Code Blues

by Melissa Yi

  One of the R2's had told me she now wore pantyhose on internal medicine and the patients had stopped asking her age. So, in addition to my white coat, I had abandoned my greens and was wearing a fitted, ultramarine blouse and white, pleated skirt which fell about mid-thigh. I drew the line at the pantyhose, since it was July, and St. Joseph's didn't seem to have any functional air conditioning. I usually saved this skirt for going out, but the female doctors in Montreal wore sexier clothes than I was used to. I figured the skirt was legit, especially under my white coat, but kept the coat partially buttoned, just in case.

  Anu grabbed the chart for bed number 11, and said hello to Tucker, who was further down the counter, in the psych corner. He grinned at us. "Hello, ladies." He stood up and moved closer to me. He'd cut his hair into a flat top, with the gelled ends sticking up.

  "Hi," I said, trying not to stare at the tips of his blond hair. They reminded me of a stiff field of wheat. Maybe wheat after it had been attacked by freezing rain.

  "You like my hair?" His hand rose up toward the back of his head.

  I recognized the self-consciousness of the gesture. "Kickin'."

  He smiled. "Yeah?"

  I had to smile back. "Yeah." I'd seen him around a fair amount, working on the psych patients, but we hadn't really talked.

  He rested his elbows on the white block in the middle of the nursing station. It was like a rotating shelf for forms, a paperwork lazy-Susan. "Can you tell me anything about the guy in 14?"

  I shook my head. "Not my patient. Sorry." He seemed to want more, so I added, "The psych nurse probably knows all about him, though."

  "Yeah." He didn't take his elbows off the shelf-thing.

  I glanced around. I didn't see Dr. Wiedermeyer, but I didn't want him to think I spent all my time chatting with my friends instead of working. Competition was pretty fierce for the emerg year. I pointed to the clipboard in my hand. "Well, I guess I'd better go see this patient."

  "Yeah." His hand strayed to his hair. Then he remembered that he didn't have much to flip any more, and his hand crept back down to the shelf thing. "You want to go to lunch?"

  Sometimes residents eat together in our lounge, or, more rarely, in the cafeteria, but Tucker was frowning at me now, and pressing his palms against the shelf.

  It percolated through. The dude was uncomfortable. He was asking me out.

  Maybe I should lay off the miniskirts. "Sorry. It's a zoo in here." I gestured at the charts of waiting patients. On the acute side, the nurses lined the charts on one counter, against the Plexiglas. The red plastic cards jammed under the clip on the clipboard denoted the order they were to be seen. There were two charts. Not exactly a zoo, but a good enough excuse. "I probably won't be going for a while."

  "It's okay." He coughed into his hand. "I'm on psych. I can go any time." He glanced around. A blush crept up under his collar. The unit coordinator, a middle-aged woman with a spiky 'do and an eyebrow piercing, was giving him the evil eye.

  The guy needed a break. Alex who? "Okay," I said, and smiled at Tucker.

  He smiled back. He wasn't bad-looking. Just a player, and not my type. "Here's my pager number." He grabbed a progress note sheet to scribble on.

  "Wait!" I grabbed my navy notebook and flipped it open in front of him.

  He gave a low whistle. "Am I in your little black book now?"

  The unit coordinator was giving me the evil eye now. I glowered at him. "That's my medical notes book. I'm just trying to save paper. Those progress notes—oh, forget it." The progress notes he'd reached for were printed on carbon paper, so he'd be wasting two sheets instead of one. But I should have let him kill a tree and save me the embarrassment.

  "Whatever you say," he sang out, and scratched his numbers down with his left hand. Ink smeared along the side of his hand. "Here's my home one, too. What's yours?"

  I flipped to the back of my notebook and ripped a page out, writing as fast as possible. "I can't promise anything. Maybe I can go in an hour."

  His brown eyes were laughing at me. "Dr. Wie is cool. Just tell him you're going to lunch, and he'll run the show."

  Actually, what happened was that ten minutes later, Dr. Wie, a portly, balding man, emerged from room 3, stripped off his yellow isolation gown and gloves, and said, "I'm going to grab a sandwich. Do you want anything?"

  "I'm all right, thanks. I'll keep seeing patients, and then I'll go to lunch after."

