by Jane Heller
“I think we’ve just wandered onto the set of ‘ER,’” Jackie said after we got off the elevator on Deck 1 and found ourselves in the midst of a medical wonderland. There were people everywhere—ailing bodies draped across the chairs and sofas in the large waiting room; nurses bustling about, taking pulses and temperatures and insurance information; ship personnel of various ages and afflictions, stopping in for treatment and/or gossip. Even Captain Solberg, our fearless leader, passed through, “to pick up da prescription for Prozac,” he said matter-of-factly after nodding a cautious hello at me and introducing himself to Jackie.
“So that explains it,” I mumbled once he was out of earshot.
“Explains what?” asked Jackie.
“Why he acted so unconcerned when I went to see him this morning. He’s not dispassionate, just depressed.”
“You went to see him this morning? What for?” said Jackie as we approached the front desk to sign her in. I gasped when I saw that there were twenty-four names ahead of hers. The nurse in charge, whose ID tag read Wendy Wimple, R.N. and who was British, estimated that there would be a two-hour wait.
Good God, I thought. At least when you’re at a restaurant and they tell you you’re in for a two-hour wait, you can have a drink at the bar.
“So why did you go to see the captain this morning?” Jackie repeated once we were signed in and seated. I was grateful that she was still lucid, given how feverish she was.
“Oh, it was just a problem I had with one of the male passengers,” I said, sticking to my decision not to tell her or Pat about the murder plot. “I felt I should report the person.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, here we go,” she sighed. “Elaine and her intrigues and conspiracies.”
We sat together in that waiting room for what seemed like an eternity, and I came to understand more fully why they call such places waiting rooms. I looked around at the other people waiting. From what I saw and heard, they were suffering from everything from sun poisoning and food poisoning to heart disease and kidney failure. I’m telling you, the place was packed with physical wrecks, and Jackie was one of them. As time wore on, she became more feverish, alternated between chills and sweats, didn’t even have the strength to razz me. And she showed virtually no interest in interrogating me about Sam, for which I was grateful. I have to admit, there was a teensy weensy part of me that resented her for keeping me away from him.
At one point, the nurse called out the name of yet another patient that wasn’t Jackie and directed the person toward the examining rooms. I glanced at my watch and saw that it had now been over two hours since we’d signed in. Enough was enough. I approached the desk and asked how many people were in front of Jackie and how long it would be before her turn would come.
“There are seven people in front of her,” Nurse Wendy Wimple said crisply. “I’d say she could be waiting another forty-five minutes to an hour before seeing the doctor.”
“The doctor? You mean, there’s only one? For all these people?”
“There is only one here at present,” said Wendy, whose manner was as starched and stiff as her white uniform. “The backup doctor is on call.”
“Then call him,” I suggested. “The sooner the better.”
I looked over at Jackie, who had chosen that very moment to lapse into a delirium. Suddenly, she was moaning and waving her arms in the air and speaking in an odd combination of pig latin and iambic pentameter.
“Can’t you see my friend needs help?” I shouted as I banged my fist on the reception desk. “She’s out of her mind with fever.”
“How do you know it’s the fever?” the nurse asked from between pursed lips. “We’ve treated several psychiatric patients today.”
“Look here, missy. I don’t know where you received your nurse’s training, but you don’t have to be a medical genius to figure out that that woman over there”—I pointed to Jackie—“is sick. Physically sick. Now if you won’t take her inside to see the doctor, I’ll—”
“You’ll what?”
“I’ll…I’ll…” I was stumped. This wasn’t Manhattan, with a hospital on every block, so I didn’t exactly have leverage here. And even if there were another hospital within swimming distance, we’d have to get there and sign Jackie in, and then the wait would start all over again.
“I’ll…I’ll report this to the editor of Away from It All, the most popular travel magazine in the States,” I sputtered. “I’m in the public relations field. I can easily leak the information that if you’re a passenger on the Princess Charming and you’re unfortunate enough to get sick, you’d better bring along your own doctor, because you’ll never live to—”
I didn’t finish my sentence because in the middle of my tirade, out walked the doctor.
