by Fern Shepard
"You're an angel," Nora said, as the tiny girl with the toothy smile set the glass down in front of her. "You're going to make a wonderful nurse one of these days."
"I'm not going to make a nurse, period," Mamie said flatly, then groaned as a red light flashed and Nora sent her rushing off to the elderly ulcer patient in 407.
Returning in about ten minutes, Mamie said with no hint of compassion: "Why do they always shriek for bed pans at midnight?" She shook her head sadly. "That's one of the things that bugs me: bed pans." And Mamie started to nibble the chocolate bar she had gotten for herself.
"You'll get used to it, honey."
"Not me. You know something? I've decided I'm not the type to be a nurse. I mean, you read about how a real nurse just adores all the messy, nauseating jobs she has to do. She trips around doing things for groaning, half-dead people, stands by when the docs cut into people, babies cantankerous old women who keep punching the bell just to make a nurse come running because they have a little gas pain."
Mamie gestured with the candy bar. "This afternoon I decided I'd had it. There I was, having fun out at the lake with this cute guy I met about a week ago. So what happens? All of a sudden it's three o'clock, and I've got to run."
"But that's part of the job, Mamie. The late shift—"
"And the worst of it was," the little trainee continued, "just when I had to leave, there was this cute guy in the cutest motorboat who invited me to take a ride down the lake with him." Not that she wanted to dump her own boy friend; it was just that she was dying to go out in the fancy motorboat. BOBBY-O was the name of the boat, which was blue, and had the name in silver on the side.
Nora looked at her, frowning. "Are you sure about that name, Mamie?"
Andy had become very fond of Bobby, and it had been his idea to name the boat after the little boy.
"Of course I'm sure." Mamie seemed slightly annoyed at the question. "I may not be much of a nurse, but I can read. And like I said, it was the boat I was interested in; not the guy who owned it. Oh, he was something to look at; a real charmer, with lots of rippling muscles and all. But he was married and had this little kid." If there was one thing Mamie could say for herself, she wanted no part of a married guy. They were a complete waste of time.
"How did you know this man was married, Mamie?"
The girl finished her candy bar and dusted off her hands.
Simple enough. The wife was right there, a big fat girl with a shrill voice. The little blond kid really was a doll; only the child was screaming his head off because his father—"this handsome hunk of man who owned the boat"—was trying to teach the kid to swim. And the child didn't want to learn, because he was scared to death of the water. And the wife kept saying: "Let him alone, Jerry. Do you want him to have a spasm or something? Let my child alone!"
Nora didn't need to be told any more. She could see the scene as clearly as if a movie camera were unwinding before her eyes. Bobby was terrified of the water. It was just another expression of the fear and anxiety which obsessed the youngster. And Jerry, who disciplined his son in no other way, was determined that Bobby must learn to swim.
Mamie was giggling. "It really was a family brawl. Everybody along the beach was watching them. This wife was the jealous type, see? She was so fat. And there were a lot of good-looking girls around giving her husband the eye. So she made a few cracks about that, loud enough for everybody to hear. Then she started in about the kid not wanting to get in the water. And finally she got up and pranced off, dragging the poor screaming boy with her. And it was after that that the guy asked me if I wanted to try his boat out."
She groaned. "But me, I had to hustle back here to hustle bed pans."
Another red light flashed on. There was another lugubrious sigh from Mamie as she rushed off.
Nora sat for a few moments, hands covering her face. Poor Bobby, poor Ethel, and for that matter, poor Jerry.
Who could blame him for wanting to escape from a nagging wife whose jealousy had become an obsession?
Just then the phone on her desk jangled.
As soon as she heard Caroline's distracted voice, she knew that something terrible had happened.
Chapter 14
"It's Ethel," Caroline said, her voice so shaky with terror that at first Nora wondered if Ethel were dead, if she had taken an overdose of sleeping pills as she had threatened to do. No, it wasn't that. "She fell down the stairs, and she's lost her unborn baby. And oh, Nora, she's in terrible shape."