  "Great. I'll be just a minute." He bustled off.

  I walked to stretcher number 5, a thin, 26 year-old brunette, with chest pain. She watched me approach. I held the chart up like a shield. "Ms. Gravelle? Hi, I'm Dr. Sze. I'm the res—"

  She waved off my intro, clutching at her chest through the gown. "I was working at the computer, and I got this sharp pain, so sharp, I was almost crying. My friend called 911."

  A sharp pain. Atypical. Plus she was 26. I opened my mouth to ask more details about the pain, when, from behind me, a man called, "Carla? Carla?" The patient looked over my shoulder and her face crumpled. "Eric! I was so scared!"

  A middle-aged guy came around the other side of the stretcher and grabbed her hand. "I'm here, baby. It's okay. Everything's going to be okay."

  She started to weep into the shoulder of his dress shirt. Her free hand still clenched the front of her gown.

  "Are you having pain now, ma'am?" I asked.

  Her significant other gave me an odd look. "Are you a nurse?"

  "No." The white coat and grown-up clothes weren't working. "I'm Dr. Sze." I pointed to my badge. The guy read it with critical frown, as if he was trying to detect a forgery.

  The woman wiped her eyes. "I thought you were a nurse."

  "No. I'm a resident doctor. I started to introduce myself—"

  "I didn't hear you." She started crying some more, clinging to her man.

  Obviously, this was going to take a while. I wanted to tell Tucker I had business for him after all.

  Eventually, I got a history and did a physical exam. When I pressed on her chest to see if the pain was reproducible, as Dr. Dupuis had shown me to do, she screamed, "Eric, she's hurting me!"

  The man whirled on me. "What are you doing to my wife?"

  I backed right off. "Nothing. I'm finished." In more ways than one. Dr. Wiedermeyer could deal with the two of them. They'd be happier with a staff physician, and he probably knew how to handle them. Win-win. I carried the chart back to the nursing station and checked my watch. With all the drama, my H&P had taken forty minutes.

  Dr. Wie was already writing up a new patient while ignoring the half-eaten egg sandwich and cup of coffee resting beside his left hand. I felt embarrassed. He'd gone to the cafeteria, started eating, seen a patient, and was writing him or her up, while all I'd managed to do was antagonize Tweedledum and Tweedledee in 5. I couldn't wait to get to be like him when I grew up.

  Dr. Wie smiled at me. "I'm glad you're here. Maybe now I can eat!" He pulled the cellophane further down his sandwich and took a hearty bite.

  While I presented the case, my pager went off. I glanced at the number and silenced the pager. Tucker could wait.

  "Oh, answer it," said Dr. Wie, bolting down some coffee.

  "No, it's okay."

  Dr. Wie laughed. "I'm not going anywhere."

  Reluctantly, I dialed, hunching over the black receiver. It seemed so unprofessional to talk about lunch while I was in the emergency room. As soon as he picked up and said hello, I hissed, "Tucker, I'll call you in a bit."

  There was a silence. "Tucker? Why are you calling him?"

  It took me a second to figure it out. The voice had been slightly more of a tenor than a baritone. "Alex?" My eyes slid to Dr. Wiedermeyer, who was now talking to a nurse. "Can I talk to you later?"

  "I guess," Alex said. "After you call Tucker, right?"

  Gah. "Goodbye, Alex." I hung up, rubbed my forehead, and smiled at Dr. Wie to cover my embarrassment.

  He grinned back at me. "Man trouble?"

 
I wished ten more nurses had come up to talk to him during my phone call. I shook my head. "Oh, no." I pointed to the #5 clipboard. "Patient trouble."

  "She does sound like a difficult personality. The husband too. Start with the physical exam."

  It was so nice to have a doctor treat me like a person instead of a cyborg in training. Dr. W. must have been in his forties, plump, and with only a fringe of hair at the back of his head, and while I've never been one to go for older men, it was very pleasant to have him listen to me as if I had something intelligent to say. That must have been part of Kurt's attraction.

  In the end, we agreed the patient was probably non-cardiac, but that we'd do two sets of trops on her, just in case.

  "Now," Dr. Wie, said, eyes twinkling, "It's your turn for lunch. Take your time."

  "If we're busy, I don't mind—"

  He waved me away. "I'll handle it. Take your time."

