Heart Trouble

by Jae

  “Is there anything I should keep in mind when I’m having dinner with your family?”

  “Just three things,” Laleh said. “One, always leave a little food on your plate, or they’ll keep giving you more, no matter what you say.”

  Hope laughed. “Oh yeah, I know. I learned that the hard way at your aunt’s restaurant.”

  “Second, don’t compliment my parents on their Persian rugs or any other decoration, or they’ll insist on giving it to you. And third, just nod when my father tries to convince you that all great achievements of the modern world, from air conditioning to toilet paper, were invented by the Persians.”

  “Okay. No compliments and lots of nodding. I can do that. Anything else? Things I shouldn’t mention, for example?”

  “You mean other than the mind-meld thing?”

  “Yeah, other than that. I mean, what about my sexual orientation?” Hope asked. “I don’t want to make any assumptions, but would your family be fine with that? It might be awkward for you if they interrogate you with questions about our…um…”

  “Friendship?” Laleh suggested.

  Hope was silent for a moment. “Yes.”

  Laleh smiled. A warm feeling spread through her. It was official. They were friends, not only strangers bound together by an inexplicable brain link. It was amazing how happy that thought made her.

  “So?” Hope asked after a while. “What do you want me to do?”

  It meant a lot to Laleh that Hope, who seemed pretty out and proud of who she was, was willing to go out of her way to make her comfortable. “I want you to have a nice time and not have to second-guess everything you say. Just be yourself, and if it comes up, tell them whatever you think is best, okay?”

  “Are you sure? With your family being Muslim…”

  “They’re not religious, just pretty traditional. But they’re the ones who have to adjust to the twenty-first century, not the other way around. You shouldn’t have to hide who you are.”

  “All right. If anyone asks, I’ll probably say I’m single and leave it at that.”

  The sounds of a car door opening and then closing reverberated through the phone.

  “Are you home?” Laleh asked.

  “Yes.”

  Oops. What had happened to her resolution to keep their conversation short? “I’ll let you go so you can get some rest.”

  A key jingled, and Laleh imagined Hope walking into her sparsely decorated condo. Maybe Hope should compliment her parents’ rugs after all. Her place could do with a few homey touches.

  “I’ll call you for directions to your parents’ house later this week,” Hope said. “Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  They ended the call, and Laleh dropped the phone back onto the coffee table. So Hope would get to meet her family. Why did that make her feel so excited and nervous? It wasn’t as if she was bringing home a new boyfriend.

  Well, the situation wasn’t exactly normal, so a bit of nervousness was to be expected, especially since she knew how overwhelming her family could be.

  Maybe all the food that would be forced on Hope would turn out to be a good thing. Laleh chuckled. It would stop her from being able to run away screaming.

  CHAPTER 12

  Hope’s shift on Thanksgiving started out quiet, but soon patients started to pour into the emergency department. She lost count of how many burns from cooking accidents and cuts from drunken brawls with family members she had treated.

  When she snipped the last of the stitches on yet another patient with a finger laceration and walked out of the suture room, Jordan was leaning against the counter at the nurses’ station, flirting with one of the nurses.

  “Beverly, we’re running out of medium gloves in the suture room,” Hope said. “Could you restock them, please?”

  The nurse nodded and hurried off.

  Hope rounded the counter and leaned against it from the side opposite of Jordan. “Is there something I can help you with, or are you just here to flirt with the ER nurses?”

  Jordan grinned. “Well, there’s always that, but no, I’m here to check in with you. How is it going?”

  “The usual holiday mayhem.” Hope tucked a strand of unruly hair back behind her ear. “Earlier, we had a patient whose frozen turkey practically exploded when she tried to deep-fry it, and it won’t be long now before the sprains and fractures from the post-feast football games start coming in.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean. I just finished operating on a young man with a perforated bowel. Family feuds, alcohol, and carving knives don’t mix well. But I wasn’t talking about work. I haven’t heard from you since you got back from Boston. Is everything okay?”

