She looked up with a tear-streaked face. “What about them?”
“I mean, how are they? Normal, erratic, or nonexistent?”
“They’re, well, I never have been exactly regular, so it’s hard to tell.”
“Well, when was your last one?”
“I don’t know. Sometime last month, I think. Maybe the month before.”
“Then I’ll tell you what I think,” I said, leveraging myself up on the arm of her chair. “I think you have female trouble. And I know you’ll hate to hear this, but it could just be the change of life.” At her shocked look, I quickly went on. “I know you’re a little young for it, but it hits some people early and, who knows, it could be strung out over ten years or more.” Actually, Hazel Marie wasn’t all that young, somewhere in her forties. She was always vague about exactly
where
, which made putting candles on her birthday cakes somewhat of a hit or miss proposition. She was like me when it came to age: It was nobody’s business what the number of our years happened to be.
“Ten years!” she cried. “I’ll go crazy before that. I’m feeling awful, Miss Julia. I couldn’t stand it that long.”
“Well, goodness knows, I’m no doctor, so I could be wrong. The thing to do, though, is to get you to a doctor and find out what’s going on. When did you have your last checkup?”
“I don’t know. Not in a long time, anyway. I never get sick and this, this is just doing me in.”
“Well, we’re going to do something about it. There’s no reason for you to suffer like this, and I expect they’ve got medications now that they didn’t have when I had the same malady. And listen, Hazel Marie, remember that every woman goes through it, and most of them survive. So you have to bear up, see a doctor, and do what he tells you. I’ll call Dr. Hargrove right now and tell him he has to see you. If he thinks you need to go to a specialist, we’ll get you one of those, too.”
“Oh,” she said, a stricken look on her face, “you think it’s serious, don’t you? Other people don’t have to see a doctor when they go through the change. I mean, it’s supposed to be normal.”
“Yes, they do. They just don’t tell anybody. Now you run upstairs and get ready. I’m calling Dr. Hargrove right now.”
I helped her out of the chair and watched as she wove her way out the door. She was feeling miserable, that was plain to see, and scared half to death. And to tell the truth, I wasn’t feeling much better. It was easy enough to pass off her complaints as the change of life—like she said, that was normal. But, even with my meager medical knowledge, I knew there were other things under the heading of female trouble that could cause the same symptoms but were far from normal. When something starts messing with hormones and the organs and glands that produce hormones, why, it could be a lot more serious than a normal, but rocky, time of life. And she was at just the right age—whatever that was—for her internal works to start acting up.
I wasn’t about to suggest anything like that to her, but my internal works were boiling over with worry. Not the least of those worries concerned her temperature—I’d heard of menopause causing almost every symptom in the book, but never a fever.
I sat in the doctor’s waiting room, trying to calm my nerves. I’d had to insist that his receptionist put Hazel Marie on the schedule, even though the woman had kept telling me that the schedule was full. “This is an emergency,” I’d told her, “so surely allowances can be made.” And, of course, she’d had something to say about an emergency that had lasted for days hardly qualifying as urgent. I would’ve reported her to Dr. Hargrove, except he wasn’t there. Off somewhere in the middle of the ocean on a cruise, of all things, at the end of summer. So Hazel Marie was inside being seen by some new and unknown fill-in doctor, and who knew what his qualifications were.
After the receptionist gave in and allowed us to come, we’d ended up waiting a full half-hour before Hazel Marie was called into the examining room. I’d gotten up to go with her and was stopped cold by a bossy and unsympathetic nurse. So I was trying to calm myself down. First, for being overcome with worry and, second, for being shut out of whatever was going on behind those closed doors. And there wasn’t a current magazine in the place.
“Mrs. Murdoch?”
I looked up to see that same nurse beckoning to me. “You can come back now.”
I hurriedly gathered my pocketbook and followed her down the hall to a small examining room. Hazel Marie was sitting on the examining table, looking so pale and weak that I feared she might fall off.
“Hazel Marie, are you all right?”
She shook her head. “I feel terrible. I just threw up all over their floor, and they put me in here while they clean it up. I’m so embarrassed, but I couldn’t help it.”
