The Nurse Novel

by Alice Brennan

  Agnes said slowly, “Tomorrow night’s all yours, Tammy. I have to go to San Francisco right after work.”

  Tammy turned to look at her. Her eyes were shining. “Really?”

  Merry said, explaining, “Agnes has a close friend who’s ill”

  “Gee, I’m sorry,” Tammy told Agnes. “About your friend being sick.” Her mouth twisted in a grin. “But I’d be a damn liar if I said I wasn’t glad for the chance to go to the Alibi Club.”

  Her lightness changed to a frown. “Agnes, if there’s anything…”

  Agnes shook her head. “It’s not as serious as my mother tried to make it out,” she told Tammy. “She’s one of these worry-warts.” She forced a smile. “It’s going to be okay,” she told them. “Nothing for anyone to get all steamed up about, but…well… I thought I should be there, because besides being a good friend of mine, she’s also a relative.”

  “Well…” Tammy said. There was lightness in her step as she went back into the bedroom to put away the dress.

  She held the dress against her face and gazed at her reflection in the mirror. Her dark eyes flashed with excitement. “I have a feeling,” she told herself. “Tomorrow night’s going to be my night. I have a feeling!”

  Her eyes snaked over her reflection. “I told Agnes I was sorry; but I’m not sorry.”

  She frowned. “What kind of person am I?” she thought. “The kind who doesn’t care who gets hurt, as long as I get what I want? Is that the kind I really am?”

  She turned abruptly from the mirror and hung the red dress in the closet.

  * * * *

  Merry stared over the top of her magazine at Agnes. “She’s not telling it all,” she thought. “She’s holding something back.”

  She sighed. One thing about being a friend, she thought, was that you didn’t pry. She went back to her magazine, but she’d lost her taste for reading.

  Out of the corner of one eye she watched Agnes pace the small room, and then curl up on the chair by the window and stare outside.

  Without turning her head, Agnes said, “You’re worrying about me. There’s no reason. Please don’t.”

  “Sorry,” Merry said, and forced herself to read.

  Agnes sat for a long time in the dark by the window, staring out at the brightness and listening to the sounds; cars and buses lumbering by, laughter and the sudden screech of brakes, a dog’s mournful whining.

  Her breath caught suddenly in her throat. “How long did you keep on remembering?” she thought violently. “How long did you keep on hating?”

  She drew in her underlip and caught it between her teeth. For a long time it had been every blonde young doctor. She wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness of it. But she couldn’t.

  Harvey had been blonde and young and sweet and he’d said that he loved her. She’d loved him too, so they’d been married.

  But the happy ending hadn’t come. He hadn’t been strong and sure, but weak and childish, and he’d walked out on her in the sixth month of their marriage, shouting that a man couldn’t be both doctor and husband and he preferred being the doctor. He was going on with his training, the devil with marriage. She’d been left alone, broke and pregnant in a strange town.

  Her teeth bit down hard on her lip. How long did hate last? As long as one lived.

  * * * *

  Pierson Webb moved restlessly in the bed. He glowered at Merry as she moved about his hospital room. “I’m leaving here in another day. Do you know that?”

  Merry nodded. “Are you happy to be going home?”

  “Home?” he asked harshly. “You mean that big barracks I live in? Sure, I’m glad to be going home. Why not? I’m alive, ain’t I? I never thought I would leave here alive. That’s the real jazz.”

  He closed his eyes. He was thinner than when he’d entered the hospital, and the lines stood out more plainly on his face.

  “I’ve got a swimming pool,” he said. “I don’t use it. No one uses his pool in Hollywood. It’s purely a status thing, you know? Well, the crumbs hang out around the pool, and they drink my liquor and they pat me on the back. And I’m a great guy.”

  Merry looked at him, a lonely man slated to die and not knowing it; and she’d never felt so sorry for anyone in her life.

  He glared at her. “What the hell are you staring at me like that for?”

  Merry said slowly, “I was thinking that it must be very lonely not having any…anybody of your own to be with you when you’re ill.”

