Code Blues (7 page)

Mireille buzzed me up, and
I rode a swift black elevator to the 23
^rd
floor. The hallways were
carpeted in maroon paisley. The wall sconces were dim, imitation
candlesticks. Even though the walls were painted white, it felt
very somber, like a funeral home. I took two wrong turns before I
rapped on apartment 2308.

Mireille threw open the door almost before
my knuckles had left the wood. "I'm so glad you came!" She bent
forward, pushing her face in mine, her burgundy lips pursed.

I froze. She was so close, I could see the
pores on her face. She pecked me on each cheek before she drew
away, her curls bouncing. Her perfume left a light citrus scent in
the air.

In Ontario, we hug. And I only hug my
friends. So I didn't clue in before she had already pulled back.
"This is for you," I said, covering my awkwardness with a bottle of
wine wrapped in a brown paper bag.

"No, no, no!" She flushed a dark red, like
her lipstick, very noticeable against her simple black T-shirt and
matching knee-length skirt. "I told you not to bring anything. And
Tucker brought beer, as I said he would."

I wondered if she'd been dipping into it.
She was so animated and bright, almost careless, compared to the
tightly-wound woman from orientation. I liked this version better.
"It's okay. The Metro was on the way."

The Metro is a grocery store chain with the
same name as the subway. The grocery and corner stores here sell
wine and beer, which makes it pretty convenient. I didn't want to
show up empty-handed. Bad enough that I'd donned a pair of jean
shorts and a white tank top while the hostess had picked funeral
black.

Mireille accepted the bottle, but said,
"I'll give it back to you when you leave!" She headed down the
narrow white hallway.

"Hi, Hope," said a guy's voice, as I kicked
my shoes into the pile by the door.

My heart thudded. I looked up, only to see
Tucker dressed in a white shirt with aquamarine pinstripes, sleeves
rolled up to reveal lightly tanned forearms.

At least he wasn't dressed in mourning,
except for his black pants. And he held a beer in his right hand. I
gave him a half-smile.

He returned it with a sly grin. Then he
swooped down so close that his stubble brushed my cheek.

I tipped back on my heels.

Undeterred, he pressed a hearty, wet,
smacking kiss on my left cheek. I ducked away from contact on my
right.

He laughed and backed off, saluting me with
his beer. "You're from Ontario, right?"

"Yeah." I glowered at him.

"You'll get used to it." Still laughing, he
shook his head and strode into the next room.

I wiped my left cheek. Mireille swept back
in, rolling her eyes. "Oh, that John. He thinks he's
something."

"He's something, all right." I didn't know
her well enough to say what I really thought of him, but I hoped
that the food made up for him.

She towed me by the arm to the living room
on the right. A bunch of residents on the sofa yelled, "Hi, Hope!"
while Tucker leered at me from a bright red La-Z-Boy by the window.
No one else was wearing all black, and I relaxed slightly.
Pachelbel's Canon tinkled on the stereo. I started to reach for a
handful of chips from a robin-egg-blue bowl on the low, black
coffee table, but Mireille's hand tightened on my elbow. "You must
be thirsty. I'll get you a drink first, all right?"

I waved goodbye to the people and the chips,
and let her haul me to her cheerful yellow kitchen.

Mireille gestured at the array of bottles on
her granite counter. "What would you like? Some of your wine?"

I winced. My temples throbbed at the mere
mention of wine. "No, thanks. Just water."

She poured some water out of a Brita pitcher
on the counter and handed the tumbler to me. "I'll be back in a
second. Don't leave."

Hurry up and wait. I sipped the lukewarm
water, grimacing.

"Hi, Hope," came a quiet, male voice behind
me. It was lower than Tucker's voice, and it electrified the skin
on my arms.

Alex. I spun on my heel, ready to tear a
strip off his back and another off his testicles, but then I saw
his wan face and the dark circles under his eyes. Compared to the
charming guy who had treated me to sushi, he looked like the older
brother who'd gone to war and ripped his soul on the
battlefield.

He gripped a beer bottle in his left hand.
Uneven stubble lined his face. His eyes were red. He was wearing a
crumpled, '70s style striped shirt, and corduroys with ripped-out
knees. His bare feet looked vulnerable on Mireille's white ceramic
floor.

