by Helen Wells
“So serene, so dignified,” Bertha breathed.
“Where is everyone?” Josie asked. “All I see are dogs and birds and those two little boys on bicycles.”
“Look ahead,” Cherry said. People and parked cars clustered around a grocery store with a gasoline pump out in front, a small post office, a shop displaying sports clothes, a barbershop, a hardware store, and a small restaurant. “Why, this is a metropolis!”
“Well, for a mostly summer place, yes,” Gwen answered.
They drove half a mile along the main street. Gwen turned off down a dirt lane. “Our estate!” she announced, and stopped the car.
At first the girls could see only flowering bushes and trees, and beyond, a long stretch of meadow. A huge old red barn stood far away at its end. Gwen led the way. Just on the other side of the shielding bushes and trees stood a rambling, one-story weather-stained house. With its porch around all four sides, and flower beds blooming wild, the place looked inviting—and dilapidated.
“It is a mess.” Gwen’s face puckered as if she might cry.
“We’ll make it shipshape again,” Bertha said confidently.
A bird sang somewhere over their heads. The girls stood listening. A scent of roses and the hum of bees came to them on waves of soft air.
“It’s lovely here!” Cherry exclaimed. She felt so happy to be outdoors that she would willingly camp out in a pup tent, if necessary. “Come on. Let’s explore!”
Gwen had the house key ready in her hand. First, though, they walked around the porch, littered with last autumn’s leaves. They found rocking chairs, weather-beaten but still serviceable. “The leaves are dry, we’ll make a bonfire,” Bertha said. She started back to the car for a broom. But the other girls said, “Oh, let’s do our grand survey first.”
Several fine shade trees stood in the deep, overgrown grass. Gwen looked for and found the brick barbecue grill. “It’s in pretty good condition,” she called. “We’ll have cookouts!” An old well, when the girls leaned over cautiously and looked into it, sent up a cold draft, dim reflections of their faces—it was full of rainwater and spooky echoes.
“If this place has any ghosts,” Josie said, “he or she or it probably lives in the well.”
“How do you know?” Cherry challenged.
“It’s where I’d choose to stay, if I were a ghost,” Josie offered. She couldn’t quite keep her face straight.
Cherry, sniffing, located the fragrant wild roses. They all admired a row of hydrangea bushes that in summer would be loaded with giant balls of blue flowers.
“When do we go to the beach?”
“We haven’t toured the house yet!”
“Or the barn!”
The red barn appeared to be an eighth mile away from the house—about two or three city blocks. Bertha said the barn would be a project in itself, and she knew, having grown up on a farm. “Let’s save the barn for later.”
The four girls went into the house, which was dark, dusty, and still. They pulled up shades, opened windows wide—only two windows were badly stuck—and let in the sun and air. “An overgrown cottage, that’s what this is!” Cherry said. One immense room served as both living room and dining room. Branching off it were three bedrooms, two small baths, and a kitchen.
Gwen dropped into a plump old leather chair. “My favorite chair!” she said, bouncing.
The furnishings in the main room were sketchy, but enough—a long oak dining table with benches, a wicker sofa with cushions, a few old easy chairs, tables, and lamps. Everything was battered, but useable with a fresh coat of paint or “just ten gallons of elbow grease,” Josie said.
Bertha was going from bedroom to bedroom, poking and punching mattresses. She returned looking satisfied. “Comfortable. Twin beds in each room, a little dusty is all.”
Six beds! Gwen said there used to be—yes, there still were—a couple of folding cots in the coat closet. They could sleep eight! They wished the other members of the Spencer Club could be here to enjoy this place, once it was made ready. It was a good vacation spot—a shame to let it stand unused between weekends, all summer!
Cherry could not help thinking of some of Dr. Fairall’s less fortunate patients, who would appreciate a chance to rest and play in the country. Then Cherry thought of the exhausted young ballerina. Leslie urgently needed building up. Country air would do wonders for her, and for the baby. If Mrs. Faunce could come along to help look after them, it might be a sort of holiday for the little old lady, too.
It occurred to Cherry that—busy last evening with preparations to come out here—she had forgotten to tell the other three nurses about Leslie, Henry J., and little H.J. Young.
