Chapter Three Ingrid
“Mom... Mom! I’ll be happy to drive to Baltimore for Thanksgiving Day with you.
No, Dad doesn’t mind. He’s going to visit Stacey’s son in New Hampshire.
What? Yes, technically, that’s close to New York, but it’s not like he’s going to bring Stacey over to my little townhouse when she’s finally getting to see Jeff and the twins.
A favorite stepdaughter is not going to compete with the awesome power of first grandbabies. ”
Kev looks over me and waves his hand.
I raise my pen with a giant fake daisy on it. That’s the signal to save me.
“Ingrid! We’ve got a critical patient coming in.”
“Mom, I have to go! We’ll talk about Thanksgiving later. No, I will not be bringing a plus-one. That ship has not just sailed; I scuttled it. Torpedoed it. Sank it and danced on the wreckage.”
“Ingrid!”
“Gotta go!” I hang up the phone and look at Dr. Kevin Bailey, my work bestie.
We have a symbiotic relationship. I handle the patients in reception at the Pine Ridge Hospital Outpatient Annex, where the hospital’s physical therapy department is, and he treats them.
I also save him from the evils of technology and diag codes, and he saves me from my chatty mother (or father) as needed.
“Critical patient?” I arch one eyebrow at the handsome physical therapist in his green polo shirt with PR OHA emblazoned on the bicep and the leg of his gray mesh shorts.
“My mother does know that I work in the physical therapy department, not the emergency room. No one’s coming in bleeding out from rotator cuff troubles. ”
“Actually, we do have a pretty critical patient—to Pine Ridge. King Silverbow’s going to be in here three times a week, maybe more.”
That name sounds familiar, but I’m not sure why. “Who?”
“The hockey player! The all-star? Man, we need to get him back on the ice before the end of the season, but he’s got a really bad MCL tear. Almost bisected.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. The team is counting on him, he’s counting on us, and... he’s also a friend of a friend of Marina’s, so...”
Kev’s wife, Marina, is super sweet, and she spoils us rotten.
She’s also the reason my diets keep failing.
Any time she hears of a dessert made of peanut butter and chocolate, she tries it, and we’re the taste testers.
“Well, I’ll make sure he’s comfortable. Hopefully, they have him on something to help with the pain. ”
“I’m not worried about the pain as much as the attitude. Marina says he can be kind of... cocky.”
“Well, good. Maybe he needs to be cocky to get through this and recover. Sometimes those ‘I’m tough and I won’t be beaten’ types are the ones who push through and get the most out of therapy.”
“True. I’m just hoping he’s not the ‘I can push through the pain and reinjure myself’ type.”
“Here’s hoping. I’ll get him ready for you when he arrives.”
King Silverbow is tall. With huge shoulders.
As in, he fills the doorway of the office, and our office doorway is already big.
He thumps and staggers in with a scowl, using his crutches wrong.
He’s got them in straight parallel lines with his body, trying to support his weight with his underarms instead of letting the weight travel through the arms and wrists.
“I have an appointment to get my knee fixed,” he snarls.
“Sure thing. Mr. Silverbow? Have a seat.” I point to the loveseat in the office and rise.
“Is this your first time on crutches?” I ask sympathetically.
We don’t have any other patients at the moment, so I come around the desk and bring the tablet with me, screen ready for him to put in his information.
He nods. Well, he jerks his head.
Why is he so huge? That jaw... That’s like an Easter Island Head-sized jaw. And the hair. It’s a riot of wet black ringlets, like he stuck his head under the sink to wash his hair.
Probably can’t manage the shower.
I am 100% not thinking about the new, ginormous patient in the shower.
Just passing observations. In this job, you get to people-watch a lot, and that’s what saves it from being boring.
I love seeing people come in hurt and leave healthy again.
(Okay, I don’t like the suffering part, but I appreciate the improvement part and like having a front-row seat to someone’s healing journey.)
“If you’d like me to show you how to better maneuver—”
“I got it.”
“Okay. Well, then, all the forms you need to fill out are here. Insurance, driver’s license, emergency contact—”
Mr. Silverbow, having just collapsed into the loveseat, groans and stands back up. “What? I was just at the hospital last night. You should have all this!”