It was no time to ask questions. Later Nora would learn that Ethel had come back from the lake in one of her irrational frenzies. When dinner time came, there was no sign of Jerry. By nine o'clock, when there was still no Jerry and no phone call from him, Ethel's tormented mind had leaped to the usual baseless conclusion. He had gone off somewhere, and this time he wouldn't be back. Hadn't she said right along that would happen sooner or later?
Then, fairly beside herself with anguished fear, she had taken several stiff drinks. Caroline had tried to stop her, had begged her not to do it. Ethel wasn't used to drinking. "You've got to think of Bobby, even if you don't care about yourself. Do you want that sweet child to see his mother drunk?"
But Ethel was past knowing what she was doing, past caring about anything except that Jerry was gone. "He's gone, he's gone," she had screamed wildly. She had started up the stairs, sobbing, stumbled and fallen.
Automatically, Nora's trained mind took over. A spontaneous miscarriage, plus a plunge down a dozen stairs, could be very serious. When Caroline cried anxiously: "I'm afraid she'll bleed to death, I'm afraid to move her, I don't know what to do," Nora asked in a crisp, calm voice: "Has Jerry come home yet?"
No. Jerry had not appeared.
"What about Andy Fine? Is he awake? Does he know what's happened?"
Oh, yes. Mr. Fine was right there, and anxious to help. But he had never been up against anything like this before and was afraid to do anything for fear of doing the wrong thing.
Breathing a silent prayer of gratitude that Andy was on hand, and restored to excellent health, Nora said they should put Ethel into Andy's car and have him drive her to the hospital. She should have immediate attention, and their one ambulance was out on another call.
The next two hours were hectic. Her own weariness forgotten, Nora roused the resident doctor out of bed, turned over her desk to the nurse who came on at midnight, and was waiting with the orderly and a wheel chair when Andy's car drew up in front of the hospital entrance.
It could have been worse. There was that to be thankful for. There might have been broken bones, or an incomplete miscarriage which would have called for surgery. There were neither, which was all to the good.
But Ethel's general condition was not good. When she was wheeled into the hospital, into the elevator, then into a private room on the third floor, she seemed in a state of shock. "Who are you?" she muttered, showing no sign of recognition when Nora spoke to her. Her eyes looked blank.
This phase passed almost as soon as they got her into bed, another nurse assisting the doctor. He pronounced her blood pressure alarmingly high, her pulse beat fast and irregular, her temperature almost a hundred and four degrees.
"Go away," she cried suddenly, to the doctor and the assisting nurse. "Get out. Stop doing things to me. I've lost my poor baby. I've killed it, that's what I've done! And you can't bring it back, no matter how much fooling around you do. So please just get out. I've got something I want to say to Nora before I die. So won't you give me a chance to say it before it's too late?" Tears streaked down her feverish cheeks; her lips trembled. "Please."
"You aren't going to die," the earnest young resident doctor with the completely bald head said gently. "We'll keep you here for a few days; then you can go home. You'll be perfectly all right, if you'll just be a good girl and take it easy."
"You're a liar! I'll never be all right again. Losing a baby that way does something to a woman's mind. It drives her crazy. I read that in a
book once. That's how I know you're lying to me."
The young doctor smiled down at her pityingly. He had not yet learned to forget that his patients were people. "Perhaps you read too much, Mrs. Hilton, and maybe the wrong books."
As soon as he and the other girl were gone, Ethel grabbed frantically at Nora's hand and burst out with words which convinced Nora she was raving in delirium.
"Listen. I know I'm likely to die, no matter what that doctor says. As likely as not I'll bleed to death and—"
"Psh." Seated on the edge of the bed, Nora held the hot, moist hand and tried to calm and soothe her. "Don't talk that way, Ethel. This happens to ever so many women. There's no danger, if you're properly taken care of. I've had patients who had suffered through five or even six miscarriages. They are simply unable to carry a child through to normal birth. It has to do with the enlargement of the uterine mouth."
"Will you shut up!" The words were a scream. "So all right, maybe I won't die. But I might. Anybody can die. And if I should, I want you to promise me something."