So Cherry told her friends now, as they took time out to enjoy the sandwiches and oranges Bertha had packed. Cherry hesitated to suggest or request inviting the Youngs, since this was Gwen’s house—or, at least, the Spencer Club’s house. To Cherry’s great pleasure, Gwen responded at once. So did Bertha and Josie.
“Why, of course! Your ballerina could come out here for a week or two,” Gwen offered. “We’ll be here only weekends. Plenty of room! For her and the baby, and if Henry J. can come out to visit on his days off, fine.”
Cherry said carefully, “Are you sure you want a six-month-old baby and a semi-invalid around?”
The other three stared at her, as if Cherry had forgotten they were nurses, used to getting along easily with invalids and babies, among others.
Gwen said to Cherry, “You’ll have to find out whether she’d want to come—how her husband feels about it—What Dr. Fairall advises—”
“You know,” Josie said, brushing a fleck of sandwich off her glasses, “if they do come, we’ll have to hurry up and get this house ready, quick, quick. That’s not so awful. I mean, it’s an incentive for us.” Since Josie was something of a dawdler and dreamer, this was a heroic speech.
“Quick, quick,” Gwen echoed. “Well, let’s see what needs to be done.” She got out paper and pencil. She wrote three headings: Urgent, Necessary, and Would Be Nice. “Maybe we can do our survey and chores as we go along,” Gwen said hopefully.
At the end of the day the four tired, grimy young nurses sat down on the porch steps (swept clean), to consider Gwen’s pages and pages of notes. The Urgent list was the longest, and had the hardest things to do, such as: repair the house roof, clean out the barn. The Necessary list, too, called for hard work: mow the grass; air and sun the mattresses outdoors. Would Be Nice included: repair the barbecue grill, paint the furniture. “Grim,” said Gwen.
The four girls sat there appalled, yawning, brooding.
“Well, we can invite our friends to help us transform this place,” Gwen said. “We’ll invite ’em for swims and picnics. Only every guest will have to do some chore. That’ll be understood in advance. No work—no eat, no fun.”
The other three muttered at her. “Optimist! Guests want to swim and gobble refreshments and go home. What makes you think they’ll work?”
Gwen tenderly touched her sunburned nose. “Want to bet? Naturally some people won’t accept. We’ll invite everyone we know, acquaintances, friends of friends.”
Bertha said soberly, “I think Gwen is right. Some people will help us. They do, back home in Minnesota. Only they’ll do more things wrong than right.” Cherry refused to be discouraged, and said so. Then she made a suggestion. “Let’s drive to the beach, to cheer ourselves up. Then let’s have dinner somewhere nice, and drive home—to the city—and go to bed.”
That’s what they did, knowing that if they stayed overnight here, or at a motel, and worked again tomorrow, they could not be fresh and alert on Monday morning for their next week’s nursing work. And responsibility to their patients came first.
CHAPTER V
A Date at the Stage Door
“Your eyes are like melting gumdrops,
Your teeth are like grains of rice,
You’re pigeon-toed and cross-eyed,
And I think you’re
horribly nice.”
SO SANG THE YOUNG MAN STANDING IN FRONT OF Cherry and Grey’s table, serenading them with a banjo. They and the other diners winced but applauded. The troubador hitched up his pants and strolled to the next table. Striking a chord, he started to declaim, “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears—It was brillig in the slithey tove—”
“This Stage Door is the craziest restaurant I’ve ever been to,” Cherry said to Grey, laughing. “Crazy even for Greenwich Village.”
The walls were whitewashed brick, the tables and chairs were painted variously, red, blue, and yellow. Paintings by local artists hung on one wall. Another wall was covered with photographs of actors. A mammoth jukebox was stocked with folk song, jazz, and foreign records. The young waiters and waitresses were dressed as famous characters from well-known plays. Old-time movies were shown at nine and midnight.
“It certainly is a Village-y place.” Grey smiled back at Cherry. “The food is pretty good, though.”
