Hurricane Nurse (3 page)

"Julio? I'm glad. You write him that I always knew he had it in him," Cliff commanded in his deep voice.

Donna's eyes had grown accustomed to the dim light now, and she studied Cliff in a way it had not occurred to her to do before. He was a big man, but not more than average tall. His weight was of frame and muscle. His black hair was carefully and recently cut, but it was unruly, with a life of its own. She noted the heavy black brows and wondered if the eyes beneath them were gray or blue. She suspected that his nose had been broken. His mouth, laughing now, and generous in size, hinted that it could be stern. His chin was square and stubborn. By her standards—perhaps by anyone's standards—he was a far from handsome man, but he looked forceful, a strength that would have to be reckoned with.

The old grocer had given over his long greeting and was peering at Donna with a curiosity that he made no effort to conceal. "This is the young lady you have told me of, boy? Your young lady?"

Donna opened her mouth to protest, but Cliff spoke before she could say a word. She thought that, for the first time since she had known him, he looked a little discomfited. "Miss Ledbury, this is my old friend Jose Cassius. I used to steal bananas from him when I was a young scoundrel in this neighborhood. I think sometimes he turned his back to let me get one."

"No, never," the old man protested, blowing out his big mustache in his desire to prove that he was not softhearted. "But my son Julio, he got into a little trouble with the law and Cliff here got him off with a promise to go into the Army, where he would have gone soon anyhow. My boy finishes his high school there and has already a promotion. This is a good boy, Cliff. You are proud of him, no?"

Cliff's moment of embarrassment had disappeared into his more familiar amusement. "You don't understand, Uncle Joe. This is my girl, just as I told you. But she hasn't caught on to it, yet. I knew you had a pretty fair opinion of me and I thought that might help me convince her."

The old man was suddenly very serious. "He is a good boy, a friend to all people in trouble, whether they can pay or not. He has the kind heart, the wise heart. And he is very determined, this one."

Much to her surprise, Donna laughed. "He was just saying that himself."

The grocer nodded with the solemnity of a Buddha. "This boy does what he sets out to do. You will know one day that you are his girl. You will see."

Again, the telltale crimson stained Donna's face and she dropped her eyes to the floor. Mr. Cassius could be tactful as well as plainspoken. He turned to Cliff.

"I have prepared all that you suggested when you phoned me. Flashlights, the little cans of heat, the food. Do you think of anything more?"

Cliff turned to Donna. "Have you thought of anything you would like to add to Uncle Joe's hurricane necessities?"

She gave the old man her brightest smile. "This is my first hurricane. I'm sure you know a lot more about what we'll need than I. Thank you for getting it together for us."

There were two great boxes of supplies, and the men packed them in the back of the car, the grocer standing beaming on the sidewalk until they had driven away. The other customers gathered behind him, in spite of the excited sound of their Spanish, seeming to have all the time in the world to wave Donna and Cliff on their way.

Donna stole a glance at the far-from-classic profile of her escort. There was no sign of his flashing smile as he concentrated on his driving. The streets were not so full of traffic as they had been, but there were still cars enough—more than usual at this time of day.

Her thoughts were in a turmoil. In spite of herself, her instinct warmed to Cliff. It was one of her mother's maxims that when the humble trusted and really liked a person, that person could be depended on for the right things. It was something she had accepted as truth. When Cliff Warrender smiled at her, every prejudice she had built up against his undeniable charm melted. She thought of the young Cuban whom he had saved for a useful life in the service of his adopted country, the others Jose Cassius had mentioned so casually, as if they were the everyday warp of Cliff's life. Perhaps she had judged him wrong. Perhaps Nell's near-hero worship was closer to the truth than her own quick judgment.

"The Stamey girl Mr. Cassius mentioned," she began after a long silence. "What is she charged with?"

His light eyes—she still hadn't decided exactly what shade they were—were on her face for a brief second before they returned to the street. "She's a shoplifter. Why?"

"You think she's guilty, then?" she asked, frowning a little at the thought.

"I know she's guilty. She admitted it to me."

