Aaron awoke, groggy but surprisingly clear-headed. He could hear the groans of his hung-over roommate coming from the couch outside. Shit. He didn't want to clean up any more bodily fluids. That was his day job, and Aaron didn't like bringing his work home with him any more than necessary.
The light shone in, the too-white brightness of a New England first snow, reflected rays intensifying and pointing right at Aaron's cringing face. He suppressed the urge to stick a pillow over his head and rolled himself to the right, falling onto the cold, thin carpet. Ouch. Aaron rubbed his shoulder and walked to the tiny kitchenette. He stuffed a piece of stale wheat bread in his mouth and shook the last few grinds of his Christmas-present coffee into the machine. Five days to finish thirty servings of coffee? That may be a record.
"Joe! Get off your ass and drink some goddamn coffee," Aaron yelled at the top of his voice at the lump of blankets bumming on his couch. He felt a slight sadistic satisfaction as the lump writhed in pain at the noise. Dammit if he was going to play nurse in his own apartment.
A groan from the lump. "It's not daylight yet. I refuse. I reject this reality. My head hurts. Shuddup."
"There is no such thing as vacation. You've got a shift in three hours. You sold your soul to the hospital, remember?"
The slur in Joe's voice increased exponentially. "Y'doffing jobifwanna. M'gbednow. Shuddup."
Aaron surveyed the lump with mixed disgust and affection. He found himself saying, "Fine, I'll go in today, but you owe me one, bigtime. Rent would be nice."
As always, the door to the bathroom took a few heaves with the shoulder to fully shut. Aaron promised himself that he'd go to the hardware store and fix the hinges in the next week - as he had for the last three months. He stepped into the shower and cold water poured down his body, shocking the skin awake. He scrubbed the last week off his body and wiped it off with a ragged green towel. Aaron pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt and didn't recognize himself in the mirror as a civilian. The brown hair was the same, the facial scruff, the grey-green eyes a little more tired, a little older. Muscles slowly atrophying; med school didn't exactly give time to work out. He felt the urge to get out on the track, take the icy air into his lungs and feel the rhythmic pounding of tennis shoes against rubber. Then a clean pair of blue scrubs went into the duffle bag and a familiar, safe feeling settled back in. Even when the future seems dreary and hopeless, it's reassuring to know that nothing will ever change. Aaron put on his best family-comforting fake smile and shoved the door open. He had some dead people to check up on.
Head Nurse Luisa Alvarez carried a stack of papers under her arm like a soldier might carry an AK-47 – cautiously and acutely aware of its effect on the passerby. Nurses, patients and the occasional doctor scurried out of her way as she stalked across the halls like a force of nature. She was a middle-aged woman whose gray hair was never out of place, tucked into a bun inside her hairnet. In another life she might have been a school principal or a Supreme Court justice. She wore her white jacket like a uniform and was never less than five minutes early to any meeting.
"Nurse Helen," she waylaid a young woman in blue scrubs. "Take this to Intensive Care and give it to Doctor Jackson."
"Yes Ma'am." Helen darted off, long brown ponytail swinging as she power-walked.
The thin figure slipped around a corner and Luisa Alvarez allowed herself a split second of self-pity. She was aware that her own figure had always lacked in the way of seductive qualities. To put it in plain terms she was short and on the hefty side, she had the beaked nose and wide lips that signaled her Aztec heritage. Her dark eyes could see through any lie and strike fear into the souls of doctors and interns alike and while she could project empathy, she did not inspire passion. Her demeanor was similarly unwelcoming. She was not cold-hearted, simply a woman of business. She did not tolerate imperfections in herself or others.
Luisa quickly shook off the feelings of jealousy and returned to her work. Her single-mindedness had taken her from the shanty-towns of Mexico City to the Northeast United States when she was twelve years old. She had not learned to speak English without an accent, worked her way through college and nurse school and finally ended up at the top rung of a prestigious hospital to feel sorry for herself because she was not born with a petite bottom.