They had enjoyed bowls of chilled soup, then footlong hot dogs—“enough to kill us,” Grey said. Now they were working on a huge, spectacular sundae, called the Kitchen Sink, shared between them. They knew better than to assault their stomachs like this and both took pleasure in breaking all the sensible rules, for once.
A fat, foreign man at the next table had been listening to the banjo singer, and now cried out, “Very goo’! Very ni’! Non che mala!” The visitor burst into song himself, an operatic aria, rising to his feet and gesturing grandly.
He had a fine baritone, and was very much the opera star. So much so that the young singing waiters and waitresses who worked there “between theater jobs” looked jealous. A passing young waitress sniffed and muttered, “A vulture for culture.” Everybody listened, then applauded the fat man. He bowed, perspiring, and sat down.
“That’s all the crazy stuff I can stand for one evening,” Grey said. “It will do me for several weeks. Shall we go?”
A sing-along session, with banjo and washboard accompaniment, was starting as Grey and Cherry left the restaurant.
The street was dark and quiet. They walked along twisting, picturesque alleys, to the tree-shadowed paths of Washington Square Park. Here on a summer’s night men sat playing chess by moonlight, and couples looked deep into each other’s eyes and ate ice cream on a stick. Families brought their children to hear college students in blue jeans sing folk songs and play guitars around the fountain.
“Pleasant here,” Grey said. “Care to sit down?”
They searched for two seats together on the well-populated benches, found them, and settled down near the shadow-dappled buildings of New York University. The young doctor asked Cherry how she liked working in Dr. Fairall’s office—for three doctors.
“Well, there’s a good part and a not so bad part, a different part—” Cherry explained that she missed the intensive bedside care she had given in hospital wards and private duty cases. “I’m accustomed to nursing my patients every day—watching them gradually get well. But in the office I usually see a patient just a few times.”
Some did come back often for a course of treatments. Most patients came only occasionally for an annual checkup, or to have the doctor examine them if they were not feeling well. Then they went home, and the nurse would not see them again for a while. Cherry knew she would read their medical follow-up, for the doctors wrote notes on these developments in the patients’ case histories. She would talk to the patients on the phone, answer their questions about such things as diet and prescribed treatment.
She did value a nursing role in which she assisted with the thorough examination of patients. To this end, Cherry as office nurse was prepared to do some laboratory work—blood count, urinalysis, G.L. series (gastrointestinal)—if Dr. Fairall had not employed a laboratory technician. When the doctor performed minor surgery in the office, Cherry would sterilize the instruments, and work alongside the doctor as surgical nurse. She was entrusted with giving patients certain treatments, oral medication, injections, following the doctor’s orders. Besides, Cherry had a special responsibility and this was “the best part”—patient contact, which meant giving emotional support and teaching good health habits.
“I love meeting dozens of people every day,” she said to Grey. “Such variety! Some days my job is more psychology than medicine.”
“Yes, that’s true. As a doctor, I’m fascinated by the medical variety in private practice,” Grey Russell said.
“Aren’t you fascinated by seeing people from all walks of life?” Cherry asked. “And some of Dr. Fairall’s theatrical people—! Have you ever treated Al Jenkins? I swear he’s made of rubber. You should have seen him clowning in the treatment room. He talked doubletalk to me for a good five minutes before I caught on.”
“Oh, yes, good old Alfalfa Jenkins,” Grey said, and grinned. “He was in and out of the hospital with his faulty heart when I was a resident physician there. Well! Here we sit on a Sunday evening talking shop. Shall we walk a little more? What are you giggling about?”
“I just happened to think of old Dr. Lamb and the way he goes stamping around, roaring, ‘Where’s my what-chamacallit? Nurse! Who’s been cleaning my private office and mislaid my whatchamacallit?’” Cherry laughed.
“He’s a fine doctor, though,” Grey said, laughing. “Come on. Let’s walk off that Kitchen Sink sundae.” They strolled back across the park, then past the great, sculptured Washington Arch.
Grey and Cherry emerged onto lower Fifth Avenue with its skyscraper apartment buildings and elegant hotels. People dined at an attractive sidewalk cafe, sheltered by hedges and awnings; uniformed captains and waiters bustled to serve them.