  Admittedly, Hope had kept to herself since visiting her mother’s grave. She needed a few days to get herself back together. “Yeah, sure. I’m fine. My residents keep me on my toes, that’s all.”

  “Are you pulling another double shift this year?” Jordan asked.

  “Actually, no.” She glanced at the large clock above the nurses’ station. “I’m off in twenty minutes.”

  “Great.” Jordan reached across the counter and gave her a pat on the shoulder. “Hey, Nia and Shawna are in town. Would you like to have dinner with us?”

  Hope eyed her skeptically. “You aren’t still trying to set me up with one of your sisters?”

  Jordan snorted. “That ship has sailed, my friend. They’re both happily married now. Their spouses will be coming with them. So, want to join us and meet them?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Oh, come on. It wouldn’t hurt you to socialize a little on Thanksgiving.”

  “Who says I’m not socializing?”

  Jordan gave her a challenging stare. “Hanging out in the staff lounge, eating cold turkey with the people on night shift, doesn’t count as socializing.”

  She wasn’t really that bad, was she? “That’s not what I’m doing. I’ll have you know, I accepted a dinner invitation for tonight.”

  Jordan leaned across the counter. “Oooh! A date? With who?”

  “No!” Hope looked around. “Would you calm down? It’s not a date, okay? Laleh’s parents invited me over to say thank you.”

  “Wow. I’ve never known you to accept invitations from a patient’s family.”

  “She’s not a patient. I mean, she is…was, but…”

  “You like her,” Jordan said with a grin. “You like like her. I knew it!”

  This was getting ridiculous. Yes, Laleh was kind, witty, and attractive, but that didn’t mean Hope was interested in her. “What is this—high school? Stop it, Jordan. We’re friends. That’s all.”

  “I’ve never known you to become friends with a former patient either.” Jordan held up both hands before Hope could say anything else. “But I’m glad you did, so don’t get all defensive.”

  The EMS radio crackled to life on the counter, and Beverly rushed over to pick up the receiver.

  “We’re coming in with a seventy-year-old male,” the EMT’s voice cut through the background noise in the emergency department. “Massive head trauma. Unresponsive in the field after a head-on collision.”

  Dammit. So much for getting out of here on time. Hope pushed away from the counter and waved at her resident, who was just about to slip into the staff lounge, probably for some pumpkin pie. “Gear up, Scott. We’ve got trauma incoming.”

  “But I’m off shift in ten minutes.”

  God, his attitude was driving her crazy. “Well, guess that gives you a chance to make up for the fifteen minutes you were late for the start of your shift this morning.”

  Grumbling, Scott trudged toward the rack with the trauma gowns.

  Hope grabbed one too, gave a quick wave to Jordan, and then rushed toward the ambulance bay.

  * * *

  “Time of death…” Hope glanced up at the large clock in the trauma bay. “Seven sixteen.” She pulled off her bloodied gloves and gown and threw them into the biohazard bin.

&n
bsp; Scott was already at the door.

  “Dr. Feltner!”

  Her voice made him turn back around. “Yes?”

  “Why don’t you talk to the family this time?” She’d seen him shirk off this unpleasant duty to other residents several times, but she would make sure that he was pulling his weight on her shifts.

  “All right,” he mumbled.

  “Want me to come in with you?” she asked.

  “No, I can handle it on my own.”

  “All right.” She’d give him the benefit of the doubt, even if she wasn’t entirely convinced of his interpersonal skills.

  When she stepped out of the trauma room a minute later, Scott came out of the staff lounge and headed toward the private waiting room, where the patient’s family was probably pacing anxiously. In his hand was a piece of pie, with one bite already missing. Still chewing, he reached out to open the door to the waiting room.

  What the…? A roaring started in Hope’s ears. She crossed the nurses’ station toward him. “Dr. Feltner!”

  He turned and looked at her as if he couldn’t figure out what she could possibly want from him now.

