Man of Fortune

by Rochelle Alers

  Reaching into her tote bag, she turned off her cell phone and took out her stethoscope and ID badge, clipping it to the pocket of the shirt she’d borrowed from another doctor. She’d been too exhausted to ride the bus to her apartment. She’d stopped at a CVS to pick up toothpaste, a toothbrush and deodorant, and then went to a clothing store to buy undergarments and a pair of jeans.

  She’d managed to get four hours of sleep before she had to get up and start again. Sleep had become a precious commodity for Tamara, as important as breathing. Whenever she put her head on a pillow her intention was to get at least four hours of uninterrupted sleep. And she’d become quite adept at taking power naps. Ten to twenty minutes was all she needed to reenergize herself.

  She walked into the E.R. and down a corridor where hospital personnel stored their personal effects. Tamara placed her tote bag in a locker with a combination lock. She went to a storage closet, selected a pair of scrubs and a white lab coat and then clocked in. Ten minutes later she stood over a gunshot victim handcuffed to the gurney while two uniformed police officers waited for her to remove the bullet lodged in the fleshy part of his thigh. Luckily for her patient, the bullet had missed the femoral artery or he would’ve bled out and died.

  She lost track of time as she treated a patient in cardiac arrest, one with a knife wound, a woman who’d jumped from a third-story window to escape an abusive boyfriend, a college student with a suspected case of meningitis and an adolescent boy bitten by a venomous snake he’d hidden in a fish tank in his bedroom closet.

  She worked nonstop until midnight, then went into the doctor’s lounge to take a break. She flopped down on a saggy sofa and closed her eyes with the intention of taking a quick nap.

  “Tamara, are you asleep?”

  She opened her eyes to find Rodney Fox hovering over her. “I was,” Tamara drawled sarcastically. “What’s up, Dr. Fox?”

  Rodney was perched on the side of the sofa. “I need a place to crash for a while.”

  Tamara rose into a sitting position. She stared at the tall, slender pediatric orthopedist with curly red hair. Most of the staff referred to Dr. Rodney Fox as the brother with the red Afro. His soulful-looking brown eyes reminded her of a bloodhound.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Isis and I broke up and I need someplace to live until I find an apartment. Someone told me you have an extra bedroom. I’ll pay whatever you want—just please don’t say no, Tamara.”

  She closed her eyes again. Rodney and his operating-room-nurse girlfriend had broken up and gotten back together so many times that their relationship mirrored the antics of a TV sitcom. Tamara couldn’t believe the brilliant young doctor just couldn’t seem to get his love life together.

  “Okay,” she said, not opening her eyes. “You can stay as long as you want.” Tamara held up a hand when Rodney leaned forward. “Don’t you dare kiss me.” He pulled back. “What time are you getting off?”

  “Six.”

  She exhaled. “I’m hoping to get out of here at six. We’ll leave together.”

  “Thank you, Tamara. You’re an angel.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  Tamara wanted to ask Rodney where her angel had been when she’d needed someplace to live after she’d left her husband. She’d checked into a less-than-desirable hotel until a rental agent had found her the two-bedroom apartment on East Seventh Street between Second and Third avenues. Although she only needed one bedroom, Tamara had decided to take it because living at the hotel was not an option.

  The second and smaller of the two bedrooms remained empty for more than two years. It took her that long to save enough money to furnish and decorate the entire apartment. Tamara realized her monthly rent was twice what someone would pay for a mortgage for a house in the suburbs, but she had the luxury of not having to commute into the city.

  She ran a hand over her hair. Rodney had disturbed her nap. “I’ll see you later.”

  “Love you, Wolcott.”

  Tamara rolled her eyes at him. “Forget it, Fox. You’re not my type.”

  He smiled. “Who is your type?”

  “Not you,” she countered.

  She walked out of the lounge, replaying Rodney’s query. Who was her type? The only name that came to mind was a man she’d met six hours ago.

  Duncan Gilmore was her type. But was she his?

