He raises an eyebrow. “Not to offend you, but it’s pretty obvious you have. Your eyes are super red and watery.” He lowers his voice. “Is this about the meeting?”
I feel a surge of panic that everyone knows why I’m in trouble.
“You shouldn’t even know about that.”
“You know how gossip gets around in this place.” He places a hand on my shoulder in an attempt to be comforting, but all I want is to curl up into a ball in the bathroom stall and scream into my hands. “Crystal went through the same thing when her kids were toddlers and they were absolute assholes about it. Not an ounce of sympathy. We developed a special shift cover system just so she wouldn’t get in trouble again.” He pauses. “I guess it’s harder when there are only a few residents per hospital and you all work different shifts.”
“Our shift schedules are rough.”
He pats my shoulder. “You’ll get through it. But maybe, since we happen to be on a shift that ends at a normal time tonight, we can head for a drink after work? You invite Lily and I’ll handle the rest.”
5
NINA
The mission for tonight was to look good and get drunk.
I meet my slightly unsteady gaze in the bathroom mirror and run a hand through my waves.
Mission accomplished.
I went a lifetime without drinking. Then I had Ava, I was utterly alone for the first time in my life, completing online courses to keep up with my studies, and all I could think about was my ex.
That was when I felt a shred of understanding for my father, for the first time in my life. Some emotions need to be obliterated in a haze of substances rather than felt.
Daniel might have had an ulterior motive for suggesting drinks — based on the way he’s been looking at me all night, the ulterior motive was me — but I think a night out was just what I needed as well. My saintly neighbor Ms. Orlov gladly agreed to babysit Ava forthe evening.
Despite the assholeish actions of management today, I like my colleagues. I fit in at Middlefield in a way I never really have before, not while I took an accelerated path through college, not while I was a quiet nerd in high school, and certainly not within my family.
Everyone who was clocking off a shift came out for a drink to reassure me that it wasn’t personal.
“We’ll fight those bastards for you, if we need to,” said Terry, our union representative. The other nurses toasted their beers to me. “This is the second time management have been discriminatory towards single mothers.”
Lily squeezed me close to her and ruffled my bangs until I protested.
“Nina will not let those dickheads fire her. She might look cute, but she’s tough as nails, this one,” she reassured the table, who cheered in response.
“Damn right, Nina.”
Like the drop-everything bestie she is, Lily rushed in to the hospital before we went out, with a supply of make-up and a going-out top to replace my usual t-shirt. She chose well. The deep green top has a keyhole cut-out in the front and emphasizes my curves in exactly the right places.
I’m not the kind of person who gets dressed up for a drink with colleagues, and I felt self-conscious as we whipped out a curling iron in the staff bathroom, but right now looking good feels like a shield against the world.
I rearrange my bra and swipe on some lip oil before Ihead out of the bathroom.
I think Daniel is appreciating it a little too much. I’ve been trying to redirect his attentions towards Lily, but he only has eyes for me.
On the way back to our table, where the jugs of sangria are flowing, I catch a glimpse of that golden fucking hair.
Tousled but just neat enough to look like it was meant to be that way. Hairstylists could spend years practicing and never perfect this look. I’d recognize it anywhere.
Artyom.
It’s not like it was the other day, when I caught snippets of him.
This time his presence is whole and it hits me with its full force. It feels like the floor gives way beneath me.
The sight of him, seated at the bar and looking so relaxed that it’s like he owns the place, makes my chest tighten with hopeless, utterly doomed need. He’s wearing a collared shirt, the cotton hugging his shoulders and arms. No suit jacket, no tie. Unusually informal for Art.
