“Good afternoon. I’m Dr. Gregory.”
“What took you so long?”
Rude.
But no more rude than young Justin’s father. Alex had pushed his glasses farther up his nose. “That seems to be a popular question this afternoon. We’re a little busier than usual during South by Southwest. What’s brought you in today?”
“Where the hell is my phone?”
And shallow.
Nothing during the exam was changing his first impression of her. While he examined her ankle, she complained about the facility. She’d been placed in the overflow area, an older part of the emergency department where the beds were separated by curtains rather than walls. This was, according to the not-so-noble woman who’d provided the noble face of Princess Eva Picasso, utterly unacceptable.
“It’s also unavoidable,” Alex said. “By definition, overflow area implies that all the other rooms are full.”
“When my personal assistant gets back with my phone, she’ll have me moved.”
Alex raised an eyebrow on that one. Not many patients brought along a personal assistant, at least not this far from Hollywood. Still, a movie star’s personal assistant had exactly zero influence on how the emergency department of West Central Texas Hospital ran. Alex took the stethoscope from around his neck and inserted the ear pieces.
“Oh, no, you don’t. You don’t get to slip your hand inside this dress. It’s my ankle that hurts. Do you think I don’t know that you’re dying to tell everyone that you felt me up?” Her indignation dissolved into yet another coughing fit.
Sarcastic comments flashed through his mind. You’re right. The stethoscope works just fine if I stand three feet away and aim it at you. We doctors have been lying about that for centuries, but you’re the one who figured it out.
But he was here to provide medical care for a twenty-nine-year-old female patient, not to teach a lesson in sarcasm to a movie star. “I’ll be able to hear your lungs through the material. Would you like for me to call in a nurse anyway?”
She crossed her arms over her chest, but leaned forward a few inches, granting him limited access. “You can listen to my back. Then go see if my assistant has found my phone yet. Your Texas Rescue people are probably hiding it from her.”
Just provide medical care. Alex put the chest piece on her back, which felt like the back of any other human, whether male or female, attractive or ugly, famous or obscure. Provide care, then get her out of here.
He heard the crackles he’d expected to hear. He flipped the stethoscope to hang around the back of his neck again, then slid the curtains back on their metal rings. “We need to get some X-rays, but you won’t have to move to a wheelchair. An orderly will roll your gurney down to radiology. There’s a bit of a wait right now, but the nurse will be in to check on you periodically.”
“You’re planning on wheeling me around the hospital in this bed? No, no, no. You need to bring an X-ray machine up here, right after you put me in my own room.”
“That’s not the way it works here.”
“My privacy needs to be guaranteed. Be sure you send my assistant back as soon as you see her. She’ll handle everything.”
Alex left without another word, snapping the curtains shut behind him. If Sophia Jackson had that much faith in her assistant’s ability to make a hospital bow to her whims, then that assistant must be even more of a harridan than Sophia herself. Dr. Gregory planned to steer clear of her. As the only doctor on duty, he didn’t have time to spend deflating some puffed-up bit of Hollywood hot air.
His most senior nurse, Loretta, was coming on duty. He’d let Loretta handle Sophia Jackson’s personal assistant.
Alex wanted nothing to do with her.
“Dr. Gregory, we have a problem.”
Alex kept writing his notes on the patient in room three, but he nodded to his nurse to continue. Loretta had worked in the ER for so long that nothing shook her up. If Loretta was concerned, then Alex was concerned.
“Go ahead,” he said, as he signed his name for the twentieth time today and tossed the paper into the in-box on the nurse’s station.
“They just roomed another patient in the overflow area.”
“That makes two. The overflow area holds eight.”
“I know, but the beds are only separated by curtains in overflow.” Loretta lowered her voice as if she were about to tell a secret. “Sophia Jackson is in one of those beds. We’d better do some rearranging. Her assistant is asking about HIPAA.”
HIPAA, or hippah, as everyone called it, governed medical privacy. The harridan of a personal assistant had arrived, and now she wanted to threaten his ER with privacy regulations, did she?
“You know that the curtained area is considered HIPAA compliant.”
“Yes, but Sophia Jackson is famous.”
Surely his best nurse didn’t expect him to move a patient just to pander to someone famous. For the second time this shift, he felt as he had when he’d first come to America. The culture shock had been extreme. To survive the jungle that was the American high school, he’d quickly dumped his cycling stars and learned who the heroes of American football were. He’d killed all trace of his Russian accent. He’d worn blue jeans and Dallas Cowboy T-shirts, but all of that had been camouflage. Surface-level changes.
Deep down, he’d never quite caught that American mindset. To this day, he didn’t understand the fascination with the famous. Of all the traits a person might have, fame was one of the most useless. In his old life, rank in the political hierarchy mattered. Wealth mattered, for money bought power, and both could assure safety. Smarts mattered—a smart man could be valuable to those who held rank. But fame? Fame didn’t put bread in your belly when you were hiding from corrupt government officials. Fame didn’t pay for passage on a rickety ship to a country that didn’t want you.
“You know people will overhear you,” Loretta said.
“Then I’ll try not to call out her full name too loudly as I ask for her autograph.”
“Be serious, Dr. Gregory.”
He was always serious, even when the sarcasm slipped out. Sophia Jackson was famous and frivolous and nothing more. She’d be in no danger if her name slipped out, but she didn’t need to worry: Alex was not a man who let names slip. He could remember a time when his mother’s life had depended on his ability to keep her name a secret.
He paused, mentally closing the door on unwelcome memories. “Every room is full because you’ve got only one doctor on duty, so let me get back to work. Sophia Jackson will survive with curtains instead of walls. I’ve already examined her, so there’s nothing medical for anyone to overhear, anyway. If she doesn’t want anyone to overhear her other types of complaints, then she can stop complaining.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“Loretta, one more thing. When the soccer kid in room three goes for his X-ray, make sure he doesn’t cross paths with Sophia Jackson. He’s a big fan of one of her movies, and I don’t—”
“You wouldn’t want him to bother Miss Jackson.”
“Actually, I wouldn’t want Miss Jackson to ruin his image of her.”
“Understood. By the way, her personal assistant is going to want to know how we’ll keep her identity a secret while we roll her gurney down to radiology.”
“If