  “Come with me—now!” Hope barely held herself back from shouting or from grabbing him and dragging him with her.

  Reluctantly, he followed her into one of the empty treatment rooms. “What is it? I thought you wanted me to go talk to the family?” He leaned against the treatment table and was about to take another bite of his pie.

  Hope wanted to slap it out of his hand so badly. Her fingernails left crescent-shaped marks on her palms as she clenched her fists at her sides. She shoved the Plexiglas door shut so that the entire ER wouldn’t hear every word. “Get rid of that damn pie!”

  “What?” His gaze went from her to the pie and back. He looked at her as if she were crazy. “What’s wrong with the pie?”

  “Nothing. The question is what’s wrong with you. You can’t seriously think it’s okay to march in there eating pie.” She stabbed her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the private waiting room.

  “But I haven’t eaten anything all shift.”

  “You think I have?” She was so sick of his excuses and his selfish behavior. “Put yourself in their shoes. This might be the worst day of their lives. They just lost a family member—on Thanksgiving, for Christ’s sake! The least you could do is take a minute to put your pie down before you go in there to talk to them.” God, this reminded her so much of how one of the doctors at the cancer center had treated her mother. He had told her that there was nothing more they could do for her and then hadn’t even waited until he had left the room before taking a bite of a candy bar.

  Scott’s face reddened, but it looked more like anger than shame. “That’s not fair!”

  “Not fair?” she echoed, her voice rising. “No, Scott. What’s not fair is you showing up late for your shifts, forcing your colleagues to cover for you.”

  “I was stuck in traffic and—”

  “For the second time this week?” She shook her head. “We all have to deal with the same kind of traffic, but everyone else manages to be on time. You’ve got no consideration for your patients or your colleagues. I’ve reached the end of my rope with you. One more thing and I’ll have a good, long talk with the residency program director.”

  He stared at her, openmouthed. “But—”

  “Do we understand each other?”

  His mouth snapped shut and then opened again. “Perfectly,” he said, his voice rough. He smashed the rest of the pie into the trash can, shoved back the sliding door, and stomped past the staring nurses who had gathered outside.

  Hope took several deep breaths. Whoever had said that this technique never failed to calm you down was a damn liar. She was still shaking with anger, her posture so tense that the muscles in her neck and shoulders were starting to ache—and now she had to go and make polite conversation with Laleh’s family over a plate of saffron rice.

  For a moment, she considered calling Laleh and canceling, but then she imagined the disappointment in Laleh’s dark eyes.

  No, she couldn’t do that. She rotated her shoulders to loosen them and marched toward her locker to get changed. On her way out, she would check up on Scott to make sure he hadn’t messed up again.

  * * *

  Laleh had heard the story about how her brother Ramin had gotten lost in Disneyland about a million times, but she still had to laugh along with everyone else as her father told the tale with sweeping gestures.

  She glanced at her watch. It was already a quarter past seven. Hope would be here in just a few minutes.

  At the thought, an edginess gripped her. Not the same hint of nervousness she’d experienced since inviting Hope over for Thanksgiving. This was more intense, like the feeling she got when she had a fight with a member of her beloved but sometimes annoying family. Weird. She didn’t understand the sudden irritation.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Navid reaching for the bowl of rice again. “Navid!” She slapped his hand harder than intended. “Stop eating all the tahdig. Leave some for Hope.”

  Wide-eyed, her brother pulled his hand back from the bowl and rubbed it. “Jeez, calm down. I didn’t know it was such a crime to want some tahdig.”

  She grabbed the bowl and slammed it down in front of him. “There! Take it. I’ll go make some more.” She jumped up from the table and stormed into the kitchen.

  “What crawled up your ass today?” Navid’s voice drifted after her.

  “Don’t use such language with your sister,” her father immediately said.

  “She started it!”

  Laleh gritted her teeth and closed the kitchen door so she wouldn’t hear him anymore. She counted to ten, first in English, then in Farsi, but right now, not even the familiar scents of mint, cardamom, and rose water could calm her.

