2. Sophie
CHAPTER 2
SOPHIE
M y fingers kept drifting to my left wrist, where Mom’s charm bracelet would normally be. I’d slipped it off for my shift to keep it from catching, and it felt weird not having it there.
“You’re fidgeting,” said Miles.
“We’ve been sitting a while.”
He made the same sound my mom made when I was being a pain, kind of a hiss-snort. A loud gust of breath. I shifted, restless, and touched my wrist again.
“I have a sewing kit,” said Miles. “If you have a loose thread.”
I shook my head no, and he made that noise again.
“Then stop scratching, would you? Unless you have fleas.”
I bit my tongue on a salty response. Miles had been testing my good mood all day, stepping on my enthusiasm every chance he got. But I knew if I goaded him, he’d only get worse. If I wanted him off my back, I’d need to prove myself, and to do that, I’d need a call.
“Rush hour soon,” I said.
Miles grunted, huh .
Outside, the cars swept by, churning up slush. We were posted at a rest stop above a main road, ready to deploy at a moment’s notice. It felt ghoulish hoping that notice came soon, as it would mean someone was hurt, or worse. But the atmosphere in the ambulance was growing fraught, the cloud over Miles’s head about to spit lightning. And now he’d picked on my fidgeting, I couldn’t sit still. My fingers kept twitching, trying to go for my wrist. I tapped my foot to distract myself. Miles clicked his tongue.
He's as anxious as you are, I reminded myself. It’s his first day too, with a new partner. He’s probably worried you’ll be some freak. Once he sees you’re not ? —
Our radio went off so loud I yelped. Miles waved me to silence and leaned in to hear. I held my breath as the details came crackling through: a single-car accident three blocks away, the driver injured.
“Follow my lead,” said Miles. He blipped the siren. Traffic slowed, and he swung us onto the road. “I can see you’re nervous, so hang back if you need to. If you’re dizzy, sit down.”
I wanted to snap at him, I was fine. I was great. This was what I’d trained for, right here, this moment. But this was what I’d trained for. Right here. This moment. I’d poured all I had into this, my dream job, and what if it was too much? If I couldn’t hack it? If I panicked or puked or forgot all my training, and stood frozen stiff as a deer in the headlights? I was sweating, heart pounding, excited and scared, and I half couldn’t wait, half wanted to hide.
“Breathe,” said Miles.
I bristled. “I am .” But I hadn’t been, and the words burst out hard. They came out fast and loud like a cork from a bottle. I whooped a deep breath, and Miles gripped the wheel. His upper lip curled, but not at me.
“Oh, great.” He scowled. “Can you control them, at least?”
I peered up the street and saw what he meant. Just ahead, a small car had plowed into a food stand, scattering churros in a sugary spray. A knot of bystanders had crowded in on the driver, eight or nine people trying to help her at once.
“That’s not good,” I said. “Okay, I’ve got it.”
“Are you sure?”
I breathed deep. “Yeah. I’m fine.” I’d been on live calls before as part of my training, and this was no different, except… no trainer. Whatever I did here was on me. No one else.
Miles pulled up on the scene and I jumped out first, and a few of the bystanders broke off to accost me.
“She’s over here!”
“I think she broke her arm. She says she can bend it, but it could still be cracked, right?”
“We saw her skid! She just lost control. We were standing in line, and if Hank hadn’t grabbed me?—”
“Okay!” I held up my hands for attention. “I need everyone over here who saw what happened— No, not in the road. Over here , by the awning.” I pointed, then moved in to herd them along, edging myself between them and the driver. One man grabbed my arm.
“She hit her head. I saw it bounce off the wheel.”
I glanced at the driver, all powdered with airbag dust. She didn’t look like she’d hit her head: no bruising, no blood, just minor redness. Miles was already striding toward her, trusting me to do my part and handle the crowd. “Okay, sir,” I said. “Come wait over here.”
“She could have a concussion.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll check.” I steered him out of the way. “The police will be coming, and they’ll want your statement. Till then, could you help me keep the scene clear?”
