Heart Trouble

by Jae

“Ha!” The grin was back on Jordan’s face. “That’s easy, considering you don’t have a private life.”

  “Sure I do.” Hope took a bite of her sandwich, frowned, and forced herself to swallow as she lifted the top slice of bread. Who the hell puts olives on a sandwich? And, even stranger, why didn’t she like them anymore? She had always loved olives, even as a child, but now they tasted bitter to her. Why was she so goddamn picky today?

  “Oh yeah?” Jordan asked. “When was the last time you had a date?”

  Hope met Jordan’s challenging stare. “When was the last time you had one? And a quickie in some bathroom doesn’t count.” Jordan might be the only person she knew who was worse at relationships than she was—or maybe Jordan just wasn’t interested in them.

  “Hey, we’re not talking about my private life here.”

  “We’re not talking about mine, either.” Hope picked the olives off her sandwich and took a bite. Much better.

  The beeper on the waistband of Hope’s scrubs vibrated. She pressed a button and glanced at the display. ER STAT. GSW two min out. “We’ve got a patient with a gunshot wound coming in,” she said. “I have to go.”

  When she reached for her tray, Jordan grabbed it. “Leave it. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Thanks. See you on Monday.” She got up and headed for the door at a fast clip.

  “Prepare to be annihilated,” Jordan called after her.

  After a glance back to make sure no patients were looking her way, Hope held up her middle finger over her shoulder.

  Jordan’s laughter trailed after her.

  * * *

  Weird, Laleh thought as she climbed out of the car. Her aunt had called her on her day off, begging her to come in and help out because one of their waitresses had called in sick and the restaurant was hopping.

  But to her surprise, she had found a parking space without a problem. Usually, customers from all over LA made sure that there wasn’t even enough space to park a bicycle, much less a car. Today, however, only a few of her family’s cars were parked in front of the restaurant.

  As she approached the red brick building, the large outdoor patio was empty. Not a guest in sight. She stepped past the two palm trees flanking the entrance. No light illuminated the windows, and when she tried the door, it was locked.

  “What the…?” She dug her key out of her pocket and unlocked the front door.

  Before she could reach out for the switch, lights flared on.

  Her parents, her brothers, her sisters-in-law, and at least a dozen aunts, uncles, cousins, and other relatives jumped out from behind the counter and from beneath the tables.

  “Surprise!”

  Laleh clutched her chest. “Guys! You shouldn’t do this to me!” She waved her hand at them. “Hello, woman with a heart condition, remember?”

  “I thought that was fixed?” Her brother Navid walked over and wrapped one arm around her. “That’s why we’re having a surprise party.”

  Laleh couldn’t help chuckling. Persians. Any excuse to have a party.

  As usual, it took a while before they were all seated at the table with the food her aunt had prepared, because everyone wanted to greet her—and each other—with kisses and catch up on any family news, even though most of them saw each other every day.

  Her mother and aunt kept heaping food onto her plate, no matter how often Laleh protested and said she couldn’t eat another bite. Apparently, they thought she was declining to be polite. She wished she’d been as clever as her brother Ramin. He had left half of his eggplant stew on his plate, so no one insisted he take more.

  Come to think of it… Laleh took a closer look. Ramin hadn’t even eaten his tahdig. As children, they had fought each other for the coveted crispy, golden-brown rice from the bottom of the pan.

  His wife, Azadeh, whispered to him and stroked his arm.

  Laleh leaned forward in her chair. “Ramin? Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” He waved his hand.

  That was macho-speak for I’m as sick as a dog. Laleh gave him a you-don’t-fool-me look.

  “Just a stomach ache or something,” Ramin said.

  Instantly, everyone at the table offered an opinion about the cause and best treatment options.

  “You shouldn’t eat cumin,” their mother said. “It never agreed with you, even when you were a little boy.”

  “He didn’t have any.” Azadeh gestured to his plate. “He barely ate anything all day.”

  Ramin didn’t contribute to the discussion of his health. He looked paler by the minute, bent forward with both hands pressed to his abdomen.

