off at three and walking to the stairwell and climbing one flight, she would ride all the way down, fake a trip to the rest room, and climb the three flights back up to four.
I waited about five minutes before Marian Lewandowski, RN, pushed the door open silently, slipped into the treatment room and carefully closed the door. The latch clicked and the bolt made a tiny grating sound. She was a slender white shape in the darkness, a whisper of professional fabrics coming toward me, a barely audible "Hi, darling" as she came into the clandestine embrace, to be held and kissed in the stolen darkness.
She had little body tremors of nervousness, and her whisper-voice had little edges of anxiety, and she had a talking jag. On the afternoon before Christmas, she had come to the lounge three times for a few minutes each time, to make sour jokes about being stuck on the three-to-eleven on that day Christmas day and the day after. Lots of nurses were sick with the bug. A woman with a lovely, lively body, tons of energy, a face more worn than the body, blond hair tied tightly back, blue eyes a sixteenth of an inch too close together, lips a millimeter too thin.
She kissed and trembled and said, "You know, I figure we were both kidding, talking a good game, neither of us going to show up, but all the time it was happening, you know, like getting carried along. It's just kidding at first. Then it's like a game. Like playing chicken."
"I know."
"Well, I talk a good game, but the way it is with me, Norman is on pipeline work in Iran, no place I would want to take my two babies, and so here I am living with Norman's mother again, and I wouldn't really have to work except it would drive me out of my tree trying to live in her house with her, and that rotten old woman is holding a stopwatch on me right now, you can bet your life on it, figuring I'm late because I took time on the way home to get laid. When somebody bugs you and bugs you and bugs you all the time about something you haven't been doing, you end up doing it, right?"
"I guess you do."
"I wouldn't know about this being a good safe place except for Nita, she's on vacation, my best friend practically-she sneaks in here with a cardiologist she thinks is some day going to get a divorce and marry her, but it never happens."
"I guess it doesn't."
"Mostly what is wrong with me, McGee, it isn't just that Norman is away for such a long time and the old lady bugs me so, and if I know Norman he's set up a shack job for himself, what is wrong with me, I guess, is… somehow the work is different being a nurse now. There are so many old ones coming in, coming in and dying all the time. It makes you think about time going by you, like you're on a train that never stops and you look out the window at things streaming by that you'll never see except that way. Dying isn't scary because they come in here and they are so confused and kind of dim they don't really know what is happening, and then all of a sudden they're in a coma and they got an IV going, and a catheter and a bag, and an oxygen clip on their nose, and they don't know a damn thing about living or dying anymore. That's going to be me and you sometime, bet on it."
"But not yet."
"Feel how I'm shaking? I don't know what's wrong with me. Nita says don't try to use the table, it's so high and narrow you could fall off and break somebody's back, she said there's a rollaway in here… there it is, I can just make it out, and the thing to do is open it a little ways and pull the mattress out and put it on the floor. Look, this is weird, the way I feel. I'm a nurse, damn it, and you know the reputation we got, and I like you a lot. I really like you, and I've been excited for hours thinking about you, but would it be a mean, rotten, dirty trick if-if I asked if we just skipped it? Would you get really sore?"
"No, I wouldn't."
"Maybe it's his mother there waiting and waiting. Why should I make such a big thing? It isn't a big thing
I waited about five minutes before Marian Lewandowski, RN, pushed the door open silently, slipped into the treatment room and carefully closed the door. The latch clicked and the bolt made a tiny grating sound. She was a slender white shape in the darkness, a whisper of professional fabrics coming toward me, a barely audible "Hi, darling" as she came into the clandestine embrace, to be held and kissed in the stolen darkness.
She had little body tremors of nervousness, and her whisper-voice had little edges of anxiety, and she had a talking jag. On the afternoon before Christmas, she had come to the lounge three times for a few minutes each time, to make sour jokes about being stuck on the three-to-eleven on that day Christmas day and the day after. Lots of nurses were sick with the bug. A woman with a lovely, lively body, tons of energy, a face more worn than the body, blond hair tied tightly back, blue eyes a sixteenth of an inch too close together, lips a millimeter too thin.
She kissed and trembled and said, "You know, I figure we were both kidding, talking a good game, neither of us going to show up, but all the time it was happening, you know, like getting carried along. It's just kidding at first. Then it's like a game. Like playing chicken."
"I know."
"Well, I talk a good game, but the way it is with me, Norman is on pipeline work in Iran, no place I would want to take my two babies, and so here I am living with Norman's mother again, and I wouldn't really have to work except it would drive me out of my tree trying to live in her house with her, and that rotten old woman is holding a stopwatch on me right now, you can bet your life on it, figuring I'm late because I took time on the way home to get laid. When somebody bugs you and bugs you and bugs you all the time about something you haven't been doing, you end up doing it, right?"
"I guess you do."
"I wouldn't know about this being a good safe place except for Nita, she's on vacation, my best friend practically-she sneaks in here with a cardiologist she thinks is some day going to get a divorce and marry her, but it never happens."
"I guess it doesn't."
"Mostly what is wrong with me, McGee, it isn't just that Norman is away for such a long time and the old lady bugs me so, and if I know Norman he's set up a shack job for himself, what is wrong with me, I guess, is… somehow the work is different being a nurse now. There are so many old ones coming in, coming in and dying all the time. It makes you think about time going by you, like you're on a train that never stops and you look out the window at things streaming by that you'll never see except that way. Dying isn't scary because they come in here and they are so confused and kind of dim they don't really know what is happening, and then all of a sudden they're in a coma and they got an IV going, and a catheter and a bag, and an oxygen clip on their nose, and they don't know a damn thing about living or dying anymore. That's going to be me and you sometime, bet on it."
"But not yet."
"Feel how I'm shaking? I don't know what's wrong with me. Nita says don't try to use the table, it's so high and narrow you could fall off and break somebody's back, she said there's a rollaway in here… there it is, I can just make it out, and the thing to do is open it a little ways and pull the mattress out and put it on the floor. Look, this is weird, the way I feel. I'm a nurse, damn it, and you know the reputation we got, and I like you a lot. I really like you, and I've been excited for hours thinking about you, but would it be a mean, rotten, dirty trick if-if I asked if we just skipped it? Would you get really sore?"
"No, I wouldn't."
"Maybe it's his mother there waiting and waiting. Why should I make such a big thing? It isn't a big thing
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