"And yet you are going to defend her?" The edge was back in her voice. "Will you get her off?"

"Oh, I think so," he answered with easy assurance as he came to a halt at the front of the school. "Suppose you go report. I'll find somebody to help me with these supplies and find a garage where I can park the car. But I'll be back. You can tell Fincher the Red Cross sent me. Or maybe they've already phoned him."

Donna took out her overnight bag. "Thank you for bringing me out," she said in a frosty voice. Probably that boy Julio had done something horrible and would show up in his true colors any day now. Cliff would turn the Stamey girl loose on unsuspecting merchants, too. She had been right about him in the beginning, and now she had let him buy food for her for the duration of the hurricane. She was disgusted with him— almost as disgusted as she was with herself.

Donna thrust her head into Hank's office and told him, quite unnecessarily, that she was back on duty. "Unless there is something else pressing, I thought I would check first-aid supplies to make sure that everything's in its place."

"Fine," he agreed. "The public won't be arriving yet awhile, I guess. The men faculty members are due at three o'clock. I'll get the janitor to set up two registration desks in the hall at the main entrance. The Wards will be here right after lunch. About twelve-thirty."

"The Wards?" she asked.

He nodded. "They're nearly ninety. They've been married more than sixty years. He was a college professor and they live on social security from back when it was a lot less than it is today, but they don't owe anybody a penny. They live in a spotless little shack down by the railroad tracks, and they're always the first to arrive when we are expecting a hurricane. The weather bureau is announcing that the schools will be open until seven-thirty."

She laughed. "I never thought about our having regulars."

"Lots of them," he told her.

Tom Carter, the physical ed teacher, appeared in the doorway behind her. "I'm over at the gym until you need me, Fincher. Three or so, huh?"

The principal nodded. "Three or so. We shouldn't have any troublemakers here before that time. Usually that sort don't arrive until nearly night."

Donna smiled at Hank. "I'll be in the first-aid room if you need me," she varied the physical ed teacher's words to suit her case and went out with him, addressing her next remark to that young man. "What did Hank mean, troublemakers?"

"We have them," he assured her. "A crowd of young squirts who come in to chase girls, or drink the time away. Others looking for something to steal. I hope all the teachers locked everything and put things away."

"I think that's simply horrible," Donna protested. "We offer them shelter and they plunder. That's inexcusable."

He chuckled at her indignation. "You've got to deal with people, Donna. The people who live around Flamingo aren't angels. Maybe you noticed that when you were checking the little dears. Just maybe."

She laughed. "I have—once or twice—suspected as much," she admitted. "Are we sleeping them in the gym?"

It was Tom's time to show indignation. "All those people walking on my newly finished floor? I wouldn't let one of them into the building. Not if it were a matter of life and death. Well, maybe then, but only maybe."

"I never thought of a gym floor as being anything sacred," she teased. "I'm checking supplies in my office, bandages and the like. Goodbye."

She had hardly spread out her list and opened the supply cabinet when Cliff appeared at the door. "Did you see the groceries? I put them on the table over there. I'd started out to garage my car when it occurred to me that you might have need for some medical supplies that you don't usually stock for school use. There's no telling what might happen. Flying glass. A fight. We've had almost every kind of emergency in the schools during hurricanes. I thought if you could give me a list I'd go by a hospital and get supplies. Okay?"

It was funny the way Cliff kept balancing her opinion of him, first one way, then the other. Just a little while ago, she had felt he was little better than a criminal. Now she wondered who else would have thought of taking care of emergencies during the hurricane.

"You probably know somebody at the hospital who'll know a lot more about what we are likely to need than I do. There are so few things a nurse is supposed to do without the directions of a doctor. We have bandages. I think all we'll need. I don't know what else."

"Ben Rogers'll know," he promised her. "He's a doctor I went to school with. He'll give me what I need. You may find yourself performing an appendectomy before it's all over," he threatened, and disappeared as suddenly as he had come.