  “I bet it’s Norovirus,” Aunt Nasrin said. “Remember how bad Bahram felt when he had it last year? I made him some ash-e reshteh soup, and he was fine within a couple of days.”

  Laleh’s father got up and dragged one of his many nephews up from his seat. “Let Mehdi take a look.”

  Laleh put down her fork and got up too. “He’s a dentist, Baba.” She circled around to her brother’s side of the table and gently brushed his hands away from his abdomen. “How long has this been going on?”

  “Since last night,” he said, his features tense. Sweat beaded on his forehead. Laleh had never seen her big brother so pale. “The pain started around here,” he pointed at his navel, “and now it’s here.”

  She knelt next to him and gently pressed on the lower right side of his abdomen, where he pointed.

  He let out a sharp hiss and batted her hands away.

  “Does this hurt?” Laleh asked.

  “Heck, yes! What do you think?”

  “Okay, okay. But did it hurt when I was pressing or when I was letting go?”

  Ramin wiped his sweaty brow. “Both. Please, everyone. Just leave me be. All I need is some rest, and I’ll be fine by tomorrow.”

  Laleh didn’t think so. She fished her cell phone from her purse and dialed 911.

  Her mother watched her with a frown. “What are you doing?”

  “Calling an ambulance,” Laleh said. If she tried to talk her stubborn brother into driving to the emergency department, his appendix would rupture by the time she managed to get him into the car.

  Chaos broke out as everyone talked over each other.

  Laleh stepped outside so she could understand the dispatcher and then stayed in front of the restaurant to flag down the ambulance.

  It didn’t take long for the ambulance to arrive.

  Laleh held the door open for the two EMTs with the stretcher. “The patient is right through here. He began to experience initial periumbilical pain last night, with a migration to the right lower quadrant today. Rebound tenderness is present.”

  “Sounds like appendicitis.”

  Laleh nodded. “That’s what I thought.”

  The EMT in front paused in the doorway. “Dispatch didn’t mention a physician on site.”

  “What?” It took her a moment to understand what he meant. “Oh, no. No. I’m not a doctor. I just…” She shook her head, realizing she had no explanation for what had come out of her mouth. “I probably watched too many medical dramas on TV,” she finished weakly.

  “Who knew TV could be so educational?” the other EMT muttered as they moved past her.

  Laleh still held on to the door, more to keep herself upright than to keep it open. Half-formed thoughts bounced through her head. Periumbilical pain? Rebound tenderness? She didn’t think she’d ever heard, much less used, those words in her life. How the heck did I know that?

  Within a few minutes, the EMTs carried Ramin on the stretcher past her.

  Still holding on to the door as if for dear life, Laleh watched them load him into the ambulance. Medical terms tumbled through her mind, making her dizzy. Something strange was going on with her. Maybe she should climb into the ambulance with Ramin and accompany him to the hospital. She was starting to think she needed to have her head examined.

  CHAPTER 5

  Hope hammered the white rubber ball against the front
wall an inch below the out line. Her sneakers squeaked across the squash court as she rushed back to the T, anticipating Jordan’s return.

  Jordan sent the ball to the front left corner with a smooth backhand.

  Hope lunged and hit it with a crushing shot before it could bounce on the floor even once, aiming it so close to the side wall that Jordan’s racquet scraped the wall as she snapped it back.

  While Jordan was at the back of the court, Hope played a drop shot.

  With a desperate scream, Jordan dove forward but couldn’t reach the ball in time.

  “Yeah!” Hope pumped her fist. That point had won her the game.

  Jordan bent over, her hands on her knees. “Whoa! You play like a woman possessed!”

  Hope lifted her arm to swipe a strand of hair from her sweaty forehead. “Oh, come on. You’re just as competitive.” That was what she liked about playing with Jordan. They both fought for every point, never giving an inch. But, admittedly, something had been different today. Normally, they joked around and teased each other between serves, but today the game had been too intense for that.

  Jordan straightened and studied her. “What’s going on with you?”

