“I don’t want to go to the hospital! Kevin’s coming!”
I checked my watch. Twelve-fifteen. Kevin would be arriving in about an hour, along with the rest of the cast of Sweeney Todd, ready for costumes and makeup.
“What do you plan to do? Sit in the audience holding a wastebasket on your lap? Think! If you don’t come with me now, you won’t be well enough to see the performance, so there’s no use complaining about it.” I shifted my position until I was kneeling in front of her. I thrust my hands under her armpits and eased her into an upright position.
Dorothy’s hand began roving erratically over the floor. “Where’s my purse?”
“There you go!” I teased. “Barfing up major body parts and the woman still wants her purse.”
At that, Dorothy managed a laugh, but it quickly turned into a moan.
I felt around in the semidarkness until my hand touched the strap of her handbag. “I’ve got it,” I said, looping the strap around my neck. Then I persuaded Dorothy to wrap her arms around my neck, too. With Dorothy and her handbag hanging from my neck, I staggered to my feet. I eased an arm around her waist and shuffled her off the stage, into the lobby, and down the front steps of the building, where I opened the door of my car and pretty much shoved her in. “Lie back. We’ll be out of here in a minute.” I elevated her legs on a stack of overdue books, then covered her with my coat, tucking it snugly around her. In spite of the coat and the warmth of my car, she began to shiver.
After running the mini obstacle course of Jersey barriers that surrounded the sentry post at Gate 8, I turned left at the light and broke all kinds of land speed records getting to Rowe Boulevard. At Route 50, Rowe turns into Bestgate and it’s pretty much a straight shot to Anne Arundel Medical Center, if you know the back way in. After passing the Wawa, I turned left onto Medical Drive, ran the orange light at the next intersection, and veered left, winding around the Clatinoff Pavillion to the front of the building where EMERGENCY glowed in red neon from the top of the roof that sheltered the entryway.
I pulled in, set the emergency brake and left Dorothy in the car with the engine running. I waited-come on, come on!-for the glass doors to whoosh open ahead of me, then barged into the emergency room and looked around, feeling frantic.
With the exception of a receptionist, there wasn’t a nurse or an aide in sight.
Damn! Just when you need them, they disappear. Every time I’d been to Anne Arundel before, pink-shirted volunteers kept sprouting up like weeds, pushing gurneys, magazine carts, and empty wheelchairs, causing traffic jams all over the place. I rushed the information desk, where an aide was busily attaching a form to a clipboard. “Excuse me, but I’ve got a very sick woman in my car.” I waved my hand toward the wall of windows that separated me from my sick friend.
The aide looked up from her work, her face grave. “Tylene, give this lady a hand, will you?”
From behind a partition, Tylene appeared, dressed in turquoise scrubs in a cheerful ice cream cone print. Within seconds she’d located a wheelchair and followed me outside to help Dorothy get into it.
With Dorothy sagging like a cooked noodle, Tylene pushed the chair up to the information desk, where I explained Dorothy’s problem to the aide, who handed me a clipboard and asked me to have Dorothy fill it out. “She’s so sick,” I replied, “that I don’t even think she can remember who she is, let alone hold a pen.”
“I’ve got to get the roast into the oven,” Dorothy muttered, pretty much proving my point. “It’s just sitting out on the counter. And the potatoes need peeling. But I suppose I could make rice.” On and on she babbled, leaping from dinner preparations to movies she forgot to TiVo to plans for an addition to their Davidsonville home.
“Do the best you can, then,” the aide said with a sympathetic smile. “We’ll fine-tune it later.”
In the end, I filled out the form as best I could by rummaging around in Dorothy’s purse for her driver’s license, military dependent’s ID, and her Tricare health insurance card. “Here,” I said, handing the card over the counter along with the clipboard. “Over to you.”
The aide scanned the form, photocopied Dorothy’s insurance card, then, apparently satisfied, handed me a square pager made of black plastic with a blinking red light like the kind you get when you go to dinner at Outback Steakhouse. I showed it to Dorothy, whose eyes were now hovering at half mast. “Look, they’ll call us when our table is ready.”
Dorothy’s eyes flew open. “How long do I have to wait?”
Earlier, I’d noticed a sign prominently displayed on the information desk: approximate wait time for non-life-threatening emergencies. Underneath the notice was a selection of flip cards hanging on pegs. The flip card said: ‹ 1 HOUR.
I read the sign aloud. “Less than one hour.”
“Okay.” Dorothy managed a weak smile, then grabbed the hem of her sweatshirt and began retching into it.
Almost instantly, Tyrene materialized like a guardian angel, carrying a kidney-shaped basin and a wet cloth. “Here you go, sweetheart,” she soothed, wiping Dorothy’s face with the cloth. “They’re kinda busy back there right now, but we’ll be getting to you right soon.”
Dorothy nodded, and using both hands, pressed the wet cloth against her eyes.
“Can’t we get her something to drink?” I asked.
Tyrene shook her head. “Not till the doctor takes a look at her.” She pushed Dorothy’s chair out of the traffic and eased it into position next to an upholstered chair, which I plopped down in immediately.
And we did what you do in waiting rooms. We waited.
At the far end of the room, a huge, flat-screen TV was tuned to CNN and some Army brigadier general (retired) was pontificating about the war in Iraq. Next to us a bearded man in a plaid shirt dozed under a ficus tree, his head thrown back and his mouth yawning open, a black pager balanced precariously on one knee. Every time somebody wandered in the vicinity of the doors, they would whoosh open, letting cold air in. After five minutes of that, I moved Dorothy over several rows to keep her out of the draft. Tyrene must have noticed because she reappeard bearing a flannel blanket, fresh from the ER blanket-warmer, which she helped me tuck around Dorothy’s shoulders.
Eventually our pager started flashing like an alien spaceship and someone appeared to roll Dorothy away. I offered to go with her, but in three or four rambling sentences, Dorothy refused. Trying not to feel miffed, I watched TV, read two old National Geographics from cover to cover, telephoned Paul to tell him where I was, left a message for Admiral Hart on his home phone, and filed my nails, not necessarily in that order.
Three hours later Dorothy was back, smiling bravely. “That’s it?” I asked Tyrene.
“That’s it. You can take her home.” She handed me a sheaf of papers. “These are for her primary care physician. She’ll need to follow up with him in three days.”
“What did they do?” I asked Dorothy.
“Blood and urine tests. Then they started an IV and put something in it. I felt better almost right away.”
Tyrene looked down at her patient. “Now you take it easy for a couple of days, you hear me, Dorothy?”
Dorothy nodded mutely.
I set the hospital forms on Dorothy’s lap, went around to the back of the chair and started pushing. “Home again, home again, jiggidy jig.”
Dorothy twisted in her chair. “Oh, no! My car’s at the Academy!”
“We can pick it up later. You shouldn’t be driving anyway.”
She checked her watch. “I’m missing it, I’m missing it!”
“Missing what?” I asked.
“Kevin’s final performance!” Her eyes glistened with tears. She grabbed my hand where it rested on the handle-bar of the wheelchair. “Please, Hannah, take me back to Mahan.”