"Robby, can you help us with our slides?" Violet asked in a sticky sweet voice. He sighed as he walked over to the table and showed her, for the third time, what she was doing wrong, and was rewarded with a hand on his arm and an overly grateful, "Thank you so much, Robby!"
Liz mocked the girls under her breath as she mounted the samples on the slides and put them under the microscope. When Robert walked by and asked if everything was going all right, Liz grunted the affirmative without looking up.
"Why are you so mean to him?" I whispered as I stared at a slice of epidermis I'd mounted on my slide.
"I'm not mean, I just don't care," Liz replied. "There's a huge difference."
I watched her closely, wondering what had happened that had turned her mood from good to sour so quickly, then shrugged as I turned back to my own slides. We worked in compatible silence for the next hour and a half, and by the time we were done cleaning up, Violet and her crew were, again, fawning over Robert.
Liz rolled her eyes dramatically as she walked past his desk toward the door. I waved and said thank you as I joined my friend. Liz suggested we get something to eat before we went to the library to study, and I reminded her that we'd picked up an extra shift in the ER that night.
"Aw, crap!" she swore as she kicked a pile of snow in front of the building. "I forgot about that. All right, well, I'll meet you at the hospital, then."
"You don't want to come over and get ready and go together?" I asked.
"Nah, thanks; I have something I need to do first," she said, taking off in the direction of her apartment before I could say another word.
I watched her moving down the sidewalk and wondered what she was up to -- and whether I'd have to pull her out of whatever it was that she was doing.
#
I met Liz at the door of the ER a few hours later and smiled as I saw that she was in a good mood. She'd brought a bag full of fortune cookies and proceeded to pass them around to the ER staff and nurses. For a while, the department was calm and everyone enjoyed their sweet treats, but around ten things started picking up as a guy with a gunshot wound arrived, followed soon after by a stabbing and then a heart attack.
I loved the swift flow of the ER and the way that everyone played a part in keeping the rhythm going. The admitting people got the information and checked the past history, while the nurses took vitals and got a rundown of what had happened, then the doctors moved in and evaluated the injury or illness before turning the patient's care back over to the nurses. Chicago General's ER was a well-oiled machine, and I loved being a part of it.
Liz, however, did not love the ER, and she took every opportunity to escape it. I often found her hanging out in the pharmacy or in ICU. She had made friends with the people who ran the show there and seemed to enjoy their company more than she did working the floor. I worried that if she got caught skipping out on her ER rotation, she'd fail this portion of her internship and not graduate in June, and I couldn't imagine not having Liz there on the best day of my life.
"Elizabeth Baker! What are you doing?" I exclaimed as I came around the corner and found her lying face down on a gurney outside of the ICU.
"Taking a short nap," she said in a voice thick with sleep. "I'm tired, Alex. I need my rest."
"You're working, Liz! Get up!" I ordered as I pulled at her arm and tried to get her off the gurney.
"I don't wanna," she protested as she turned her body into a dead weight. "I need a short nap."
"Liz, you're being ridiculous," I hissed as I yanked her arm harder, failing to get her up on her feet. "You need to get up! What if Mrs. Rikka..."
"What if Mrs. Rikka what?" said a familiar voice just behind my left shoulder.
"Oh, um, Mrs. Rikka," I stammered as I let go of Liz's arm and turned around to face the nursing supervisor. She was wearing a mustard colored dress with sensible brown shoes and her glasses hung on a pearl chain around her neck. "Liz is sick. I think it's the flu."
"Is it really?" Mrs. Rikka said with a raised eyebrow as she glanced at Liz and then turned her laser like stare back on me. "I wasn't aware that Miss Baker had been sick."
"Oh, she's been throwing up all day." I nodded vigorously, trying to convey the seriousness of Liz's condition.
"I see," Mrs. Rikka said as she stepped closer to the gurney and shook Liz's shoulder. "Miss Baker, is this true? Are you ill?"
"I’m not sick just tired,” Liz mumbled into the pillow under her head. "Just need a nap.”
"Then perhaps you should get more sleep. Or maybe you should be checked by a doctor rather than lying on a gurney in the middle of the hall," Mrs. Rikka said sharply. "Get up, Miss Baker. I want you to see a doctor. Now."
"Liz, get up," I whispered into her ear with an urgency that seemed to cut through whatever fog had taken over my friend's brain. "C'mon, you need to see a doctor."
Liz slowly raised herself up off of the gurney and let me drape her arm around my shoulder so I could walk her down to the ER. Mrs. Rikka stared at us both. Her eyes narrowed as she carefully gave Liz a once over.
"I'm not sure what Miss Baker is suffering from, but it does not appear to be the flu," she observe
d. "Nonetheless, I want her checked out by a doctor, Miss Pierce."