Chapter Text
Night shift was an experimental state.
I liked the quiet, the squeak of mops as cleaners went through the empty rooms, the flicker of warmly dimmed LEDs. Lukewarm coffee and slow jazz on the radio, it had its own kind of ambience.
Purgatory for the barely, half, and nearly dead. Of course, when Hell remembered about us and pushed some bleeding soul through the double doors, that tended to kill the mood.
Psych patients wandered the halls, trailing catheters and monitors like deep sea creatures. Nurses made their rounds, shoes squeaking and scrubs scuffing, the occasional lazy gossip. That firefighter banging that EMT. That EMT banging a nurse. Nurse banging a cop. Round and around, bored people trapped in cement and steel, chemicals and blood that didn’t wash out as pheromones.
Orange blossoms and the rich smell of coffee. Only one person in the whole damn hospital who smelled like that. Eyes still closed, body tilted back in my chair and hands interlaced behind my head, I was at my leisure. She wasn’t.
Mohan was quiet, disturbingly so. She used to perch just behind my shoulder, patiently waiting for me to finish a procedure before asking me something, only to scare the shit out of me when I turned. After a few fiascos, she quickly realized the dangers of startling a former vet, and started clearing her throat five feet away.
But she still had her moments.
I waited. Even in dead silence, I could practically picture her expression. Serene, but slowly starting to crack. That girl had no concept of impatience. I was going to instill one in her. She cleared her throat.
“Dr. Mohan,” I muttered, “You must be dying to ask something.”
“Not at all,” she said smoothly, “It wasn’t urgent.”
“But you were still eager,” I corrected.
“Was I?”
“You were,” I said, because I was right, “Tell me.” I said, “Or don’t. I don’t care.”
A metallic clink made me open my eyes. She was holding a thermos, looking at me expectantly. “I can’t drink the garbage they make here,” she said, “I make my own.”
That interested me.
“You’re telling me this for a reason.”
“I wanted to talk,” she said, “Figured I’d bribe you.”
I pulled my legs off my desk, grabbing a chair and pushing it across from me. She sat down and unscrewed the lid. Colombian coffee. Dark roast. I glanced over at her. Two months, and I expected something weakly caramel flavored from her.
“Do you buy pre-ground?”
She shook her head, “I was raised in a pretty snobbish household. Didn’t matter where we lived, we always had a fancy machine and all the exotic stuff,” she poured herself a sizable drink into the screw off cup and handed the thermos to me, “French-press.”
I raised my eyebrows, “No other way.”
I took a sip and sighed. No sugar, no cream, not even a splash of bourbon that I had started adding. Smooth, not the sludge I typically concocted from cowboy coffee. I’d probably say something poetic and clever, but frankly, it was just better. Nothing else to say about it.
Mohan set hers aside, “How do you take your coffee?”
I shrugged, “From a resident’s thermos, apparently.”
She looked down, hands in her lap. I felt a slow surge of sickness, square in the chest. I could say something like that and walk away from just about anyone. It took a lot longer than two months to get anywhere near my walls. But she had a look to her.
I’d seen it before, in a lot of young and wild things. Lambs, being nudged along by a shepherdess. Feral cats, curled underneath rubble, with dirty fur and the kind of eyes that they put on the kitten calendars. A herd of doe that held up an entire caravan, one stopping to turn its elegant head and look at me with a dark flashing gaze before bounding off into the night. Something there that makes you wish that when you reached out to touch it, it wouldn’t bite off your hand and run laughing back to the wild places.
I’ve got no love for things that betray me. But I can hardly blame something for acting in its nature, and for me to act in mine.
So when she looked down at her hands, small in that chair and with strands of misbehaving hair slipping from her bun, I knew it was in her nature to look that way. Maybe without even realizing it. Maybe it was all an act, an illusion. But if it was an act, then it was one made with the right audience in mind.
“What I’m trying to say is,” I said after a moment, “My coffee is pretty much nuclear waste. I don’t get to have the good stuff very often. Thank you.”
“Of course,” she said easily, “It was the least I could do.”
“You don’t often do ‘the least’.”
“You know what I mean,”
“I do,” I said, “What’s up?”
“You have a code,” she said, “No more than ten minutes spent eating per shift. No more than five minutes for every bathroom break. You keep your phone in your locker. You keep a switchblade in your pocket–it doesn’t bother me, but I’ve seen it.”
I swallowed, “Your point?”
“I have my own code.”