“Don’t worry about it. I expect they’re used to it, and, if not, they should be after making people wait so long. Now, what did the doctor say?”
The door opened behind me and in walked the poorest excuse for a medical practitioner I’d ever seen. He was tall and lanky with a long face and slumping shoulders and, Lord help us, an earring and a ponytail. And, I suppose to counteract those feminine accoutrements, he had a sprig of whiskers right below his lower lip. From the looks of him, I expect that was all he could grow. I could perhaps have overlooked all that, but the man was wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt under a white coat. And on top of that, he had toe-revealing sandals on his feet, and, believe me, the revelation was not pretty. And, to cap it all off, he looked barely twenty years old. I couldn’t help but wonder how he’d ever gotten into medical school, much less through it.
“How’re we doing in here?” he asked, walking right up to Hazel Marie and staring down at her. “Feeling better now?”
She shook her head, and I got ready to intervene with a few questions of my own. He beat me to it.
Turning swiftly to me, he said, “I’m Dr. McKay, but call me Rick. I’m filling in for Dr. Hargrove for a couple of weeks. And you’re Hazel Marie’s friend?”
“Julia Springer Murdoch,” I said, offering my hand but put off by his casual manner. I should say,
Rick
. This wasn’t a social occasion by any stretch of the imagination. “And you’re from?”
“Down around Wilmington.”
“I meant, from what school?”
“Ah,” he said with a slight smile, “Chapel Hill, and I’m with a group of
locum tenens
, which means . . .”
“I know what it means, and I don’t mind telling you that I’m distressed about Dr. Hargrove being gone and not telling us he’d run in a substitute. I expect you’ll do fine, though, if you follow his instructions. Now, what’s wrong with Hazel Marie? I’m worried about her.”
“Well, I am, too,” he said with a frown, which did nothing to reassure me or her. “Hazel Marie, I’m not finding anything obvious, other than dehydration from the vomiting. And that’s causing the fever, I think. But at this point, I can’t rule out some kind of systemic infection. Have you been out of the country lately?”
“Just to San Francisco a couple of months ago,” Hazel Marie said. “Oh, and I went to Mexico earlier this year, but I was real careful what I ate and drank.”
Dr. McKay frowned. “Still, with all the gastrointestinal problems you’re having, I don’t want to overlook some sort of parasitic invasion. We’ll admit you to the hospital and get some intravenous fluids started and do some blood work. And, while you’re there, run a few other tests. We’ll know something after that. Now, Hazel Marie, I want you to go right on over to the hospital and get settled. I’ll order some medication for the vomiting and we’ll get those tests started.”
Parasitic invasion?
I was stunned at the thought, immediately wondering if I should call Lillian and tell her to get out the Lysol and start wiping down the walls. I opened my mouth to ask if we were talking microscopic infestation or would we be able to see them but never got the chance. Dr. McKay patted Hazel Marie’s thigh in an altogether too familiar a manner, whirled around, his long coat flapping, and sailed out of the room. Doctors never hang around very long in case they’re asked something they don’t know.
“The hospital?” Hazel Marie looked at me, fear etching her face. “I don’t want to go to the hospital.”
“It’ll be all right,” I said, trying to reassure her and myself in Dr. Hargrove’s absence. “I’m sure he’s just being on the safe side, checking everything out. Actually, Hazel Marie, I’m glad he’s doing that. He’s awfully young, you know, so he hasn’t had time to get much experience. I’d rather he do too much than too little.” Lord, I thought, how much would a shore-to-ship telephone call cost me?
I drove Hazel Marie the three blocks to the hospital, wondering all the while if parasites could jump from one person to another. I didn’t have time to worry too much about it, though, for I had to stop twice to let her lean out the door to throw up. If I hadn’t already known how ill she was, the fact that she totally ignored what the rain was doing to her hair would’ve clued me in.
By the time we got there, it was all I could do to go through the rigamarole it took to get her in and out of the admitting office. They were so accustomed to filling out forms and filing insurance claims that they couldn’t understand a cash deposit. Hazel Marie had insurance—Sam and Binkie had seen to that—but she didn’t have her card with her, and you would’ve thought she’d come in naked the way everybody in that office carried on.