The man puffed up, proud to have something to do. One woman had her phone out, recording Miles. She caught me looking and glared at me.
“I have a right to be here.”
I smiled at her blandly. “That’s fine. Stay right there. No, behind the café sign.”
She pointed her phone at me, but I turned away. Miles was shielding the driver from the curious crowd, standing in front of her as he checked her eyes.
“Now, how many fingers— No, look at me. Don’t worry about those guys. Focus up here.”
The driver flinched back, and it struck me how small she was, how brittle and birdlike, her eyes wide with fright. Her white hair was loose and whipping all round her face, and it hit me right then, I’d been wrong on the bus. This call wasn’t my moment, or my chance to prove myself. It wasn’t about me, not at all. It was about this frail woman who’d started her day, got up, got dressed, and made toast or pancakes. She’d got in her car and headed wherever, to pick up some milk. To see her grandkids. Instead, she was here, scared, maybe hurt, Miles looming over her waving three fingers.
“My glasses,” she said. “Have you seen my glasses?”
Miles frowned. Lowered his hand. “Can you tell me what day it is?”
“What day of the week?”
“That’s right, what day?”
She furrowed her brows. “I was picking up Maisie…”
“Yeah, but what day is it?”
“Hold on,” I said. “I’m Sophie, hello. Do you need to call Maisie?”
Miles shot me a black look. The driver perked up.
“I’m Phyllis,” she said. She managed a smile. “And Maisie’s my dog. She’s been at the vet’s, broke her poor paw.”
“What kind of dog is she?”
Miles cleared his throat. “Uh, Reeves? You want to handle that crowd?”
I checked, but the witnesses were still where I’d left them, under the awning, rubbernecking the scene.
“She’s a Yorkie,” said Phyllis. “Fits right in my purse.” She stroked her purse like she wished Maisie was in it, a wet little nose pushing into her hand. It made my heart hurt for her, and I slapped on a big smile.
“I love Yorkies. So sweet. And they’re so smart, as well.”
Miles stepped on my foot, not hard, but with purpose. “Go on,” he said. “Find out what they saw.”
“Won’t the police do that?”
The look Miles gave me then could’ve melted through granite. “It’s useful for us to know how fast she was going. If she said anything. If she seemed confused.”
I wanted to argue. Couldn’t he see she was scared? What she needed was air, and the chance to calm down. Not a faceful of fingers and flashing lights. But the camera woman was panning our way, and the last thing we needed was her scaring Phyllis.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Just think about Maisie.”
Miles exhaled hard. I took the hint and backed off. He started right in again, questioning Phyllis, but this time, at least, she managed to answer. I tried to keep tabs as I dealt with the crowd, but they’d got bored and bold, and I couldn’t hear past them. The camera woman kept thrusting it out, pointing it now at Miles, now at me. I managed to glean that Phyllis had braked. She’d rammed the stand in slow motion, barely a bump. She’d seemed scared, not confused, and not badly hurt.
“It’s black ice,” said the man I’d put in charge of the crowd. “I’ll tell the cops that. We all will. We saw.”
“She won’t have to pay, will she? For hitting the snack stand?”
I didn’t know what to say, so I asked some more questions, then I talked to the cops when they made the scene. Miles came to get me once I’d answered their questions.
“We’re done here,” he said.
I glanced at Phyllis, surprised. “We’re not taking her in?”
“She’s lucid, not injured, and she wants to go get her dog. Her daughter’s coming to pick her up.” He jerked his head at the ambulance. “You coming, or what?”
I followed, shellshocked, cold in my sweater. The whole call felt like it’d lasted ten seconds, though my watch said we’d been on-scene half an hour. When I tried to sort through it, it came back in flashes, the crowd pressing in. Miles shielding Phyllis. Boxing me out when I tried to help. That woman’s selfie stick, her phone in my face. My head spun, and I shivered. Had I done right? I’d kept the crowd back, tried to calm Phyllis. Stood in front of the camera as much as I could.