  CHAPTER 3

  It was six-thirty when Tamara took the elevator up to the surgical floor. She was tired but not a weary-to-the-bone fatigue. Maybe it was because she hadn’t lost a patient. She wanted to return the keys to the anesthesiologist who’d let her use his apartment the afternoon before. She found him at the nurses’ station with her supervisor, Brian Killeen.

  Dr. Justin Luna smiled as she approached. “Have you recovered from yesterday’s ordeal?”

  Tamara returned his open, friendly smile. Justin Luna had become the hospital’s rock star. Tall, dark, handsome and brilliant, he had successfully thwarted the advances of every woman at the hospital since he’d joined the medical staff the year before. What they didn’t know was that Justin was engaged to marry an internist in his native Mexico City.

  She handed him the keys to his co-op. “There was someone else with me in the elevator, so that kept me relatively calm.”

  Tamara nodded to her supervisor. His buzz-cut steel-gray hair was a match for his cold eyes. She’d managed to keep her distance from the tyrannical head of emergency services because a confrontation with him would signal the end of her career at the hospital. The first time he’d gotten in her face about the care of a patient was the only time. She’d handed in her resignation letter after applying for a position as an E.R. doctor at Beth Israel Medical Center and Lenox Hill Hospital. However, the chief of staff had intervened, forcing Tamara to reconsider her hasty decision. Two years had passed since that incident, and Doctors Killeen and Wolcott had kept a respectable distance and were overly polite with each other to the point of ridiculousness.

  Brian Killeen’s impassive expression didn’t change with Tamara’s greeting. “Dr. Luna, please excuse me for a moment. I’d like to have a few words with Dr. Wolcott.” Cupping her elbow, he led Tamara away from the nurses’ station.

  She affected the same expression. “Yes, Dr. Killeen?”

  He dropped his hand. “I wanted to tell you that I’ve approved your vacation request. I know you wanted it to begin Monday, but if you want to begin today, then you have my approval. I also wanted to tell you that a directive has come down from the corporation that we must cut back on overtime. Effective September first, we will no longer have twelve-hour shifts. We’re now mandated to eight-hour shifts.”

  Tamara blinked once in an attempt to process what she’d just heard. The E.R. was the most under-staffed department in the hospital. With the faltering economy and loss of jobs, those who were no longer employed were left without health care, which tended to burden hospital emergency rooms with an increase in indigent patients.

  “But that’s going to put our patients at risk,” she argued softly.

  Brian stared at Dr. Tamara Wolcott. He may have come down hard on her, but he would be the first to admit that she was an excellent doctor. She’d never been one to complain. He’d found her to be one of the most dedicated doctors in the E.R.

  “We’re going to use residents and interns to pick up the slack. And I want you to think about becoming my assistant. You don’t have to give me an answer until after you return from vacation.”

  The request shocked Tamara. She and Brian had never actually gotten along because of his bullying.

  “Assist you how, Dr. Killeen?”

  “I want you to supervise the interns.”

  “The only thing I’ll say is that I’ll think about it.”

  Thick black eyebrows lowered over his icy orbs. “What’s there to think about, Tamara? Perhaps next year you’ll become Head of Emergency Medicine.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “What aren’t you telling me?”
she whispered.

  A rare smile softened the hard line of his mouth. “The only thing I’m going to say is that you should think about my offer.” The smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “Because you’re dressed in street clothes I assume you’ve completed your shift.”

  “I have.”

  “Then go home, Dr. Wolcott, I don’t want to see you in this hospital for a month.”

  Stunned and shocked, Tamara blinked as if coming out of a trance. Not only had Brian called her Tamara for the first time and approved her four-week vacation request, but he’d also recommended her for a supervisory position. Although she was not suspicious by nature, she knew Dr. Brian Killeen hadn’t told her everything. Perhaps, she mused, he’d been promised a position at another hospital. And if he had, then it was most likely Chief of Staff. There was no way Dr. Blowhard, as the E.R. staff called him out of earshot, would accept anything less than chief.

