He nodded. “If you’ll tell me why you were spying on me last week.”
“Spying?” She quailed, then realized it was no use denying it. At least he had asked instead of just assuming he knew the answer. “I wasn’t exactly spying. I just wanted to get a closer look at you before we had to start this. I guess I wanted to see what the big deal was.”
“Big deal?” He raised his eyebrows, a little grin twisting his mouth.
“Well, about you, you know?” She shifted in her seat, finding it difficult to sit still. “I mean, you’ve got to know you’re the stuff of legend around here. Your temper, and well…”
“My libido?” He leered as she hesitated, then leaned forward, looking around as if to make sure no one was listening before speaking. “I will say I’ve never heard any rumors about myself that weren’t true.”
For a moment, his grin was so wicked Becky actually imagined him sprouting horns and a tail, like a giant devil. He was obviously familiar with the stories about him and Nurse This or Nurse That in the broom closet. Despite herself, Becky couldn’t seem to disbelieve him, even though she was aware she desperately wanted to.
Regaining her composure, Becky took another sip of her coffee and nearly made a face when she remembered it was black. “Actually, I was going to say your award.” She forced her voice into a calm timbre. “You seem an odd choice for patient relations. I mean, I haven’t seen you with a patient who was even conscious yet.”
He leaned back, sipping his coffee with a nonchalant air. “Hang around. In the meantime, did you have any idea about what happened out there?”
Something about his facile disregard for the patients irritated her, although she wasn’t sure what it was. As she considered this, a radiology resident entered the break room and made a beeline for the table, holding out a chart and several films. “Thought you should see this, Dr. Grant.” He rattled one of the films in their direction. “I think the patient needs to be admitted.”
Becky watched with interest as John held the X-ray up to the light. Even her untrained eye could see the break in the bone.
John lowered the film, raising his eyebrows at the resident. “It looks like a clean break. Seems to be set okay. How old is the patient?”
“Five. This is why I think he should be admitted.” The resident offered another X-ray.
John held the second film up to the light, leaning back in his chair to look. He frowned and the front legs of his chair hit the floor. Then he stalked across the hall to the radiology reading room, his face grim, and Becky and the resident followed in his wake. By the time they got there, John was jamming films onto the light box with a ferocity Becky had not seen yet.
“Damn it all.” He wheeled around to the resident, who, instead of acting startled by his attitude, nodded agreement. “This kid’s five?” He pointed to something on the chest X-ray that Becky could not immediately see. “That break’s two or three years old and it never healed properly.”
The resident folded his arms, regarding the X-rays with professional detachment. “We did a skeletal survey. The shoulder looks to have been dislocated at least once and there are about five old, healed rib fractures in the back.”
Becky drew in a sharp breath, but neither John nor the resident looked at her. Even she saw the inevitable conclusion the two doctors had already reached.
John nodded. “I’ll call Social Services. In the meantime, let’s get him admitted and away from the parents. I’ll make something up. The mom’s here?”
“Yeah, and I think you might want to get in there before Joe goes ballistic.” The young doctor grinned, referring to another resident Becky had noticed earlier in the day working with John. “The kid’s mom keeps asking for his ‘supervisor.’”
John snorted. “You guys are too good for some of these people.” He left the room, and Becky followed, chucking the rest of the coffee into a nearby trashcan without regret.
Mindful of patient confidentiality, she stayed discreetly behind the curtained alcove containing the weary mother and her injured son as John informed her they would be keeping the boy overnight “for observation.” During the course of the discussion, John discovered there was another baby at home with the father, something Becky noticed didn’t make him happy, but he dealt with it admirably. A few minutes later, as a nurse guided the mother and son to the pediatric ward, John seized his phone to call the Social Services Department. Becky heard him reporting a probable case of child abuse treated in the emergency room with a younger sibling at home.
When he hung up, Becky started forward to ask him what would happen to the baby, but stopped when John lowered his head for a moment, looking like a bull knowing his next charge at the matador might be his last. Startled, she realized he didn’t skip with ease from one case to the next. He felt the pain of his patients more than he let on, and that empathy had reached Dee Martin when her sister had been hurt. “Dr. Grant?”
Tentative as her voice had been, he swung around. “Oh. You.” He picked up another chart and brushed past her.
“It’s not always easy, is it?” She stood her ground, determined not to let the moment pass. John Grant, after all, was her assignment.
He froze. “What’s that?”
“Moving on to the next patient when the last one still needs help.” She bit her lip, hearing more sympathy in her voice than she’d intended.
“No.” His voice was soft, almost lost in the continuous activity of the room. “It’s not always easy. And there are no easy answers, either. You get used to it.”
“Do you?” She took a step closer to him.
He glanced over his shoulder and smiled a little. “You do. Now let’s get going.”
She followed, standing aside as he checked the setting of a broken finger. More patients flooded in, and John was called on to check the diagnosis of several, including a pregnant woman with abdominal cramps and spotting, a baby with a high fever and an elderly man with chest pains.
Even as she tried to keep up, Becky wondered where she’d gotten the idea that all ER patients were car accidents or crime sufferers. She soon found out how wrong a mass media-fed person can be. In the ER, pathos mixed freely with comedy. Becky followed John from the car-wreck victims to the man who tried out his new water skis by hooking himself up behind a four-wheeler driven down a shallow creek. He’d escaped with a few bruises, abrasions on his face and a pair of broken skis, but the entire staff of the ER was shaking their heads and hiding smiles before he left.
There were also the sad cases, like the HIV patient with pneumonia and the young teenager who overdosed. Without distinction given to race, creed or sexual orientation, they were treated, stabilized and either returned to the streets, shuttled off to a ward for observation or sent downstairs to the morgue.
Around three o’clock there was a lull, and Becky noticed a lot of people disappearing into the break room. John, who seemed to have forgotten Becky, escorted a couple of nurses, joking and talking. Feeling more depressed every moment, Becky followed, but when she got into the break room, John handed her a cup of black coffee again and motioned to a couch. “St. Mercy.” When she stared at him, uncomprehending, he added, “Our soap. It’s always good for a laugh.”
The staff on break gathered around the television, laughing at the oxygen masks taped onto the faces of comatose patients, the upside down X-rays and the other various procedural mistakes committed by innocent actors playing doctors. There were hoots and laughs during the love scenes, and Becky was intensely aware of John next to her during one hot and heavy scene in a call room.
In the midst of this, a nurse stuck her