He’s working in Africa right now, but he’s coming to San Francisco so we can be together.”
“Lucky you,” Honey said wistfully. “He looks nice.”
Paige looked at her. “Are you involved with anyone?”
“No. I’m afraid I don’t have much luck with men.”
Kat said, “Maybe your luck will change at Embarcadero.”
The three of them had dinner at Tarantino’s, not far from their apartment building. During dinner they chatted about their backgrounds and lives, but there was a restraint to their conversation, a holding back. They were three strangers, probing, cautiously getting to know one another.
Honey spoke very little. There’s a shyness about her, Paige thought. She’s vulnerable. Some man in Memphis probably broke her heart.
Paige looked at Kat. Self-confident. Great dignity. I like the way she speaks. You can tell she came from a good family.
Meanwhile, Kat was studying Paige. A rich girl who never had to work for anything in her life. She’s gotten by on her looks.
Honey was looking at the two of them. They’re so confident, so sure of themselves. They’re going to have an easy time of it.
They were all mistaken.
When they returned to their apartment, Paige was too excited to sleep. She lay in bed, thinking about the future. Outside her window, in the street, there was the sound of a car crash, and then people shouting, and in Paige’s mind it dissolved into the memory of African natives yelling and chanting, and guns being fired. She was transported back in time, to the small jungle village in East Africa, caught in the middle of a deadly tribal war.
Paige was terrified. “They’re going to kill us!”
Her father took her in his arms. “They won’t harm us, darling. We’re here to help them. They know we’re their friends.”
And without warning, the chief of one of the tribes had burst into their hut …
Honey lay in bed thinking, This is sure a long way from Memphis, Tennessee, Betty Lou. I guess I can never go back there. Never again. She could hear the sheriffs voice saying to her, “Out of respect for his family, we’re going to list the death of the Reverend Douglas Lipton as a ‘suicide for reasons unknown,’ but I would suggest that you get the fuck out of this town fast, and stay out …”
Kat was staring out the window of her bedroom, listening to the sounds of the city. She could hear the raindrops whispering, You made it … you made it … I showed them all they were wrong. You want to be a doctor? A black woman doctor? And the rejections from medical schools. “Thank you for sending us your application. Unfortunately our enrollment is complete at this time.”
“In view of your background, perhaps we might suggest that you would be happier at a smaller university.”
She had top grades, but out of twenty-five schools she had applied to, only one had accepted her. The dean of the school had said, “In these days, it’s nice to see someone who comes from a normal, decent background.”
If he had only known the terrible truth.
At five-thirty the following morning, when the new residents checked in, members of the hospital staff were standing by to guide them to their various assignments. Even at that early hour, the bedlam had begun.
The patients had been coming in all night, arriving in ambulances, and police cars, and on foot. The staff called them the “F and J’s”—the flotsam and jetsam that streamed into the emergency rooms, broken and bleeding, victims of shootings and stabbings and automobile accidents, the wounded in flesh and spirit, the homeless and the unwanted, the ebb and flow of humanity that streamed through the dark sewers of every large city.
There was a pervasive feeling of organized chaos, frenetic movements and shrill sounds and dozens of unexpected crises that all had to be attended to at once.
The new residents stood in a protective huddle, getting attuned to their new environment, listening to the arcane sounds around them.
Paige, Kat, and Honey were waiting in the corridor when a senior resident approached them. “Which one of you is Dr. Taft?”
Honey looked up and said, “I am.”
The resident smiled and held out his hand. “It’s an honor to meet you. I’ve been asked to look out for you. Our chief of staff says that you have the highest medical school grades this hospital has ever seen. We’re delighted to have you here.”
Honey smiled, embarrassed. “Thank you.”
Kat and Paige looked at Honey in astonishment. I wouldn’t have guessed she was that brilliant, Paige thought.
“You’re planning to go into internal medicine, Dr. Taft?”
“Yes.”
The resident turned to Kat. “Dr. Hunter?”
“Yes.”
“You’re interested in neurosurgery.”
“I am.”
He consulted a list. “You’ll be assigned to Dr. Lewis.”
The resident looked over at Paige. “Dr. Taylor?”
“Yes.”
“You’re going into cardiac surgery.”
“That’s right.”
“Fine. We’ll assign you and Dr. Hunter to surgical rounds. You can report to the head nurse’s office. Margaret Spencer. Down the hall.”
“Thank you.”
Paige looked at the others and took a deep breath. “Here I go! I wish us all luck!”
The head nurse, Margaret Spencer, was more a battleship than a woman, heavyset and stern-looking, with a brusque manner. She was busy behind the nurses’ station when Paige approached.
“Excuse me …”
Nurse Spencer looked up. “Yes?”
“I was told to report here. I’m Dr. Taylor.”
Nurse Spencer consulted a sheet. “Just a moment.” She walked through a door and returned a minute later with some scrubs and white coats.
“Here you are. The scrubs are to wear in the operating theater and on rounds. When you’re doing rounds, you put a white coat over the scrubs.”
“Thanks.”
“Oh. And here.” She reached down and
