Page 77 of Hold the Pickle
Oncology has acquired everything and are dressing.
“You dress and I’ll search,” I tell Fitz.
She starts madly shoving her arms in the gown.
Where are those last gloves?
I spot a gurney in the corner with a suspicious lump beneath the paper sheet. I press my hands into the bed between me and it, hopping over the mattress in a clean jump.
Yes, it’s gloves.
Oncology is trying to get their gloves on. Fitz is tying her gown. She looks up.
“Catch!” I yell at her and fling the gloves across the room.
She snags them, and her cool confidence saves her as the gloves, which are probably a size too small for the rest of us, slide onto her hands easily.
We dash for Booker seconds before oncology gets their gloves on.
Booker nods and turns toward the lead resident for oncology. “Told you my interns were superior.”
It’s a small victory, but we’ll take it.
When a nurse snaps our picture as the winners, I forward the image on to Nadia with the text “You make me invincible.”
Because she does.
25
NADIA
“You’re singing.” Jeannie’s words are an accusation. She punctuates it with a hard thwack of a knife, cleaving the end of an onion from the rest of its bulb.
“Sorry.” I reduce to a low hum as I slice pickles in the deli kitchen.
“Is that an overwrought ditty from a sappy movie?”
The song is “Till There Was You” fromThe Music Man, but I don’t think Jeannie is really asking for a title, so I simply say, “It is!” and keep slicing.
The kitchen door opens. I look up, expecting to see Vera or Geneva replenishing the line, but instead, it’s Hex.
What does he want? I’m about to let him know I’m with someone when he shoves a fistful of flowers close to Jeannie’s face. “I brought you these.”
Jeannie takes a step back, wrinkling her nose. “If you get pollen on my onions, by God I will use your face to chop a new batch.”
I bite my lip to keep from laughing. I had forgotten that Hex had taken a shine to Jeannie when I turned him down after the hospital incident.
Hex is undeterred. “I will put them in Max’s office.” He hurries off.
“Where they will die a lonely death,” she mutters.
I transfer my sliced dills to a bin. “Not much into romantic gestures?”
She aims the pointy end of her knife at me. “Entanglements are a distraction. I am a bastion of focus.” She glances at my bin. “Double that.”
“Aye, aye, captain,” I tell her, pulling additional pickles from the bucket.
Hex returns. “With my gifts bestowed, I will take my leave.” He bows deeply, bent over so that his head is even with the counter, which looks hilarious on his enormous frame in a T-shirt and gym shorts.
