Golden Hour (Crescent City)

by Campbell Reinhardt

  “Dean, bring the bag,” I bark. Dean is pressed against the wall across the room like he’s hoping to sink into it. To disappear. His eyes are almost as big as the woman’s from outside.

  He’s a fucking statue.

  Fuck.

  I yank on a pair of gloves, start chest compressions on the girl, and yell, “Bring me the goddamn bag!”

  Dean shuffles to my side in slow motion. When he’s within arm’s reach, I tear it from his shoulder, letting it hit the ground with a thud—to hell with the expensive equipment inside of it.

  “Get on the radio and have them send 5-0,” I order. Dean nods and runs out the front door.

  I take in the room again as I’m dropping a tube down this girl’s throat to secure her airway. There are two small, pale-blond girls huddled in the corner with the woman from outside, sobbing as they clutch onto her legs, and a young guy sitting on the floor at the foot of the stairs, his head in his hands, moaning.

  “What’d she take?” I yell at the guy.

  He holds his hands up, tears and snot on his face. “Man, I don’t know. I don’t think she took anything.” Ah. Those tears are because he feels sad his own ass might get caught. My temper flares up as I look down at the girl who will die if this asshole doesn’t help me.

  “What the hell did she take?” I repeat, my voice edging towards losing it. He’s so full of shit, and I’m sorely tempted to beat his loser ass until the truth oozes out.

  Dean makes his way back in the house like he’s shocked to still find the mess we first walked into. “They’re on their way.” He swallows hard and I see that he’s shaking hard.

  I calm the hell down and make eye contact, locking my eyes with his across the room. I speak slowly, willing him to get his ass over and help me save this kid. “Good, come take over bagging her. Can you do that?” He holds my stare for one beat, two, then something in him seems to click. He rushes over. Dean’s hands replace mine on the bag, and I hook the girl up to the monitor.

  “Are you her mother?” I ask the woman who’s petting the hair of those two tiny girls.

  She nods and sobs loudly, her eyes red rimmed. “Her name is Tara. These are her sisters. Please don’t let her die.”

  “How long has she been like this?” I ask slowly, trying to keep the panic level low. “Does she take any prescriptions?”

  “I don’t know. He knows,” she says, her voice high with fury. She points an accusing finger at the thug on the stairs who cowers. “They were in her room together, and I caught him trying to sneak out of here. He was going to leave her in there like this!” she screams, hatred contorting her face.

  I try to keep my voice in check. I try hard not to let on how disgusted I am with this guy. That’s not helpful, letting your emotion show. They teach you that in medic school. Even if I want to bash his face in right now, I have to pretend everything is cool.

  I look at him and repeat my earlier request, calmer now, but on edge. If he doesn’t tell, she dies. “I need to know what she took and how much.”

  “I don’t know what she’s into.” He’s stopped sniveling and tries to keep up a defiant look while he wipes snot off his face with his sleeve. “I only met her at a party last week. I barely know her.”

  I grit my teeth and speak each word carefully. “I can’t help her if you don’t tell me what she took.” I secure an IV in her arm and draw four tubes of blood, focusing on doing what I have to for this girl so I don’t beat this dickhead’s face in.

  While I’m keeping cool, Tara’s mother goes ape-shit. I don’t try to calm her. “You tell him right now! You tell him what you gave my baby girl!” She’s screaming so loud, her body shakes.

  “She took it on her own. I don’t know what it was!” he shouts back at her, throwing his arms up like he’s done with all of it.

  The air’s getting tense, and I don’t mind one damn bit. I’ll go by the book until the book doesn’t work. After that, I’m perfectly happy to do it my way. But I make sure all is cool with Dean.

  “How’s that pulse, partner?”

  Shit. I hoped jumping in with both feet would fire him up. But he hasn’t said a word since he took over bagging Tara. He hasn’t moved or broken rhythm. He’s just staring at his hand on the mask. He’s fucking scared. He’s nineteen—under normal circumstances, he’s allowed to be. But right now, I need him to pull it together or we’re going to lose this girl.

  He clears his throat. “Thready,” he says, his voice cracked..

  I clap a hand on his shoulder, talk to him as reassuringly as I can. “We’re going to load her up in just a minute, okay? You hang tight.”

  I should crouch down next to the sobbing, heart-broken mother and offer her and her tiny daughters a little bit of comfort. But they’re going to want me to make promises that I can’t. I’m no good at bullshit, but I shine at getting things done, anyway I need to.

  Tara’s family doesn’t need my kind words. They need answers. And I plan to get them.

  I stalk across the room and yank the dumbass kid up to standing by his collar, tearing the fabric as I do. When all my hardwired training about keeping a cool head tries to kick in, I remind myself that this is the scumbag who was going to leave a young girl in her bed to die alone rather than call 911.

  The books teach you how to deal with reasonable people in need. Life taught me how to deal with shitheads who don’t seem to follow any moral code. Which is fine by me; my own personal moral code is a little shaky, too.

