Some Nerve

by Jane Heller

  “What if it’s open?” I said in the grip of fear and stupidity.

  “You go in.” She laughed. “They don’t bite, although some of them can be snippy. Just try not to take it personally.”

  Goddard didn’t know how to be anything except snippy, and I’d tried not to take it personally. But he’d made it personal. The minute he’d insisted on doing the interview in his SUV with wings.

  “How about the do’s?” I asked, praying they didn’t include offering a patient a magazine while he or she was projectile vomiting.

  “You always knock on the door and ask, ‘May I come in?’ Once you have their permission, you go in and introduce yourself. Depending on what shape they’re in, you try to get them to talk. Ask how they’re feeling. Ask how long they expect to be in the hospital. Ask if they want something to read.” She laughed. “A lot of the men want Playboy, but Shelley doesn’t let us carry skin.”

  “No point in arousing them for nothing,” I said, trying not to recoil at the image of a guy on a ventilator springing a boner.

  “Right.” She motioned for me to follow her into the first room whose door didn’t signify a don’t. She knocked, asked for permission to enter, and received the okay. We approached the bed. The patient was a beautiful woman in her forties with her leg in a cast.

  “How’re you feeling?” Claire asked.

  “Not bad, considering I broke it in three places,” said the woman, nodding at the cast.

  A broken leg, I thought, relaxing a little. I can deal with that. Not contagious. Of course, the reporter in me had lots of questions for her. “How’d it happen?” “Where were you when it happened?” “Did you fall in your kitchen or on a ski slope?” But I remembered Shelley’s warning: We weren’t supposed to ask about the specifics of a patient’s condition. If they chose to discuss the details with us, fine. Otherwise, confidentiality ruled.

  Claire talked to the woman for several minutes, then offered her a magazine.

  “I brought a book, but it’s hard to concentrate,” said the patient. “Do you have Famous or one of those?”

  I couldn’t help smiling when she singled out the name of my old employer. I felt proud, oddly enough, even though the issue she ended up with was published after I’d been booted out of the company.

  Claire and I proceeded down the hall from patient to patient. There was the man with an ulcer who didn’t want to talk but did want a copy of Smithsonian. There was a woman with a ruptured disk in her back who didn’t want a magazine but did want to talk about how she suspected her husband of having an affair with their daughter’s second-grade teacher. And there was a woman with no discernible illness or injury who didn’t want to talk and didn’t want a magazine but did want to inform us that she would have been discharged that morning if she’d been able to move her bowels.

  “We always get the shit report when they’re about to go home,” said Claire after we’d made our escape. “I don’t know why they like to give us the turd-by-turd, but they do.”

  I thanked her for the tip. As she was about to wheel the cart back into the elevator, I held her arm. “Are you sure we’ve been in to see every patient on this floor?” Almost all the doors to the rooms had been open. No Goddard. No Luke Sykes either. Not a trace of him.

  “Yeah. Why? You looking for someone in particular?” she asked.

  I shook my head much too vehemently. “Just didn’t want to miss an opportunity to spread that Heartland General good cheer.”

  We took the cart down to the fourth floor, the “women’s wing,” which included patients who’d just had hysterectomies as well as mothers who’d just delivered their babies. We found ourselves lingering in maternity, because the newborns were so cute.

  “This isn’t hard at all,” I said with relief when our shift was over.

  “Not hard at all for me,” said Claire. “I was looking at three months in the county jail. I got off easy.”

  ON MY WAY back to the volunteers office, I ran into Richard. Literally. He was walking backward, reeling off instructions to some underling, and crashed into me.

  “Ann! I’m so sorry! What are you—”

  Naturally, he was surprised to see me in uniform. I had intended to stop by his office after I signed out that afternoon so I could tell him I’d become a volunteer, but there was no need now.

  “Hey, Richard. I bet you’re wondering about this,” I said with a big smile, fingering my smock. “Well, what you told me during our interview about the need for volunteers really resonated with me. Since I’m sort of at loose ends at the moment, I thought why not help out?”

  “Jeepers. This is great,” he said. He was carrying a medical chart and looked very authoritative in his lab coat. Still geeky but definitely in charge. “Great for the hospital, of course, but great for me too. How about dinner tonight?”

  “Oh, thanks for the invitation, but I promised Mom I’d—”

  “She’ll understand,” he interrupted, taking my arm and leading me off to a quieter corner of the hall. “We could drive over to Center Creek for the Ice Capades show. Do you like to watch skating, Ann? Or would you rather do something else? Maybe just dinner and a brisk walk in the snow? I bet you were one of those exercise nuts when you lived in L.A.—yoga and who knows what else, right?”

  He was exhausting. “I can’t, Richard,” I said. “I’m kind of tired after my first day of volunteering, and I did promise my mother I’d be home to help. She’s got a big order of brownies to deliver to Sallie’s Groceries. Besides, I think you should ask somebody else to go to the Ice Capades. There must be dozens of women at this hospital who’d love to be your date.”

  “Okay, okay,” he said with a sigh. “You only want us to be friends. You’ve told me that. But, jeepers, can’t friends go out every now and then?”