“Is dere a problem, Vendy? I could hear da commotion from all da vay down da hall,” he said, seeming concerned but not angry.
Another Scandinavian, I thought as I regarded him. He was stockier than Captain Solberg—quite roly-poly, in fact—but blonder, fairer, gentler. Perhaps it was his voice that suggested a certain caring and compassion. It was soft, low, without an authoritative edge.
“I’m sorry, Doctor—”
“Johansson,” he offered, shaking my hand after removing his white latex gloves. “Dr. Per Johansson.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said. “I’m sorry about the way I spoke to your nurse, but my friend over there”—I pointed again at Jackie—“has been waiting over two hours to see you, and her condition is deteriorating rapidly.”
“Vat are her symptoms?” he asked as all the other patients in the waiting room watched with keen interest. There wasn’t much else in the way of entertainment; the magazine selection wasn’t the best.
“Well,” I began. “It started early yesterday morning with terrible stomach cramps and…” I paused. “Why don’t I just go over there and bring her to you,” I said.
Before Dr. Johansson could escape, I ran over to where Jackie was sitting, dragged her to the desk, and, propping her up like a department store mannequin, said, “Take a look at her, Doctor. She’s a sick puppy.”
Dr. Johansson looked puzzled. “Puppy?”
“Oh.” I smiled. “No, I know you’re not a veterinarian.” I hesitated for a second or two. “You’re not a veterinarian, are you?” You never could tell with ship’s doctors.
He smiled back, a good sport, and said he wasn’t.
I nodded, relieved. “What I meant was, my friend has a high fever. Feel.”
I took hold of Dr. Johansson’s hand and placed it on Jackie’s forehead. “See?”
He arched an eyebrow and looked rather sternly at the nurse. “Let’s get her into da examining room, Vendy. Right avay.”
“Yes, Doctor,” Wendy acquiesced. She took one of Jackie’s arms, Dr. Johansson took the other, and together they led my friend away, down the hall.
Famished and figuring the examination would take a while, I dashed up to the Glass Slipper for a quick snack. But it was three-thirty by this time and the café was closed.
“How about just a roll and butter?” I begged a busboy who was wiping down one of the tables. “Please?”
He smirked, probably thinking I was one of those insatiable, orally fixated passengers who can’t go five minutes without a nosh. I reached into my Princess Charming tote bag, opened my wallet, and handed him a five-dollar bill, the smallest change I had with me. His smirk disappeared and he hustled back to the kitchen and returned with a pastrami on rye and a glass of iced tea. I thanked him, sat down at the table he’d been cleaning, and ate and drank while he wiped.
At about four o’clock, I watched from the Glass Slipper as the Princess Charming pulled out of the harbor at Isle de Swan. Next stop: San Juan at one o’clock the following afternoon. Somehow, the idea of heading toward a major city—the capital city of a country with genuine diplomatic ties to the United States, a place with several hospitals to choose from—was comforting. Needing to be comforted fur
ther, I thought of Sam then, wondered how he had spent his afternoon on the island, wondered how it would feel to see him again at dinner. I couldn’t wait.
I went back downstairs to the infirmary. Jackie was still in with Dr. Johansson, Nurse Wimple told me, so I sat down, picked up a dog-eared, three-year-old copy of People magazine, and waited. I was trying to involve myself in a story about Oprah Winfrey’s latest adventures in dieting when Pat appeared—battered, bruised, and limping!
I jumped up from my seat and rushed over to her. She was not alone; Albert Mullins was holding her by the left elbow.
“What happened?” I said.
“I had a little accident,” she said, grimacing in pain. Her chin had a nasty cut on it. Her right arm was scraped and bleeding. And her right ankle was very swollen.
“What kind of an accident?” I asked, directing the question to both Pat and Albert. “When I left you two, you were in Ginger’s art class, creating.”
