Adriana #2
“Oh, the basement is definitely dusty. And moldy. That’s the thing about historic buildings — they’re not always watertight.
You’re over in the townhomes, right? That’s what I heard from Meraldine.
She works in reference? All new builds must be nice.
You won’t have to worry about the roof leaking or faulty wiring .
. . You should check the calendar to see if you’re free for one of the library sales! ”
Adriana gave the dragonborn a firm smile when she sneezed again.
“If you’re frequently around dusty items that might be holding some mold spores, I think I’d like you to start using a steroid-based nasal spray, in addition to a preventative antihistamine.
Rhinitis and scales don’t mix well, so you want to get ahead of this proactively.
” Adriana smiled as she stood. “We’ll send this over to the pharmacy today.
Deneen will give you your discharge paperwork at the desk. ”
The dragonborn nodded, just as enthusiastically, but made no move to stand.
“It was nice meeting you.”
Another nod, accompanied by that same smile.
“Was-was there something else you needed?”
“Oh! Are . . . are we finished already?”
Adriana’s eyes cast around the small examination room, certain she was going to find another patient hidden there, perhaps this patient’s child, some gotcha moment waiting to trap her . . . but there was none. None but the dragonborn named Dā, her purple hair and post-nasal drip. She blinked again.
“Yes. You’ll be notified by the pharmacy when your prescription is ready. And since this is an ongoing issue, it needs to be addressed by your primary care physician. Deneen will be able to schedule that appointment for you at the desk. Have a nice day.”
She did not spare another look back as she left the exam room. It had taken less than ten minutes. If the majority of the patients waiting in the room beyond were that easy, she’d have the board cleared well before break. After all, no one currently in the waiting area appeared urgent to her eyes.
A blue-skinned woman was pleading with two web-fingered tweens to stop fighting over the tablet they were meant to share, while across from them, an elderly faunish couple shook their heads judgmentally.
There was an orcish middle schooler with a terrible cough, a college-aged goblin sitting with a bag of frozen peas on her knee, and a mottled grey mothman, holding his elbow, scowling at the rest of the room.
It had only taken a day or two to understand that the staff she’d inherited from the general practice upstairs had never been introduced to the concept of urgency, an attitude, she discovered, that carried over to the patients, despite the name over the clinic’s doors.
Unlike the frenetic pace she was accustomed to, her first week at Healers Urgent Care Clinic had passed with a plodding domesticity, crucial minutes wasted on meandering conversations from the coffee machine to the reception desk, extending into the examination rooms.
It would take time to break them of the habit, Adriana reminded herself, looking over the chart for exam room three, her hand already resting on the door handle.
Anyone could be trained, and the staff here was no exception.
And once the staff understands, the patients will stop expecting every appointment to be a social hour.
“Deneen will check you out at the front, Ms. Hemming. I really do hope the bread is worth it,” Sora, the trollish nurse practitioner, laughed, just two doors down, standing in the open doorway of an exam room.
Adriana felt the icy finger up her spine again, intuition forcing her to turn slowly, preparing herself for the sight of his wife coming out of the room . . . but the dark-haired she-wolf who passed the troll was not the same werewolf she remembered from med school.
“Oh, it had better be! A little blood in the batter is just extra protein, right?”
“Let me guess — mandoline injury?”
Adriana startled when she realized she had asked the question, unable to help herself, forcing the werewolf to turn.
“I should have known better,” the dark-haired young woman laughed, facing her at last. Short, choppy hair with a thick magenta streak, a ring in her nose, a tattoo up her neck, nothing at all like her poised and perfect former classmate. “The zucchini was calling to me. I should have resisted!”
“I’m Doctor Brunelli.” That voice was still coming from her own mouth, her hand extending to shake the wolf’s, and Adriana felt utterly left out of the decision-making process, watching like a spectator.
“Oh yeah, I heard we were getting a new doctor! Rina Hemming. Nice to meet you. I’d offer to drop off some bread for the staff, but I’m not sure it’ll meet safety regulations. I wouldn’t want my cousin to issue a citation.”
