A strange look appeared on Zaftig’s face. Zaftig did not answer. A full minute passed. I broke the silence. “I’m just going to put it in the bank for you. You’re gone for 24 — 48 — sometimes 72 hours at a time, I get worried about you getting off work downtown at 2AM, waiting for a bus. Why don’t you call? I’ll pick you up.”
Zaftig laughed. “You aren’t my mother.” Holding her head, Zaftig griped, “In this state of cumulative fatigue, my my cognitive faculties are failing me. They expect me to make life — and — death decisions while they subject me to sleep deprivation torture.”
“Al tells me your classmates say you’re anxious to kill your first patient,” I chided her, “Here’s your opportunity.”
“Don’t mention my classmates. I’ve savored the fraternity of medicine,” Zaftig ranted, “all too much. Bad enough I have these massive mammies hoovering over me dragging me out of bed, shower, hunting me down in any cranny I find to nod out in…”
“You should find out how Al avoids all this. He knows every dodge, wheedle, all the angles, every easy way out,” I noted. “Al says, `There are no medals for people who struggle to bear burdens other people believe is rightly borne.'” To her question about Al activities these days. “You mean plotting the revenge. Al is sorry he can’t stage the snuff film you might like.” To her grimace, I shrugged my shoulders.
“You’re quoted for waiting for the day you can kill your first patient. Al wants you to come down for a talk with him.”
“What so that Al can steal my panties after he coaxes me out of my clothes?” Zaftig asked.
“He wants to film a shower scene,” I replied, “Al recommends this as a measure to relieve the stress you’re experiencing.”
•••
At the Fertility Clinic, I retrieved my bra but couldn’t find my panties. I chuckled. I had heard Al liked to swipe girl’s undies from others in his usual cast. “Al pays for his privileges certainly enough to replace the rags I wear here,” Throwing on the deep purple scrubs, I thought aloud, “everything is dark in here.” As I straightened the scrubs, I heard Al’s voice interrupt the office’s piped — in music to imperiously summon me to his consultation room.
“Coming doctor,” I announced as I donned the operating room booties which squished as I hurried through the dark carpeted corridors to the consultation room.
In the consultation room, Al totally relaxed like the master in his mahogany wainscoted domain positioned himself behind his dark wood desk. In front of him sat an attractive woman in lime green scrubs sporting an ash blond streaked hair in her late 20s. Introduced to Ashleigh, I blurted out. “Your ex-friend Carter must have been blind, stupid, or crazy. Carter, shouldn’t he know a Doctor in good standing must have a hostess — model for a wife? Tall as me, thin, nice rack,” I declared, “you fit the bill.”
“Does she,” Ashleigh pointing to me asked Al, “always come on as strong as a fire belching dragon?” Throwing me a penetrating glare, Ashleigh declared, “Impertinent and demanding, obviously she’s another nurse!”
“Close,” I interjected, “I’m usually a waitress — In one of Al’s flicks, I blow as cool and suave or as hot and passionate as the script requires.”
When Al smiled and shrugged his shoulders, Ashleigh asked, “You know Carter tossed me from the apartment I paid for from my wages. I made a mistake. He’s on the lease. I’m a guarantor. I owe the rent; he has the flat. Played the fool, I’d like to get even. Exactly what do I have to do?”
“That depends,” Al answered, “to structure the plot, I need to know why Carter would take the mickey,” Al, reading confusion on Ashleigh’s face and mine too, deliberately paused.
I interjected, “Al loves to play the imitation Saxon.” I called on Al for “an English — to — English translation,” batting my lashes I added, “if you please?”
Al explained, “eh — Why did Carter play this puerile, frat house trick on Rebecca? Do you know?”
“Carter wanted a sinecure, Assistant Director of the Emergency response Training Department,” Ashleigh recounted, “Carter was afraid it would go to Becky under the push — ahead — programme at University Hospital. Carter thought if he unmasked Rebecca as a porn star he’d knock Rebecca out of the running.”
“Oh!” I interjected in a serious tone, “from the first time I met Zaftig–Rebecca–Dr Barton she told me, `I don’t intend to take up one of the traditional roles reserved for the few women who break into medicine: teaching, administration, gynecology, obstetrics, or,” Al and Ashleigh laughed as I stumbled over the word, “Cran – io – facial reconstructive surgery –whatever — the heck — that is! Maybe one of you two can tell me.”
“I’ll try,” Ashleigh answered, “I’m a nurse.”
•••
At home in the rooms we shared, Zaftig raged, “I wanted to work on the cutting edge of the power of life and death and not a spectator in a cubby hole in a traditional role reserved for the women of medicine.”
“You know what Al would say,” I spoke softly, “There are no medals for people who do it the hard way.”
Gripping her head in her hands and rocking, Zaftig moaned, “I’m so disoriented I must be delirious. Have my cerebral functions, the ability to reason, the power of logic, deserted me?”
Was she crying? Zaftig was a tough girl. I never saw her cry. She resisted when I attempted to touch her. She looked at me. A fierce expression was etched into her face. Was this little butterball ready to attack me?
The tension broke when the buzzer fashioned to Zaftig’s waist went off. My eyes widened when Zaftig, yelled “Damn,” ripped the buzzer off its holster around her waist and threw it across the room. “That damn thing! I have to wear it laying down; it has to be nearby when I shower, when I’m taking a dump, when I sneak outside pretending I’m on a cigarette break …”
Zaftig started to laugh hysterically. We hugged. She allowed me to kiss her on the lips but drew back.
Still gripping Zaftig in an embrace, I commented, “I’ve never heard you talk like this.” I paused. “You came home to think,” I spoke in a calming voice, “what do you need to think about? Why not tell me?”
“I have an offer, one I never expected,” Zaftig started slowly. Any traces of tears were gone. She was now distant, here with me but not here at all, “I was called in by the university hospital president Dr Regina Windham, the University Hospital President. My heart went in my mouth when Dr Windham takes an imperious tone, ‘I have two items have come across my desk about you Reba — you don’t mind my calling you by your first name, do you? — Very well, Reba, one is serious, the other is somewhat comical.'”
“I nodded, ready to bend my neck to be decapitated,” Zaftig recounted.
“Ok,” I prodded her, “What happened?”
“Dr Windham explained the reason I was called in,” Zaftig reported, “`Doctor Scott Thurmond, director of The Emergency Response etc Training Department needs an Assistant, a younger person with computer skills to help him with the University’s computerization project. Owing to the comical item, your name cropped up. I reviewed your academic records: college and med school. I’m willing to send you for a few weeks training in mathematics and computer science — University expense — before you take up your duties.”’