But before long, she was ensconced in a private room, which I’d had to insist on, undressed and redressed in a flower-strewn hospital gown. I warned her not to get out of bed or she’d be exposing more than she wanted to, but there was little fear of that. She didn’t feel like doing anything but lying there and letting one nurse after another minister to her.
First, they connected intravenous fluid to the back of her hand. Then they shot her with something for the nausea and vomiting, which soon made her sleepy. Then in came a woman from the laboratory and started drawing vital fluids for all the tests that young doctor had ordered.
When they finally left her alone, Hazel Marie lay there, looking ashen with dark circles under her eyes. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to leave her alone, yet I needed to get home and let Sam and Lillian know what was happening. And I needed to get her some decent nightclothes.
“Miss Julia?” Hazel Marie whispered.
“I’m right here, Hazel Marie. What do you need?”
“You’ll look after Lloyd, won’t you?”
“Of course, I will. Don’t I always?”
“No, I mean,” she said, her eyes barely open, “if I die.”
“Hazel Marie! Don’t be thinking like that. You’re not going to die, at least, not anytime soon. You just concentrate on getting well and put such thoughts out of your mind. I’m thinking of going on now since Lloyd’ll be home soon. I’ll bring him up to see you tonight.” I patted her arm and leaned over to look at her. Her eyes were half-open, but I don’t think they were seeing anything. “Hazel Marie?” I whispered. “Are you awake enough to answer one question? You want me to call Mr. Pickens and tell him you’re here?”
My only answer was a soft snore, so thinking,
I guess so,
I tiptoed out of the room and went home.
Chapter 3
“Lillian,” I said as soon as I stepped into the kitchen, “where’ve you been?”
“To the grocery store, the post office, the dry cleaners an’ the shoe shop to pick up Mr. Sam’s ole boots. Jus’ like I tol’ you.”
“Oh, that’s right. I’d forgotten. Well, too much has happened while you were gone. I have to sit down.” And I did, collapsing onto a chair by the table and rubbing my hand across my brow. “You won’t believe this, but I just put Hazel Marie in the hospital.”
Lillian whirled around, her eyes wide. “What you mean, in the hospital?”
“She’s sick, Lillian, and I took her to the doctor, but don’t get me started on that. Anyway, he admitted her and she’s over there all hooked up to this, that, and the other. And they’ve stuck her with so many needles it’s a wonder she’s survived them all. And put her in a skimpy little hospital gown that has to be replaced.” I looked around as if someone else should be in the room with us. “Where’s Lloyd?”
“He stayin’ late at them tennis courts to practice. ’Member? He tell about it at breakfast. He oughta be home pretty soon.”
“Well, I’d forgotten that, too. I tell you, Lillian, this has not been a good day, and it started out so well.” I got up to get a cup of coffee. “I guess they all do, don’t they? And I guess it’s a good thing we don’t know what’s coming our way when we get up every morning. Otherwise, many of us would just stay in bed.”
“Not if they have work to do, they don’t. Now tell me what be wrong with Miss Hazel Marie.”
“That’s the thing, Lillian, I don’t know. And neither, it seems, does that substitute doctor in Dr. Hargrove’s office. When we left to go to the hospital, I almost kept on driving to Asheville. Except I don’t know any doctors over there. But I am not happy with that young man. Any real doctor could’ve listened to her symptoms and looked in her eyes and down her throat and come up with some answers. But not him. He just said he didn’t know what was wrong with her and brought up such awful possibilities as infections and parasites, of all things, that she might’ve picked up in Mexico or San Francisco. That simply does not engender a whole lot of confidence as far as I’m concerned. He could’ve taken a stab at it, if for no other reason than to offer a little comfort. I mean, they blame everything else on the flu or old age or some kind of female problem, so why not this?”
“I don’t know, Miss Julia. But I tell you one thing, I been noticin’ how she pick at her plate. She hardly touch anything I fix. An’ she lookin’ pore, too, like her eyes too big or something.”
“I wish you’d said something, Lillian, before it came to this. I’m ashamed that I didn’t notice anything.” I poured the coffee into the sink, realizing that I didn’t want it. “Where’s Sam? Have you heard from him?”