“Yes, and it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience,” Albert volunteered, “made even more so by your friend’s delightful company.”
“Swell. What happened after the art class?” I said impatiently.
Pat started to answer, but her bruised chin clearly made it difficult for her to move her mouth to speak, so Albert filled in.
“We had the lovely lunch that the ship provided,” he reported. “Chicken legs dipped in a rather pungent—”
“Forget the menu, Albert. I want to hear about the accident,” I said.
“Yes, yes. Of course,” he said quickly. “After lunch, Pat and I decided to explore the island a bit on our own—I was so eager to spot a double-crested cormorant, you see—and we took a little hike south in the direction of Elizabeth’s Refuge.”
“Where?”
“Elizabeth’s Refuge, an island landmark. It’s in the brochure, Elaine.”
“I didn’t read the brochure, Albert.”
“Well, then. Allow me to explain. When Christopher Columbus and his ilk were laying claim to the West Indies, one of the ships ran into a violent storm and washed up on the shore of the island that is now Isle de Swan. A local woman named Elizabeth was the proprietress of a stone tavern along the very stretch of rocks where the ship came aground. Legend has it that she rescued singlehandedly the ship’s captain and crew, and her tavern was thereafter rechristened Elizabeth’s Refuge. It’s a derelict building now, of course, but still a thrilling historical monument to the courage and bravery—”
“The accident, Albert. Get to the accident.”
“Yes. The accident.” He looked at Pat with a mixture of guilt and sympathy and continued. “We were climbing down the rather steep and narrow stone steps leading away from the building when a large group of sightseers were on their way up to the area. Pat was walking directly in front of me—I had her in view at all times, I assure you—but she was either distracted by the people in the group and wasn’t watching where she was going, or she was inadvertently shoved by one of them. It was quite a crowd, you see. In any case, she ended up twisting her ankle, missing a step, and falling down onto the hard, unforgiving stonework. I feel terribly responsible, really I do. First came that unseemly business when I spilled the drink on her blouse. Now comes this regrettable, utterly preventable fall while she was on my watch! I’m beginning to think your friend isn’t safe around me.”
I’m beginning to think so too, I thought, wondering if it were even remotely possible that Albert was the hit man and Pat was his intended target. Suppose he had meant to kill her and botched the job? He was a complete dip-shit. It was easy to imagine him screwing up. On the other hand, he was seriously clumsy; he’d said so himself in the midst of his stirring apology over the Miami Whammy incident. He could have nudged Pat down those stairs—accidentally—and then been too ashamed to admit it. And Pat herself wasn’t exactly Connecticut’s answer to Ginger Rogers. During her Merengue lesson the day before, she had stepped on the instructor’s toes so often that he had handed her over to the assistant instructor, on whose toes she had also stepped. I was probably overreacting, the way Jackie and Pat always claimed I was.
Pat suddenly groaned in pain, as if to remind everyone that she had come to the infirmary for medical attention, not to listen to Albert and me chat.
I wrote her name on Nurse Wimple’s sign-in sheet—there were twenty-six names before hers—and helped her over to the seating area.
I’ll never see Sam again, I thought, figuring Pat’s wait would be even longer than Jackie’s and I’d miss dinner, just as I’d missed lunch.
“I think we can handle things on our own now,” I told Albert. “You don’t have to stay.”
“But I feel honor-bound to remain by Pat’s side until we learn the full extent of her injuries,” he protested.
“Pat will give you a call,” I said. “When she’s up to it.”
“As you wish,” he said, bowing and then setting Pat’s Princess Charming tote bag, which he had been carrying for her, on the floor. He took hold of her left hand, the uninjured one, and pressed his lips to it. “I bid you a speedy recovery.”
“ThkyouAlbt,” Pat said, her sore chin forcing her to speak as if her jaw had been wired shut.
“You’re most welcome, my dear,” he said and left.
I turned to Pat. “Did he push you down those stairs?”
“Albt?”