In the terminal care ward it was nearly silent. Luisa set the file folders on the rolling table next to the door and proceeded to check the conditions of the patients. By now most of them were old friends, and she talked to them softly in Spanish as she moved between the beds, checking for cleanliness and proper procedure.
"Hola Darien. Como estas?" She moved methodically and efficiently, making check marks on her clipboard. "Ojala que estarás bien, tú lo sabes? Siempre bien para ti."
She thought about Aaron Morrell. He was a nice young man, and it was time for him to be moved to a better ward. One could only take so much of this silent constant care. She made a note to refer him to the doctors in surgery. He wanted to be a surgeon, right? Or was he the future pediatrician? She was annoyed at herself for not remembering, as she prided herself on her excellent memory. Surgeon. Definitely surgeon. But now she was not paying attention to what she was doing. She would have redo her report on the last patient.
"Hola Bianca. Como estas?"
Luisa was fully occupied with her report when she heard the words, distinctly murmured with a terrible accent, spoken from the other end of the bed, "Estoy bien. Y tu?"
Head Nurse Luisa Alvarez rose slowly from the floor to see the wide dark eyes of Bianca Lefroy open and staring weakly into her own. Mechanical and living heartbeats rose with identical acceleration.
I am thirteen years old and I stand in the middle of the room. The colors condense into desks, students. The darkness behind me swirls into a blackboard smeared with chalk. I take a step back and the chalk rubs against my blue sweater, the one that James says brings out the darkness in my eyes. I don't love James anymore, because he left me here with her and went away. James, my father. Jim Lefroy.
I can feel the pimple on my left cheek, the one that won't go away. It throbs, reddish and irritated. I am sure that everyone in the room is staring at it, like there's a spotlight on that traitorous red lump of flesh. They're all waiting for me to say something, do something. I don't know what to do. My hands move nervously up and down my tight jeans, rearrange the bottom of my ugly pink-striped shirt. My dirty tennis shoes scratch against the old grey carpet. I look down at my shoes to avoid the stares.
They're talking to themselves, talking about me. They stare at me with half-closed bored eyes, some listening to contraband music, some chewing contraband gum. Some leaning back catching a contraband wink of sleep. Nothing is legal here.
A girl walks to the front of the room and stands in front of me. She is my next-door neighbor. She is not my best friend. When we were eight years old James would take us to the Baskin Robbins next to the gas station and the driver's education parking lot and she would get one scoop of butter pecan in a waffle cone and she would carefully sculpt the tan ice cream into a perfect sphere with her pink tongue. She would remove the pecans with her teeth and then lick the ice cream into the pecan-less crater until it was perfect again. She liked to dab the corners of her mouth with a paper napkin and call James "Mr Lefroy Sir". I would get a different ice cream flavor every single time, but we stopped going to the ice cream store before I could try the thirty-second flavor. Before I die I want to eat bubblegum ice cream. I will lick the pink blob into a perfect sphere and remove the pieces of bubblegum with my teeth and I will remember my next door neighbor who is not my best friend.
My not-best-friend smiles at me but she doesn't mean it. Then she begins the oral examination, the one I've been dreading all morning. "Hola, Bianca. Como estas?"
The next words are easy. They have been drilled into me so often that they are part of my subconscious. "Estoy bien. Y tu?" My voice sounds tired, slurred. The accent is terrible. I am sure that Señora will fail me this time. I am afraid. I do not remember the rest of the script. I open my eyes.
Pain. The whiteness is consuming. I am aware of heavy breathing, of a beeping sound near my skull. I tell my hands to cover my face but they will not move. I become aware of the feel of linen against my legs, the feel of metal against my arm. I try to see but it is too bright. Blurs slowly condense into objects – rectangular fluorescent lights, grey ceiling tiles. I realize that I am on my back.
A strange woman stands between me and the light, and she says something in Spanish that I do not recognize. I try to close my eyes and pretend I am asleep again but like James she doesn't buy it, she says my name and touches me on the shoulder. I shall have to get up now. I don't want to. Five more minutes. Please, just five more minutes. I console myself with the idea that at the very least I do not have to finish my conversation practice.