Thirteen West (6 page)

Sally let them walk ahead before following with Laura Jean. "You shouldn't tell people things like that when you hardly even know them," she said to the girl.

"I don't want to know her any better. I just want to get out of here. It's a permanent bad trip."

"We're going to work together on you leaving," Sally assured her. "You'll do better over here on Thirteen West."

Laura watched Sally smile at her, then quickly looked away when Sally's smile began to waver and the edges of her face began to curl. She didn't mind so much when that happened to things but she hated to see it happen to people. She clung to Sally's hand while the mist rose from the floor and the whispering began.

"The Great Mother has chosen you. You and you alone are her high priestess because of your chastity and—"

The other voice cut off the first. "A whore. A slut. A common cunt."

"High Priestess," the first voice repeated. "You must purify the body with proper rites. Be cleansed of all past."

"Pussy," the second voice said. "Everyman's pussy. Round heels. Leg-spreader."

"First you must remove your clothes. Then the Great Mother—"

"Stop that, Laura Jean!" Sally exclaimed.

Her voice came to Laura Jean from a mountain top, from the lowest valley, from under the sea. She struck at the hands that tried to hold her, tried to stop her from tearing off her clothes.

* * *

Lew ran from the day room when he heard Sally call for help, beating Frank to the door. He passed Grace and reached Sally, who was struggling with Laura Jean McRead. Quickly he forced Laura Jean's arms behind her and held them there. She'd managed to unbutton her shirt and, when she leaned back against him to look up into his face, her bare breasts thrust at him, the nipples erect.

Laura Jean smiled at him, a wanton's smile, and to his dismay he felt a surge of desire. As though aware, her lips curled down in contempt and she spat at him. "Fuck you!" she cried.

Chapter Five

"Some doctor!" Luba Rabinowitz snarled.

Barry Jacobs took a deep breath and tried to hang onto his temper. Luba stood in the living room of their apartment, arms akimbo, chin thrust out belligerently, glaring at him. She was still in her nightgown, hair tangled. She looked her worst, making Barry wonder briefly what he'd ever seen in her.

He refused to be provoked into defending himself. What a bitch she could be, as if he didn't get enough of that from old Nellie
Fredericks
at the hospital.

"I told you I'd arrange for an abortion," he reminded her as patiently as he could. "Although if you get much farther along—"

Luba cut him off. "Oh, sure, flush my baby down the john, that's what you'd like to do, you unfeeling monster."

Barry closed his eyes momentarily. Stay calm. Don't let her rile you.

"Okay, don't look at me," she snapped. "You can't stand the sight of me since you've known I was pregnant. I disgust you. Admit it, you're afraid of gravid females."

Barry gritted his teeth together. She did disgust him, but she'd never believe it wasn't because of the accidental pregnancy. How could she have changed so completely from a cheerful, enthusiastic sex partner to a shrew? What was attractive about a shrill, vituperative woman?

He forced himself to retain an even tone. "You tell me you don't want a child, then in the next breath you're accusing me of being inhuman because I mention abortion. I can't get any sense from you, Luba. Why don't you try to be rational? Or have a few sessions with Max Earhart as I've suggested before?"

"Now you're saying I'm flaky, is that it? You think I need a shrink. You think I've flipped." She dropped her head into her hands and began to sob.

Barry sighed and glanced at his watch. He was going to be late again.

When he finally arrived on Thirteen West, it was afternoon. Two meetings and a team session on B West had kept him from completing ward rounds. Not that he minded missing the humorless day charge nurse. Desiccated. Aging ungracefully. An efficient type, no doubt about that, but one with a repellent personality.

He'd have chosen Ms Reynolds for day charge if he'd had his way. But old Nellie just seemed to be offering you a choice. Like Luba. The superintendent wasn't called Nellie behind his back for no reason—he acted like a fussy, bitchy woman all too often. Not that he was gay, not with seven kids and a long-suffering wife. No, the feminine was confined to his personality, not his sexual orientation.

"Hello, Dr. Jacobs," Ms Reynolds said, smiling at him. Barry smiled back, her soft, warm voice soothing his ragged nerve ends. Since he'd never been assigned to the Ad Ward, he hadn't had much contact with her until now. He found himself contrasting the healthy brown glow of her skin to Luba's sallow complexion.

One classy-looking gal.

"Any problems?" he asked.

"You might look at Dolph Benning," she said. "He's regressed to staying in bed curled into fetal position. We can get him to respond some, but he's practically stopped eating. And Laura Jean McRead is having porn nightmares—she related one yesterday to our student nurse that made Sally turn bright red."

"Let's see, I think I have a session set up for Laura Jean, don't I?"

"Tomorrow morning at ten, Doctor."

"I'll talk to her a few minutes this afternoon, then we'll include her in the patient conference at the end of the week. Who else do we have scheduled then?"

"Margaret Flowers."

"The Duchess? She's an old-timer, probably not much new on her, so we can work Laura Jean in, too. I don't like the sound of the sex dreams. Up until now her fantasies of whoredom have all been in a waking state—this new symptom may herald complications."