"Anything, honey," said Nora, sponging off the damp, feverish face. "If it's about Bobby—"
"I'm not worried about Bobby!" Tears streamed again; choked sobs came from the dry, quivering throat. "I know you'd look after Bobby and be a better mother than I was. It's Jerry I'm worried about."
Ethel took a good deep breath, blew her nose and shook her head sorrowfully. "Oh, I know I've been an awful wife to him. But oh, God, I do love him so! You know I love him, don't you?"
Nora nodded, and discovered she was fighting some tears of her own. Ethel's was a strange, poorly organized kind of love which she had used to hurt herself. But still it was love.
"And you know, just like I do, that Jerry is just a big kid. He means well, but he's weak, Jerry is. He needs a woman to lead him along; not drive him the way I've tried to do. What worries me something awful right now is that after I'm gone—"
"You aren't going anywhere, sweetie," Nora was smiling again, more cheerful, "except back home in a few days."
"Maybe. But suppose it doesn't work out that way. You know what'll happen, same as I do. Before I'm cold in my grave, other women will be after Jerry. He's so attractive. Women just can't seem to let him alone. And—well, if it's somebody who's right for him, I won't care because I won't know anything about it. But I don't want the rest of his life ruined by the wrong woman."
There was no stopping her sobbing outburst. The words came in a torrent. She would pause long enough to catch her breath, to tighten her clutch on Nora's hand, then would begin again. She seemed possessed of a demon of fear. The only way to rid herself of the demon was by a frenzied outpouring of words.
Let her talk it out, Nora thought. Maybe it will do her some good to pour it all out to me. And then she herself jerked upright, suddenly stiff and tense.
Ethel was saying: "So I want you to promise me you'll keep him away from that Rita Lansing. She's been after him ever since he got that boat; always hanging around him, trotting up on the deck of the boat, patting him, giving him the come-on with her eyes, showing herself off in that next to nothing she wears. I know a no-good woman when I see one, and that one's no good. She'd be no good for Jerry. I shudder to think what would happen to Bobby if she married Jerry. But she might. You know how handsome Jerry is. And with all her money, she's the kind to buy herself a husband just for kicks."
"Ethel, you're talking utter nonsense."
It was right then, for the space of a few minutes, that Nora decided Ethel was out of her head with fever, that it would be silly to take her seriously.
"Rita Lansing wouldn't have any time for Jerry. Honestly, Ethel, I know what I'm talking about. So if that's all that's bothering you—"
"What do you know about it? You never go out to the lake. In all the weeks Jerry has had his boat, you've only been out once."
That was perfectly true. Nora had avoided the lake as if it were enemy territory occupied by hostile forces. For Paul was parked out there in his lifeguard station. Let Paul imagine she was running out there after him, trying to get him back? Never.
"I'm too busy at the hospital, Ethel. And on my days off—well, the beach and the lake don't really appeal to me. I'm sort of allergic to the bright sun."
"I don't ask you why. I just said you don't go near the place, so how can you know what's been going on? But I know. It's been driving me half out of my mind, the way that redhead keeps after him. And if you don't believe what I'm telling you, ask Andy Fine."
Chapter 15
Nora felt somewhat guilty about leaving Ethel that night. But after the doctor had returned, checked on her condition and put her under sedation, there was nothing more anyone could do for her.
Looking anxious and grave, Andy was waiting in his car. "Everything okay?" he asked, as Nora settled beside him, drew a deep sigh and hunted in her bag for a cigarette.
"She'll be all right—physically, that is." It took three matches to get her smoke lit. "But I guess you know by now that Ethel is a case for a psychiatrist. Jealousy can become a sickness, you know. Ethel has reached the point where she sees every girl who looks at Jerry twice as a deadly menace. She imagines the wildest things. Take tonight."
Pausing to tap ashes into the small tray, she laughed. "It isn't funny, of course. It's tragic. Anyway, she's got it into her head that Rita Lansing—you know who she is, of course?" A silly question. She knew that he knew.
Andy nodded. "Your deadly rival," he teased, trying for a light tone. "So what has the gorgeous Rita done now?"
"It's what Ethel imagines she's done." And Nora repeated much of what she still believed to be irrational, feverish babbling.