The supplies the school offered were scarce enough. As Donna had said, there were bandages and aspirin. She found too, a large jar of Ungentine for burns, a bottle of a hundred aspirin. Almost any family medicine cabinet would be more plentifully filled. She felt helpless, thinking of the things that might happen. What would she do in case of a heart attack, or a diabetic coma? Until she came to Flamingo, she had never done anything except under a doctor's direct order. Here, she wasn't allowed to give so much as an aspirin to a child. Only to put on temporary dressings, to check eyes and ears, heights and weights, and report to mothers and fathers. Whom would she turn to in a real emergency? Her training hadn't taught her independence.

She didn't have long to mull over her plight. Hank came in looking as pleased as punch. "Mrs. Saunders never stays during a hurricane. She has children and is a widow. But she's prepared lunch for those who are here. You and Mrs. Saunders will be the only ladies. However, Mary Hendley phoned that she would be along in midafternoon."

Mary Hendley was a first-grade teacher who looked at Hank as if she were a hungry child at a bakery window. Donna wondered if Hank had gone with her before she herself was added to the staff, or whether it had always been a hopeless crush.

The covered passageway went along one of the five inside patios about which the school was built. Again, she noticed the uncanny silence of the out-of-doors. Not a palm frond stirred. The fountain which the class of '37 had given had been shut off. The scarlet blossoms on the ixora hedge that ran about the four sides seemed to exude a heat of their own. The footsteps of the faculty members echoed hollowly on the tiled floor.

"There's nothing quite so empty as a school when the pupils aren't there," Hank said, and his words echoed hollowly from the opposite wall.

They were arranging two desks at the entrance, placing paper and pencils to keep records there, when on the dot of twelve-thirty as Hank had expected, Dr. and Mrs. Ward arrived. Both old people were cobweb-frail, with white hair, faded blue eyes, and thin, liver-spotted hands. As often happens when people live together for great lengths of time, the old professor and his wife had grown to look alike. Mrs. Ward sat in an ancient wheel chair, an afghan bright with every conceivable color spread over her knees. The beauty of good bones and kindly, optimistic thinking was hers. Donna looked up at the man who pushed the chair and found humor and contentment there.

She pulled up a desk chair, took a piece of paper from the folder the Red Cross had furnished and began to take down the answers to questions, their names, their address. There was no next of kin.

"We've usually had room one-oh-six," the old lady told Donna.

It was then that the idea struck the nurse. One hundred six was a classroom. But the teachers' room was a fairly large place, with chairs and two couches. It even had toilets and a shower in an adjoining room, which would be like a private bath for the old couple.

She excused herself and went to seek the principal, explaining her plan. He scratched his head, smiling. "We've always kept that room locked on the principle that to allow anyone to use it would be showing favoritism. But if anyone deserves having favoritism shown them, it's the Wards. They'll keep the place clean, too. Surely, give it to them. It's a fine idea."

The Wards were embarrassed by the special attention when Donna explained it to them. "We wouldn't want anything special," the little old lady deprecated.

Donna patted the thin shoulder. "Nor would I want to make a special case of you, but you're the early bird who is supposed to get the fattest worm, and Mr. Fincher tells me that you are the most regular patrons we have. That ought to give you some privileges. We both want you to have it. You won't disappoint us, will you?"

Mrs. Ward squeezed Donna's hand and Dr. Ward beamed on her as if she had been one of his brightest pupils. "Nobody could turn down an offer so graciously made," he assured her.

While Donna was busy settling the old people, Cliff returned. He, like Hank, had remembered that she had missed lunch and had brought the biggest hamburger she had ever seen, with additions such as cheese, tomatoes, onions, lettuce, French fries, and a large Coke in a covered cup. "Sorry I didn't know whether mayonnaise or tomato sauce," he reported. "There's pickle relish in that little envelope, in case you like that. I don't, myself."

Her eyes widened. "I don't, either. But nearly everybody does."

He grinned at her. "I've heard that there's nothing to draw two people together like a common dislike."

She looked unhappily at the box of food. "It was wonderful to think about me and my being hungry," she said, "but I had lunch in the cafeteria just a few minutes ago. I honestly couldn't eat a bite now. Midafternoon I may be starved, so I'll put it up until then."