When she looked up, Dr. Spiros was still smiling amiably at her. “If I’m talking then I can’t listen, and if I’m not listening, I won’t learn,” she said, sincere.

“You’re like a little mystery,” he mused.

For the next ten minutes, Dr. Spiros gradually drew Sam out by asking her about local Greek restaurants. He had unknowingly hit her sweet spot. She found it easy to speak enthusiastically about food.

That night, as Sam did her rounds, she reflected on the conversation. Okay, maybe he is a nice guy, she thought. He must have just been off whenever we’ve interacted before.

When Sam woke up the following afternoon, she sent Dr. Spiros a Facebook message to reinforce their positive momentum. “Hey! Thanks for livening up the shift!”

He wrote her back quickly. “Likewise. What was the name of that especially good Greek restaurant again? Perhaps we should go there together.”

Well, this was interesting. She had not seen this one coming. Dr. Spiros was more than ten years older than Sam and had a strong reputation at Citycenter. She was hesitant to date someone she worked with again. She had dated a murse for four months when she was a tech at Pines, and had later regretted it; the murse was fun but too immature. After she broke up with him, she knew that he had spread rumors about her, blabbing to the staff that she was a wild woman in bed. Hospitals were small worlds. It was hard to command respect in an environment in which people assumed she was promiscuous.

Dr. Spiros had already made the move, though, which meant that she was destined for awkwardness either way. Sam felt obligated to give him a chance because he had asked her. Maybe it could work out. After all, she had apparently already misjudged him as a pompous ass and he had proved her wrong. And she preferred relationships with medical professionals anyway, because they understood her interests and schedule better than anyone else.

During her next shift, Sam did some subtle investigating. Dr. Spiros was supposedly dating a tech, but after some small talk with another tech, Sam discovered they’d broken up. The following day, he asked when Sam was available for dinner and they worked out the logistics.

That night, Sam sought out William at the nurses station. She told him that Dr. Spiros had asked her out. “Is it crazy for me to do this? If this is a bad idea, I don’t want to do it,” she said. “I’m not in love with him or anything. I don’t need to make life tricky for myself.”

William gave her a look that she couldn’t interpret. “I guess there’s no hope for you and me then,” he said. For a moment, Sam gazed into his soulful eyes and wondered briefly if he was flirting or joking.

She quickly dismissed the thought. “Get to the point,” she said. “We’re not talking about you and me.” She wished they were. William was the man of her dreams. Sam could see no reason why he would be interested in her. From what she had heard, his long-distance girlfriend was beautiful, generous, and a heck of a nurse.

He had, however, made a point of teaching Sam some valuable nurse tricks, such as a way to outwit the Pyxis in order to get extra medication for a patient without having to wait for the pharmacy. She appreciated his subtle manner of instructing her. He would say, “You can do this your own way, but I like to do it like this.” He was the ideal nursing mentor: caring, approachable, and wise.

William exhaled. “It’s fine to see Spiros. Just don’t go making out in the on-call room.” Sam had heard rumors about the on-call room. On a few occasions, while wheeling patients to the elevators, she had heard unmistakable rumblings from behind that door. Hooking up in the hospital was definitely not Sam’s style.

JULIETTE

  PINES MEMORIAL, October

Nurses were buzzing about a cookout that Anastasia, the leader of the nurse clique, was hosting for hospital staff. Juliette could see Anastasia inviting several of their coworkers and mutual friends on their individual Facebook walls. She waited for Anastasia to invite her. Anastasia was calling it the Pines Memorial Cookout, for Pete’s sake. She had even invited Charlene, and Juliette knew that Anastasia didn’t like Charlene.

Juliette had considered unfriending Anastasia so that her Facebook posts wouldn’t torture her anymore. But everyone at Pines was Facebook friends with one another, and the nurses were constantly Facebooking at the nurses station. Juliette had joined Facebook when she was hired at Pines specifically because the network was an integral part of those nurses’ lives.

Juliette’s favorite tech noticed that Juliette’s mood had dipped. “What’s bothering you, Juliette?” asked Mimi.

“The whole Anastasia thing about the party,” Juliette said. “I can’t believe she didn’t even invite me.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” Mimi said.

“I do worry about that!”

“Anastasia’s the kind of person who will walk by me and not even say hello,” Mimi said.

“Really?” At least Anastasia was cordial to Juliette in person.

“Absolutely. She’s just part of that clique,” Mimi said, shrugging as she left to check on a patient.

Juliette wished she could ignore the clique’s behavior like Mimi did. Then again, Mimi probably didn’t have Juliette’s insecurities; she was slender and fit.

Juliette rubbed her temple and smoothed her auburn hair off her forehead. She had a terrible headache. She got migraines regularly, headaches that knocked her flat with pain and nausea. She had told only Priscilla, Molly, and Lara about them. Her primary care doctor didn’t believe in prescribing narcotics, but the medications he did prescribe rarely worked. In desperation, Juliette had asked for a Percocet prescription from a PA who had prescribed her antibiotics in the past. With the hours nurses worked, getting prescriptions at the hospital sure beat waiting for a primary care doctor’s appointment.

The Percocet soothed the migraines within forty-five minutes, but the headaches returned at least once a month and Juliette’s prescription was running out. Percocet was the most efficient, if not an optimal, solution. She did not have time to deal with headaches at work, and she certainly didn’t have time to deal with them at home.

Priscilla, Pines’ nursing director, was the only person at Pines who knew about Juliette’s home life; this was one of several secrets Juliette had confided to Priscilla. Juliette’s husband, a data center manager, was an unrepentant workaholic. Juliette knew this when she married him, but the problem had accelerated over the years. Nearly every night after dinner, Tim went back to the office for hours, endlessly stressed about earning enough money. The rest of the day, Tim was an attentive husband and father, smart, interesting, and helpful; he took Michelle to and from school and got her ready in the morning. But his insistence on working nights had put a strain on their marriage.

In the evenings, Juliette would rush around, trying to manage the household herself. She would go to bed later than she should, hit the snooze button in the morning, and fight traffic on the long commute to the ER. She often arrived at work five to ten minutes late.

That afternoon, after giving a patient a dose of Dilaudid, Juliette palmed the half-full glass cylinder. It was the length of her index finger and about 3 millimeters in diameter. It would be so easy to take this home, she thought. Prescription costs added up. No one will know if I take some. It’s not like I’m shooting up at work. It would just be a home injection of a med that we were going to throw out anyway. Patients often came into the ER seeking narcotics, and got them. Why couldn’t a nurse who truly needed the medicine have it, too?

When a new patient arrived, Juliette put the Dilaudid in her pocket. She would think about it later. The patient, a middle-aged woman with orange-tinted hair, was complaining of back and neck pain and trouble with urination. She told Juliette and the ER doctor that she had waited for an hour in the lobby. “This can’t take very long, because my dog’s in the car,” the woman said.