The Littlest Boss

PEEKING DOWN THE HALL, Tiana felt a sense of walking on eggshells. People were either sitting quietly or doing busywork. No one was acknowledging the truth: there were only two patients in the entire ER. A laceration that needed stitches and a migraine. Even for a Sunday night, this was unprecedented. No one dared to utter a word lest the magical spell be broken and an avalanche of critical patients buried them.

Stepping into Bay Six, Tiana pushed the cart she’d loaded with supplies to the cabinets. Shaking her head impatiently, she began restocking supply drawers. Yeah, it was nice to have a break, but dang! Without the constant flow of adrenaline, her body began to remind her it was two in the morning. Eyelids were heavy. Head all muffled. Thoughts of how much she loved her pillow. It was a great pillow. She missed it right now.

Kasey Rattigan twirled around in the room’s chair, her ponytail swinging from side to side. “Tell me something,” she said.

Kasey was her preceptor in the emergency department. Smart, tough, fearless and in possession of a sense of a wicked and black humor, she and Tiana had bonded over a particularly heinous code brown.

“What?”

“I don’t know. Something interesting.”

Tiana snorted out a laugh. “There is nothing remotely interesting in my life,” she said, stacking packages of sterile gauze. “I work, I sleep, I eat.”

“Let’s take the girls to the Children’s Museum this week.”

Moving on to the cabinets, Tiana checked the supply list. Needs more pulse oximeters. EKG leads. What about this DeShawn thing?

“Earth to Tiana!”

“Hmm?”

Kasey brought the chair to a sudden halt and stood up. “Whoa!” she said, grabbing at the counter. “Dizzy. What’s going on with you?”

“Nothing. I’m trying to memorize what’s in the cabinets.”

“You aren’t memorizing anything at two a.m. Save that for day brain. You keep zoning out. What’s on your mind? I’m your preceptor—you have to tell me.”

Tiana closed the cabinet drawers. Kasey was right. Her brain was passing the information through with zero storage. “It’s not a work thing.”

“Then as your newest best friend, you have to tell me.”

“It’s nothing really. I got this offer to do this...thing.”

Kasey’s eyebrows disappeared into her bangs. “Oh,” she said, each word dripping the sarcasm. “An offer. For a thing. Wow.”

Tiana leaned against the counter and looked around the bay. The more she’d thought about DeShawn’s project, the more she wanted to do it. But it came with DeShawn. And she couldn’t deny that their playful bickering was cover for some real attraction. At least on her part.

Kasey returned to the chair, this time flopping back in it with her arms hanging over the sides and her head lolling on the back. “Tell me,” she whined. “Before I say the b word!”

Tiana laughed but a flash of superstitious fear that jolted through her overruled the laughter. The b word was bored. It was worse than uttering the q word: quiet. To speak either of those words aloud would bring disaster raining down upon any nurse foolish enough to say them. She hooked the rolling stool with a foot, pulled it toward her and sat.

“I got asked to be part of a group to speak at a school. It’s a rural school with disadvantaged students. They are looking for speakers from similar backgrounds who’ve graduated college.”

Kasey sat up straight in the chair. “I didn’t know that was your background.”

“Small town. Crappy school system. Yep. That’s me.”

“So, you’d be perfect for this group. Why the hesitation?”

Making a face, Tiana began to swivel the stool from side to side. “The guy who’s putting it together...”

“Wait.” Kasey pushed off with her feet, sending her chair rolling toward Tiana’s stool. Their knees crashed together. “A guy? Tell me about this guy.”

“Nothing to tell,” Tiana said, even as the heat of her blush stung her cheeks. “I met him last year.”

“If there’s nothing to tell, why are you blushing?”

“It’s really nothing. There’s just this...like...chemistry there.”

“Chemistry? How horrible!” Kasey said, putting her hands to her cheeks.

“It’s not horrible. It’s just not what I need in my life right now.”

“Bullsheeeet.” Kasey sang out. “You could use a man in your life. Break up that work, sleep, eat routine you’ve got going on. Tell me about Mr. Chemistry.”

Tiana stood and walked to the bay door. Glancing down the hall, she saw everyone was still milling around or sitting at the nurses’ station. She pulled sliding glass door of the room almost shut and turned to look at Kasey. “I have to be careful,” she said as she went back to her stool.

“Of what?”

“Lily. I was seventeen when I got pregnant with her. Her dad and I tried to make it work, but we were so young. We wanted different things. He tried at first. But as Lily got older, he came around less and less until he finally just disappeared from our lives. Lily was old enough to know that her daddy left her.”

Kasey’s hands closed around Tiana’s with a gentle squeeze. “So you can’t have men coming and going from her life.”

Feeling her shoulders relax, Tiana nodded. She’d known Kasey would understand. “Exactly. I don’t know how to navigate that minefield.”

“And an explosion could hurt Lily. As your friend, I understand. As your preceptor, I’m going to tell you to seriously think about it though. Management eats that stuff up with a spoon. It would look amazing on your postorientation evaluation that you participated in a project like that. Mr. Chemistry or not.”

“Thanks,” Tiana said, her eyes glazing. “That makes the decision so much more easy.”

“Just do it.” Kasey glanced up at the clock and made a celebratory pumping motion with her first. “Woot! It’s two thirty! Only thirty minutes left on our shift!”

Tiana closed her eyes and silently counted backward. Did Kasey really just jinx it? Every nurse knows that you never, ever...

She was cut off by the sounding of an alarm, the incoming trauma alarm. Jumping to her feet, Tiana headed for the door with Kasey close behind her.

“This is all your fault, you know,” Tiana said as they joined the others in preparing for the ambulance’s arrival.

Kasey said nothing, but from the expression on her face, she didn’t have to.

* * *

“LENA? SADIE’S ACCOUNTANT LENA?” Malik took a step back but his eyes shone with interest. A mixed of fear and admiration ran through those four short words.

DeShawn laughed as they leaned against the side of his car in the parking lot of a strip mall along Savannah Highway, not far from 526. He’d talked to both Henry and Lena about his idea. They’d both been on board. Malik, a former Cleaning Crew member, was now in medical school, was his best friend and first recruit. He could feel a not-so-small sting of disappointment. He hadn’t heard anything from Tiana. “Yeah. She’s driving. Refused to pick us up at the apartment.”

“So this is why I’m standing in the cold on the side of the road, waiting? Instead of being in my warm bed?” Malik asked.

“She’s got a BMW. Unless you want to risk a hundred miles in my death rattle mobile? When it gives out, we could kick our feet through the floorboards and drive it Fred Flintstone style.”