  “I’ll see you in a month.” She was going to take him up on the offer to begin her vacation now. It’d been more than a year since she’d taken a day off for personal leave. Half the summer was over and Tamara planned to take advantage of the warm weather to do all of the things she’d put off doing.

  Tamara turned on her heel and headed for the elevator that would take her to the lobby where Rodney had promised to wait for her. She found him leaning against the information desk talking to a volunteer. He straightened and followed her out into the early-morning sun.

  Reaching for Tamara’s hand, Rodney pulled her along as he whistled sharply through his teeth for a taxi that had just pulled up to the curb in front of the hospital. Opening the rear door, he waited for her to get in before he slid in beside her.

  “East Seventh between Second and Third avenues,” she said to the driver as he started the meter.”

  Rodney, wearing a baseball cap to protect his hair and face from the sun, placed a knapsack between his feet, then turned to stare at Tamara. “Have you ever walked from the hospital to your place?”

  Tamara, who’d closed her eyes, nodded. “I’ve done it a few times. Most times I’m too exhausted to do anything but collapse when I get home.”

  “I don’t know how you do it, Wolcott.”

  She opened her eyes, staring at his face. It was the color of a toasted pecan. Tamara had known Rodney Fox for more than three years, yet this was the first time she actually looked closely at him, finding him quite nice on the eyes. His face was angular and on the thin side, but his features were delicately balanced. She’d told him that he wasn’t her type, but then again he could’ve been her type if she hadn’t put up a barrier to keep all men at a distance.

  It had taken being trapped in an elevator with Duncan Gilmore for her to realize not all men were like Edward Bennett. Rodney’s love life was like a soap opera—there was always drama before he and his girlfriend reconciled. What Tamara found odd was that Rodney had moved out of his own apartment, and she wondered if this break was final.

  “Do what, Fox?”

  “Work around the clock without falling on your face.”

  “You did it when you were on call.”

  “I know,” Rodney said, “but that’s when I was a resident. But as an E.R. physician you never catch a break.”

  Tamara smiled. “Give me a twenty-minute nap and I’m raring to go again. Working the E.R. is like a rush. I always find myself swept up in the chaos whenever a new patient is brought in.”

  “I can think of other things that give me a rush. Like sex,” he added quickly when Tamara gave him a curious look.

  She wanted to tell Rodney she didn’t know about that, because it’d been a long time since she’d had sex. The last man she’d slept with was her husband, and at thirty-six years her senior, his sex drive wasn’t what it had been. This suited Tamara because it left more time for her to concentrate on her studies. Weeks would go by before they made love, and when they did she found it satisfying and also gratifying.

  “You need more than sex,” she countered.

  “Without sex and babies the world wouldn’t need pediatricians.”

  “You’re right about that. You can put us out in the middle of the block,” Tamara said to the cabbie, raising her voice to be heard through the Plexiglas partition.

  Reaching into the pocket of his jeans, Rodney took out a bill and pushed it through the slot. “Keep the change.” He opened the door, got out and helped Tamara. “I’m serious when I say that I’ll pay half your rent.”

  Tamara stood on the sidewalk outside her apartment building staring up at Dr. Rodney Fox. “What about your co-op?”

  “I’m putting it on the market. I told Isis she can live there until I find a buyer.”

  “That may take a while, given the real-estate market.”

  “True. But I’m not going to put her out on the street.”

  Unlike what Edward did to me, Tamara mused. Rodney deserved more than a woman who used him like a yo-yo. Unfortunately, Isis hadn’t realized what she had. Hopefully she would come to her senses before it was too late.

  “Come on, let’s go upstairs. Let me warn you that you’ll get your share of exercise walking up and down five flights. Most of the tenants are thirty-and fortysomething professional couples, which means you’ll be able to sleep during the day. It is usually louder on the weekends, but it’s never gotten so out of hand that the police have to get involved. The inner door is locked at all times, and thankfully there is a working intercom.”

  She unlocked the outer door, and walked into a vestibule with a number of mailboxes and an intercom system. “I’m in apartment 5F, which means I overlook the front of the building. The building superintendent is in 1F. His wife is our security,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper. “She sees everyone coming and going. Don’t be surprised if she asks you what you’re doing in the building.”

