by Pamela Morsi
I’ve got to let Cliff go, he thought to himself. That was what a businessman had to do when an employee was flagrantly taking advantage of a friendship with the boss.
It wasn’t about moral judgments versus boys-will-be-boys. In fact, Cliff cheating on his wife didn’t even add into the equation. Cliff was not at work when he was assigned to be there. Not showing up or sneaking off were both termination offenses. He’d been warned. He should be fired.
Tom’s head was clear on that. But his heart, not so much. Cliff wasn’t just an employee, he was a friend, his oldest friend. The two had met at Job Corps a dozen years ago. Cliff had been sent there by his working-class mom and dad to straighten him out. And Cliff had been determined not to let that happen.
For Tom, Job Corps was a dream come true. From the moment he’d volunteered himself as a ward of the state, he’d been looking for a place to fit in. That just hadn’t happened in foster care. Tom was too big and too blunt not to stand out. He’d worked hard at being polite, at being agreeable, respectful. But it didn’t come naturally to him. And he knew he looked scary. At sixteen he was already six-three and 190 pounds of pure muscle. The scarred, broken nose had been acquired when attempting to stop a fight, not start one. Still, people saw what they saw. And most thought he looked like trouble.
After drifting in and out of temporary placements he decided to request emancipation. Child Protective Services got him legal help and the lawyer came up with the idea of Job Corps. Tom needed to prove to the judge that he had a place to live and could support himself. The Job Corps program offered room and board while he took technical training and studied for a GED.
Cliff had been his roommate. The staff had placed Tom into computer-tech classes, but Cliff urged him to switch to auto mechanics. Up until that time Tom has mostly been interested in the outside of cars. But from the first moment he put his hands on an engine, he loved everything about it.
Today’s brake job did not have the allure of working on a beautiful engine, but good brakes were absolutely essential.
So was a functioning washing machine, Tom reminded himself.
Erica hadn’t breathed a word about any problem with the washer. But Quint had mentioned, almost in passing, his most recent trip to the coin laundry. Tom had immediately felt guilty. There were so many things around the house that he was just letting go. He’d gotten used to allowing Erica to manage on her own. He worked and somehow clothes got clean, groceries got bought, food got cooked, the bills got paid and the lawn got mowed. It wasn’t such a bad division of labor when she was a stay-at-home mom, but she was working now. And Tom worried that she was still doing more than her share. But until he could get things squared up around the shop, he wasn’t going to be much use to her at home.
Tom reattached the caliper, securing the new disc pads, and reconnected the bleeder valve.
He wanted to be a good husband, a good father, but it wasn’t as easy as fixing cars. You couldn’t just tighten things up or swap out the worn parts. You couldn’t just list the tasks on the service log and mark them off one by one. It was constantly looking at two or ten places that you needed to be, two or ten things that you ought to be doing and then figuring out what had to be done now and what would have to wait.
Married life was not like auto mechanics. There were no gearboxes or flow valves. It was more like target practice with a grease gun. There was almost no chance to ever get a bull’s-eye. And absolute certainty that you were going to make a mess in the attempt.
Chapter 11
AT WORK ERICA CONTINUED to keep her eyes open and her guard up. The incident with the EMR routing glitch really could not have been on purpose, she assured herself over and over again. Still, she began to suspect every chart miscode, every unlocatable file, every transferred phone call. Every snarl or stumble in her workday might be the under-handed efforts of Callie Torreno.
It occurred to her that she could take these suspicions to Mrs. Converse, but she thought better of it. The last thing she imagined a supervisor would want to do was intervene in a silly feud between two members of her staff. And the whole thing was so juvenile, Erica didn’t even want her name associated with it.
She decided to simply work through it, let it die its own death for lack of attention. It took two to fight, and if Erica refused, then Callie would be left throwing punches at the air. Still, the thrill of being back on the job was being diminished day by day.