  “Of course,” I said, too worn out to pursue the conversation further. “Just not tonight.”

  “Then I’ll try again,” he said, straightening his already straight posture.

  Fine. What I really wanted was news of Goddard. Had he arrived yet? Had he been admitted? Had his heart condition been diagnosed? Would he need surgery? So many questions, but I was uncertain as to how to ask them. I really didn’t want to get Richard in trouble or make him suspicious about my motives for asking them.

  I was mulling over these matters when he put me out of my misery. He leaned in very close to me, much too close given the garlic on his breath, and whispered, “Godman’s not here yet, by the way.”

  I pretended to be blasé about this. “Mum’s the word, right?”

  “Right, but now that you’re a volunteer, you might get a peek at him.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” I said without so much as a blink. “And if I do, I’ll make sure he gets the care he deserves.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The women of the household were panting with excitement when I got home. They’d been more than a little bewildered by my decision to become a volunteer, seemingly out of the blue, although my mother reminded the others that I’d always been a “good girl,” but they were starved for entertainment and were eager to hear about my first day at the hospital.

  “Start from the beginning,” Mom said as we all sat at the dinner table eating foods whose main ingredient was butter. She was wearing a bathrobe I hadn’t seen before. New slippers too. No, it wasn’t as if she’d put on real clothes and decided to stop holding herself hostage in the house, nor had she copped to suffering from agoraphobia, but maybe my living at home was having a positive impact on her. I liked to think so, anyway.

  “Very well,” I said. “The person who trained me gave me a list of do’s and don’ts, and I met some of the patients and handed out magazines.”

  “Who trained you?” Aunt Toni pounced, as if she had a sixth sense about anything having to do with her ex-husband.

  I can’t say I didn’t anticipate the question. I’d even rehearsed the answer. “Oh, just one of the other volunteers,” I replied
. “She’s been there for about a year.”

  “And she told you how important it was to wash your hands?” asked Grandma Raysa.

  “Yes, Gram. She told me. She even showed me where they keep the Purell. It’s industrial strength.”

  “Is she from Middletown?” asked my aunt, homing in on the facts like a reporter. I may have inherited my phobias from my mother, but Aunt Toni had the same inquisitive nature I did.

  “As a matter of fact, she is,” I said. I had given myself permission to be vague and evasive, but not to lie. There was enough denial in this household.

  “What a coincidence, sweetie,” said my mother. “What’s her name?”

  “Her name?” I repeated, hoping I could keep dancing around the subject until it went away. I really didn’t want to start a war or open old wounds. “Actually, I’m not allowed to reveal the names of the patients. There’s this thing called the HIPAA law that mandates privacy and confidentiality.”

  “She meant the name of the volunteer who trained you,” said my aunt. “We might know her or her relatives.”

  I crossed and uncrossed my legs. Oh, they knew one of her relatives all right. “Hang on. Don’t you want to hear more about my shift?” I said as a diversionary tactic. “I thought you guys were so interested.”

  Mom clapped her hands giddily. “Yes, yes. Tell us more.”

  I regaled them with tales of the man with the ulcer and the woman with the broken leg and the beaming mothers with their beautiful infants. And then I finished up the story with a flourish, expressing my high opinion of Shelley Bussey and the wonderful work she was doing at the hospital.

  “Bussey?” said Grandma with an arched silver eyebrow. “Is she Jewish?”

  As I’ve explained, we were lapsed Jews in that we celebrated Christmas and didn’t belong to a temple, but we were cultural Jews in that we rooted for Jewish baseball players and Jewish politicians and Jewish Miss Universes. Oh, and my grandmother was always speculating about who might be Jewish despite a gentile-sounding name, the way people in Holly wood speculate about who might be gay despite a lead in a romantic comedy.

  “I have no idea,” I said.

  “Is she from Middletown?” she followed up.

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  “How about the one who trained you? Is she a local?” asked Aunt Toni.

  That again. Now what? I could only skirt the issue for so long.

  Oh, the hell with it, I thought and braced myself for the inevitable.

  “Yes,” I said. “The person who trained me today was Claire Honeycutt.”

  There was a collective gasp. I watched Aunt Toni’s jaw go slack.

  “That tramp is a volunteer at Heartland General?” she said finally, her voice quivering with rage. “They let her into the rooms of those poor, vulnerable people?”

  “Look, I know she’s public enemy number one around here,” I said, “and I’m not sticking up for her. It’s just that she was pretty decent to me, and I—”

  “Did you hear that?” she said, leaning over me so she could speak directly to my mother. “Your daughter is all chummy with that trashy girl who stole my husband.”

  “Ann didn’t say they were chummy,” Mom replied, leaning over me so she could speak directly to my aunt. “And it isn’t her fault that Claire was the one who trained her today. There’s no reason to get testy with her.”

  “I’m not testy with her,” said a testy Aunt Toni. “I’m testy with you, Linda. All you care about is smoothing everything over, making it all nicey-nicey. There are times when things can’t be nicey-nicey.”

  “Enough!” said Grandma Raysa, clinking her spoon against her glass for emphasis.