  “Listen, sister,” he growled. “If you’re feeling sorry for me, don’t. I’ve got more friends in my hip pocket than you’ve probably made in your entire life. I’ve got the world in my hip pocket, baby. I’ve got everything I want. You understand that!”

  It was time for medication and Merry went out to get the tray. Tammy caught her as she was returning to the room. “Well?” she asked. “Have you asked him yet?”

  Merry shook her head. “Not yet.”

  Tammy’s eyes narrowed. “You promised.”

  “I will,” Merry said, suddenly feeling pushed. “Just as soon as I find an opening. You can’t just blurt out something like that to a man like Pierson Webb.”

  After she’d given Pierson his injection he looked at her, his eyes cold and knowing. “You’ve got something on your mind, sister. A favor from me? I know the look. I’ve seen it enough times in my life, God knows. No use lying about it. What do you want from me?”

  Merry was embarrassed, and stammered as she tried to explain about Tammy, about how she’d always wanted to be an actress and how she was convinced that if she only had a screen test, she’d be on her way up.

  Pierson didn’t even let her finish. “You’re talking about that dark-haired doll, aren’t you? The one who thinks she’s another Natalie Pries. God help me, they all think they’re another Natalie Pries! You tell her for me that if she’s got anything to give that she’s got to work for it, and she’ll get her screen test. Tell her that nobody gets anything from me by sending someone else to do their whining. Now get out of my room and let me alone.”

  He looked at her scornfully. “I thought you didn’t want anything from me. I made myself into a liar.”

  “Mr. Webb,” Merry said unhappily, “Tammy’s my friend. When a friend asks you to do a favor, you do it.”

  “Hear, hear,” Mai Hinge’s sardonic voice said from the doorway. “Such philosophy. But then Miss Neil is quite a philosopher, aren’t you, dear? Unselfish, devoted, and intensely dedicated.”

  “Oh, God,” Pierson Webb said crossly, “do I have to put up with you, too?”

  “Now, darling,” Mai laughed, “you know you adore me. You know you do.”

  She walked over and perched on the edge of Pierson’s bed and grinned down at him.

  Merry picked up the tray and walked out into the corridor. Tammy cornered her near the nurse’s station. “Well?”

  “I asked him,” Merry told her. “You aren’t going to like the answer I got, Tammy. He said no in very unflattering language.”

  Tammy’s lovely face flushed. “Damn him,” she said viciously. “One of these days he’s going to get paid back for the way he treats other people.”

  “I could tell her that he’s going to die,” Merry thought, “and that’s pretty harsh payment for anyone.”

  * * * *

  There was one lone reporter waiting when Merry ran down the hospital steps on her way to the bus stop: he was short and balding and was smoking a cigar. Merry thought, “If he blows cigar smoke in my face just once…”

  “Anything new on Webb?” he asked, puffing at the cigar, and his eyes darted avidly over Merry’s face.

  “He’s leaving the hospital day after tomorrow,” Merry told him pleasantly.

  “Then he’s okay, huh?” He looked disappointed.

  “There’s my bus.” Merr
y ran past him before he could ask her anything more.

  The bus was hot and crowded. “One of these days,” she promised herself, “I’m going to buy myself a car, and ride in comfort.”

  Tammy had gone shopping for a new pair of shoes. “Whoever heard of wearing nurses’ oxfords to the Alibi Club?” she’d asked Merry.

  “Especially with a sexy red dress,” Merry had laughed. She was glad Tammy wasn’t brooding over Pierson Webb’s rejection.

  “She’ll probably discover she’s cut out to be a nurse after all,” Merry thought, teetering precariously as the bus made a sharp turn.

  Agnes was just leaving when Merry reached the apartment house.

  Merry said, “Have a good trip.”

  Agnes nodded. “And have a good time tonight.”

  “Yes,” Merry said. She’d almost replied, “You, too,” and then remembered. “I hope you find your friend better.”

  Agnes, settling herself into a taxi, replied with a careful smile, “Oh, I’m sure she will be.”

