Whatever you say," he sang out, and
scratched his numbers down with his left hand. Ink smeared along
the side of his hand. "Here's my home one, too. What's yours?"

I flipped to the back of my notebook and
ripped a page out, writing as fast as possible. "I can't promise
anything. Maybe I can go in an hour."

His brown eyes were laughing at me. "Dr. Wie
is cool. Just tell him you're going to lunch, and he'll run the
show."

Actually, what happened was that ten minutes
later, Dr. Wie, a portly, balding man, emerged from room 3,
stripped off his yellow isolation gown and gloves, and said, "I'm
going to grab a sandwich. Do you want anything?"

"I'm all right, thanks. I'll keep seeing
patients, and then I'll go to lunch after."

"Great. I'll be just a minute." He bustled
off.

I walked to stretcher number 5, a thin, 26
year-old brunette, with chest pain. She watched me approach. I held
the chart up like a shield. "Ms. Gravelle? Hi, I'm Dr. Sze. I'm the
res—"

She waved off my intro, clutching at her
chest through the gown. "I was working at the computer, and I got
this sharp pain, so sharp, I was almost crying. My friend called
911."

A sharp pain. Atypical. Plus she was 26. I
opened my mouth to ask more details about the pain, when, from
behind me, a man called, "Carla? Carla?" The patient looked over my
shoulder and her face crumpled. "Eric! I was so scared!"

A middle-aged guy came around the other side
of the stretcher and grabbed her hand. "I'm here, baby. It's okay.
Everything's going to be okay."

She started to weep into the shoulder of his
dress shirt. Her free hand still clenched the front of her
gown.

"Are you having pain now, ma'am?" I
asked.

Her significant other gave me an odd look.
"Are you a nurse?"

"No." The white coat and grown-up clothes
weren't working. "I'm Dr. Sze." I pointed to my badge. The guy read
it with critical frown, as if he was trying to detect a
forgery.

The woman wiped her eyes. "I thought you
were a nurse."

"No. I'm a resident doctor. I started to
introduce myself—"

"I didn't hear you." She started crying some
more, clinging to her man.

Obviously, this was going to take a while. I
wanted to tell Tucker I had business for him after all.

Eventually, I got a history and did a
physical exam. When I pressed on her chest to see if the pain was
reproducible, as Dr. Dupuis had shown me to do, she screamed,
"Eric, she's hurting me!"

The man whirled on me. "What are you doing
to my wife?"

I backed right off. "Nothing. I'm finished."
In more ways than one. Dr. Wiedermeyer could deal with the two of
them. They'd be happier with a staff physician, and he probably
knew how to handle them. Win-win. I carried the chart back to the
nursing station and checked my watch. With all the drama, my
H&P had taken forty minutes.

Dr. Wie was already writing up a new patient
while ignoring the half-eaten egg sandwich and cup of coffee
resting beside his left hand. I felt embarrassed. He'd gone to the
cafeteria, started eating, seen a patient, and was writing him or
her up, while all I'd managed to do was antagonize Tweedledum and
Tweedledee in 5. I couldn't wait to get to be like him when I grew
up.

Dr. Wie smiled at me. "I'm glad you're here.
Maybe now I can eat!" He pulled the cellophane further down his
sandwich and took a hearty bite.

While I presented the case, my pager went
off. I glanced at the number and silenced the pager. Tucker could
wait.

"Oh, answer it," said Dr. Wie, bolting down
some coffee.

"No, it's okay."

Dr. Wie laughed. "I'm not going
anywhere."

Reluctantly, I dialed, hunching over the
black receiver. It seemed so unprofessional to talk about lunch
while I was in the emergency room. As soon as he picked up and said
hello, I hissed, "Tucker, I'll call you in a bit."

There was a silence. "Tucker? Why are you
calling him?"

It took me a second to figure it out. The
voice had been slightly more of a tenor than a baritone. "Alex?" My
eyes slid to Dr. Wiedermeyer, who was now talking to a nurse. "Can
I talk to you later?"

"I guess," Alex said. "After you call
Tucker, right?"

Gah. "Goodbye, Alex." I hung up, rubbed my
forehead, and smiled at Dr. Wie to cover my embarrassment.

He grinned back at me. "Man trouble?"

I wished ten more nurses had come up to talk
to him during my phone call. I shook my head. "Oh, no." I pointed
to the #5 clipboard. "Patient trouble."

"She does sound like a difficult
personality. The husband too. Start with the physical exam."

It was so nice to have a doctor treat me
like a person instead of a cyborg in training. Dr. W. must have
been in his forties, plump, and with only a fringe of hair at the
back of his head, and while I've never been one to go for older
men, it was very pleasant to have him listen to me as if I had
something intelligent to say. That must have been part of Kurt's
attraction.

In the end, we agreed the patient was
probably non-cardiac, but that we'd do two sets of trops on her,
just in case.

"Now," Dr. Wie, said, eyes twinkling, "It's
your turn for lunch. Take your time."

"If we're busy, I don't mind—"

He waved me away. "I'll handle it. Take your
time."

He meant it. Truly a nice man. Still, if the
staff's a jerk, you can't leave them alone too long for fear of
reprisal. If the staff's nice, like Dr. Wie, you won't leave 'em
alone too long because you want to help them. Plus I was having
second thoughts about Tucker. I didn't want to string him along if
I had a chance with Alex.

To avoid any other curious ears, I went up
to the residents' lounge to phone Tucker. As soon as I opened the
door, I saw his blond hair bent over the computer. He twisted
around and smiled at me. His teeth were perfectly straight. Must
have had braces as a kid, same as me. "Hey! Ready to go?"

"Just a sec. I have to answer a page." I
debated popping down the hall to the library to call Alex, but
figured I was being silly. It wasn't like these guys would fight a
duel over me or anything. I eased around Tucker to grab the phone
mounted on the wall in the corner behind him.

He leaned out of the way, grinning.

I cupped my hand around the receiver in an
attempt to muffle my voice. Tucker raised his eyebrows but still
wouldn't move his chair.

A mature woman answered. I asked if I could
speak to Dr. Dyck and promptly blushed. Alex got the worst name
prize on that one.

"The resident? He's gone now. You want to
page him?"

"No, thanks." At least this way, I'd tried.
"When he comes back, can you tell him that Dr. Hope Sze
called?"

"Of course, dear."

I hung up and I smiled at Tucker.
"Ready."

He turned his back on me. "Let me log
out."

I took two giant steps out of the corner. I
didn't feel comfortable standing so close to him in a short skirt,
even before his vibe changed. I checked my watch. It was 12:10.

Tucker closed his browser and stood up,
frowning at me. "Why do you bother with him?"

"Who, Alex?"

"Yeah." He shook his head.

I shrugged. It was so none of his business.
And even I didn't know why I bothered with him.

He exhaled. "Fine. Where do you want to
go?"

I liked a guy who knew when to fold 'em. I
smiled at him. "You know Montreal better than me. But I can't be
away too long. Emerg and all. It's not like psych."

He smiled, stretched his arms out, and
sighed like he was ready for a piña colada on the beach. "Hey, this
is the life. When are you doing psych?"

"Next." I made a face.

He rolled his eyes. "You're hard core! What,
you'd rather do ICU next?"

"Well..."

Tucker laughed.

"Well, almost," I admitted. I hung my white
coat up on a hook.