“See that he makes it, Carter.”
“Yes, Sister.”
“I knew you would.”
When Carter walked into the conference room the next morning for the Friday staff meeting, he found Dana and Howard sitting there, not speaking. Dana twisted the ring on his finger—Carter noted that the tiger’s eye matched the stones in his bracelet—and Howard chomped on a toothpick. Dana greeted Carter then looked at his Rolex. Carter consulted Mickey. Two minutes early. He sat down and unwrapped the muffin that he had picked up at the hospital cafeteria downstairs. It seemed terribly misleading to call the hardened lump of dough with crunchy raisins “Morning Glory.”
Dana watched him strip off the paper and made a peevish face, like a child confronted with a spoonful of cod liver oil. “Last night we had the most fabulous dinner,” Dana said to Carter. “Have you dined at Cote d’Azur yet?”
Howard, who always walked into a room looking like he would rather be leaving, quietly chomped on his toothpick. Occasionally he reached to his nose to push back his black-rimmed glasses. Dana and Carter tacitly agreed to ignore him.
Carter knew of Cote d’Azur. The chic new restaurant downtown was the latest rave of food critics, and well out of his budget. He had smelled the wonderful aroma walking by on his way to Subway. Dana could pay his bill there without bothering to look at it.
“No, I haven’t had the pleasure, yet.” Carter used a gulp of coffee to help him chew the muffin. “Is that the new seafood joint in the warehouse district?”
Dana gasped. “Most certainly not. You must get out more often, lad.”
For all of Dana’s foibles, Carter liked him. He could be shrewd and petty, but he was basically well meaning. A recovering alcoholic himself, he had the kids’ best interest at heart. He was the sort of doctor who listened first to the person then to the problem. There was no malice in his façade, something that the kids readily sensed, too. Still, Carter couldn’t resist teasing him, he was so easy.
“I just thought with a name like that, you know, it would be a seafood joint with shrimp cocktail and catfish filets.”
“Hardly. The cuisine is exquisite. We had an absolutely charming meal.”
Judy entered the conference room, bumping the door open wider with her hip, her arms loaded with patient charts. Dana checked his Rolex. Carter pressed the muffin crumbs on the table and licked them off his fingertip, pretending not to notice Judy’s struggle with the shifting pile of charts. She maneuvered the load to the table, but not before one chart dropped to the floor with a crash, spewing papers about her feet. She still managed a cheery, “Good morning, Doctor Donnelly.”
Dana nodded.
Howard leaped to his feet, stumbling over his chair to help his wife collect the papers. In his haste, his glasses slipped off his nose, and he messed up the spilled papers while he fumbled for his thick lenses.
“Howard,” Judy snapped and slapped at his hand. She handed him his glasses. “Go back to your seat.”
Judy apologized to Dana for her tardiness. She took her place at the table next to him with still no word to Carter.
Howard removed his frayed toothpick, glanced around, then tugged a small cylinder case from his breast pocket, slid out a fresh toothpick, and tucked the used one inside. Before shutting the case, he offered a toothpick to Carter.
“No, thanks. I just ate.”
Howard gave him a confused look, shrugged, and replaced the case in his pocket.
Nathalie walked in with a pot of coffee and cups. Her perfume bathed the room. “Morning. Coffee anyone?”
Carter was ready for a refill. “Where have you been all my life?”
“Right behind you, looking for the ideal man.”
“Pity you’re farsighted.”
Nathalie sat down and swished a stray strand of auburn hair from her forehead, tilting her head to expose a long line of smooth neck. Though the wrinkles at her eyes betrayed her age and the remnants of a difficult divorce, her eyes sparkled with youthful mischief. Her nose had a playful lift to it, and her lips seemed always on the verge of laughter. Carter got a good feeling simply looking at her.
“Howard, you need a light?” she asked.
He poked up his glasses defensively. “Best cure for cigarettes I can recommend.”
“Except for the slivers. I dated a guy once who chewed toothpicks—was like kissing a splintered rail.” She winked at Carter. “You ever have that problem, Judy.”
Judy paused with her charts. “No, my dear. I’ve been happily married for eighteen years.”
“Is that what you call it?” Nathalie shot back.
Buddha shuffled in, slurping his signature strawberry shake out of his SlimFast water bottle. Dana checked his Rolex. Taking the kids out for activities, Buddha faced the potential problem of their rowdiness, but he was strict, and they rarely tried to cross him. One of his responsibilities as rec therapist was to come in early on Friday mornings to check on the kids so the nurses could prepare the charts for the staff meeting. Yet he lumbered into the conference room as relaxed as if he had just risen from a sound night’s sleep. “Morning everyone, whaddya say?”
He sat down next to Carter and thumped his back with one of his beefy paws. “Whaddya say, Carter?”
“Hi, Buddha. How’re the kids?”
“Angels.”
“Oscar?”
“Stewin’ about something. Won’t talk to me.”
“Did he sleep through the night?”
“Was up most of it, they tell me, sittin’ in the window. Wouldn’t talk to nobody.”
“Is it true he cut off his finger while tripping?” Dana asked.
“That’s what he told me.”
“Ouch,” Nathalie said.
Buddha tugged at his shake.
Judy busied herself with the preparation of the charts, opening each to the page for the doctor’s orders, and loudly stacking them in alphabetical order, the metal binders clanking against one another. “He’s going to be trouble.”
“Where’d he come from?” Dana asked.
Judy paused with the charts.
“He’d been living on the streets,” Carter said.
“How’d he wind up here?”
“Officer Patterson brought him over from Juvenile.”
“Yes, but who referred him?” Judy pressed.
“Why don’t you ask Sister Xavier for the specifics?”
“I was just asking a question, Carter. Easy does it.”
Mindy’s arrival squelched the conversation. Dana even forgot to check his watch. She wore an orange suit with wide shoulders and a short skirt. An aqua bow barely softened her starched white blouse. The rest of the staff was dressed casually. Howard, the staff psychologist, who would have been her logical role model—except that he was Howard—wore green polyester slacks, a yellow checkered shirt, and a spotted turquoise clip-on tie. Judy always wore her white nurse’s pants with white tennis shoes. That Friday, she had on a beige cardigan. Nathalie occasionally wore a skirt, but that morning wore khaki slacks, a loose cotton sweater, and lavender socks under her Birkenstocks. Buddha and Carter wore jeans, sweatshirts, and sneakers. Dana even had