“Slightly different from where we were,” Grey said with a chuckle.
Cherry looked at the diners, then stared. “Grey! See that table where the captain is just bringing that flaming dessert?—or whatever it is. See the woman there?”
“Yes, I see a woman and a man. Incidentally, she’s middle-aged—but he’s only about thirty.”
“Isn’t she our medical secretary, Mrs. Irene Wick?” The reddish-haired, milky-skinned man with Mrs. Wick—now who was he? Cherry was sure she had seen him in the doctor’s office.
Grey and Cherry slowed their stroll to a stop. He pretended to search for something in his jacket pocket, murmuring, “Yes, it is Irene Wick. Beautiful outfit she’s wearing. Who’s that with her?”
Cherry was busy noticing Mrs. Wick’s expensive flower-laden hat, and the numerous silver platters that a waiter had just removed from their table. What an elaborate dinner. But why? Surely not a romance? The cold, bored look on Mrs. Wick’s face was not romantic.
Then she recognized the man. He was Bally, the salesman. The one from whom Mrs. Wick bought most of the three doctors’ medications and supplies. Playing favorites? But Mrs. Wick had said Bally’s prices were lower, for the same items and quality, than the prices of the salesmen from other supply houses. Mrs. Wick had distinctly said she saved money for her employers by buying chiefly from Bally.
Just the same, Cherry thought, it looked odd for Irene to be accepting such an expensive dinner from Bally. As if Bally were rewarding her for throwing her employer’s purchases his way. Cherry said as much to Grey Russell, as they walked on.
“I agree with you,” he said, “except that ‘business entertaining’ is commonplace. Bally earns a commission on every sale he makes. Our medical secretary, who buys supplies for three physicians and our laboratory, is a valuable customer. If Bally wants to provide Irene with an incentive to buy from him instead of from his competitors—well, it’s legal.”
“I can’t help feeling she’s trading on her position in Dr. Fairall’s office,” Cherry said.
“Sure she is,” Grey said. “Still, it’s just a dinner. Call it Bally’s expression of thanks, or good will.”
“It isn’t strictly ethical of her to accept,” Cherry insisted.
“Right. It’s a small matter, though. I i
magine Bill Fairall wouldn’t mind.” Grey sounded bored. He said in a livelier tone, “I had an idea during dinner about Henry J.”
Cherry was glad to change the subject to something more pleasant.
“Instead of driving a taxi all night,” the young doctor said, “why couldn’t Henry J. be one of the waiter-entertainers at the Stage Door? If he’d want to, that is. He’d have better hours and be able to give Leslie and the baby more help. He’d probably earn more, too.”
“And have more fun at his work,” Cherry said.
“I know some of the people who operate the restaurant,” Grey said. “They’re always looking for talented young people. No sooner do they train a boy or a girl to wait on tables, than he or she leaves for a job in a play or with a touring company.”
“We’ll ask Henry J.,” Cherry said. “What do you suppose the J. stands for?”
Grey laughed. “Some awful name, probably. I’ll bet we never find out.”
CHAPTER VI
Strange Happenings
MRS. WICK GREETED CHERRY AT THE BROWNSTONE AT seven-thirty the next morning with a friendly smile, and no mention of having seen each other last evening on Fifth Avenue. She still had her hat on—her everyday hat—as she turned on lights and air conditioning, and put the sterilizers on.
“Thanks,” Cherry said, busy getting out medical supplies. She wasn’t going to mention last evening, either. “We have a patient coming in early for an injection before she goes to work—it’s Miss Hardy.” The nurse gave injections on the doctor’s order, usually vitamins or liver or influenza vaccine. “And Mr. Gatti, the infected finger case, is coming in at eight for a blood test,” Cherry said.
The telephones started ringing. Cherry and the medical secretary grabbed them. Cherry had to cope tactfully with an old lady who had had a summer cold for a month now, but “must see Dr. Lamb the minute he comes in.” The next phone call was from a long-winded young man who probably would take up more of Dr. Fairall’s time than most patients. Cherry scheduled him in the appointment book accordingly. An office nurse had to be a psychologist—had to size up people.