looked startled. He shifted onto one hip to face Xinh, then loftily turned away and said something argumentative, gesturing at me and the ward with more animation than I'd seen in him so far.
Xinh assumed the airs of both a princess and a mother as she replied, lecturing him. The old man set his jaw even more firmly and she repeated what she had said, this time in a more coaxing tone, intermittently pointing to me.
Xe watched me impassively for a while, his fingers idly stroking the thing at his neck. After a couple of minutes his jaw relaxed and he beckoned me to his bedside with a lift of his head.
This time Xinh shouted her encouragement to me, no doubt urging me not to drop the ball after she, Xinh, had gotten things rolling. I leaned over the old man and he pulled the theng from his neck and tenderly handed me the object on the end. I started to carry it to the medicine cabinet, but Xinh, like a referee calling a foul, began bouncing up and down, crying, "No, co! No, Kitty!" and indicated that I was supposed to put Xe's necklace around my own neck.
I hesitated, doubting the professionalism of wearing a patient's jewelry-particularly since it didn't look like very hygienic jewelry.
But Xe was making small nodding movements. He was urging me to wear it, not lock it up. Once I slipped it on, he seemed satisfied and with lordly dignity allowed Voorhees to finish prepping him.
I remember thinking that the necklace could have had value to no one but Xe, and even at that the value had to be purely sentimental. The pendant on the grungy theng looked as if it had been carved, or melted maybe, then molded, out of the bottom of a soda pop bottle. It was still roughly round and had a deep wave running through the middle, with something like ears on the side. It sure wasn't the Hope diamond, but then it wasn't mine to worry about either. just so the theng didn't contain living creatures. I detected nothing more noxious than the old man's sweat, so I tucked his treasure inside my fatigue shirt, the pendant lodging under the top button above my cleavage. I'd promised to guard it with my person, if not in so many words, and I would, though why anybody would want to steal such a thing I couldn't imagine. But even as Voorhees rolled Xe off to surgery, the old man cast a backward glance my way to make sure I was living up to my end of the bargain.
That incident exhausted all of the good humor I had for the day, and when I sat down to do the chart, I felt like a boiling lobster. Sweat saturated my hair and dripped into my eyes. My fatigues stuck to my back and armpits, the backs of my legs, and my crotch. My bra was soaked and clammy. I hate heat and always have. It shuts down my thinking ability by at least 75 percent. I get slow and clumsy, and my skin feels like a freshly tarred road gumming onto everything that touches it. I get faint and headachy and my temper is about as stable as nitroglycerin. I gulped two salt tablets and sat down with my head between my knees for a moment, my hands, where they pressed against my eyes, feeling sticky as those of a two-year-old who's just finished eating candy. Ahn's shril whine sawed through the heat, irritating as the buzzing of a thousand mosquitoes. Damn! And I still had to do the little bastard's dressings. I peeled myself off the chair and jerked the dressing cart away from the wall so hard it clattered. Jesus, it was so hot even my skin seemed to be sending off red light, as if it were boiling. I paused for a moment, closing my eyes just so some part of me could be cool in the shade my eyelids provided. I couldn't touch the kid feeling like this. I took three deep breaths and opened my eyes again. Well, better. My skin was only giving off a hot rosy glow now.
I wheeled the cart over. Now it looked as if the kid was glowing red-red and kind of a murky eggplant color that intensified and darkened when he glared up at me and started shrieking.
"Oh, shut up, I haven't touched you
Xinh assumed the airs of both a princess and a mother as she replied, lecturing him. The old man set his jaw even more firmly and she repeated what she had said, this time in a more coaxing tone, intermittently pointing to me.
Xe watched me impassively for a while, his fingers idly stroking the thing at his neck. After a couple of minutes his jaw relaxed and he beckoned me to his bedside with a lift of his head.
This time Xinh shouted her encouragement to me, no doubt urging me not to drop the ball after she, Xinh, had gotten things rolling. I leaned over the old man and he pulled the theng from his neck and tenderly handed me the object on the end. I started to carry it to the medicine cabinet, but Xinh, like a referee calling a foul, began bouncing up and down, crying, "No, co! No, Kitty!" and indicated that I was supposed to put Xe's necklace around my own neck.
I hesitated, doubting the professionalism of wearing a patient's jewelry-particularly since it didn't look like very hygienic jewelry.
But Xe was making small nodding movements. He was urging me to wear it, not lock it up. Once I slipped it on, he seemed satisfied and with lordly dignity allowed Voorhees to finish prepping him.
I remember thinking that the necklace could have had value to no one but Xe, and even at that the value had to be purely sentimental. The pendant on the grungy theng looked as if it had been carved, or melted maybe, then molded, out of the bottom of a soda pop bottle. It was still roughly round and had a deep wave running through the middle, with something like ears on the side. It sure wasn't the Hope diamond, but then it wasn't mine to worry about either. just so the theng didn't contain living creatures. I detected nothing more noxious than the old man's sweat, so I tucked his treasure inside my fatigue shirt, the pendant lodging under the top button above my cleavage. I'd promised to guard it with my person, if not in so many words, and I would, though why anybody would want to steal such a thing I couldn't imagine. But even as Voorhees rolled Xe off to surgery, the old man cast a backward glance my way to make sure I was living up to my end of the bargain.
That incident exhausted all of the good humor I had for the day, and when I sat down to do the chart, I felt like a boiling lobster. Sweat saturated my hair and dripped into my eyes. My fatigues stuck to my back and armpits, the backs of my legs, and my crotch. My bra was soaked and clammy. I hate heat and always have. It shuts down my thinking ability by at least 75 percent. I get slow and clumsy, and my skin feels like a freshly tarred road gumming onto everything that touches it. I get faint and headachy and my temper is about as stable as nitroglycerin. I gulped two salt tablets and sat down with my head between my knees for a moment, my hands, where they pressed against my eyes, feeling sticky as those of a two-year-old who's just finished eating candy. Ahn's shril whine sawed through the heat, irritating as the buzzing of a thousand mosquitoes. Damn! And I still had to do the little bastard's dressings. I peeled myself off the chair and jerked the dressing cart away from the wall so hard it clattered. Jesus, it was so hot even my skin seemed to be sending off red light, as if it were boiling. I paused for a moment, closing my eyes just so some part of me could be cool in the shade my eyelids provided. I couldn't touch the kid feeling like this. I took three deep breaths and opened my eyes again. Well, better. My skin was only giving off a hot rosy glow now.
I wheeled the cart over. Now it looked as if the kid was glowing red-red and kind of a murky eggplant color that intensified and darkened when he glared up at me and started shrieking.
"Oh, shut up, I haven't touched you
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