"She's not stripping as much. Hasn't taken her clothes off once in four days. We even have trouble getting her out of them and into her pajamas at night."

He nodded. "She definitely needs discussing. Anything else?"

"Nothing important. We're never going to program Mousie—Mr. Mausser—for his BMs. He even holds back when we insert suppositories."

Barry smiled. "I don't expect miracles. I know Mr. Mausser from his former ward and I suspect you're right. He has a primitive sense of humor. Remember when he pissed on my shoes last week? I saw the evil gleam in his eye."

They laughed together as they walked toward Mr. Benning's room.

Standing over Dolph's bed, Barry called his name without any response. With
Alma
's help he tried to uncurl Dolph and succeeded in getting him to open his eyes. Dolph focused on them blankly, then his eyelids drooped shut.

Alma
made a face. "That's how it's been all day. Yesterday he was still whining for his jacket and today, this. I looked in his history and his wife mentions he sometimes acted 'like a baby' at home."

"Did we ever get his records from up north?" Barry asked when they were back in the corridor.

Alma
shook her head.

"I'll get Medical Records to call them and check. He may need ECT and I'd like to know if they ever shocked him up there and, if so, how many times and the results. You'd think we'd have better communication within the system."

"Would I? You forget I work here, too."
Alma
jerked her head toward Dolph's room. "I asked social service to write his wife a week ago. I wanted to know if she could visit and bring along the green jacket he's so lost without." She sighed. "I found out yesterday they hadn't gotten around to it and I'm really bothered because of how he's regressed."

"I don't think it would have made any difference," Barry said, "The jacket may be a childhood symbol—who knows?"

"I realize that, but I wanted to find out whether or not this green jacket actually exists. If it does, it might prove to be his security blanket while he's here."

Barry grinned at her, raising his eyebrows. "Mama Reynolds?"

To his surprise, she stiffened, then turned and stalked off.

He caught up with her. "Hey, what gives?"

"Sorry. You caught me off guard. There's a—someone who calls me 'Momma A.' I don't like it. I guess I overreacted."

"A for what?" he said, looking at her uniform pin and noticing the quickened rise and fall of the nicely rounded breast under the pin.

"A for
Alma
." She smiled faintly and glanced deliberately at his name pin. "I know what your first name is—the B is for Barry."

"So we've progressed socially to a first name basis."

"But not professionally, Dr. Jacobs."

"I know the rules as well as you do, Ms Reynolds."

She slanted her eyes at him. "There's coffee in the lounge, if you'd like to make your visit temporarily social." He coped with a strong urge to run his hand along the smooth warm skin of her arm, settling for touching her lightly on the shoulder. Maybe he'd delay rounds on Thirteen West until afternoon every day.

Sally was seated in the lounge and looked uncertainly from
Alma
to Dr. Jacobs when they came in.

"Did you get the old ladies set up for their gossip session?"
Alma
asked her.

"All except the Duchess. You know how she is—a mind of her own. She claimed they were cackling geese and she couldn't be bothered. Why is she here? I read her chart and it said she's an alcoholic with chronic brain syndrome, but she seems so lucid."

"We're going to review her at patient conference,"
Alma
told her.

"One good thing happening on Thirteen West," Dr. Jacobs said, "is this renewed attention to chronics. They stand out here, not mingled in with too many others like themselves."

Alma
grimaced. "I'm not sure that's good for Mousie. The extra attention he's getting seems to make him more and more creative about being resistive. I doubt he was as much of a problem on the ward with the other old men."

"About the Duchess," Sally said. "She insisted I call her that because she said she rather likes being nobility. When I asked her who the president was, she got it right— Richard Nixon. She even remembered that he used to be governor of
California
."

"Wait till she confides in you about how her evil nephew put her away to keep in control of her money,"
Alma
advised. "Wait till she tells you about her shining knight who'll come to rescue her and make her his bride when he finds out where she's incarcerated." She shrugged. "I'm not saying there couldn't be a thread of truth buried in there somewhere, but that's some story."

"Miss Flowers says she's been here five years, three months and twelve days," Sally said. "I looked it up and she's only three days off. Isn't that remarkable?"

"If you're really concerned about her, Sally, why don't you use her for that case study you're supposed to turn in to your instructor? You can ask medical records for her old chart and be prepared to present her at the conference this Friday, which would benefit us as well."

"Me present her?" Sally asked, obviously taken aback.

"I don't know if—"

"Nothing like doing things to gain confidence,"
Alma
told her. "Why don't you start right now?" She glanced at her watch. "I'll relieve you of patient assignment this evening unless we find we need you to help with Laura Jean. Go call medical records before they go off duty and ask them send us the old chart."

Barry watched Sally go out. "I'd forgotten what it was like to be that eager," he said.

"One of the techs brought in some cookies,"
Alma
said. "If you'd care for some with your coffee, they're very good." As Barry accepted coffee and several cookies on a plate, he tried to remember how long it had been since Luba made any pretense of getting a meal together. God knows he didn't expect to be served, but she got home earlier from work than he did and she wasn't on call at night. The least she could do was slap food onto the table.