  Satisfied that she had put an end to her daughters’ bickering, she rose wearily from her chair, limped into the kitchen, and started spritzing the countertops with Lysol—her way of dealing with stress.

  We weren’t your typical family, obviously, but we were all we had.

  “YOU SURE YOU’RE ready to go it alone?” Shelley asked on Tuesday afternoon when I arrived at the volunteers office. She was wearing a bright red dress, which, together with her imposing height and her white frizz, created a startling impression. She loved to dress colorfully. She said that every day of her life was a celebration of her victory over cancer and that, by God, she was going to make us all sit up and take notice. She was the opposite of my father, who succumbed to his cancer without a fight. There wasn’t a hint of weakness or frailty about her.

  “Oh, I’m definitely ready,” I said. I’d spent the entire weekend wondering about Goddard, picturing him stretched out in a bed on the sixth floor, rehearsing my entrance into his room and my first words to him. He’d be all alone, so lonesome, so ready to unburden himself to a sweet new friend.

  “Well, then have at it,” said Shelley, continuing to enjoy my enthusiasm.

  And I was enthusiastic. Just not for the reason she thought.

  I headed for the storage room, refilled the cart with fresh magazines, including as many issues of Famous as I could stuff into the “entertainment” divider, and set off on my first solo act. I felt chipper in my crisp uniform and enjoyed the smiles I got from passersby. Under my breath, I even hummed a little. I was optimistic about my future, just like I used to be.

  I went straight to the sixth floor, hoping to find Goddard right away but trying not to appear obvious about it. I was supposed to be interested in all the patients.

  When I got off the elevator, I spotted the same nurse I’d seen on Friday and waved to her, just the way Claire had. She was a bosomy Pamela Anderson blonde, and if I were Richard I would have put the moves on her instead of me. Actually, I did put the moves on her. I hoped she’d be able to tell me if there were any new admissions on the floor. Any new admissions with turquoise eyes and wavy dark hair and rotten manners.

  “Pammy, right?” I said as I parked the cart in the hall.

  “Right,” she said without interest. She was undulating around the nurses’ station, looking way more slutty than Claire.

  “I’m Ann, and I’m a new volunteer,” I said. “I was wondering—”

  Just then a voice came over the loudspeaker, and Pammy held up her hand to silence me. “Gotta go,” she said.

  “But I only have one question,” I said.

  She glared at me. “They just announced a code blue on the ninety-year-old guy in 605, so make yourself scarce.”

  “Oh, sorry,” I said, feeling really lame. Suddenly, there was heightened activity around us. Nurses, orderlies, technicians—they were all rushing toward the patient’s room. Pammy muttered as she bustled past me, but she did take a second to glance at my cart. Probably to see if I had the latest issue of Famous.

  Not wanting to be anywhere in the vicinity of a dying person, I turned the cart around and headed for the other end of the floor, which was much quieter. I parked the cart in the hall, arranged my face into my kindest smile, walked toward the patient rooms, and knocked on the first open door. “May I come in?” I asked.

  No answer, so I peered into the room to see if the patient was asleep or in the bathroom.

  “Oh,” I said when I saw a perfectly healthy-looking sixtyish woman sitting up in bed. Aside from the IV fluids dripping into the vein in her hand, I wouldn’t have figured her for a person who needed hospitalization. “Maybe you didn’t hear me knock.” I moved closer, my confidence bolstered by how un-sick she seemed. “I’m Ann, and I’m a volunteer at Heartland General. How are you feeling today?”

  Her large brown eyes stared vacantly at me. Her mouth too was noncommittal.

  I repeated my greeting loud enough to wake the code blue guy down the hall. Still no response.

  “Well, I just wanted to say hello and ask if you needed anything to read,” I said. “I’d be glad to bring you a magazine.”

  Her expression never wavered. I wondered if she might be from another country and we had simply hit a language barrier. I knew a little Spanish—Well,
okay. I knew Que pasa?—so I tried that. Nothing.

  I kept going, groping for anything that might be a conversation starter. “We have magazines about cooking and gardening and—”

  “AHHHHHHHH!” screamed the woman, scaring me in that primal way that people scare you when they sneak up from behind and go, “Boo!”

  After practically leaping into the air, I flattened myself against the door, pulsating with fear, wishing I were back in L.A. getting screamed at by Harvey. “Are you in pain?” I said in a small voice.

  “AHHHHHHHHH!” she screamed again. It was a bloodcurdling scream that brought a harried nurse into the room.

  “What’s going on in here?” she demanded, as if I were a thief, even though it was obvious from my uniform that I hadn’t done anything wrong.

  “I was just asking if she wanted a magazine,” I said.

  “Didn’t they teach you the rules?” she said, dragging me out of the room by my arm, then pointing at the sign on the door. “‘No Visitors’ means no visitors.”

  Oh God. I hadn’t seen the sign. In my zeal to find Goddard, I’d just barged right in without bothering to read it. Not only that, I’d forgotten to get the patient’s permission to enter—one of Claire’s don’ts. I had done something wrong. Two things. I was a fool. I apologized to the nurse, who gave me a withering look and walked away.

  “But why was she screaming?” I called out to her. “Does she have dementia? Or some other sort of neurological problem?”