  Good question. Hope examined the strings on her racquet. She’d felt strangely unsettled and distracted all week, without knowing why. But she was a woman who fixed things instead of talking about them. Not that she could have explained what was going on with her, even if she wanted to. So she shrugged and went to pick up the ball.

  Jordan opened the court’s glass door and waited for Hope to join her. “How about you buy me dinner and tell me what put you in this mood?”

  “Me? Buy you dinner?” Hope picked up her racquet cover from a nearby bench. “Nice try. I won, so you are buying me dinner.”

  “Okay, okay. What are you in the mood for? Mexican, Mexican, or…Mexican?”

  It was what Hope requested every time she won. But today, she shook her head. “How about a change of pace?”

  Jordan opened her eyes comically wide. “You don’t want Mexican?” She studied Hope and then gave her a little shove. “It’s a woman, admit it.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a woman who’s got you in this tizzy.”

  “No! Jesus.” Hope swatted Jordan’s shoulder with her racquet. “Can’t I want to eat someplace else without you thinking there’s a woman involved?”

  “If you say so. Where do you want to go?”

  “Are you up for a drive to Glendale?” Hope asked. “I’ve got a craving for Persian food.”

  Jordan shrugged. “Never tried it.”

  “Me neither.”

  “How can you crave a food you’ve never had?” Jordan eyed her skeptically.

  “I don’t know. I just do. And I hear it’s good.”

  “Well, you know I’m the adventurous type, always up for trying something new.” Jordan winked. “So, Persian it is.”

  * * *

  On the drive to Glendale, Hope racked her brain, trying to remember who had told her about the Persian restaurant. Had it been Paula? The night-shift charge nurse liked trying out different kinds of food, so that had to be it.

  But had Paula also given her such detailed directions that Hope could find the way without having to rely on GPS?

  She took one hand off the steering wheel and rubbed her eyes for a moment. God, maybe Russell, the Chief of Emergency Medicine, was right. She should take some of her vacation time soon.

  “Let’s sit outside,” she said to Jordan a few minutes later, as they walked toward the red brick building. “They have a nice patio.”

  Jordan cocked her head to one side. “I thought you’ve never been here?”

  “I haven’t.” Paula must have told her about that too. “I think our charge nurse is a regular.”

  As they approached the two rows of tables set up beneath striped awnings, a stocky woman greeted them, her black hair streaked with gray. Her wide, friendly smile crinkled the corners of her dark eyes. She looked familiar somehow, but if they had met before, Hope couldn’t remember where.

  “Salaam,” the woman said. “I’m Nasrin, your hostess. Table for two?”

  Hope nodded and pointed to a table next to the wall, which was decorated with a mural of an idyllic seascape. “How about that one?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. We reserve that one for family.” Nasrin seated them one table over, handed them the menus, took their drink order, and left.

  Hope leaned back in her chair and breathed in the aroma of saffron, sweet-and-sour pomegranate sauce, charbroiled chicken, and freshly baked lavash drifting over from other tables. She could identify what the people next to them were eating without even looking. Khoresh-e Fesenjan. Yum.

  Jordan rubbed her chin as she studied the menu. “Wow. Tough choice. I’m trying to decide between the koobideh and the…” She squinted at the Persian name of the dish. “Sabzi…something.”

  “Sabzi polo ba mahi?”

  “Yes. That’s it.”

  “Good choices. But then again, everything here is,” Hope said. “I’d take the koobideh, if I were you. The sabzi polo has cilantro in it, and I know you don’t like that.”

  Jordan glanced at the menu again. “Are you sure? It just says fresh herbs.”

  “It’s dill, parsley, chives, fenugreek, and cilantro.”

  With a shake of her head, Jordan closed the menu. “What did you do—go online and learn their whole menu by heart?”

  “No. I just…” I just know what’s in it. Weird.

  “Could have fooled me,” Jordan muttered.

  Hope nodded toward the family at the table next to them. “We could ask them about the cilantro if you don’t believe me. I bet they’re regulars.”

  Jordan eyed the obviously Middle Eastern family. “Do you think they speak English?”