Erica deliberately pushed against these feelings. She knuckled down on her workday, determined to spend her time polishing her skills, improving her accuracy and picking up speed.
She maintained her silent presence at lunch. In truth, things around the table did not seem that much different than before. Erica began believing that it was all in Melody’s imagination and that she’d been silly to give credence to the suggestion.
This certainty, however, was put to the test on Wednesday, the week after the routing glitch. Erica purchased her food and was headed to her regular spot at the table. The rest of the Medical Records team sat in their place. Callie at the head, with Darla and Rayliss on either side. Lena and Melody were seated across from each other. There was already laughter going on. Maybe they were sharing their typical stupid men jokes. The unsmiling visage of Melody caught her eye for a moment. Erica almost looked away, but she saw the woman’s eyes widen in surprise. The women around her suddenly quieted. Erica followed their gaze and turned to bump lunch trays with Dr. Glover.
“Hi!” he said as exuberantly as if her presence in the cafeteria were unexpected.
“Oh, hi,” she said.
“I’ve been wanting to talk with you,” he said. “Why don’t we share lunch?”
Erica was acutely aware of the silence at the nearby table and the dozen ears straining to hear what was being said.
“Well, I…uh…”
The doctor’s boyish grin slid into a feigned plea. “Sit with me,” he said. “Don’t make me eat all by myself.”
Erica couldn’t help but smile back at him.
“Okay,” she agreed after only a slight hesitation.
He directed her to a table for two and allowed her to seat herself before he lowered himself into the chair.
Erica could feel the collective gaze from the Medical Records table, but she chose to ignore it. With a smile on her face and a cheerfulness to her demeanor, she decided to tease him.
“Dr. Glover, I never would have imagined you as such a rebel.”
“A rebel?”
“Rebel, rule breaker, enemy of the caste system.”
“The caste system?”
“The rules on lunchroom status and affiliation segregation,” Erica said. “No mixing among professions, job descriptions or pay scales. The white lab coats are strictly forbidden to eat with the polyester business suits.”
Glover laughed. “Should I wait until the weather changes and you’re wearing wool?”
Erica shook her head. “I doubt that would work, either, unless the cut was expensive enough to be exec staff. Then everybody would think you’re either being called on the carpet or up for promotion.”
“Alas, today it’s neither one,” the doctor answered. “I just get tired of eating alone and I thought the company of a smart, attractive woman might be better.”
Erica ignored the compliment. She took a bite of her salad and chewed it for a moment. She sneaked a look up at him as he cut the chicken breast on his plate, one lock of brown hair straying down his forehead.
“Why do you eat alone?” she asked.
He was thoughtful for about a half minute.
“Lunchroom status and affiliation segregation,” he answered, aping her description.
They grinned at each other. His was accompanied by a teasing wink.
Erica ignored that and forked another bite.
“It’s not really considered the thing for me to eat with the techs that I supervise,” he explained further. “And since we have to keep a pharmacist on duty at al
l times, we stagger lunch breaks. Each of us comes down here alone.”
“Ah,” Erica said. “I guess that makes sense.”
“Don’t look now,” Glover said, glancing casually beyond her shoulder to the table of coders and transcriptionists behind her. “Your coworkers are looking daggers at us and whispering like crazy. What’s that about?”
Erica could guess, but she wasn’t willing to tell all. It was embarrassing. And if the young doctor knew he was a part of it, he might feel obliged to do something or say something. Erica couldn’t allow that to happen.
“I’m the new girl,” she said. “I think this is the Medical Records’ version of hazing.”
Dr. Glover nodded sympathetically. “Well, hang in there,” he said. “We all go through it. And eventually even the newest new girl gets to be an old hand.”
“Right,” Erica agreed. “This is actually my second life at UTHSC,” she said. “I worked here for three years back in the days before my son was born.”
“Oh, yes, you said that you’re a mom.”
“Quint is six,” she told him. “He’s in first grade this year.”