  He meant it. Truly a nice man. Still, if the staff's a jerk, you can't leave them alone too long for fear of reprisal. If the staff's nice, like Dr. Wie, you won't leave 'em alone too long because you want to help them. Plus I was having second thoughts about Tucker. I didn't want to string him along if I had a chance with Alex.

  To avoid any other curious ears, I went up to the residents' lounge to phone Tucker. As soon as I opened the door, I saw his blond hair bent over the computer. He twisted around and smiled at me. His teeth were perfectly straight. Must have had braces as a kid, same as me. "Hey! Ready to go?"

  "Just a sec. I have to answer a page." I debated popping down the hall to the library to call Alex, but figured I was being silly. It wasn't like these guys would fight a duel over me or anything. I eased around Tucker to grab the phone mounted on the wall in the corner behind him.

  He leaned out of the way, grinning.

  I cupped my hand around the receiver in an attempt to muffle my voice. Tucker raised his eyebrows but still wouldn't move his chair.

  A mature woman answered. I asked if I could speak to Dr. Dyck and promptly blushed. Alex got the worst name prize on that one.

  "The resident? He's gone now. You want to page him?"

  "No, thanks." At least this way, I'd tried. "When he comes back, can you tell him that Dr. Hope Sze called?"

  "Of course, dear."

  I hung up and I smiled at Tucker. "Ready."

  He turned his back on me. "Let me log out."

  I took two giant steps out of the corner. I didn't feel comfortable standing so close to him in a short skirt, even before his vibe changed. I checked my watch. It was 12:10.

  Tucker closed his browser and stood up, frowning at me. "Why do you bother with him?"

  "Who, Alex?"

  "Yeah." He shook his head.

  I shrugged. It was so none of his business. And even I didn't know why I bothered with him.

  He exhaled. "Fine. Where do you want to go?"

  I liked a guy who knew when to fold 'em. I smiled at him. "You know Montreal better than me. But I can't be away too long. Emerg and all. It's not like psych."

  He smiled, stretched his arms out, and sighed like he was ready for a piña colada on the beach. "Hey, this is the life. When are you doing psych?"

  "Next." I made a face.

  He rolled his eyes. "You're hard core! What, you'd rather do ICU next?"

  "Well..."

  Tucker laughed.

  "Well, almost," I admitted. I hung my white coat up on a hook.

  When I turned back, his eyes flickered from my legs back up to my face, but mostly he was still laughing. "I'm going to call you hard core from now on."

  "Thanks a lot!"

  "Nah. You can say thanks after lunch. You're going to love it." He took a few long strides to the door and opened it for me. "Are you vegetarian?"

  I shook my head. "I'd like to be."

  "Put it off for one more day." He waved me through the door. "Do you like sausages?"

  That must be the funniest question anyone's ever asked me on a quasi-date. I laughed, he joined in, and I said, "Sure. Let's try it."

  We walked along Péloquin until we reached the corner of Côte-des-Neiges and crossed the road to a little restaurant called Chez Better. I raised my eyebrows, but Tucker said, "No scoffing until you taste the food."

  He pulled the chair out for me on the little térrasse made of red paving stone. I sat and made sure my skirt fanned out to cover everything.

  Tucker pulled up his own white plastic chair, while I belatedly remembered I hadn't applied sunscreen this morning. I like sun, but not wrinkles or skin cancer. I tilted my head under the shadow of the forest green table umbrella.

  A white guy in a white shirt and apron, with pinchably rosy cheeks, turned up our glasses and poured us some water. He left the pitcher on the table along with some menus. Tucker moved his chair closer to mine to recommend a tasting platter of three sausages.

  I didn't move away. I liked the crisp lines of his white shirt and the angle of his cheek. Coincidentally, both of us had dressed up that morning. I also could smell earth and the pansies in the window boxes, traces of beer, and a tangy, masculine smell from Tucker. It was not unpleasant.

  Tucker greeted the server in German, causing him to light up and chat back.

  Tucker spoke slowly, with what sounded like a rudimentary vocabulary, but at least ten times what I could say. Also better than Alex's auf wiedersehen. The waiter ended up calling out to the chef as he walked in the restaurant to place our order. Maybe we'd get free dessert out of it, or at least sausages cooked with extra TLC.

