Fresh out of college, I had been hired by a private Miami hospital to welcome patients and handle complaints and requests. My boss was Angie Winters, and in those days before Medicare, when some patients stayed in hospitals for months, Angie and I were the lubricant that flowed in graceful measure between them and any irritants that might mar their visit.
Angie was a platinum blonde seven inches taller, fifteen years older, and a hundred times more glamorous than I. She had selected the navy uniforms and three-inch heels we wore, and my first day at work, she called her own hairdresser. ‘‘I’m sending you a college student. Send me back a woman.’’ When I returned, I almost didn’t recognize my reflection in the plate glass doors.
Angie gave me an approving nod and sent me to the administrator, who fixed me with a steel gray gaze. ‘‘The motto of this institution is ‘For the common good.’ What is best for our patients is best for all of us. Therefore, the only question you ever need ask a patient is, ‘How may I serve you?’ Do you understand?’’
Angie worked eight to five. She comforted grieving families, helped choose nursing homes, and handled our Miami Beach celebrities. I worked from eleven until whenever, greeting new patients and visiting each one every second day to see if they needed any special attention. In my first week I fetched a mink jacket and false teeth from a beach hotel after an emergency admission, wrote a letter to children in New Jersey (tactfully revising ‘‘What the hell’s so important they can’t come see their dying mother?’’), and one evening solved the problem of an elderly man who hadn’t eaten for two days. He swore he had no appetite, but when I saw the Jewish Floridian on his bedside table and asked, ‘‘Did you know we offer kosher meals?’’ he clutched my hand so hard he nearly took off a finger.
‘‘You got kosher? Bring me some of everything. I’m famished!’’
I went down to the kitchen, asked the night staff to heat a kosher TV dinner, and offered to carry it to him myself. I was halfway to the elevator when a man strolled toward me. He had the dark eyes and hair of a Mediterranean movie star and the god-walk that proclaimed him a doctor.
‘‘Why, hello!’’ He stepped deftly into my path. ‘‘We haven’t met but I’d sure like to.’’
Next thing I knew I was backed up against the wall with nothing but a kosher dinner between me and…
I’ll never know. I heard my name and Angie-who should have gone home hours before-came swinging down the hall. ‘‘I wondered where you’d gotten to. Hello, Doctor. I need Celia up on three.’’ She put an arm around me and walked me toward the elevator. When the door slid shut, she murmured, ‘‘That was Randall McQuirter, head of our ob-gyn department. Don’t ever cross him. He’s got a real temper. But don’t get stuck alone with the man, either.’’ She spoke so casually, she could have been offering a remedy for freckles.
‘‘I can take care of myself.’’ I resented her treating me like a kid sister. The doctor was closer to her age than mine. I wondered if she wanted him for herself.
Several weeks later I arrived early one morning and dashed into the tiny coffee shop off the lobby for a breakfast milkshake. Angie was having coffee with Dr. Magda Gerstein, our resident psychiatrist. Next to Angie, Dr. Gerstein looked like a toad-plump and plain, her dark hair streaked with gray, her face sallow and scarred. Her only attractive feature was a pair of intelligent dark eyes that terrified me. I kept wondering what neuroses those eyes found as they probed my soul.
When Angie saw me, she called, ‘‘Full moon last night, so emergency was crazy. Five came in after a brawl in a Coconut Grove bar. I’ve been running my legs off this morning. Rosa, are you guys still stitching up the Grove crew?’’
Coconut Grove bars were the hangouts of Beautiful People, so Angie, of course, would handle those patients.
Rosa Marquez, our head surgical nurse, collapsed into a chair at their table, still wearing green scrubs. A cloud of dark hair fell to her shoulders as she pulled off her surgical cap. ‘‘We just rebuilt the jawbone of a young man who is lucky to be alive. Café con leche,’’ she called to the waitress approaching the table. ‘‘I can’t stay but a minute, but I have to have a breather.’’
Not sure of my welcome in such august company, I headed to a stool at the counter. ‘‘¡Buenos días!’’ I greeted Carlos, who was wiping up a coffee spill.
The first Cuban immigrants were reaching Miami in those days, all claiming to have been wealthy professionals, executives, and the cream of Havana society. Some actually were.
According to Angie, who loved to pass on informationabout our co-workers, Carlos used to own one of the finest restaurants in Havana; Luis-the meds nurse up on five-had been Cuba’s premier cardiologist; and Rosa came from one of Havana’s richest families but had run away at eighteen to join Castro’s army. After Rosa got raped by her commanding officer, so Angie claimed, she gave up the revolution and came to join her family in Miami.
I was learning to take Angie’s stories with a tablespoon of salt. No way plain little Dr. Gerstein had been the plaything of German SS officers in a Jewish concentration camp, and when I asked our administrator about serving on Jack Kennedy’s boat during World War II, he laughed. ‘‘Who told you that? I get seasick looking at a boat and got turned down by the army because of flat feet.’’
‘‘But Angie said-’’
His face softened into an indulgent smile. ‘‘Oh, Angie. She’s smart like a fox, but like a child in some ways. She loves drama and wants everybody-herself included-to be larger than life. Ignore her stories and learn from her heart. Angie’s got a gigantic heart.’’
I didn’t need my friends larger than life. It was enough for me that Carlos made the best milkshake in Miami.
He also had taken it on himself to teach me Spanish so I could welcome our Hispanic patients. So far he had taught me six sentences I could rattle off with the staccato accents and speed of a native Cuban: ‘‘Good day. I am the hospital hostess. Welcome to the hospital. Do you need anything special?’’ If the patient responded with anything except ‘‘No,’’ I fell back on the other two: ‘‘One moment. I am going to call an interpreter.’’
‘‘Quiero un bestido de chocolate,’’ I said carefully.
‘‘I didn’t know you spoke Spanish,’’ Angie called.
‘‘A little,’’ I boasted.
Carlos laughed. The two women working with him tittered. Rosa’s dimples flashed as she hid a smile behind her cup.
‘‘What? What did I say wrong?’’
He gave me the severe look of a parent to a child. ‘‘You just ordered a chocolate dress. Dress is’’-he wrote vestido on a paper napkin and, being Cuban, read it-‘‘bestido. Milkshake is’’-he wrote and said- ‘‘batido.’’ He made me order correctly before he fixed the milkshake.
Dr. McQuirter came to the counter and stood near me. ‘‘Hello, Celia.’’ His voice was like melted chocolate, and he looked so good my knees wobbled. No wonder new mothers swooned over him. In the past month three infant boys had gone home with the name Randall. I did a quick calculation and decided our age difference wasn’t too great.
‘‘Bring your chocolate dress over here and join us.’’ Angie’s invitation was more of a command.
When I obeyed, Dr. McQuirter ambled along beside me and pulled up a chair between me and Rosa. Angie frowned.
Two minutes later the overhead pager came to life. ‘‘Miss Winters, emergency room. Dr. Gerstein, emergency room. Stat.’’
Dr. Gerstein muttered an oath in German. Angie pushed back her chair. ‘‘What now?’’
Carver, the head orderly, hurried in and approached our table. ‘‘Emergency’s got one of those fellows back there, nearly tearing the place apart.’’