a fake smile on my face as I entered the elevator. My mother had always told me I should smile even when I didn’t feel like smiling because it would help me to develop the “habit of happiness.” I preferred to think a permanent smile gave people doubts about your sanity, and thus they left you alone.
Family Practice was on the eleventh floor of the steel-and-glass high-rise in the Texas Medical Center complex. At every floor, the elevator doors parted and more people poured in as others exited. I found myself pushed farther and farther toward the rear of the car, until my nose was practically buried in the shellacked updo of an orthopedics receptionist.
I always got nervous when the elevator was this full. What if there was too much weight for the cables? What if it stopped between floors? Would we suffocate? Just last week Mary Joe Wisnewski from pediatrics had been stuck between floors for an hour.
And here I was, packed in like a teenager at dollar-a-car night at the drive-in. Two drug pushers—also known as pharmaceutical salesmen—hemmed me in on either side. I couldn’t even move my arms.
So, of course, I had an itch I needed to scratch. On my butt. I shifted from one foot to the other, trying to ignore the persistent tickle on my right cheek as the elevator ground to a halt to take on still more passengers.
The tickle developed into a pinch. The hair on the back of my neck stood at attention as I realized the reason for my posterior disturbance. Some guy had his hand up my dress! He was poking and prodding my cheek like a baker testing dough. Or maybe he was a plastic surgeon who thought I was a likely candidate for a buttocks-lift.
I shifted, trying to move away from him, but in the packed elevator, it was impossible. The invisible groper started working on my other cheek. “Stop that!” I yelped.
My fellow passengers regarded me curiously, and there was a decided leaning away from me. Fury choked me. Where did this pervert get off feeling me up like that? I’d show him.
I shifted my weight to my left leg and swung my right foot back, connecting solidly with the joker’s kneecap. If I’d had more room, I would have aimed higher. As it was, he grunted and let me go. The doors opened and I surged forward, elbowing two old women out of the way as I broke for freedom.
I stood beside a potted palm in the corridor and tried to see into the elevator, to identify the man who’d groped me. But the doors shut before I could make out anyone. Sighing, I adjusted my purse on my shoulder and headed for the stairs to hike up the three floors to Family Practice.
“Phoebe, you’re late.” The office manager, Joan Lee, shoved a stack of patient folders into my hands. “Dr. Patterson is in rare form this morning.” Standing four foot eleven inches in a size-one Jones New York suit, Joan looked like a geisha who’d gotten lost on her way to Wall Street. Her voice was soft as silk, but her backbone was diamond-hard steel. Insurance companies quaked at the sound of her name, and even the most bullheaded surgeon addressed her respectfully as “Ms. Lee, ma’am.”
“He wants those charts on his desk by noon,” Joan continued. “So you’d better get busy.”
“No problem.” I shifted the folders to my left arm and headed for the coffee machine for a fortifying cup. “Barb and I will split them up and have them done by eleven.”
“Sorry, but Barb can’t help you. I had to put her on the front desk this morning.”
I turned, empty cup in hand. “Why? Where’s Kathleen?”
Joan shook her head and disappeared around the corner. Dr. Patterson’s nurse, Michelle, joined me at the coffee machine. “Kathleen was dismissed,” she whispered as she spooned creamer into her cup.
I raised my eyebrows. “Turned him down again, did she?” Dr. Patterson had been badgering the receptionist to go out with him for weeks now—despite the fact that both of them were married, and not to each other.
Michelle shrugged. “I guess so. Or maybe he decided to move on to greener pastures and didn’t want her hanging around.”
“Michelle, the doctor needs you in room three.” Joan hurried past us, dragging a loaded lab cart. “Phoebe, don’t forget those charts have to be done by noon.”
“I can do it if the system cooperates. When is the new transcription system supposed to be installed?” I called after Joan’s retreating back.
“Soon. You’ll have to make do until then.” She disappeared around the corner, test tubes rattling in her wake.
I headed for my workroom at the back of the office suite. Windowless and cramped, it resembled the supply closet it had once been. A long counter had been installed to hold the two computers and transcription equipment, and a single filing cabinet provided a place to stash my purse. Nothing fancy, but it was quiet, out of the flow of traffic and no one cared how many empty coffee cups or Diet Coke cans I let pile up as long as I got my work done on time.
I booted up my computer and popped the first tape into the transcription machine. Dr. Patterson’s Texas twang filled my headphones. “The patient is a well-developed young woman of sixteen, presenting with pain in the left patella.” I rolled my eyes as I typed. Patterson was always going on about the beauty or physical developments of his female patients. If they were over twenty-one he’d note if they were married or single and if they had any children. I wondered if he was making notes to himself for future reference.
I busted butt and finished the last of the tapes at ten after twelve and was fastening a printout onto the front of a patient chart when the intercom buzzed. “Doctor Patterson would like to see you in his office,” Joan announced.
I groaned. What was he going to do, chew me out for being ten minutes late? “If he didn’t go on so much about how big a patient’s boobs or behind were, he’d shave half an hour off my transcription time,” I muttered as I gathered up the charts and headed for the doctor’s lair at the other end of the office.
Dr. Ken Patterson was a tall man with the broad shoulders and thick neck of a former football player. He, in fact, had been a linebacker for the University of Texas before deciding on a career in medicine. His hairline had receded in twin widow’s peaks, frosted with gray, which only added to his distinguished good looks. Patients talked about how charming he was, but I thought there was more smarm than charm in the good doctor.
“Here are the charts you wanted.” I deposited the stack of file folders on the corner of his desk. It was a massive mahogany piece that was big enough for a grown man to stretch out on. Rumor had it that Patterson had made good use of that space with more than one woman. Frankly, I was glad it wasn’t my job to polish the thing. I turned to leave, but Patterson caught me by the arm.
“What’s your hurry?” Still clutching my arm, he reached back and pushed the door closed.
I frowned. I didn’t want to end up like Kathleen, with bills to pay and no job, but neither did I want to end up as Patterson’s next plaything. “I have a lot of work to do,” I said, trying to pull away from him.
“Yes, I’ve noticed how tense you’ve been lately.” He released me, but continued to block my path to the door. “I think maybe you’ve been working too hard.”
“I’m fine, really.” I tried to dodge past him and collided with Albert, the life-size skeletal model grinning cheerfully from his stand next to the desk.
Albert clanked and swayed like a macabre set of wind chimes. At Halloween