“Well, the hospital records are not the same as ours. We’re not the hospital, we’re their partnered provider.”
“I don’t know what the hell that means.”
“It means I just need you to enter your information again,” I say, a patient smile forced onto my face.
I hate this. I mean, yes, I hate when patients get angry at me for no reason, and this guy seems somewhat irritated, but that’s understandable.
He’s injured. Probably in pain. Worried about his career.
But, say what you will, when you people-watch, you start to build character stereotypes in your brain.
King is proving himself to fall into one of my most hated stereotypes, i.e.
, “the handsome guys are jerks” stereotype.
This isn’t so much a Pine Ridge thing but a “growing up, moving from school to school with a Navy father and a nurse mother, and finding out that when you’re the cute, chubby, new girl, handsome, athletic guys tend to treat you like a doormat” thing.
Or like you’re invisible. At best, they treat you like a sister or someone to help them get the prettier girls.
King is the last patient of the day, and I know Kev is waiting, so I try to help things along. “If you’d like to read off the information on your insurance card to me, I can input it for you?”
“Insurance? My health insurance shouldn’t be touching this. I got injured at work! At the big game last night?” He looks at me like I have the brains of pond scum.
So, yes, I’m being a little petty when I flip my hair and push the tablet back into his hands. “Sorry, I didn’t watch the game last night. Not really much into hockey. I took my dogs to the park last night.”
The guy towering over me swallows several times. Rage crosses his features. “Okay. Fine. Doesn’t matter. I’m not supposed to give you my insurance card. My team’s insurance should cover this. It was work-related.”
“Then I’ll still need some information from your team’s insurance. A provider number? A contact number? They should have given you something last night?”
“My coach and the team medics handle that shit.”
I bite my lip. There’s.... There’s such an undercurrent of irritated petulance in his tone that it makes me want to smack him.
“Why don’t you call your coach, sir? Let me know what you find out.
” I start to walk off when the door swings open with a hiss.
That means someone’s used the automatic door, pushing the big silver button that controls it.
Someone who probably can’t walk or stand too well.
“Mrs. Yerchenko! You were supposed to be here at two!” I exclaim when a little old lady hobbles in, looking pale and winded. “I thought you forgot. I called you a couple of times.”
“I fell in the parking lot. So silly,” she mumbles, bright spots appearing on her wrinkled cheeks. “I could hear you calling me, dear, but that silly little phone—it’s so slippery. It fell out of my purse and went right under the car—”
“Should she be driving?” King asks, and I turn to glare him to silence.
“I can drive fine! It’s the walking I have trouble with!” Mrs. Yerchenko hobbles farther into the office, and I hurry to help her. “Ever since I had that fall at the Labor Day Picnic...”
“Come on in the back. Dr. Bailey is waiting for you.”
“I brought him some peanut butter cups. Such a sweet boy. They’re down the grate by the car,” she laments. “I was able to get the phone—eventually, but the candy...”
“Don’t you worry. Marina already made a peanut butter cup cheesecake today, and I don’t think he needs any more sugar.” I usher Mrs. Yerchenko straight back into the safe, healing arms of Dr. Kevin Bailey, and return to find a towering toddler looming in my personal space.
“What the fuck was that?” he demands.
“I beg your pardon?” I ask. Anyone who knows me would have warned Mr. Windbag that when I speak softly and ask questions I already know the answers to, you should duck and cover.
King doesn’t know me.
“You just let that woman go right in? No little tablet full of information to fill out?” He dangles the tablet between two fingers.
“Don’t you dare—”
He drops it, and I snag it, starting to well and truly lose my temper.
“And you gave her my appointment! I can’t even drive right now! I had to get a lift from a teammate, and she just waltzes in and takes my spot? What kind of half-assed, shitty little—”
My voice snaps out, a verbal slap across his hysterical face to silence him. “Okay, that’s enough.”
Sometimes my training fails me.
The little bell in my head that warns, “Danger, Ingrid Antol, danger!” must be on mute. The flashing red sign that reads “You’re going to get fired” must be broken.
Because the next thing I know, I’m pushing that big hunk of attitude down on his ass, into a chair, and getting in his (oddly) handsome face. It’s not hard. I’m standing, he’s sitting, and my head is pretty much level with his.