Pity choked me. I shook my head once, twice.
"What happened?" I finally managed.

"I'm sorry," he said, and added thickly,
stumbling on the words, "You wouldn't believe it."

"Try me," I said, but Tori drifted into the
kitchen, passing between us en route to the kitchen counter. "Are
you okay, Hope?"

I nodded. "I'm all right."

She poured herself some mineral water and
sipped it gravely, her dark eyes passing from me to Alex and back
again. I waited for her to leave, but she leaned her elbows against
the countertop like she planned to set up camp here. She was
delicately built, almost bird-like in her slimness. I'm thin too,
but in my mind at least, I'm always battling incipient obesity.

Mireille buzzed in again, like the Energizer
Bunny on speed. She stopped when she saw Alex and Tori, but quickly
recovered. "Hope. Have you had anything to eat? I made a pesto
sauce and a tomato sauce for the pasta, so you can choose. Are you
allergic to nuts?" She reached inside a yellow cupboard and forced
a plate on me. "Please, help yourself. Don't be shy. We have enough
for an army! Tori's garlic bread is excellent. Have some before the
men eat it all." She cocked her head, and I heard a faint ringing.
"Oh, the phone again. Alex, can you get that? I bet it's Anu. She
said she'd come later. Now the gang's all here." She barked a
laugh.

I looked at Alex. He shrugged and reached
for the phone.

He seemed a bit spineless, not like how I'd
first thought of him. Plus he still hadn't explained why he'd
abandoned me in a café. I turned up my nose and marched to the food
table.

Tori followed me as I loaded up on pasta
bows and splatted pesto on them. The pasta glistened like it'd been
fried in butter, but I was past caring. I tore off a piece of
garlic bread and hesitated at a dish of shredded orange bits.

"It's some sort of Middle Eastern carrot
dish," Tori said. "It's good, actually. I think Robin made it."

"Does it have raisins in it?" I asked,
poking it suspiciously.

"I think so."

I wrinkled my nose and grabbed some Greek
salad and curried potatoes. At least the food was better than
Cheerios, and definitely more interesting than at potlucks in
London, Ontario.

"Hope!" a guy's voice yelled from the living
room, and everyone laughed.

My hands tightened on my dish. I had no idea
how my name had come up, but I didn't relish heading in there as
the guest of horror. I took a deep breath and squared my
shoulders.

Tori's quiet voice stopped me. "They're all
right. They're mostly harmless."

I wasn't expecting a Douglas Adams quote
from her. My esteem for her rose a notch. "Good to know."

I entered the living room, clutching my
plate, glass, and a fake smile. Instead of looking people in the
eye, I checked out the décor. Mireille was obviously a big believer
in black and white. Her black leather furniture, stereo, and coffee
table contrasted against the high gloss, all-white walls. The only
accents were a red Persian carpet beside the chesterfield, red
dinner plates, and the blue chip bowl. She looked ready for a
Canadian House & Home magazine shoot, and I didn't even have a
bed to sleep on yet.

Tucker yelled, "Hope!" in the same falling
cadence as they used to yell "Norm!" on Cheers. He patted the
loveseat. I ignored him, heading for a wooden chair near the
kitchen.

Anu passed me with a grease-stained
cardboard box. "I didn't have time to cook. I hope you like
samosas."

"Do I!" The only other time I'd eaten Indian
food, I'd devoured those spicy, deep-fried treats.

Alex rose from the sofa. He smiled at Anu,
but muttered at me, "I have to talk to you."

My temper flared. "Too bad."

He scowled. He turned and punched a button
on the stereo behind the chesterfield. Classical music halted
mid-riff.

Techno started to beat out from the speaker
behind my chair. I glowered at him while Anu fled into the
kitchen.

"All right!" someone called.

Alex stomped away with his beer bottle.

What a loser. Forget
his
musculation
.

Robin winced and turned down the volume.
Then he caught my eye and, to my surprise, he crossed over to talk
to me. He wasn't wearing a tie today, but more preppy
casual-does-blah, i.e. a beige golf shirt and Dockers. "Hello,
Hope. Did you have a rough day?"

"Yeah." I speared a forkful of pasta bows so
that I wouldn't have to talk. The pesto was pretty good, but not
great. My friend Ginger, from med school, did a much better one. A
wave of homesickness hit me. I had to close my eyes.