“So how’s that going?”
“Pretty great,” she said honestly. “I miss hanging out with him. But I really love being back at work.”
Dr. Glover nodded as if that made perfect sense.
“Married?”
“Oh, yeah. You?”
“Not so much.”
“That doesn’t sound like a good answer.”
“It’s not,” Dr. Glover answered, “but it’s pretty accurate. My live-in girlfriend decided to live out about six months ago.”
“Sorry.”
He shrugged. “We were engaged for four years. You’d think I would have figured out that it really doesn’t take that long to pick out a cake and a dress.”
Erica nodded. “She could have borrowed mine. Tom and I got married on the courthouse steps while I was on my lunch break. After we said ‘I do’ we both went back to the job.”
“That’s efficient.”
“We were saving money to start up a business,” Erica said. “And it worked fine. We’re just as married and just as committed, as if I’d worn a white dress and spent all our savings on flower arrangements and a dance band.”
“True,” Glover agreed. “So did you get that business started?”
“Yes, we did.” Erica pulled her purse from the chair back and reached into the front flap. Pulling out one of the cards for Bentley’s Classic Car Care, she handed it to Dr. Glover.
He surveyed it with interest.
“I drew the logo,” she told him proudly, then felt a little embarrassed at having shared such a modest accomplishment.
“I like it,” he told her, before slipping the card into his breast pocket. “Classic cars, huh. I always thought I might like to own one of those.”
“There’s a beauty at my husband’s place for sale right now,” she told him. “It’s a vintage Buick convertible, great condition, really long, very stylish.”
“A Buick, huh? I think I’m more the Mustang or T-Bird type,” he said. “Or maybe that’s just who I’d like to be.”
His wry grin added an air of vulnerability to his very boyish attractiveness.
Nearby the scrape of chairs against the linoleum floor signaled the women from the Medical Records table were leaving. One by one each walked right by Erica’s table without looking in her direction or speaking a word. It was meant as a deliberate snub. Erica was determined to ignored it. And she hoped that Dr. Glover didn’t notice. But it was hard to miss.
“That seems like a bit more than just hazing,” he said.
“No big deal,” she assured him. “I got on somebody’s wrong side. It’ll blow over.”
He nodded. The two of them ate in silence for a moment. “You know what they call you ladies, right?”
“What they call us? Who?”
“The other employees or at least the ones in Pharmacy,” he answered. “Nearly every discipline in the hospital has a nickname.”
“Really?”
He bobbed his head, verifying as he chewed. Once he’d swallowed, he spoke.
“We call the lab techs the Vampires, because they’re always after people’s blood. The guys in X-Ray are the Peeping Toms ’cause they want to see what people look like underneath their clothes.”
Erica, smiling, shook her head.
“We say the Respiratory Therapists are the Perverts, ’cause everything they do is about heavy breathing,” Dr. Glover continued. “And the physical therapists are known as the Sadists, ’cause what they do is sheer torture.”
“And pharmacy?” Erica said. “You must be the Drug Dealers.”
“A lucky guess,” he declared. “But right on the money.”
“So who are we?” she asked. “What’s the nickname for Medical Records?”
“The Gossips,” he answered. “You know everything about everybody and your whole job is making sure everybody else knows, too.”
Erica laughed. “That’s a better name for our department than you could even imagine.”
He shrugged. “I could imagine a place a little more welcoming for the newest new girl, even if she has been here once before.”
“Thank you, Dr. Glover. I appreciate the commiseration.”
“Zac,” he said. “Zac.”
Erica shook her head. “That kind of informality is definitely a breach of hospital etiquette.”
“I thought we were rebels,” he said.
She grinned at him. “Okay, Zac, I’m Erica.”
“Erica,” he repeated, as if trying it on for size. “I like it. It suits you.”
“Thanks,” she answered. She imagined the pharmacist coming into the Medical Records department and addressing her by her first name. Such an event was sure to make heads spin.