He looks gobsmacked, and I’m glad. It’s all that’s preventing me from actually smacking him.
“That lady has been a patient here for five weeks, ever since she moved into the new senior assisted living community and fell down doing the cake walk at the Labor Day Picnic!” I say in a dangerously soft voice, slowly gaining decibels as I continue.
“She comes twice a week, every week. We have her info. Patients only have to give their information once. Once they're in the system, we have them on file, and we only need their signature at each visit. You are a new patient. Also, you’re not ready for your appointment. You refused to give me your information, and you said someone else is footing the bill. I told you to call them. I offered to help you!” I suddenly, like the madwoman I’ve just become, seize his crutches, which are comically long next to my medium-sized frame, and then toss them back when I realize my idea won’t work.
He catches them, eyes wide, while I storm away.
I get the pair of demo crutches from the office closet, where we keep the fold-up wheelchair and a few other mobility devices in case of emergencies.
I come out striding on much shorter crutches, swinging myself around like a fluffy gymnast. “This is how you use crutches. You need to distribute your weight through your hands, wrists, and arms. You didn’t want to be told.
Well, if you don’t learn, you’re going to have bruised armpits, not that I care!
But I do care, because it’s my job to care about nice, sweet old ladies like Mrs. Yerchenko and big, arrogant jocks like you!
So next time, don’t act like an idiot, and have some manners! ” I end in a roar.
And the world is suddenly very silent.
King Silverbow is silent, his mouth open.
I’m silent, except for the blood pounding in my head. Oh yeah, and the little internal voice that’s going “Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit...” on an endless loop.
The door to the exam and rehab area opens slowly, and Kevin sticks his head out, his dark brown skin seeming several shades paler, and his eyes huge in his face.
“Ingrid... Can I have a word with you?” he asks hoarsely.
“Yes. Sorry, I...” I have no excuse. I mean, I can explain, and Kev isn’t exactly my boss, but he’s the guy in charge of patient care, so I guess if he hears me losing my shit at a patient, he’ll have to tell someone.
Someone who’ll be calling me into the regional office for a warning. Maybe a firing.
To my utter surprise, King Silverbow hauls his impressive frame up and stands between me and Kevin. “Oh, don’t worry, Doc. I’m fine. We were just talking pretty loud. I... I sometimes... I forget I’m not in the arena, and I get loud. She was just matching that energy. We’ll be quiet.”
Gratitude and relief flood me—and it’s kind of gross. I don’t want to have any nice feelings towards this jerk. Simple civility will do.
“Ingrid?” Kevin prods.
“What he said,” I say quickly, not quite looking at my friend. Which is bad, because then he’ll know I’m lying. “I got a little overexcited. Hockey fan girl,” I lie.
Kevin tilts his head. “Well... Mr. Silverbow, I just need to get Mrs. Yerchenko settled, and then I’ll be right with you.
I appreciate your patience. She had a little accident that delayed her, but as you know firsthand, accidents happen.
” He gestures to the crutches under my arms. “Giving him a demo, Ingrid?”
“I’m a pro,” I rasp and manage a smile.
When Kevin disappears behind the door, I sag in relief. “I’m so sorry,” I apologize to Mr. Silverbow, reminding myself again that he’s a patient, that he was upset, that he misunderstood—
But he cuts me off. “It’s okay. Um. I know I’m not going to be much fun and we can’t go skating or bowling or anything cool like that—”
“What?” I interrupt. What alternate timeline conversation is this?
“But would you have dinner with me tomorrow?”
Did he hit his head when I shoved him into the seat? Oh, that’s all I need. Get saved from a reprimand for yelling at a patient, get fired for concussing him instead. “Come again?”
“Dinner? You and me? Or just coffee?”
I look into his eyes, checking for pupil reactivity. His eyes are dark, darker brown than I’ve ever seen, almost the same midnight, inky black as his hair, but there’s a tiny flicker of gold, like a halo around the pupil. Both pupils are tracking and identical in size. He’s not concussed.
He’s just insane.
He’s looking at me in a way I’ve never experienced.
Raw, desperation. Some kind of... awe, maybe?
Must be the painkillers. “No,” I say, and hand the tablet back to him. “Call your coach and bring that to the desk when you’ve filled that out.”