“Aw, it’s hard for me to remember,” Ernest protested.
Hayley picked up the badge that dangled at the end of her baby blue lanyard. “We all wear these. My name could not be in bigger print, Ernest.”
Now it was his turn to sigh. “All right, Nurse Hayley.”
“Thank you. And the flirting is too much.” She dropped the badge. “You’re such a nice guy. And we’re here to keep you alive. Why do you antagonize the people keeping you alive?”
He had the good grace to look sheepish. “I didn’t think about that.”
“Well, you better.” She stood up, dusting off her behind. “The cardiac nurses are way, way meaner than us in ICU. I’m actually telling you to behave much more for your sake than theirs.”Leaning down, she cupped a hand around his ear. “They know how to kill you and make it look natural. Just saying.”
“Oh.” Ernest was so shocked that for once, he didn’t have a reply. She straightened up and backed away, satisfied.
“Cardiac will be down in a couple of hours to get you, Ernest. Remember,” she backed towards the door, pointing a finger from her eyes to his. “Behave.”
Back at the central desk, she sat down with her tablet to finish off her handover notes for Ernest. He’d been in the ICU for a month now after a routine cardiac stent operation had gone badly wrong. And as cheerful and robust as he was generally, the process of getting him stabilized enough to go up to the cardiac floor had been fraught and riddled with setbacks all month. Enduring his constant remarks wasn’t something Hayley would have put up with normally, but hewasa nice fellow, and he was having such a tough time with his recovery.
As she worked on wrapping up her notes, her stomach growled. The nurse next to her, Mirenda, looked up from her own tablet. “Damn, boss. You eat anything today?”
“I…” Hayley paused and looked up towards the ceiling, trying to remember. “I’m not sure, actually. Wait, I had a cherry fruit leather that I stole from Peds?”
Mirenda rolled her large brown eyes. “Girl, that is not a meal. That’s not even a whole snack.” In addition to her RN, Mirenda was a registered dietitian. She was always making sure the other nurses were fueling themselves adequately, and she always had food in her scrub pockets. In this very moment, she pulled out a plastic wrapped turkey jerky and Colby Jack cheese stick combo and handed it to Hayley. “Eat this, drink your water, and then go down to the cafeteria and get yourself a good hot meal.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Hayley saluted with the jerky stick and got to peeling the wrapper open. As soon as the smell of the cheese andmeat hit her nose, her stomach growled even more loudly and before she knew it, she had wolfed both sticks down.
Mirenda paused in the act of pulling a stylus out of the large bun of microbraids swirled atop her head. “Goodlord, Hayley.”
Hayley let out a dainty burp. “Excuse me. Sorry. Wow. Okay. I think I’m just gonna…”
“Yeah, you get going.” Mirenda pointed a slender brown finger at the ICU doors. “I’ll page you if there’s an issue.”
“Thanks.” She got to her feet and bolted out the doors, making a beeline for the cafeteria.
She was happy to find that it was spaghetti day in the cafeteria. Loading her tray up with a big plate of pure noodly carb goodness, she spotted Paige across the cafeteria with her own plate of spaghetti and garlic bread and made her way over. “Hey!”
“Heya, Hay!” Paige smiled and patted the chair next to her. “It’s been days. Busy in the ICU?”
“Yeah, full house. Although we’re sending a few patients up to floors today, so that’s nice.” Hayley picked up a big forkful of pasta and sauce and twirled it around. “Just in time for the next wave!”
“And so it goes.” Paige nibbled on a slab of buttery garlic bread. “We’ve had a wave of food poisonings from that all-you-can-eat seafood buffet…again.”
“How have they not closed that place down yet?” Hayley wondered. “And why do people keepgoingthere? It doesn’t even look clean?”
“Hell if I know. I keep reporting to the Health Department, I swear.” Paige shrugged. “It’s all I can do. Well, maybe I should also buy stock in freakin’ Zofran; I’ve prescribed so much of it lately for these poor puking people.”
“Would that not be insider trading?” Hayley wondered as she dug further into her pasta mountain. “In some weird roundabout way?”
“I don’t think so, but what do I know, I went to medical school, not business school.” Paige shrugged. “Maybe I should have done business; I wouldn’t owe so much in student loans still.”
They ate in companionable silence for several minutes while the cafeteria buzzed around them. Everyone at Oakridge loved spaghetti day, patients and staff alike, so it was busier than usual.
Literally everyone. Paige looked up past Hayley and her eyes got wide. “Oop.”
“What, oop?” Hayley put down her fork and turned around. And promptly groaned.
Deborah Morales.
She hadn’t seen the ER chief for several days. It was almost like the woman was actively avoiding her… an impressive feat considering how closely their departments had to work together regularly.