  I smiled at him. "I didn't know you spoke German. Is that your background?"

  "Nah." He was blushing. "I took it in high school. But I try to practice if I come here, or if I see any German patients, and they appreciate it."

  Interesting. I gave him a second look. Why had he annoyed me so at first? I didn't like his pick-up lines. But maybe he just wasn't good at delivering them. He was probably a decent guy. And not bad-looking, with a long, straight nose, enviably long eyelashes, and a sexy bow to his upper lip. We were sitting close enough that I could see the stubble on his cheek. It was yellow blond, darker than the hair on his head, but it still made him a natural towhead.

  He said, "I learned a little Japanese in high school, too. I went on a student exchange."

  "Really." I was impressed. "How was that?"

  "Great. But I don't remember any Japanese except 'Where is the bathroom?'"

  I laughed. "Well, that's important!"

  "I must have thought so." He grinned back. "In an ideal world, I'd like to be able to order in the native language whenever I go to a restaurant."

  "Yeah." I leaned back in my chair. The plastic rebounded gently against my weight. "I never thought of that. You should do it."

  He pursed his lips. "Well, it's a lot of work. We should tag team. I could take German, you could take Lebanese—"

  "Are you going to stick me with all the hard ones? Finnish, Urdu..."

  He waggled his eyebrows. "You've caught on to my cunning plan."

  I laughed. "We could make Tori do Finnish."

  "Yeah." He frowned a little, probably because I'd brought in an extra wheel.

  I pretended not to notice. I didn't want Tucker to make plans with me, even as a joke. He was a nice guy, but I already had Alex, unless he'd changed his mind after I called him Tucker. I sighed inwardly. Be careful what you wish for, especially if you wish it would rain men. I decided to change the subject. "So what do you think about Kurt?"

  He took a sip of water. "It sucks."

  I blinked. Hello, nutshell.

  He half-laughed at my expression. "Sorry. But that's what it all boils down to. He was a great guy, a great teacher, way too young. And he would have hated what the tabloids are doing with it."

  I shook my head. "What are you talking about?"

  "Did you see the Gazette this morning?"

  "No." I barely got my butt out of bed this morning.

  "You should take a look a
t it. The lead is about how he was murdered. But they made insinuations about our poor security, how dangerous the city has become if you can't even be safe in a hospital, the police aren't doing enough, blah, blah, blah. But it's a huge slap in the face for St. Joe's." He ran his hand over his gelled hair. "It just roasts me, because it's the last thing Kurt would have wanted, you know?"

  "I know." If I'd learned nothing else about the guy, I knew he loved this hospital. I glanced back along Péloquin, but the building was too far away and shrouded in trees.

  His hands laced around his small glass of water. "Now that the Gazette has started, La Presse will, too. You'll see. You'd think his death would be enough, but no. They have to jack it up."

  "That does suck," was all I could think to say.

  "Yeah." He gave me a small smile.

  I unfolded the paper napkin and laid my knife and fork on it. Tucker watched my hands. At last, I cleared my throat. "So who do you think did it?"

  He caught my eye and burst out laughing. "That's what I like about you. You don't mess around."

  I laughed, too. It was true.

  He leaned closer and lowered his voice. He had lovely brown eyes with black specks in the irises, an unusual combination with his blond hair. "We've all been thinking about it. It could have been anyone, but my money's on Bob Clarkson."

  Abruptly, I remembered hiding under Dr. Callendar's desk. If the FMC head honcho hadn't called, Dr. Callendar would've had me for dinner. But come on. Bob Clarkson? "Why?"

  He was watching me, his head tilted slightly to one side. "Jealousy. Bob always wants to be top dog, and he was in theory, but Kurt ran the show. We all knew it."

  I tried to play the devil's advocate. "It makes no sense, politically. If Bob ever got caught, his career would be over. You can't run St. Joe's from jail."

  "Or from heaven," Tucker muttered. He poured some more water for himself. "You want some?"

  I bolted down my glass and held it out.

  He poured some for me before he refilled his own. "It wouldn't be for politics. It would be out of jealousy. He'd never expect to get caught. No one ever does."

  I shook my head. "I just don't see it. It's against everything we stand for. 'First, do no harm.'"