  The palms of her hands felt moist as she played with the handles of her purse. There was nothing to worry about, she told herself. If Ellen’s condition was as serious as her mother and that doctor were trying to make it, wouldn’t she have seen the symptoms before this? Five years. She was a nurse. Surely in five years she’d have seen something in her child to worry about, if there was anything to worry about. Wouldn’t she?

  Merry stared after her as the taxi moved down the street.

  She’d roomed with Agnes for three months now. She’d worked with her every day at the hospital. But when you came right down to it, what did she know about Agnes? Nothing, really.

  She sighed and went inside the house and up the two flights of stairs. As soon as she entered the apartment, she turned on the fan. Another thing she was going to have if she ever got rich was air conditioning. And a swimming pool.

  There was a tightening in the pit of her stomach. Pierson Webb had the air conditioning and the swimming pool. And she wouldn’t be Pierson Webb for all of it. She bent her face close to the fan and let the cooling breeze blow her blonde hair into wildness.

  She wondered if Pierson Webb had a wife someplace…children maybe. The phone rang suddenly, shrilly.

  Merry pushed her hair out of her eyes. “Tammy,” she thought wryly, “wanting to know if I think she should buy a new pair of gloves to go with the shoes she just bought. Or do I think it would be worth it to rent a mink stole for the night.”

  She was grinning as she picked up the phone, and evidently the grin came through in her voice, because the man on the other end of the line said, “My, my, but you sound pleasant. That can be accounted for by only one thing…you were thinking of me.”

  Merry said, “I wasn’t.” And then, “Who is this?”

  The voice laughed. “If you don’t know who I am, how do you know you weren’t thinking of me? Did you get the passes for tonight?”

  “Arch Heller,” Merry said. “Yes, and thank you.”

  “Are you coming?” he asked.

  “I wouldn’t miss it,” she fairly sang. “I’m bringing my roommate. You won’t find anyone prettier, not even in the movies.”

  “Gad,” he said. “Prettier than you?”

  Merry laughed. “It was nice of you to send the passes,” she said. “It will be the first time either Tammy or I have ever been any place as elaborate as the Alibi Club.”

  “Of course it was nice of me,” Arch said. “I’m just a nice guy. You can’t beat me for being nice.”

  Merry giggled. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were conceited.”

  “Do you know better?” Arch asked.

  “I think so. Remember. I was out with you once.”

  “So you were,” he said lightly, then more seriously, “I was out with you once, too, and I’m not about to forget it.”

  There was a silence before Arch said, “We mustn’t let this get serious. One thing that always ruins a conversation is somebody getting serious.”

  “Always,” Merry agreed.

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “Since I’ll be busy the early part of the evening, I’ve arranged for a friend of mine to take care of you. He’s tall, and dark and handsome enough to be in the movies. But he’s an attorney.”

  “Sounds interesting,” Merry said lightly.

  “Just don’t forget, I saw you first.”

  Merry sat staring at phone for a few moments after she hung up. Arch Heller didn’t make her pulse throb or her heart beat faster. If he had, she’d have found some graceful way not to see him again.

  Chapter Five

  There are times when the anticipation of something is much more thrilling than the actuality, but this wasn’t true of the Alibi Club.

  Merry and Tammy were escorted by an attentive head waiter to one of the best tables in the house. Out of the corner of her eye Tammy saw the heads of some of the women turn as they passed, and she nudged Merry and whispered, “They’re wondering what top brass we are to be rating this kind of treatment.”

  Merry found herself every bit as excited as Tammy. The lights were soft and the music was low enough for them to hear the hum of people’s voices.

  The chairs were velvet covered and much softer than the couch at the apartment with its one broken spring that kept popping up at uncomfortable intervals.

  Merry felt slightly out of place in the black lace she had picked from a bargain rack. But her hair was professionally done.

  Tammy had nodded approvingly when Merry returned from the beauty salon. “That’s it,” she said. “Honey, you should wear that style always.”

