Chapter 10
10
“ H ave you gone over intermittent catheterization with Ms. Frank yet? She needs to be able to do it herself. She can’t leave without working on it.”
Celeste the nurse bully had cornered Joan again and was interrogating her. Under normal circumstances, she would appreciate the charge nurse checking on her. This felt less like help and more like an inquisition designed to trap her. She imagined Celeste as a venomous red-haired spider, spinning her web against the tile floor of the rehab unit, trapping young nurses in order to drain their enthusiasm.
“I have, actually,” Joan said with a tight smile. “We started last week. I had planned to work on it with her again today, along with the OT, since she’s struggling with it a bit. Dr. Phillips thinks she might recover bladder function.”
She worked on a general rehab unit, but sometimes they admitted overflow patients from other units, including stroke, when it was someone like Ms. Frank, whose deficits were relatively mild.
“Well, that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook for teaching her. We don’t want urinary retention. Or UTIs.”
“I know. I’m on it, I promise.” Joan hated herself again for her spinelessness, but what was she supposed to do? Celeste could probably get her fired if she wanted.
“Well,” Celeste said, arching her eyebrow, and damn her for being able to do that, “I told her family that they should come to me if they have any trouble with our staff not being up to par.” She sniffed, drawing in a deep breath as though sucking in all the joy in the atmosphere. “They seemed unhappy.”
Joan’s hand froze on her workstation’s keyboard. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Goodness, I didn’t mean you specifically. Don’t get your panties in a bunch. Her family just had some concerns about her care. I let them know they could talk to me about anything specific.”
Bullshit. Ms. Frank’s family loved Joan, and she wasn’t being conceited about that. They’d told her so.
“Speaking of, I need to go check on her. Is there anything else you need?” Joan thought she still sounded too deferential, but she tried to inject a little bite into her voice. Maybe all she needed to keep from getting steamrolled was an interaction with someone who royally pissed her off.
Celeste shook her head, and Joan managed to avoid her the rest of the day, as ridiculous as that seemed. She shouldn’t have to dodge one of her superiors at work. They should be there to help her, as the role was intended. God, what an awful woman.
Martin was off that day, so she didn’t have that distraction. She and her preceptor, Addie, got along well enough to create a pleasant workflow. Addie and one of the CNAs helped her transfer a man with three broken limbs from his bed to his wheelchair using a sliding board and the physical therapist’s specific instructions, and she found herself sweating but proud at the end of it. After years of working in the ICU with really sick patients, helping people get up and move provided a pretty powerful reward. She’d found real joy on the rehab unit. Her last six months in the ICU involved three different patient deaths from gunshot wounds, and she’d found herself becoming burned out and in need of more and more coping mechanisms to deal with her job. Other than her awful coworker, she found inpatient rehab to be less traumatic.
She didn’t manage to sit down for a single second before charting at the end of the day.
By the time her shift ended, she was impatient to get to her car. Her scrub top had a stain on the pocket from an exploding pen, her hair was coming undone from its ponytail, and she was sure she’d never been hungrier. She said goodbye to her coworkers, which sapped the last of her dwindling energy. She passed a few patients, all of whom were using wheelchairs or walkers, on her way out, and offered a halfhearted wave. She hoped no one needed anything from her for the rest of the night.
The sunlight outside almost startled her, as though she were coming out of a dark matinee, blinking against the unexpectedly bright evening. The air smelled of the steak joint across the street, and her stomach tightened. She crossed to her vehicle and leaned against it, wondering if she should just sleep there.
“Joan,” a voice called. She turned toward the sound. Lucas stood waving at her from across the parking lot, clutching a bag of food. For a moment, she wanted to weep at his feet.
He ambled toward her. He looked cute in his athletic shorts and baseball hat. Those sorts of thoughts flitted through her mind now and then, and they always startled her.
“When you said you were working four long shifts in a row, I figured you might need some sustenance. Plus, I was close by.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t come up with a way to say that without sounding stalkerish.”
“If that’s from Dizzy Blitz, I honestly wouldn’t care if you were here to kidnap and murder me.”
He inclined his head to one side. “Noted. My truck’s over here. We can eat in there if you want. I got you a diet soda, too.”
“Bless you.”
“Do you miss your old job now?” Lucas asked once they were seated and having French fries.
“No,” she said, unashamed of her full mouth of food. She swallowed. “I like this one better, other than this horrid charge nurse.”
She offered Lucas a brief rundown of her work situation. He nodded and hummed in all the right places.
“That sucks. You sure there’s nothing you can do?”
Joan shook her head. “Not without making more waves than I want to make right now. And you know how I am about confrontation. I’d have to psych myself up for it.”
“Well, don’t let it get too bad. She shouldn’t get away with treating people like that.”
“Martin said it would go away.” She blushed a little as she said his name. “She does this with the newbies, I guess. It’s just a power trip, I think. Establishing dominance and all that.”
“Hmm.” Lucas stuffed a handful of fries in his mouth then chewed them up before he spoke. “Do I sense interest here?” He gestured to her face.
Joan rocked her head back and forth. “Maybe. Work romances are usually a bad idea, though.” She took another gulp of her soda. “And Kendall apparently has some guys in mind for me.”
“You that hard up, Coleman?”
She blushed again. Outside the window, the parking lot showed evidence of the shift change. Joan watched as several other staff trickled out of the large rehab hospital, wearing scrubs and squinting against the remaining sunlight, looking somewhat dazed. She thought of their recent conversation about her vaginismus and found herself wondering what he thought about it.
“I’ve told you I want to meet someone. I’m just being proactive. I feel like Kendall is the right friend to help me.”
“Well, you aren’t wrong there. I’ve seen her march straight up to a dude and ask for his number. But you could do it on your own, too. Maybe you should invite this Martin to one of our bowling nights. A group thing, you know?”
“We’ll see.” She ate the last of her burger then wadded up the wrapper to toss into the bag. “What about you? You got anyone new in the lineup?”
“You say that like I run through women or something.”
“I mean, you usually give them at least six months, right?”
“Ha-ha.” He leaned against his door, his legs stretched along the cab. “Actually, I’m committed to staying unattached for a while.”
Joan pinned her gaze on him. He squirmed. “Really?”
“Yes. Why does everyone react like that?”
“It’s just unlike you, that’s all. What brought this about?”
Lucas tipped his head back, looking like he might be contemplating something. He sat up again. “I just think it would be good for me.”
“Emmie really did a number on you, huh?” Emmie was his last girlfriend, and he had liked her a lot. They had argued about him hanging out with Joan too much, apparently, which Joan understood. She’d offered to back off, but it didn’t make a difference.
“Nah. I’m okay. Like I said, we weren’t ever going to make it anyway.”
Joan angled herself toward him. “I do think there might be complications if one of us meets someone. You know, like for the long haul,” she said.
Lucas waved a dismissive hand. “That’s a problem for later.” Which summed up his attitude most of the time: no worries, no stress, no big deal. Joan usually liked it, but sometimes it felt like he should be more concerned about looming issues.
She moved her hand to the door handle then faced him again. “Want to watch a movie? I’m finally off tomorrow. Unless it’s too late for you.”
He turned the key over. “My place?”