"She said to ask you, Andy. So I am asking you. It isn't true, is it, that Rita spends most of her days at the lake and is trying all the wiles and tricks in the book on Jerry. It's just more of Ethel's foolish jealousy, isn't it?"
His reply startled her.
"No. This is one time Ethel isn't so far off the track."
"I can't believe it, Andy. What would Rita Lansing want with my brother, a married man with no money, no job?"
"I didn't say she wanted him. I doubt that she does. But have you never heard of a girl making an all-out play for one man for the purpose of attracting the attention of another man?"
She stared at him. "What does that mean?"
Abruptly he stopped the car, cut the motor, and with a grin said: "Please, Nursie, may I have a cigarette? Just one?"
"You'd be better off without it," she said sternly.
Then she laughed as she handed him the pack. "Things seem to be going on that I know nothing about. If Jerry has been fool enough to play into that girl's hands—"
"Jerry hasn't." He said it firmly, leaning back to enjoy his first smoke in months. "You can believe me when I tell you that he has given her no encouragement whatever. Incidentally, I happen to believe that Jerry is basically okay. He simply needs the will to grow up and accept a man's responsibilities. Then if he could find a job that suited him and had the incentive to work hard at it, I believe he'd take pride in standing on his own feet."
"He has a wife—"
"Who handles him all wrong. But to get back to Rita—"
Here Andy interrupted himself to apologize for sounding like a nosy, small-town gossip. "Probably," he said, smiling, "that's the inevitable fate of coronary cases. We're ordered to take it easy and forget all the interests that once filled our lives." So what was left but to sit back and watch the sideshow of life and people all around them?
That was what he did during the time he spent out at the lake. Occasionally he would go out on the boat with Jerry, but only occasionally. He preferred to sit under the umbrella in his beach chair, read a little, doze a bit and watch the pretty girls in their fetching swim suits.
"La Rita," he observed, "is quite a dish on a beach in her somewhat revealing costumes."
"Bikinis, you mean," Nora said dryly. "But you still haven't explained to me�
�"
"What man she really wants to attract? Do I need to explain that, my dear?"
Nora gave a tired sigh. "No. I suppose not. You're telling me that Rita is still interested in Paul Anderson."
"Who apparently wants no part of her," Andy put in. "Just to keep the record straight, and to be fair to your ex-boy friend, he seems to devote his entire attention to doing his job and reading the Medical Journals he keeps handy."
"Maybe that's an act," Nora suggested morosely. "Maybe they're very palsy-walsy after his lifeguarding hours are over."
"Maybe. I'm only reporting what I've seen, Nora. The deck of our little boat, plus a handsome fellow like Jerry, affords a nice stage setting for a beautiful redheaded girl to show herself off. Rita is something of an exhibitionist, you know. And nature has been kind to her. She makes the most of it."
"And poor Ethel is the one who has to suffer for it."
Crushing out her cigarette, Nora covered her face with her hands. "Oh, Andy, this whole thing makes me sick. That awful girl!" Shuddering, she shook her head.
"I don't want to hate anybody, but my hatred for that girl is like a poison welling up inside me. I can't help it. She's done such awful things. I keep remembering those vicious newspaper stories about me—after the Ben Sackett thing. And now, in a sense, she's responsible for Ethel losing her baby."
"And there isn't a thing you can do about any of it, honey." Gently he swung his arm around her and pulled her close, pressing his cheek against hers.
After a small silence, he began to talk, telling her first what a wonderful girl she was, how he admired her, respected her for her intelligence and her devotion to duty. "But you have handled your life all wrong, Nora. You are so busy trying to do the right thing, you are unable to see how you continue to do the wrong thing."
"I don't know what you mean," she said gravely, and decided she needed another cigarette.
"It isn't," he said slowly, "that I wish you had married Doctor Anderson. Since I'd like to have you for myself, to say that would be a lie. But I think you loved him. Yes? So you should not have kept putting him off because of a feeling of responsibility toward your family. But you did just that. Therefore when he cracked up and desperately needed the help and strength of a loving wife, you were not his wife."