by Lisa Nowak
* * *
I walk several blocks through the cool May mist and catch the bus to Lloyd Center. Normally, I’d take the 66 straight across the Ross Island Bridge, but Grandpa needs a new journal, and the Nostalgia Store is the only place that still carries the kind of paper notebooks he likes.
That inconvenience is fourth on his list of pet peeves, right after low-flow toilets and the high cost of meat. The number one spot goes to self-driving cars. I guess when Grandpa was a kid, most families had more than one vehicle, and getting your driver’s license when you turned sixteen was a rite of passage. Now anyone can drive, but lots of people can’t afford to. Cars got crazy expensive to register after the first wave of climate refugees swarmed here in the early ’30s, causing major gridlock. We’ve been lucky to afford a car at all since Dad died and Grandpa moved in with us. But I don’t care. Riding public transit gives me a chance to do my homework, and I like watching the colorful people who “keep Portland weird.”
When I’m done at the mall, I catch the MAX—Portland’s light rail system. The train is crowded with commuters cutting out of work early on Friday, so I have to stand.
“Hey, Piper,” a guy calls to me.
“Uh … hey,” I say. Why’s he even talking to me? I recognize him from the Junior Student Assistant Program, but it’s not like that means we have to be buddies.
The train swooshes toward the city center, with riders piling on and off at each stop. Just before it goes across the bridge, it pulls into the Rose Quarter. A herd of people spills out, freeing up some seats, and I nab one. I glance out the window at the Rose Garden Arena, where Jefferson Cooper grins back from his re-election billboard. Among all the electronic signs-in-motion that plaster the sides of buildings and vehicles, the stillness of this one stands out. Doesn’t hurt that it’s four stories tall. Dressed in jeans, an untucked button-down shirt, and a sport coat, Cooper leans against an early Stumptown brick wall. His dark hair is short on the sides and long on top, with that disheveled-on-purpose sort of styling that makes my friend Bailey swoon. His full beard is so closely cropped it almost looks scruffy, and his brown eyes stare out at his constituency with a let’s-go-have-a-beer kind of friendliness. He’s the picture of casual leadership, which is pretty much what you get when you elect a rock star for president.
I turn away from the window. Even though it’ll only take ten minutes to get to Oregon Health and Science University up on Pill Hill, I’d like to pull out my laptop and finish the history chapter I’ll be quizzed on tomorrow. But I forgot to download it, and I know the craptastic city Net service isn’t going to let me access the cloud while I’m on the MAX. Despite the pro-Cascadia hype, not everything’s coming up roses in the Rose City. The thing I don’t understand is, if Jefferson Cooper’s as great as everyone says, why the hell can’t he get us some decent NetMax?
I entertain myself by looking out the opposite window at the Willamette River and Waterfront Park, which will be trampled into a muddy wasteland next week by Rose Festival crowds. Nick wants to go this year—he still remembers Dad taking him to the carnival when he was in kindergarten—but we never have the money. We don’t have the money for anything, which makes Nick’s stories and Grandpa’s conspiracy theories just a little bit spooky. If someone really is shanghaiing poor people off the streets of Portland, we’ll be the next to go. I want to help, but even if I win one of the twenty-five spots in the Senior Student Assistant program, and the scholarship that comes with it, I’ll have four years of college and four more of med school before I start making any money. Nick will be my age by then.
At the hospital, my shift goes smoothly. I don’t mind dealing with bedpans and vomit, because at least at OHSU we get to work with patients, even if it’s on a limited and closely monitored basis. High school volunteers at most hospitals are stuck pushing magazine carts and running errands. I could do a lot more than they let me, but I understand why that will never happen. The only official medical training I have is what I got when I joined the program last fall. Watching twenty million surgeries on YouTube and out-scoring most med students at Sim Surgery does not qualify one to be a doctor.
When I’m done at nine, I call to remind Mom I’m stopping by Bailey’s and won’t be home till late. She doesn’t answer. Huh. Usually she’s off work by now. Maybe she’s in the bathroom or got stuck pulling a long shift. I leave a message and, just in case, call Nick’s phone to make sure he knows not to expect me. He doesn’t pick up either.
Worry wiggles around in my gut. Nick always answers. Maybe I should go home to make sure everything’s okay. But it’s Bailey’s seventeenth birthday, and as much as I hate parties, I can’t stand her up. Of all my grade school friends, she alone braved the nerd alert issued on me in middle school and remained loyal all these years.
I fit my moldable plastic phone around my wrist and head for the locker room to get my backpack. I don’t bother shucking off my scrub shirt—the only part of the uniform they’ll let us wear, since they don’t want people mistaking us for someone who knows what they’re doing. It’s not dirty, and anyway, I sort of like being seen in it.
“Piper, can I have a minute?”
Dr. Alvarez stands in the doorway. She’s an angel in a lab coat. The one person who sees me as an individual in the mob of first-year JSAs. I hitch my backpack over my shoulder and follow her into the hall.
“I hear you’re going to stay with us for the summer,” she says as I fall into step beside her. She’s petite—a good two inches shorter than me—and she wears her dark hair in a long braid.
“Yeah. I don’t want to get rusty.” Normally, JSAs don’t work between their junior and senior years, but I managed to snag a shift.
