Sophie wasn't exaggerating about the problems we could encounter as aides. An elderly man in room messed his bed, and I had to clean it up. I must have swallowed a hundred times and held my breath for an hour before I was finished. Mrs. Crandle made me wash down the bed frame and scrub the floor around the bed as well.
Sophie and I had to run down to the laundry and carry up fresh linens. I emptied a half dozen bedpans and cleaned bathrooms. I thought my first day at the hospital would be relatively uneventful and just the sort of work I had expected, but shortly before my shift ended, Mrs. Conti, the elderly woman in room 200, had a heart attack. Mrs. Crandle called for a Code E Blue, and Dr. Weller came running from the other end of the corridor. I watched them wheel in a defibrillator. Another doctor came from the third-floor cardiac care unit. They worked and worked, but Mrs. Conti's heart had stopped dead and didn't start again.
Her roommate, Mrs. Brennen, cried hysterically and had to be sedated. There was a flag of mourning on everyone's face. Mrs. Conti had been dozing when I had delivered her juice and had barely opened her eyes when I returned to freshen her water pitcher and see if she needed anything. I had seen and heard her heart monitor, and Mrs. Brennen had told me that Mrs. Conti had been upstairs in the cardiac care unit for ten days before being brought down to the second floor.
"Why wasn't she still upstairs?" I whispered to Dr. Weller when he emerged after the failed effort to revive her had ended.
"They sent her down two days ago because she had made enough progress and they needed room for another patient." He shrugged. "Can't always predict it," he said and then flashed a challenging smile. "Still want to be a doctor?"
I looked back at the room in which the dead woman still lay. Her family didn't know yet, but I was sure she would soon be mourned and missed. When I envisioned the saddened children and grandchildren, I felt anger boil in the base of my stomach. If I had been her doctor, she wouldn't have been moved out of the cardiac care unit.
"More than ever," I replied.
He tilted his head back and laughed. "Maybe you're the real thing. Something tells me I've found the right study helper." He looked back at the room and sighed. "Gotta go do the paperwork," he said. "That's a part of being a doctor you'll soon learn to hate too."
Maybe I was naive, but I thought there was no part of being a doctor I would hate.
I hadn't done all that much, but when my shift ended, I felt exhausted. Most of it was from the tension of starting the work and the emotional strain that resulted from seeing someone die. I changed back into my street clothing and left the corridor with Sophie. She and I stepped into Mrs. Morgan's office to punch out.
"How did you do?" she asked and looked at Sophie. "She did fine, just fine," Sophie said quickly. "She didn't throw up once."
Mrs. Morgan smiled. "Well, that's an
accomplishment. Here is your regular card. Punch in when you begin your shift and punch out when you end, and remember to buy some white shoes," she reminded me.
"Yes, ma'am."
Sophie and I left the hospital. The humidity hadn't diminished a degree, but the sun had gone down enough to lower the temperature.
"My mother says I'm lucky because I work in an air-conditioned hospital," Sophie said as we started down the driveway.
"What does she do?"
"Laundry."
"What about your father?"
"He works in the Quarter. He's a cook. I got two younger sisters still in school and a brother who's in the army. What about you?"
"I have twin brothers, twelve years old. Where do you live, Sophie?"
"On the other side of the Quarter. I take the car to Canal Street."
We waited for the streetcar together.
"How long have you worked in the hospital?" I asked her.
"Little more than a year."
"Don't you want to return to school? There's a lot more for you to learn," I said.
She dropped her eyes quickly. "Can't," she said. "Gotta work."
"Why? Doesn't your father make good money as a cook?" I knew good cooks in the Quarter were valuable.
Sophie shrugged. "Maybe," she said. "We don't know for sure."
"What? Why not?"