Fragile (2 page)

“Let’s go and tell the patient.”

After informing the patient and the family of our plans, I collapsed on a small bed on one of the on-call rooms. Even though the room was dark the noise from the hospital seeped through the walls and under the door. I stretched my aching body and rolled trying to get as comfortable as possible on the uncomfortable mattress. After a fifteen hour surgery I craved sleep. I was in desperate need of sleep. I even lost what time it could possibly be. All I knew was that I was tired. When my eyes finally closed and my body began to relax enough to where I was almost asleep I heard a ringing. I rolled over to find my phone as I chanted, ‘don’t be dead, don’t be dead,’ over and over in my head. My last patient was still in ICU when I came in here to try and rest.

“Jackson.” I answered gruffly my voice still groggy from nearly being asleep.

“I’m looking for Lucy?” A deep male voice spoke.

I rubbed my eyes and sat up in the bed. “This is she.”

I stood up and stretched. I was up now, thanks to the man who was on the other end of the line and doubted very much that I’d get any sleep.

“I’m Rick, Mather’s son. She asked that I give you a call to see how you are. They haven’t heard from you, and your Dad’s pretty worried.”

I hadn’t called them so they had someone else call me? I took a deep, calming breath before I spoke again. My voice was tight and I was doing everything I could think of to stay calm. “I’m fine. I’ll call them when I get a chance.”

I heard him exhale, “I was also asked to see you and to make sure that you’ve got all your limbs and whatnot.”

“You don’t sound too excited about doing that.”

“Mather is persistent, and I frankly just don’t have the time to baby sit you.” The way he implied that I needed to be babysat and the tone of his voice in which he said it pissed me off even more than his phone call.

“I don’t need to be baby sat, so let’s don’t and say we did.” I hung up the phone, ending our conversation and walked out of the on-call room. I was fuming over the stupid call that prevented me from sleeping and that my family had called someone who I’d never met or wanted to meet to track me down. I cursed this stranger silently and mentally threw things at walls as I walked down the corridor to check on my patients.

“Dr. Jackson?”

I gave the owner of the small deep voice a once over and noticed that he looked nervous, but all interns looked nervous, it tended to be a requirement.

“Bed twenty-one needs a central line...”

“Give him a central line then!”

He knotted his fingers together and frowned slightly. I knew what he was going to say before he even said it. “Come on and I’ll show you how to do one.” He smiled slightly at me as he followed me into the room.

After I showed him how to do a proper central line, Dr. Matthew looked relieved. “Thank you, Dr. Jackson. I never really got that skill. I’ll practice it until I do though, I will.” He assured me.

“It’s alright, Dr. Matthew. Maybe you should head over to the skills lab and practice on it while you have some free time.”

“Great idea.” He turned and rushed off almost knocking a nurse down on his way past. I took the chance to go outside and grab some more coffee. I felt like I’d been living on the stuff lately. I found a seat, pulled out my tablet and went to a real estate website.

“Hey, girl.” Brittney sat down across from me with a tray of food. “What’re you looking at?” I flipped my tablet to show her. “Uh, house hunting. I guess living in the hospital has lost its appeal?” She shovelled food into her mouth, finally giving me a chance to speak.

“I’m here all the time anyway but Chief says that I really need to find a home away from home.”

“Mmm,” Brittney nodded.

“I just don’t know whether I want to rent or buy, and then there’s the location, whether I want a house or an apartment...” I trailed off as more people joined the table.

Debates flew around the table on which was better, renting or owning and where the best location to live was. We argued over what was convenient to the hospital versus what was most relaxing. The table went silent as all of our pagers went off calling us all to the ER. In a rush, we left our trays where they sat and ran towards the hospital where the ambulances were already emptying their beds with injured people.

The ambulance sirens were deafening. Added to the orders being shouted and hysterical patients screaming, it was chaotic. Running towards an ambulance with my interns in tow, I took the chart from the paramedic and got the stats. “Ok, we’re going to need blood and lots of it.”

“On it,” an intern shouted as she hurried away from the gurney, her sneakers squeaking across the ground as she ran.

My phone kept ringing and each time I looked at it, it displayed the number I now recognized as Rick’s. “Are you going to get that?” Dr. Hunter asked as he put down the chart he’d been filling out.

“Nope.” I popped out the word as I kept my head in my chart and my pen to paper.

“Old boyfriend?” I shook my head not looking up from the chart, avoiding the question.

“You are a mystery, Dr. Jackson, one that I’m looking forward to figuring out.” I lifted my head and watched Dr. Hunter walk away, disappearing around a corner. He had short black hair that he kept neat. His green eyes were hidden behind his thick black glasses and he had cheek bones that made you want to go ‘woof’ when you saw him.

“He’s so handsome,” the nurse behind the counter sighed, her eyes fixated on the corner that the fine doctor had just walked around.

“Why don’t you ask him out?” I teased her.

“Oh no dear, I’m too old for him. Now you on the other hand...” She winked at me as she took the chart I was holding out for her.

My pager started beeping, telling me that I was needed down in the lobby. Saying bye to the nurse I got the elevator downstairs. “Hey, I’m Dr. Jackson. I was paged down here,” I approached the receptionist who was sitting behind the front desk.

She simply pointed over to a man who was standing against a pillar, not far away from where I was standing. He was wearing a business suit over what looked to be a very muscular build, and his hair was trimmed and tidy. He put Dr. Hunter to shame, and Dr. Hunter was one fine man.

When his eyes met mine, I knew exactly who he was. He had his mother’s eyes. They were a clear shade of blue and he was the spitting image of Tray, his younger brother.

He pushed away from the pillar and walked over to me.