  Merry hadn’t agreed. “I like to recognize myself when I look in a mirror. Besides, I couldn’t afford the upkeep.”

  She looked admiringly at Tammy, who was breathtakingly lovely in her red dress, her dark hair piled high on her head.

  Seated, the two girls looked at each other shining-eyed, and then each allowed herself to stare covertly around the big, crowded room.

  “There’s Marlon Brando,” Tammy said in a hushed voice. “Who’s that with him? That’s sable she’s wearing, I’m sure of it.”

  Her eyes darted around the room, seeing one big star after another. “Gad,” she breathed, “after tonight, I’ll never be the same again.”

  Merry laughed at her. “Anyone seeing us would think we were nouveau Hollywoodites, and I’ve been in Hollywood for three months.”

  “Six for me,” Tammy said. “But this is different. This is the real Hollywood.”

  The real Hollywood? Merry thought. She gazed around the room. Maybe Tammy was right.

  As her eyes moved past the door there was a flurry of movement, and a tall, dark, lanky young man came striding down between the tables.

  He didn’t stop anywhere, but called out greetings as he passed or signaled across the room.

  Tammy said, “Wonder who he is?”

  Merry shook her head. She watched him reach out and clasp a girl’s hand that was extended to him as he passed, and then with a grin and a squeeze let go of it and head straight for their table.

  He put both palms flat on the table in front of them and said, “I’m Jeff Morrow.”

  Merry thought coldly, “As if he expects his name to mean something to us.”

  He was cocky and very sure of himself. “I don’t like him, whoever he is,” she thought. Looking up into his thin, handsome face she said coldly, “I’m afraid, Mr. Morrow, that your fame hasn’t yet reached us.”

  He grinned at her, as if delighted by her answer. “You’re Merry,” he said. “Arch said you were cute as Christmas… Merry Christmas, that is.”

  His grin widened, and Merry felt herself beginning to thaw.

  “Arch said you were to be entertained royally.” He moved his gaze to Tammy. “You should be in the movies,�
�� he said.

  Tammy flushed with pleasure. She leaned towards him. “Do tell me more,” she invited.

  He shook his head at her. “You’re too greedy.” He looked back and forth, from one to the other. “It isn’t fair for nurses to be as pretty as you two,” he chided. “It makes people want to be ill, and that isn’t right thinking at all.”

  He turned his head as a waiter hovered near them. “Drink?”

  “Martini,” Tammy ordered immediately.

  When he looked at her, Merry nodded. “The same.”

  When the drinks came, Jeff looked at Merry over the top of his glass. “Evidently Arch didn’t mention my name to you,” he said.

  “Evidently,” she replied.

  He didn’t try to hide his amusement. “You thought I was trying to throw my weight around,” he accused.

  Merry flushed. “Not really. I…”

  Tammy’s voice pushed between them. “I’m Tammy,” she said, “since no one seems about to introduce us.”

  He nodded. “Tammy Moore. You work at Hollywood General. You’re a nurse. You live at 34678 Fourth Street, apartment two, second floor. There are three of you living in the apartment. Merry Neil, also a nurse, Agnes McLeod, ditto.” He grinned at them both. “Any more information you’d like?”

  Merry said, with sudden heat, “You’d think we were being investigated for some classified job! I don’t like it at all!”

  Jeff’s face sobered. “I’m Arch’s attorney,” he said. “I’m also his friend. You’d be surprised at how many people are out to get a guy like Arch who’s made it.”

  Merry was still angry. She said coldly, “Did we pass?”

  “You did.”

  “I suppose we should be flattered,” Merry said thinly.

  He nodded. “Of course you should.”

  Tammy said, “I’m intrigued.” She finished her drink, and the hovering waiter was there again.

  “Would you like another drink?” Jeff asked. “Or shall we order?”

  “Let’s order,” Merry said, and Tammy nodded in agreement.

  When Merry looked at the menu she was startled by the prices, and lifted her head to make a sign to Tammy. Jeff caught her glance.