Miles jumped in the driver’s seat. “Never do that again.” He slammed the door hard. I jerked in my seat.
“Do what?”
“What do you think?” His face was all thunder, then he spotted the camera. “Shit. She’s still filming. You couldn’t stop that?”
“I didn’t think I was allowed to. It’s legal, right?”
Miles gunned the engine. He hissed through his teeth. “So what if it’s legal? It’s disrespectful as hell. You think sweet old Phyllis wants to go viral? You should’ve stood up for her, if not for yourself. And that isn’t even what I’m talking about.” He took the corner too fast and I swayed into the door. “You cannot butt in when I’m examining a patient, unless it’s to point out something urgent I’ve missed. Like the bus burning behind me, or a wound gushing blood.”
I winced. “Slow down.”
“Slow down, are you serious? I’m doing twenty.” He rolled his eyes, but slowed down heading back to our post. “I have a whole checklist I need to get through. I know you know that. You’re fresh out of training. You distract, interrupt me, you know what that does?”
“You were scaring her.” I was shivering harder, my teeth trying to chatter, but I couldn’t let Miles see and think I was scared. I wasn’t scared, at least not of him. And, fine, if he wanted me to stand up to someone?—
“That’s not the point. I was doing my job. And I’ve been doing it a lot longer than you, so maybe for your first day, your first call at least?—”
“I thought if she was calm, she’d answer your questions.”
“She was answering anyway. You got in the way.” Miles braked, killed the engine, and flopped back in his seat. “What you don’t get is, most patients are stressed. The questions we ask are designed around that. They don’t need to be calm to say how many fingers, or tell me what day it is, or who’s president. What you did today could mask real confusion, signs of dementia, or a concussion.”
“Two seconds of small talk could mask a concussion?”
“Maybe. We do things the way we do for a reason. And that woman filming, what about her? If you came in with your chit-chat and I missed a step, and she caught it on camera and it went viral? Do you have any idea the damage you’d do? We go by the book and we go by our training, not by, oh, no, that lady looks scared .” His voice spiked up an octave, mocking my own. I felt myself flush and bit my cheek to calm down. I could’ve argued I had used my training, the part about how to keep scared patients calm. But now wasn’t the time, with Miles on full honk, venting his stress the only way he knew how.
“If you want to hold hands, try being a nurse. Or a home care assistant. Lots of hand-holding there.”
I gritted my teeth, holding back by a thread. Miles wouldn’t hear me if I pushed back now. Better let him be right till he’d worked off some steam, then circle back later when his mood was good. If he even had good moods, which was up for debate.
“All right,” I said. “No more chit-chat.”
Miles looked for a moment like he might carry on, like his rant had a life beyond my screwups. But then he sighed, and he seemed to deflate. The sharp glint of anger went out of his eyes.
“It’s all right,” he said. “It’s your first day. But how about you remember I’ve been at this a while? If I tell you to do something, I have a good reason.”
“Sure. I’ll remember.” I deflated, myself. Miles did have a point: it was my first day. And Phyllis might well have been fine on her own. Just, in the moment, it had all felt so urgent, so necessary I put her at ease.
“Let’s do our reports,” Miles said. “You should write up every call as soon as you can, before the details fly out of your head.” He pulled out a sheet and I did the same, and as I wrote, my trembling died down. Set down on paper, the call felt… routine. I’d clashed with Miles, but the rest had gone fine. I’d followed the steps from crowd control training, establish authority. Create a clear space. Move any witnesses to a safe location. It all had stuck with me, scared as I’d been.
Miles frowned over his clipboard. “What’s with the smile?”
I shook my head and wiped the grin off my face. Miles had quit yelling, but I doubted he’d like the truth: my first call had been bumpy, but it had proved I could do this. I could handle the pressure of lives in my hands. My training had stuck with me, and I hadn’t freaked out, even knowing I was flying with no safety net. No trainer to catch me if I missed a step. I’d risen to the challenge, and I’d rise to Miles too.
I’d make this work for me, no matter what.