  Rodney smiled. “What do you want me to tell her?”

  “You can say you’re my cousin.”

  He angled his head. “We look nothing alike.”

  Opening her mailbox, Tamara removed a magazine and several pieces of junk mail. “Okay, Fox. We can be play cousins.”

  “Ain’t that just like black folk?” he teased. “I think we’re the only race with an abundance of play cousins.”

  Tamara laughed as she closed and locked the mailbox. “You’re right about that.”

  Rodney followed her up the first flight of stairs. The smell of disinfectant lingered in the air. “The building is spotless.”

  “That’s because Mr. Clifford sweeps the halls every day and mops every other day,” she said over her shoulder. “There’s a door at the end of the hall on the first floor that leads outside where you can put garbage. All garbage must be in plastic bags, or we’ll have to pay a fifty-dollar fine for the first infraction. It escalates with each infraction. I’m thankful we don’t have the dreaded New York City curse of roaches or rodents, and most tenants want to keep it that way.”

  “That sounds good to me.”

  Tamara reached the fifth floor and turned left down the tiled hallway. It had taken a month for her to get used to walking up the stairs. Not only was the exercise good for cardiovascular conditioning, but she’d also lost weight while toning her lower body.

  She’d joined a local health club, but rarely worked out because she never seemed to find the time. However, with a month’s vacation, she planned to visit the club several times each week.

  Tamara remembered she’d told Duncan Gilmore that she had little or no time for socializing. But that was not the case now. She had a month—four weeks—to do whatever she wanted to do for herself. She planned to wait a few days, then call to tell him when they could get together for dinner.

  She unlocked the door to her apartment and slipped out of her shoes. “Shoes worn at the hospital are left on what I call the quarantine mat.” Tamara pointed to the mat under a table in the entryway. She opened a closet and took out a pair of flip-flops. “You can wear these.”
Rodney took off his cap and placed it on the table next to a bonsai plant. She gave him a pointed look. “You can always walk around in your bare feet, Fox.”

  Dropping his knapsack, Rodney slipped out of his running shoes, sat down on a straight-back chair with a seat made of rush and slipped on the rubber thongs. He stood up, towering over Tamara by a full head. “What are the house rules?”

  Smiling, she stared at the shock of flyaway red curls falling over his forehead. “What makes you think there are any rules?”

  His reddish eyebrows flickered. “You’ve already apprised me about the shoes and the garbage, so there have to be other rules.”

  “The only rule is that I’m not going to pick up after you. If you mess it up, then you clean it up. And you’re toast if you touch or attempt to water my plants.”

  “That’s easy,” Rodney crooned.

  “We will see,” Tamara retorted.

  * * *

  Duncan lay on a cushioned chaise on the terrace outside his bedroom, bare feet crossed at the ankles. He’d taken a mental-health day.

  The night before he and Kyle had gone over to Ivan’s house after they’d closed their offices. They’d ordered takeout while watching the baseball game. He and Ivan had overruled Kyle, who didn’t want to watch the Mets playing on the west coast, but after downing a few beers it didn’t matter who was playing or on which coast. It was after three in the morning when he and Kyle had got into a taxi to return to their respective homes. The game had gone into extra innings.

  Within minutes of walking into his bedroom, Duncan fell across the bed and went to sleep. When he woke the sun was up, and he’d called Mia Humphrey to tell her he wasn’t coming in.

  He wasn’t hung over, but it felt good to lie around and do absolutely nothing. There were times when he felt guilty because Viola Gilmore had practically browbeat him by telling him he would amount to nothing if he didn’t take advantage of every minute of the day. His aunt took him on what she’d called a field trip to several blighted neighborhoods to show him burned-out and boarded-up buildings, vagrants and drug addicts standing around aimlessly and men and women who carried all of their possessions with them and slept in doorways because they didn’t have a place to call home. Viola equated laziness with failure, and even at fourteen, Duncan knew he didn’t want to become a failure.