Then she remembered something Mrs. Converse had said about professional distance. Was that what had happened to Callie? She hadn’t kept professional distance with Dr. Glover? Erica had never heard her call him Zac, but Callie liked him enough that she probably did.
Chapter 12
FRIDAY MORNING DIDN’T start out that well. Tom had a big late-’80s Taurus up on the lift and was trying to locate a drip of power steering fluid. As he examined the small ribbed hose for damage, the seal gave way on the steering rack connection, spilling fluid on Tom’s head.
He cursed vividly. Safety goggles protected his eyes, but he still got the foul liquid up his nose, across his face and in his hair. He finally managed to get a pan under it and drained it completely before heading to the bathroom to wash up the worst of the mess.
“If this is how my day is going to be,” he said to his reflection in the mirror, “then God help me.”
Heaven apparently heard. After weeks of feeling as if his business was becoming a one-man show, at five minutes before nine o’clock, a serious and subdued Cliff Aleman showed up and went right to work.
A sober Hector Ruiz turned up as well.
Even Gus seemed enthusiastic about ironing out the door panel on an ’94 BMW.
Tom held his breath, thanking his good luck. This was how his shop was supposed to function. It was a four-man shop. He’d built the business to that level. In truth, he probably could have used some kind of helper to fetch, carry and clean up. He could certainly justify it with the quantity of work he’d been bringing in. He’d been carrying so much of it himself, lately, that he was more than aware of just how strong a customer base he had.
With his three employees all on task, Tom was free to pursue some of the jobs that he particularly wanted to do. And what he most particularly wanted to do was hang out with Clara, Mrs. Gilfred’s Buick.
Since the morning sun filled the front driveway, Tom took that opportunity to pull her out into the sunshine for some digital photographs. He took dozens of shots, inside and out. He wanted any interested buyers to have no doubts about her exceptional condition. He got a close-up of the front grille
. And a long shot of the driver’s-side chrome from head to tail. He opened all the doors and stood on the back fender to get a perspective on the condition of the upholstery. Then he put the top up and took every angle again. The only pictures he didn’t take were of the engine. He wasn’t ready to show that off yet. He still had some cleaning up and spiffing up to do. Besides, he reasoned to himself, the prospective buyer that Mrs. Gilfred wanted could fall in love with Clara in a candid shot. Showing off the engine was like viewing the old girl in her underwear. That was for serious suitors only.
When he’d taken many more photos than he could use, Tom carefully backed the Buick into his fourth bay once more. He downloaded the pictures to his laptop and was eager for Mrs. Gilfred to see them.
But as he glanced around the shop that was finally functioning efficiently, he decided he couldn’t risk leaving at the moment. Cliff was very much in the habit of disappearing when Tom left to get Quint from school. If he were to take off this morning, he might well lose Cliff for most of the day.
Tom decided to stay close and keep an eye on his team. There was still plenty of work to be done for all of them.
During lunch break, Tom called Christus Santa Rosa and was told that Mrs. Gilfred had been released from the hospital. He decided he would definitely go see her and show her what he was putting up on the website. He’d just wait until his employees had put in a full day on the job before he left.
Tom spent the afternoon working on a GMC. He thought he was just replacing a blown head gasket, but when he got into it he found damage to the rocker arm. It was more work, more time, more money and his customer was less than happy, as if the vehicle’s problems were Tom’s fault instead of just bad luck.
He was grateful to get away for the few moments it took to pick up Quint. And even more so when he returned to the shop to find Cliff still working.
He got Quint settled into the office. The little guy was full of excitement and chatter about Halloween, just a few days away.
“Cody Raza has got this cool Scream mask. It is so, so scary. I want to be scary this year,” he said. “I want to be really scary, like a serial killer with an ax or something. You don’t think Mom will make me be a minion or a fuzzy animal? That is so baby!”