“Lucy.” His deep voice resonated throughout the empty lobby.

“Rick.” I held onto my stethoscope that was draped around my neck, needing some sort of distraction. “I didn’t tell Mather or my Dad where I was working, how did you find me?”

“I searched you.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “You searched me, as in Google?”

“Something like that. You weren’t answering my calls and I needed to talk to you.” He put his hands in his pockets and rocked back on the heels of his shoes, like he was nervous.

“I was in surgery.” I crossed my arms defensively across my chest.

“For the past fifteen hours?” He asked as his own eyebrow rose and I could tell from the tone of his voice that he didn’t believe me.

“For the most part. The rest of the time I was ignoring you.”

“Want to go and get something to eat? And before you protest and deny me, I’m not taking no for an answer, so you might as well just say yes, or nod your head in agreement.”

“I have rounds,” I lied.

“How long will that take?” His eyes still held mine as he stood with his arms crossed over his broad chest.

“Hours,” I said simply.

“Give me a time to come and pick you up then.”

“It’s hard to say, really, I could tell you one time and be in surgery then. Stuff comes up all the time, so there’s just no telling.” We fell silent for a moment before I remembered what he’d said the other day. “I thought you didn’t have time to babysit me anyway.”

“That was wrong of me to say. Mather and I don’t get along, and well....doing something for her isn’t high on my agenda.”

We had that in common evidently. She must have done something really big to piss him off. “Just call me when you’ve finished, and we’ll get something to eat.”

“Ok.” I turned and walked away. I gave myself an hour and half before I couldn’t take the guilt of blowing him off anymore and called him.

LUCY

As I stood in front of the small, communal bathroom mirror, I shook my head and told myself that I was being a fool for feeling so guilty over blowing him off and now I was about to go and meet a total stranger and have dinner with him.

“Didn’t your father ever teach you about stranger danger?” I muttered to myself as I did my hair, “Yes he did.” I responded to myself, “Then why the hell are you doing this? You are a well-educated, brilliant woman and here you are talking to yourself in the mirror of a public bathroom with numerous doctors, nurses, hospital staff, patents and their loved ones just meters away like a lunatic.”

I picked up my phone and pulled up Rick’s number. I was ready to cancel on him when Lisa, a nurse, walked into the bathroom. “Hey Chicky, you look hot. Got plans?”

“Yes...no...Yes,” I stopped and took a deep breath before facing her. “I don’t know. I’m about to cancel on him.”

“Is it with Dr. Hunter?”

“No.” I shook my head, “It’s with someone I only met today. I mean talk about stranger danger. You’re right, it’s dangerous, and I’m cancelling.” I lifted my phone and Lisa ripped it out of my hand.

“What the hell Lucy? Go out, you’ve spent every night here. What’s the worst that can happen? You get a few free drinks, a free meal.” She shrugged and walked into a cubical.

Lisa had a point. I had spent every night at the hospital and besides heading across the road with some of the other doctors and nurses to have a drink after a long shift, I didn’t go out. I took one last look at myself in the mirror before walking outside to hail a cab.

Rick stood as I approached the table the waitress had escorted me towards. “Sorry I’m late. I got called in for a consultation on my way out.” I lied as I sat down and watched the waitress linger around the table, paying close attention to Rick.

“Life of a doctor,” Rick said as he sat down. “Would you like a drink?” He caught the attention of the waitress, which didn’t take much. All he had to do was breathe. She stepped closer to Rick, who didn’t seem to notice that he had attracted a follower.

My guess was that he got this type of attention all the time. I guessed he preferred the women who oozed sexuality, dressed in tight uniforms or clothing, and whose behaviour screamed, ‘I’ll let you take me right here.’

“House wine, white,” I told the waitress, getting out of my own head. I don’t know why she bothered me but she did. She nodded and scribbled something down in her notepad she was holding, probably her phone number.

“Scotch.”

“Right away, Sir,” the waitress spoke in an all too sultry voice. It made me laugh and I had to hide it so that I wouldn’t draw attention to myself.

“What’s so funny?” Rick asked while his eyes studied me.

“She was so checking you out. Didn’t you notice? And that voice...if that voice doesn’t hook you I don’t know what will.”

“I didn’t notice.” He leaned back in his chair.

“Yeah right, you didn’t notice.” I leaned back as well, mimicking his posture.

“I didn’t.” He shrugged, “You must have imagined it.”

“No, you’re probably just so used to it that you don’t recognize when someone is flirting with you or trying to get into your pants.”

Rick stared at me in silence. Our drinks arrived and Rick watched me as the waitress asked if he needed anything else. “We’ll look at the menu first.” Rick looked over at the waitress as she placed his menu close to him. She leaned over a little too far, revealing just a little too much cleavage. When she looked up, she winked at him before she walked off, making sure that her hips and butt swayed in time with her long legs. I waited for his eyes to meet mine again and raised an eye brow at him.

“She’s not my type.” He stated as he opened the menu, “And what about you?”

“What about me? I didn’t see her flirt with me. That was all for you.”

“No, but I saw all the men look at you when you entered the restaurant. Even now, most of them are keeping an eye on you.”

The waitress chose that moment to come back for our dinner orders and her flirting attempt didn’t ease up at all. We looked over our menus before I asked Rick what was good here and we decided that he’d order for the both of us. We didn’t go back to our original conversation, thankfully. Instead, he asked me about how being in the city was, and questions along those lines. The waitress brought our food over and Rick continued with his questioning, asking the one question I wasn’t ready to answer. Especially if he was going to be reporting our evening back to Mather and Dad, “Have you found somewhere nice to live?”

“Google told you where I worked but not where I lived?” I asked, trying to avoid the question.