Dr. Alvarez laughs. “I hardly think that’s possible. Let’s go to my office and have a chat.”
My heart races a little. I relish every minute she spares for me. Most Junior Student Assistants aren’t lucky enough to have a doctor show interest in them. Dr. Alvarez not only takes me seriously, she also gives me perks, like the access code to the hospital’s website, so I can watch training videos. Usually, people don’t get that privilege until they’re SSAs.
Once we’re in her office, Dr. Alvarez takes a seat behind her desk. I drop into the familiar chair across from her, glancing at the diplomas on the wall, the abundance of bonsai plants, and the neatly ordered desktop, with each item meticulously lined up. This is one of my favorite places. Someday, I’ll have an office just like it.
“So which medical advances are on the agenda today?” I ask. “The new Swedish drug that’s supposed to cure Alzheimer’s? That lab-grown kidney they say they’ve perfected at Oxford?” We’ve spent a lot of time discussing the latest developments. Before the climate crisis diverted so much funding, OHSU was cutting edge in research, but for the past thirty years, the Europeans and Japanese have been kicking our butts. It’s only since Cascadia broke away from the U.S. that we’re starting to gain ground. Of course, if President Cooper would dedicate as much money to medicine as he does to green energy, it might speed things up a little.
Dr. Alvarez smiles. “Actually, I’ve got something for you.” She slides a drawer open, pulls out a MedEval device, and places it on the desk. “I upgraded to the G6 model, and I figured you might enjoy having my old one.”
She sounds casual, like this is something she’d toss in the trash if I didn’t take it, but the fact is, she could’ve traded it in for credit.
“Thank you,” I say, lifting the monitor and finger clip off the desk. The two words aren’t anywhere near adequate, but I’ve always tanked at spilling my feelings. I hope the grin on my face gets the job done.
This is the single most awesome thing anyone has ever given me. I haven’t touched one since Dad showed me how to work the G4 model the ambulance service assigned him. This one’s smaller. The size of a phone instead of a tablet. I push the power button and slip the clip over my finger. After a few seconds, it wirelessly transmits my heart rate, temperature
, blood pressure, and blood oxygen level to the screen. With the use of the two tiny electrodes tucked away in the back compartment, I could also run an EKG on myself. Tapping a button will let me save all the data to a patient’s file and add voice notes.
“You might want to be discreet with that,” Dr. Alvarez says. “Keep it at home for now.”
“Of course.” If I pull this thing out in front of the other JSAs, they’re going to think I got some special favor. We aren’t assigned MedEvals until we’re in the SSA program, and even then, they’re beat-up loaners.
“I really appreciate this,” I say, taking another shot at being human.
Dr. Alvarez smiles. “I know.”
I stuff the MedEval into my backpack then look up at her. She’s leaning forward, her hands steepled over her desk. The smile has disappeared, quick as spring snow on Mt. Hood.
“There’s something else I’d like to talk to you about, Piper.”
Uh oh. Dr. Alvarez has never said a harsh word to me, but something in her tone tells me she’s about to. How did I mess up?
“I’m glad you’re staying for the summer,” she says. “I want you to have a strong chance of getting into the SSA program, so I’m assigning you to a group where you’ll work closely with others. It’ll give you an opportunity to develop your skills as a team player. That’s the one area where you fall a little short.”
What? My face freezes, my smile going stiff and fake as shock threatens to melt it away. “I do everything anybody asks me to,” I say. “No matter who I get stuck working with.” The words pour off my tongue without passing through that part of my brain that’s supposed to act as a filter. Ah, crap.
Dr. Alvarez has the good grace not to mention the size eight sneaker planted firmly in my mouth. “Of course you do. Your reviews are exemplary in that regard. The nurses say you’re a joy to work with, and the patients rave about your compassion and willingness to go the extra mile. But your peers say you’re cold and wooden with them at best, and treat them like they’re beneath you at worst.”
The freeze travels down my neck until my whole body is in cryogenic lockdown. I can’t argue. It’s true. But how am I supposed to feel? While they were playing with Barbie dolls and skateboards, I was suturing pigs’ feet and making my paramedic Dad quiz me on the circulatory system.
“You’ve got a brilliant mind and great instincts, Piper. You’re going to make an excellent doctor. But if you can’t learn to be a team player, you’re going to cheat yourself out of the scholarship you’ll need to get there.”
I am a team player. It’s just that my team is my family, not a bunch of kids who want to edge me out of my one chance at getting a medical degree.
“I think you’ll like the project I’ve assigned you to,” Dr. Alvarez says, like she’s afraid I might implode if she doesn’t soften the blow she just delivered. “There’s a study over at Doernbecher for Magnusson-Bell Syndrome. That’s a—”
“Condition caused by a virus scientists accidentally created while genetically engineering cattle. Most people fight it off easily, but in little kids, the elderly, and anyone with a compromised immune system it leads to heart failure and—”
Dr. Alvarez lifts a hand to shut me up. “All right, you know what it is.” She shakes her head, the faint curve of her lips not a smile at all. “You don’t have to prove to me how smart you are, Piper.”
My face burns like a Colorado wildfire. Why do I have to be such a dork? “I’ll work hard on being a team player,” I say. If there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s apply myself.
“I hope so,” Dr. Alvarez says. “Because I’d hate to see you sabotage your career before it even begins.”