Robin Huxley regarded me steadily. His blue
eyes were slightly protuberant. I wondered if he'd ever been
checked for hyperthyroidism, but more likely, he was just naturally
pop-eyed. "Dr. Radshaw was a good teacher."

"Mmm." For some reason, it depressed me to
hear about the goodness of Dr. Radshaw. Like I should have done
something to save him. I tried the garlic bread, which had little
flecks of green, presumably parsley.

Robin seemed to blink half as much as a
normal human being. "He won teacher of the year, a few years back.
He was always willing to stay and review cases, no matter how late
it got. He wanted us to be evidence-based. He was always bringing
articles for us to read." Evidence-based practice meant that you
practiced medicine based on solid, current research, instead of
tradition and phases of the moon.

Robin sighed and shook his head. "They were
good articles. He was the best teacher at St. Joseph's Family
Medicine Center. I don't know if you've heard—"

I shook my head. He rolled on as if I hadn't
stirred.

"– but a lot of the teachers aren't
evidence-based at our center. I wanted to do my residency at the
Jewish General Hospital. They do a lot more research there. But I
lost the internal match."

His nose was shiny. I also found myself
staring at the small, dark hairs that sprung from the pores on its
surface. Did Mireille say she left a message with Robin's wife?
Someone had married this robot?

"Still, Dr. Radshaw was one of the reasons I
ranked St. Joseph's above the CLSC." The CLSC was the community
health centre affiliated with the Jewish. "I worked with Dr.
Radshaw as a student. He was really good, really concerned."

I ate faster, so I could have a good reason
to escape Robin. Fortunately, Anu bore down on us with a platter.
"Samosa?"

"Bless you," I said. I took one. It was
still warm.

"Were you talking about Kurt?" she asked,
losing her smile. "I'll miss him. He was cool. He taught, but he
also treated you like a human being."

"What does that mean?" I put the samosa down
and wiped my fingers on a napkin.

She shifted her weight from foot to foot,
and dropped her eyes. "Well, a lot of doctors don't care who you
are, as long as you can answer questions about hypertension. But
Kurt asked how you were doing, and he really listened to your
answers." She paused for a second. "He and Alex were friends."

"They were?" My annoyance with Alex began to
evaporate.

She shrugged. "Alex and I did family
medicine together in second year med school, on Dr. Radshaw's team.
Alex told me that Dr. Radshaw inspired him to go into family."

At orientation, Alex said he'd wanted to be
a family doctor ever since he was a little kid. But both could be
true. I could give him the benefit of the doubt. I stood up.
"Excuse me."

I dropped my plate back in the kitchen,
where Mireille was washing dishes. She grinned at me and stuck a
fistful of cutlery in the dish rack. "Back for seconds?"

I rubbed my stomach and laughed. "Maybe in
another hour. Have you seen Alex?"

She made a face. "Not recently. How did you
like the pasta?"

"Delicious." I glanced through the doorway
to the living room, to make sure Alex hadn't reappeared. All I saw
was that Anu was now edging away from Robin the robot.

"Are you all right?" Mireille asked, but I
waved and said, "Bathroom" and disappeared down the darkened
hallway. It was possible that Alex had ditched the place, but I'd
give him a chance to plead his case with me. His mentor had died,
after all.

There were three closed doors at the end of
the hall. I opened the one on the left and found stacks of neatly
folded black-and-white striped towels, labeled cardboard boxes, a
package of maxi pads, and a bike helmet.

I tried door number two, on the right. It
was a fair-sized bedroom that felt about five degrees warmer than
the rest of the apartment. It smelled like alcohol and sweat. And
there was a man sitting on the bed's blue quilt.

His back was slumped, his head bent in
profile to me. A bedside lamp glowed behind him, making a halo out
of his hair but leaving his face in darkness. He was so quiet that
I could hear his slow, even breaths.

I whispered, "Alex?"

He lifted a hand at me. He clutched a brown
beer bottle between his legs.

I leaned against the door frame, pressing
the wooden ridge into my triceps to try and make this seem more
real. This was not how I'd pictured our grand reunion. He was
supposed to come up with a good excuse, beg my forgiveness, and
whirl me off to Paris to make it up to me. Not get drunk at
Mireille's makeshift wake.