Sora and Shileen laughed, and Adriana watched as the young woman disappeared, slumping in relief, slotting the names together in an order that made the most sense.
Rina. Her cousin was the commissioner at the fair.
Sandi was maybe a mother or a sister. She had a feeling this was his extended family, the resemblance too strong, but she was safe.
You can stop spooking every time you hear the name now.
The goblin and her bag of peas proved to be no more than a deep bruise, while the orcish middle schooler’s rapid strep test was positive before the reagent had fully climbed the strip.
She was tapping in a prescription for an antibiotic, checking and double-checking her math to ensure the proper dosing for the species, when the errant medical assistant turned into the central desk.
“Exam four,” Adriana handed off a streptococcus information sheet. “Let them know an oral antibiotic is being called into the pharmacy. Twice a day for ten days, instructions are on the order.”
“Oh! Oh-okay! They can go? You don’t want to talk to them again?”
“They can go once you give them the orders and they check out up front.”
The goblin exchanged a fast look with the nurse coming from behind the counter, but Adriana was already moving down the hall, turning into the next room.
The mothman within, despite acting as though he’d sustained a catastrophic injury and needed to be transferred to the trauma ward next door, had merely banged his funny bone.
“It’s an unprotected nerve, and I know it hurts,” she assured him after reviewing his chart and hearing, in his words, how he’d injured himself. “But you said this happened close to two hours ago. Does it still hurt?”
She had already assessed the area — no damage to the humerus or cubital joint, no reaction as she probed.
Adriana was certain he’d not even have a bruise in the morning.
His scowl told her everything she needed to know, pulling his arm away as if she’d stabbed him, harumphing as he stood when she held the door open.
The board was halfway cleared, and she hadn’t even broken a sweat yet.
She was crushing it. This is how you train them — by setting the example. If they’re keeping up with you, they’re not wasting time that could be spent in the next exam room.
She still felt as though she were playacting in every interaction in town, every trip to the coffee shop, the completely overwhelming and shockingly expensive grocery store . . . but this she was good at. At this, she was the best they could ask for.
***
It was a conversation that wasn’t meant for outside ears. She could tell that immediately from the way the woman silently slipped through the shop’s door, phone already held to her ear, her face grim.
The shop was empty, save Adriana, with not even a visible clerk.
Leathergoods, she realized once she’d stepped over the threshold, a small powder blue journal sitting in the window having caught her eye from the street, pulling her in like a reeled fish.
Her therapist had mentioned journaling would be an excellent way to relieve stress and process her emotions, and the pretty blue journal would look right at home on the tiny antique secretary’s desk she’d had since childhood, a hand-me-down from her grandmother’s house.
Eighty-four dollars. For a notebook.
Her hand retreated. Not because she couldn’t afford it. That, perhaps more than anything else, remained the part her brain still had trouble working out. Price tags no longer represented impossibility, only permission she still had a hard time granting herself. For a notebook?!
It was then that the woman slipped into the shop, her eyes tight.
“Mmm . . . well, that’s typical. At least she was there with him at the end.
Mhm . . . Of course I’m not coming. Minchia, you really think you need to tell me that?
! No, we won’t be there. You don’t need to worry about me .
. . but thank you for calling to let me know.
No, and I really don’t fuckin’ care what he thinks.
Are you coming to the wedding? . . . No, I didn’t have anything to do with it.
He did that on his own. Told me he invited you after the fact.
You bringing that cummà I met the last time? ”
Adriana had stiffened at the first sound of the woman’s voice, her entire core tightening at the familiar accent, the smell of yet another wolf, heat rushing to her face, tears burning their way into existence in a flood of homesickness she scarcely understood as the unseen woman laughed softly at whatever was said on the other side of the conversation.
It could have been her Aunt Loretta, just on the other side of the aisle.
She’d never expected to encounter someone who sounded like home in this place, this sanitized, nice place, where Fluvia Jeene was a junior mathlete and notebooks cost eighty-four dollars.
“Yeah, I know. Thank you for calling. Yeah, whatever. Love you, too.”
Footsteps came from overhead, the invisible proprietor making themselves known at last, moving down a previously unseen staircase and through the door.