“Mhmm,” I nodded, “You make a point of personal connection with your patients. You hold the hands of the elderly and underaged. You’re kind to the cleaning teams, but you should know–” I added, “Julian’s sweet on you. You make sure everyone knows your name. You’re everyone’s best friend.” I raised my eyebrows.
So coy about it. Her eyes followed me everywhere, watched my every move. I watched her watch me, and I watched her when she didn’t. She came five minutes earlier than me. A feat, since I came thirty minutes early. She drove a white honda, always parked squarely in the middle of the parking lot so other people could park closer. She bought balsamic arugula salads with strawberries, with a diet coke on the side. She ate while listening to a podcast–maybe an audiobook–she didn’t sit with other people.
Teenage girls worshipped her. The medical students clung to her like youthful leeches. That facade of a smiling, patient, good doctor never cracked. Sometimes it was genuine. Sometimes it was tested. Dementia patients spitting on her, shrieking obscenities, clawing at her dark skin. A twenty year old schizophrenic slapping her so hard across the face that she fell, clutching her face and pushing away anyone who tried to help her. A sweet old grandfather, so tenderly frail he could barely push himself up without her help, groping her chest and falling back against the pillows, toothlessly smiling as she left, stony faced and pushing past me.
The husband of a cancer patient followed her to her car one night. She nodded sympathetically. She leaned back against the trunk of her car. She kept her keys tight in her hand. She kept her backpack tight against her shoulder. He said something. Her voice went quiet, and then cool. He reached for her arm. She backed away, steely and sharp. He stood for a moment, then left, hands shoved in pockets. Back to the wife.
I had already gotten out of my car, leaning against the open door. Watching. Waiting. Blood rushing, hackles up. And she saw me. She turned, and she saw me watching her. Did she expect me to explain? The explanation was there, the wordless implication. Did she want an apology, from my world to hers? I didn’t expect an apology, or ask for a thank you.
Whatever it meant, neither of us cared to define it. She got into her car and left. After a few minutes, I did the same.
We knew too much about each other. She wanted me to know more.
“Are you trying to be my best friend, Dr. Mohan?” I asked, “Since this is a hierarchical environment, I have to ask: am I your superior, or your patient in that scenario?”
“Did it ever cross your mind that I was curious about you?”
Her eyes were fixed on me carefully. She wasn’t nervous. She wasn’t lying, not in any way I was trained to pick up. I shrugged, “Not a lot to be curious about. You just never asked.”
“Oh?” her head tilted, “Where you from?”
“Maine. Ogunquit.”
“What’s it like?”
“Cold. Coastal,” I remembered a flash of waves beating against dark sand, white saltbox houses. Windchimes on porches. Cigarette smoke.
“What did you do before this?”
“A medical sergeant.”
“What’s that?”
My least favorite question. I drank more coffee before I spoke, “Medical care. In combat.”
What she thought, I didn’t know. Some younger, blonder version of me charging across dunes, raining down bullets on the taliban and throwing soldiers on my back before scrambling back under heavy fire. No doubt with a soaring soundtrack of violins and cellos, with young men and their white gleaming smiles happy to die for America.
There were no men to save. Not when it was too dark to see, and too dangerous to turn on a light. Not when my shaking hands couldn’t find a bullet hole. Not when Hilson, who stood six foot six and silent as stone, touched my face gently and called me Mama. And who lived? Who lived, with half their face melted and their jaw chipped away from shrapnel? Marco, with his white bone peeking through the remnants of an impulsive tattoo, begging me in the lisp we all made fun of him for to cut it off, just cut it off, did he live? Tony, with his hands shaking, tightly gripping the phone as he had to tell his fiance they were never having children, did he live? Me, holding a scalpel, and just wondering, wondering if I had it in me, did I live?
There were no white teeth. Not when you’re eating from a trough, eating it with sand, eating it with filthy hands, eating your own fingers. Teeth chipped on stone, steel, bullets. Teeth rotting in cavities and infection. Teeth bloody and cradled in callused hands over a fight about something stupid. Teeth, dry in a mouth gummy with dehydration, teeth cutting into your own sunburned lips.
She wasn’t thinking about that.
“Why did you come here?”
“They were hiring.”
She smiled, “What do you do when you’re not here?”
I said nothing.
“Do you read? Swim? Run?” She examined her nails, “Watch reality tv?”
“If I tell you,” I said slowly, “Can I ask you questions next?”
She nodded, smiling.
I scratched my temple, “Run, shower, eat an omelette, work. Go to the gym, get home, shower, eat. Watch something. Sleep. I buy groceries. I mow my lawn. I’ll go to a baseball game. Or a movie.”