  “Of course they do.” They’d been talking to each other in English the entire time, sharing gossip about whose daughter was getting married and whose child was graduating from college.

  “How do you know?” Jordan asked.

  Wasn’t it obvious? Hope tapped her ears. “Just listen.”

  “I am listening, and all I hear is rapid-fire Persian or whatever it is.”

  “Stop kidding me, Jordan. They’re speaking English. Listen.” She focused on the individual words instead of the content of their conversation for a moment—and froze.

  What the hell? The soft, even rhythm flowing like water, the many vowels… Jordan was right! They were speaking Farsi! Right now, they were arguing about who would get to pay the bill—and Hope could understand every word. How on earth was that possible? She sat there, listening with her jaw hanging open.

  Her mind raced, searching for an explanation. She’d heard of Foreign Language Syndrome—people waking up after a stroke or other brain injury and suddenly being fluent in a foreign language. But in each case, it had turned out the patient had learned that language in school, so when the area of their brain that processed their native language had been damaged, the second language had taken over, since that knowledge was being stored in another region of the brain.

  There was always a perfectly logical explanation.

  But not for her being able to understand Farsi. The only words in the Persian language she’d ever learned were salaam—hello—and mamnoon—thank you.

  “I think you should get your hearing checked. They—” Jordan snapped her mouth shut and stared at something behind Hope. “Wow. The waitresses here look as great as the food.”

  Grateful for the distraction, Hope pretended to casually look around the patio and turned around.

  A waitress walked toward them, carrying a tray full of lavash bread, plates of herbs, and an assortment of dips.

  Hope’s gaze swept up a pair of slender legs, a slim waist, and a hint of tantalizing cleavage before zeroing in on long raven hair, dark brown eyes, and a warm smile—which died away when the waitress directed her gaze from Jordan to Hope.

  The plates and bowl
s on the tray rattled as she came to a sudden stop.

  They stared at each other.

  That’s Ms. Samadi! It surprised her how effortlessly the name came to her, even though she often didn’t remember the names of patients she’d treated a few days ago. “Ms. S-Samadi!” For the first time since puberty, Hope found herself stuttering in the presence of a woman. What are the chances?

  Ms. Samadi seemed as dumbfounded as Hope felt. “Doctor…uh…Finlay! What are you doing here?”

  That finally brought a smile to Hope’s face. “Eating,” she said. “That is, we would, if our waitress brought the food over here.”

  “Oh. Of course. Sorry.” Laleh—Ms. Samadi, Hope reminded herself—deposited the complimentary lavash bread and plates of fresh herbs on the linen-topped table, along with their drinks and bowls of eggplant dip, hummus, and yogurt-cucumber dip. When she had emptied the tray, she stood there for a moment, still staring at Hope.

  In the awkward silence between them, the chatter and clinking of cutlery on plates from the neighboring tables sounded overly loud.

  Jordan looked from Hope to Ms. Samadi and back but thankfully didn’t comment. Her grin spoke volumes, though.

  Finally, Ms. Samadi cleared her throat. “Have you decided what you’d like, or do you need a little more time?”

  “I think we’re ready to order,” Hope said after a quick glance to Jordan.

  Ms. Samadi nodded at them.

  “I’d like to have the adas polo.” Thinking about the combination of rice, lentils, raisins, and cinnamon made Hope’s mouth water.

  “Great choice,” Ms. Samadi said. “It’s my favorite Persian dish.”

  Hope wondered if she said that to every guest, no matter what they ordered. But Ms. Samadi’s smile seemed genuine.

  She turned toward Jordan. “And what can I get you?”

  “What kind of herbs does the sabzi polo have?” Jordan asked.

  “Let’s see… Dill, parsley, chives, fenugreek, and cilantro.”

  Hope sent her an I-told-you-so look, which Jordan ignored.

  “I’ll have the koobideh, then.”

  Hope took the menus and handed them back. Their hands brushed. A tingle went up Hope’s arm, reminding her of how it had felt when she had accidentally shocked herself during Ms. Samadi’s resuscitation. Quickly, she pulled her hand back and wiped it on her thigh beneath the table.