  With a thunk, the heavy pot landed on the stove. She banged around the kitchen as she rinsed the rice her mother had soaked and brought the water to boil.

  After a few minutes, the door creaked open behind her.

  She whirled around, ready to tear into whoever had been stupid enough to follow her.

  Her mother stood in the doorway. She stepped closer despite Laleh’s keep-your-distance-if-you-want-to-live stance. “What’s going on with you, Laleh joon?”

  Laleh folded her arms across her chest. “I told him three times not to take all of the tahdig, but no, he wouldn’t listen. He’s so selfish!”

  Her mother regarded her with a slow shake of her head. “It’s not like you to get so upset over a bit of rice. What’s going on?”

  Laleh bit back a sharp reply and rubbed her face with both palms. Her mother was right. Shouting at her brother for no good reason was not like her at all. Come to think of it, she had been angry even before he’d taken the last bit of crispy rice, and she had no idea why. It couldn’t be PMS, could it? She’d already thought that last week, when she had nearly burst into tears at the restaurant, and it had turned out to be a false alarm. “I don’t know. I just… He just made me angry all of a sudden.”

  “It must be the stress in the restaurant. Being on your feet all day, serving strangers…” Her mother clicked her tongue in that disapproving way Persian parents seemed to have perfected. “I told you to get an MBA or at least a bachelor’s degree so you could manage the restaurant instead of being a waitress.”

  New anger surged up in Laleh. She usually avoided these fruitless discussions with her parents, but now there was no self-control left to do that. “And I told you that I don’t need a degree for that. I can learn everything I need from Ammeh Nasrin while I work in the restaurant instead of sitting in some campus library all day. Is that so hard to understand, dammit?”

  Her mother stared at her. “I really don’t know what’s up with you today. Since when do you talk to your parents like that? You know I mean well.”

  Laleh opened her mouth, about to give a fiery answer, but then the rage faded away as suddenly as
it had come. It wasn’t entirely gone; it felt more as if she had pushed it into a cage and closed the barred door. She exhaled sharply and wiped her brow. I think I need to get my hormones checked or something.

  The doorbell rang.

  Hope! Thankfully, she hadn’t been there to witness Laleh’s meltdown.

  She peeked at the water that was boiling by now.

  “Go,” her mother said. “I’ll take care of the rice.”

  “Thanks.” Laleh rushed out of the kitchen to open the door. On her way through the living room, she stopped in front of Navid, who eyed her warily, and placed a kiss on his stubbly cheek. “I’m sorry.”

  Navid, never one to hold a grudge, waved her away. “It’s all right. I just hope your friend is nicer than you.” He nudged her; she nudged him back, and they smiled at each other.

  “Don’t make your friend wait, Laleh joon,” her father said.

  Laleh stepped over her niece, who was sprawled on the floor, coloring. At the door, she brushed one hand over her clothes to smooth out any wrinkles.

  “Ooh, I didn’t know Laleh had invited a khastegar,” her brother Ramin said from his place at the table.

  “It’s not a suitor,” her father answered. “Your sister invited the doctor who saved her life.”

  Laleh ignored them and pulled the door open.

  * * *

  For the second time in two weeks, Hope found herself clutching a bouquet of flowers and wondering if it had been a good idea to come.

  When Laleh opened the door, that thought instantly disappeared—along with all other thoughts, except for wow.

  So far, she’d seen Laleh only in jeans, her waitress pants, or shorts. Now she was wearing a black skirt that ended just above her knees and a red short-sleeved turtleneck sweater that emphasized her figure. She’d coiled and pinned her shiny dark hair on top of her head, showing off her high cheekbones even more.

  Hope’s mouth went dry. Great. Now she had to make it through dinner without staring at Laleh in front of her entire family.

  Laleh looked her up and down too. “Hi. You clean up nicely.”

  “It’s a step up from scrubs, right? And we’re wearing matching colors.” Hope pointed at her tailored black slacks and fitted red blouse.