I spent an entire sixty minutes showering, applying makeup and fixing my schizophrenic hair into a semblance of the style I’d paid a week’s wages for. Dressed in black gabardine pants, a loose-fitting pink sweater and pink flowery earrings, I bid Digger farewell, ignoring his imploring howls as I got into the Honda, hoping he wouldn’t soil the floor again.
The raw March wind tried to shove my little car off the twisting road to the OCSC as I mentally rehearsed what I would say when I “ran into” Joe. Something casual yet charming. Something that would stick in his brain. I had to remember to feign surprise that he was working here. “Oh, hey, Joe! What are you doing here? Me? Oh, I’m going to be covering for Dr. Whitaker here on Thursdays.” Hence, I would impress Joe with my credentials, inform him that I would be a regular visitor and get to see him without having to create a coincidence.
As I turned into the OCSC, my heart leaped. Joe’s truck, a worn, maroon Chevy Cheyenne with Joe Carpenter the Carpenter stenciled in white on both doors, was in the nearly empty parking lot. I girded my loins, if a woman could do that, and prepared to insert my funny, kind, generous and more attractive self into Joe’s radar. The minute I stepped out of the car, the wind began ravishing my hair, but having learned about the effects of salt air and my new cut, I clamped my hands over my head and ran to the front door.
The familiar, not unpleasant (to me) smell of a health-care institution greeted me…low-salt food, disinfectant and that indefinable medical odor. I peeked down the empty hallways that led off the foyer. No Joe. There was no one at the front desk, either, so I walked over to the large common room on the left, noting the automatic locking doors at the entrance that would prevent anyone from leaving without notice. Ah, here was life! Clustered around a huge TV that showed Judge Judy in alarming detail, a dozen or so seniors, some in wheelchairs, sat mesmerized by Her Honor’s shrill opinions.
One woman managed to tear herself away from the show. She wore scrubs, and I guessed her to be an aide of some kind, the type of person who does all the dirty work in a place like this. She approached and gave me a cool once-over.
“Yes?” she asked, hands on her hips, looking a little ticked that I had interrupted the good judge.
“Hi, I’m Dr. Barnes. I’m covering for Dr. Whitaker,” I answered with a smile.
“Millie Barnes?” asked the aide. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“Yes.”
“You don’t recognize me, do you?” asked the aide sourly. Thin, chin-length blond hair with an inch and a half of black roots framed a plain, worn-looking face. She had a truck driver’s build—beer belly, big, strong-looking arms and pink-rimmed eyes.
“Uh, no, sorry…you look familiar, but I can’t think of your name,” I said awkwardly.
“Stephanie Petrucelli,” she answered, irritated that I hadn’t placed her. “We went to Nauset High together.”
Oh, yes! One of the rougher girls in my class, tattooed, bullying, large-pored. An image of freshman Spanish class came to me, Stephanie snickering loudly as I tried gamely to imitate our teacher’s accent. Memories of her waiting ominously for me in the bus line. Mocking me at the tenth-grade dance. Laughing as I barfed on the bus. Though she had never actually made good on her threats to beat me up, she had terrorized me nonetheless. Stephanie had been one of those less-gifted students who had hated everyone smarter than she was. And that was a lot of people.
“I remember now,” I said, neutrally assessing her appearance. The years had not been kind.
“I heard you were a doctor,” she said, sneering.
“That’s right.”
“So what are you doing here? Dr. Whitaker’s our doc.”
“I think I’ve already told you,” I answered snippily—amazing how quickly old resentments flare up. “I’ll be covering for him on Thursdays.”
“Oh. So. What do you want?”
“How about the charts on his patients?” I asked.
“Fine. Go down that hall to the nurses’ station. The charts are all there.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Enjoy your show.” She scowled, and I hid a smile.
I walked down the hall, aware again that Joe Carpenter was somewhere in the building, and discreetly fluffed the chronically flat part of my hair. At the nurses’ station, I introduced myself to the other staffers, only one of whom was a nurse, and spent about an hour going over charts. Most of the patients suffered from fairly standard senior-citizen complaints: coronary or vascular disease, Alzheimer’s, stroke, diabetes.
Dr. Whitaker examined each patient at least twice a month, some as often as once a week. He was meticulous in his notes, his handwriting uncharacteristically neat. He’d left a list of patients to examine today and had given me some background information on each of them, which I appreciated immensely.
The first patient was Mrs. Delmonico, who suffered from morbid obesity and insulin-dependent diabetes. I chatted with her for a few minutes before starting the exam, congratulating her on her newest great-grandchild. She had a shallow ulcer as a result of her poor circulation, and I changed the dressing and wrote orders for whirlpool therapy. Next came Mrs. Walker, a dementia patient who was nonverbal and thin but otherwise seemed to be in good health. I checked her Aricept dose and asked the nurse about art or pet therapy for her, something that seemed to work well with Alzheimer’s patients. Mr. Hughes, the father of one of my childhood friends, was ornery, itching to go home after a long recovery from peritonitis resulting from a ruptured appendix. I told him that I would talk with Dr. Whitaker about discharge and asked after Sandy, his daughter. He then apologized sheepishly for his bad temper and told me he couldn’t believe I was old enough to be a doctor.
It was wonderful. This was exactly what I wanted to do with my life. And then came Mr. Glover…
Stephanie helped him down the hall to the tiny exam room. Only slightly stooped, he looked pretty hale, actually. Rather dashing in a way, with a white mustache and nicely ironed cotton shirt under a blue cardigan.
“Hi, Mr. Glover,” I said with a smile.
“This is Dr. Barnes,” Stephanie said in a clear, precise voice. “She’s helping Dr. Whitaker. Is it okay if she checks you out?”
Mr. Glover looked at me, nodded and got onto the exam table without too much difficulty.
“Great!” Stephanie smiled as she left. I guess I’d been too harsh on her before. She clearly had a way with the old folks, and as for the work she did, well, you couldn’t pay her enough.
“I’m just going to listen to your heart, okay, Mr. Glover?” I asked. He didn’t answer, but smiled sweetly. I pressed the stethoscope against his chest and listened to the blood rushing through his ventricles. Faint but regular. Blood pressure excellent. I tapped on his back to auscultate his lungs, then checked his pupils for reactivity.
“Everything seems great,” I said. “How are you feeling, Mr. Glover? Any complaints?”
“I feel rather hard,” he said, gazing at me with a lovely smile.
“Pardon me?” I asked.
“I’m rather hard,” he repeated.
I glanced at his lap, not quite sure if that was the hardness he meant. It was.
“Um…” I stalled, not sure if he was giving me a real complaint. After all, involuntary tumescence was a legitimate medical—
“Care to take a look?” he asked pleasantly. His gaze dropped to my chest, and he casually reached for my breast, arthritic fingers outstretched.
“Hey! No! None of that, Mr. Glover!” I stepped back quickly, bumping into the scale. “Uh, I think you might want to talk to Dr. Whitaker if you think—” Sometimes dementia results in inappropriate sexual impulses, my brain recited. It would have