She had her chin resting on her arms now, listening to me. The lobby was dead empty. The radio was playing something slow. With a look like that, I could have been the most interesting man in the world. I almost opened my mouth to say more, but I knew better. I knew how she worked. She smiled wider.
My jaw ticked, “My turn.”
“Your turn.”
“Why exactly do you care about this benign information?”
“Maybe I–” she hesitated, “Well maybe I just wanted to build rapport.”
“Mhmm,” I said, “What do you consider building rapport?”
“Pilates,” she counted off on her fingers, “Book club. Yoga class. Volunteering.”
“Who do you build rapport with ?”
“The people there.”
“And you…do things with them? Outside of that environment?” I said, “They’re your friends?”
“I have friends.”
“Then why the hell are you talking to me?” I asked, “What’s the point of this?”
I shook my head, “I’m capable at my job, I’m a good boss. Haven’t I been good to you, Mohan?”
She said nothing.
I continued, “I have a lifetime of shit that I can’t talk about with you. I have the charisma of a bloodstain, and the emotional depth of one. I don’t do Pilates. I read Patrick O’Brian and nothing else. I don’t take yoga classes seriously. I likely volunteer in a very different capacity than you do. We have…” I stuttered, looking for the words, “absurdly little in common.”
“So don’t–” I ran a hand through my hair, “Don’t try. Don’t try this–whatever this is, it can’t be good for you.”
Her jaw was clenched. Her fists balled up tight. There was a strange expression on her face.
“For two months,” she said, “You’ve only talked to me in a professional capacity. You don’t ask about my life, my dinner plans, my hobbies. I adapted to that. I didn’t need to know about you. I didn’t need to care.”
She leaned across the table, “But you stand in corners. You see me. In the cafeteria. In the lobby. In the lounge. With patients. Without patients. And,” her eyes closed, she winced, “that guy. That night. You were there.”
“So?” I said.
“So,” she said, “most guys wouldn’t do that.”
“They wouldn’t have known to,” I said, “He intimidated you. You might have needed help.”
“I have mace.”
“You ever used it?”
She looked down.
“Piece of advice,” I said, “Don’t hesitate. You’ll worry, you won’t want to hurt him. It’s okay. You can hurt him. He touches you, he deserves it. Your conscience is clear,” I looked down at my hands, “Mine was.”
“You weren’t going to hurt him.”
“Maybe,” I glanced at her, over her, “Maybe not.”
Her eyes were wide, hurt, “You had a gun?”
“Relax,” I said dryly, “If he got confrontational, I would have broken his nose on your trunk. The odds of him still trying to fight after that are marginal.”
“I should take a fight class.”
I rubbed my eyes, “Look, I’m not saying this to scare you, but I’m being honest. You’re an attractive woman who works a very social job. So you can be the people’s princess all you want–” she rolled her eyes, “but you’re going to need to know how to defend yourself.”
“I agree,” she conceded, “But I’m never going to learn if you’re always there.”
“Oh,” I nodded, “Well, in that case, I’ll be sure to strand you in another parking lot.”
She laughed, a laugh she hid behind her hand. I smiled, and she caught me.
“Not that many.”
“Hmm?”
She toyed with her cup, fingernails tapping against the metal, “Not that many friends.” She ran a hand over her hair, “I joined the night shift because unlike everyone else, I didn’t have kids, or a spouse, or many commitments at all. All my friends were on day shift and now…”
She spread her hands, “Just me and you, right?”
“I’m a last resort.”
“Stop.” She shook her head, “Not a last resort.”
“Uh-huh,” I studied her, “This better not be the speech you pull with every reclusive guy to get them on your good side–”
“ No ,” she buried her head in her hands, “No, this is definitely a first.”
“I’m the first man that didn’t give you my bank details and social security number after you smiled at me?”
“Contrary to what you think, I am not well liked by some,” she said.
“Too pushy?”
“Too soft,” she replied.
“We need at least one care bear per shift,” I said, “It wasn’t going to be me.”
“Care bear?” she raised her eyebrows.
“Sure,” I thought for a moment, “The pink one.”
“You must not like the pink one.”
“I happen to really like the pink one, Mohan.”
“So why can’t you be friends with her?” she murmured. I looked at her and had to look away. Eyes like a cartoon bunny. Big and wide and filled with unshattered dreams.
“Is it not enough that I am reclusive,” I listed off, “morbid, a terrible conversationalist, and very distrustful of you?”
She shook her head.
I hesitated, “You’re really that lonely?”
“You’re really that interesting,” she corrected.
“Sure,” I said after a moment, “Let’s go get coffee.”