Page 4 of What We Break
Rain check? I'm beat.
You're getting old
Maybe. Or maybe I just don't want to be hungover tomorrow. I've done the party thing. I've done it on four continents. And it's getting so old.
I'm getting old.
"Everything okay?" Joyce asks, sitting down across from me with her salad.
"Yeah, just Bethany wanting to go out tonight."
"And you're not going?"
"I'm tired. And I've got plans tomorrow morning."
She raises an eyebrow. "You act like you and Bethany are quite close, but you don't seem to have much in common."
"We used to have more in common. Or maybe I just used to be more like her." I peel the crust off my sandwich because I am, apparently, still eight years old. "More restless. Like I was always waiting for the next big thing."
"And now?"
"Now the next big thing sounds tiring."
Joyce nods like she understands completely. "That's called growing up, honey. Welcome to the club."
"Is there a card? A welcome packet? Some kind of orientation?"
"There's lower back pain and a preference for going to bed before ten. That's the whole packet."
"Sold."
She smiles. Joyce doesn't give much away, but when she does, it counts. She's been charge nurse longer than I've been a nurse, period. She's survived hospital politics, staffing shortages, and — according to legend — one administrator who tried to cut the break room coffee budget and was never heard from again.
I want to be her when I grow up. I keep thinking that. Maybe that's the point — I'm still figuring out whatgrown uplooks like for me, and she's the closest template I've found.
Is it weird that I'm thirty-two and still sometimes look around for an adult in the room?
The hour after midnight brings a steady stream. A kid who fell off his bunk bed and needs stitches. He's being incredibly brave, which means he's trying not to cry, which makes me want to cry. Great. Super professional. An elderly woman with pneumonia who keeps calling me "dear" and apologizing for the trouble. A construction worker with a possible broken wrist who asks me three times if he can still work tomorrow.
Sir, your hand is the color of an eggplant. No.
Nothing dramatic. Nothing catastrophic. Just people who need help at an hour when most of the world is sleeping. I like that about the night shift. There's an intimacy to it. Patients are more honest at 2 AM. The walls come down. Nobody's performing.
I'm drawing blood from a patient when one of the other nurses mentions a festival downtown.
"What kind of festival?" I ask.
"Some kind of music thing. Started yesterday, goes through the weekend."
Great. Festival weekends. Drunk people making decisions that would embarrass a toddler.
"Are we expecting anything unusual this weekend?" I ask.
"Not that I know of. Why?"
"Just a feeling."
Joyce gives me the look. The you're-being-paranoid look. And maybe I am. Wouldn't be the first time.