“Yes, Albert. He said you might have been ‘shoved.’”
Pat shook her head gingerly. “Mybe. ButnotbyAlbt.”
“How do you know? He said he was walking right behind you. Isn’t it possible that he was the one who did the pushing and shoving? To hurt you?”
“WhywldAlbtdothat?”
“I don’t know.” I sat there ruminating on the current state of Pat’s relationship with Bill, trying to imagine why a man of his intelligence would hire someone like Albert to murder his ex-wife. Finally, I asked, “You told Jackie and me that Bill called you on the phone, just before we left for the cruise, and said he wanted to see you.”
“Hedid.”
“Did he ever say why he wanted to see you?”
“Hetoldmehemissesthekids.”
“But he sees the kids on his regular visits. And he has them for this whole week, while you’re away.”
“Iknow.”
“Did he say anything else the last time you spoke to him?”
She nodded. “Thehousetoobig.”
“He said the house in Weston is too big?”
She nodded again.
“The bastard. What does he expect you to do? Move yourself and his five children into a tiny apartment? So he won’t have to pay the mortgage anymore?”
Pat shrugged. “Can’ttalk. Hurts.”
“Sorry.” I squeezed her good arm. “Listen, Jackie should be coming out any minute, and once she’s finished with the doctor I’ll ask him to take you next. He seems like a very nice man.”
“SodoesAlbt.”
“The jury’s still out on Albert, Pat.”
She was about to disagree with me when Dr. Johansson emerged. He came right over to us, took a quick look at Pat, and said, “Vat happened to dis one?”
I explained.
“Vat a shame,” he commiserated, lifting Pat’s tender ankle in his large, experienced hands and giving it a cursory examination. “Ve’ll x-ray it, but I think it’s just a sprain. Ve’ll clean up da bruises, ice da ankle, and she’ll be good as new in no time.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. One down, one to go. “What about Jackie?” I asked Dr. Johansson.
He furrowed his brow and said, “Ve took some blood, a urine sample, and a culture, to see if dere’s a bacterial infection, but da main thing is, I vant her to stay here overnight. Maybe even two nights.”
“Stay here? You have beds?” I asked.
Dr. Johansson smiled. “Come. I’ll show you.”
He instructed Nurse Wimple to take Pat back to one of the examining rooms while he escorted me on a behind-the-scenes tour of th
e ship’s infirmary. “Dis is vhere ve do some of da surgeries,” he said as we passed one of the operating rooms. “Ve can do everything from open-heart surgery to setting a broken leg. Da other doctor does cosmetic surgery for some of da passengers. Dat’s vhy he’s not here dis afternoon; he did four face lifts dis morning.”
I shook my head in amazement. It had never occurred to me that people took cruises to have face lifts. But then, it had never occurred to me that cruises had hospitals.
“Dis is da lab,” Dr. Johansson said proudly as we walked by a room in which four white-gloved and white-coated technicians sat hunched over vials of blood. “And den dere are da patients’ quarters.” He stopped when we got to a section of the infirmary where there were several private rooms, most of them filled. In one of the rooms lay Jackie, propped up in bed, an IV needle in her arm and one of those dreadful, white-and-blue-dotted gowns on her body.
“Can I talk to her?” I asked.
“Of course. Ve’re only keeping her as a precaution,” Dr. Johansson said reassuringly. “Until ve get her fever down and can figure out vat she’s got. Just don’t tire her. She’s very veak.”
“I won’t,” I promised. “And thank you, Doctor. Very much.”
“You’re very velcome,” he said. “Now, I’d better go and take a look at your other friend.”
I nodded, wondering how I had managed to stay out of harm’s way and how long my luck would last.
12
“Jackie? Can you hear me? It’s Elaine,” I whispered, standing beside her hospital bed.
“Of course I can hear you. I’m sick, not deaf.”
I smiled. “You gave me quite a scare in that waiting room,” I admitted. “But you seem better already. Maybe this Dr. Johansson knows what he’s doing.”