  I lean in close to his face and see his tiny pin-prick pupils. I glance over my shoulder to make sure the two little girls aren’t looking before I shove him against the wall, hard enough to hear his skull thump and lift him off his feet. He gives a panicked groan, and I shake him like a dog shakes a squirrel.

  “You’re going to tell me what the fuck you gave this girl right now, or I’m going to shove one of those tubes down your throat until you puke up what I need to hear.” I lift him back and slam him again.

  “Chill, it’s just pills, bro,” he whimpers, slurring his words. “I don’t know how many she took before I got here. It’s just pills.”

  I drop him to the ground just as the cops swagger through the front door.

  “Ma’am,” I say softly to Tara’s mother, who’s pale and miserable in her grief. “I’m going to get your daughter to the hospital now. We’re going to take her to Crescent City Memorial. These officers will help you with your girls and get you there to be with Tara, okay?”

  One of the young cops extends his hand to Tara’s mom. “Good hospital. My sister works there. Your little girl will be well taken care of. I’m officer Dupuis, ma’am. I know you’re a bit shaken up, but can I get you to tell me about what happened?” The cop braces Tara’s mother under her elbow and walks her slowly to the kitchen while we load up her daughter.

  “Let’s get her in the back of the truck,” I say to Dean. We lift her off the ground and onto our stretcher and wheel her out into the humid night air.

  Dean is still silent. Spooky silent.

  “We’ll push just enough Narcan to stabilize her breathing and then let the ER deal with the rest of the dose on the other end. You don’t want to be cleaning that mess out of the back of the truck. Plus, who knows? She’s tiny, but she may wake up swinging.”

  I’m trying to explain the plan, thinking Dean will be less freaked out, but it doesn’t seem like it’s working.

  “Dean, man, lighten up.” If by the book doesn’t work, maybe cocky asshole will get a reaction. I watch him out of the corner of my eye as I load the stretcher with our patient into the truck.

  “She’s…” Dean swallows hard and wipes a hand down his face. He looks up at me, his eyes stark. “I know her. She’s my sister’s friend. She just… I can’t….”

  I pat him on the back, not sure what to say, and start to climb into the truck. So I make him a promise that I’ll just have to keep, whether I like it or not. “Dean? She’s going to be okay. She is. I promise man
.”

  Damn this kid.

  My eyes feel like they’re caked with sand. I can barely hold my eyelids open, and I still have three hours left on my rotation. I may only be twenty-three, but I spend most of my time feeling much older, feeling exhausted. I’ve never been more ready for a break.

  “Double shot espresso with a Red Bull chaser,” Zoe says, sliding the cup and can across the table, her eyes warm and worried. So worried. “You okay?”

  “Am I okay?” I try not to snap.

  A few months ago all anyone could talk about was how I was more than living up to the Dupuis name, how no nurse had done so well right out of nursing school since my grandmother, whose name is still only uttered in hushed, reverential tones at Crescent City Memorial.

  Now? It’s like everyone is watching every move I make, waiting for the inevitable breakdown. Like I’m some delicate china cup about to fall off the shelf and smash into a million tiny pieces.

  The thing that pisses me off the most is that there have been mess ups here and there. Just little things, but I’m a nurse. I know that little things add up, tiny missteps can cost lives. Forgetting to take off the elderly patient’s compression stockings like her doctor ordered, forgetting to triple check the id bracelet before administering meds, or even something as simple as forgetting to wash my hands.

  “I’m fine,” I lie. I toss back the shot and chase it with a sweet, cold sip of Red Bull, waiting for the buzz I never used to need so badly. “Thank you, Zoe, for asking. How have you been?” I’ve found that the best way to deal with all the attention is by deflecting.

  “Fine.” She blushes and runs her finger through the whipped cream on top of her caramel macchiato. “You remember the firefighter? The hunky one with the accent?”

  “The Cajun guy?” There is definitely no better deflection than romance gossip. “The one who chopped down the door at the retirement home when there was that little kitchen fire?” I don’t hide my eyeroll.

  “Stop!” She giggles and slaps me on the arm. “He’s gung-ho. That’s not a bad thing. He’s so new, and he feels like he has to prove himself because so many of the other guys are legacies.”

  “Well, I’m not sure if an axe is the best tool for that.” I grin as I take another sip and glance at my watch. My break is almost over. I feel like I just sat down.

  “We’re going on a third date, and I’m kind of nervous.” Zoe pulls her ponytail over her shoulder and runs it through her fingers. “You know what third dates mean.” She holds her breath, her lips pursed tight.

  “Third dates,” I repeat absently.

  Mike waited until I was in my senior year of high school to ask me out on a first date. I practically jumped on his back and squealed when he finally invited me to one of his college ball games. I’d been lusting after him from afar since I was a knock-kneed kid with a retainer.

  Maybe it was because of me being Charlie’s baby sister, or just because Mike was such a gentleman to his core, but he took it slow from the beginning.

  Very, very slow.

  Our third date was double scoop ice cream cones loaded with sprinkles that we ate while we talked about everything and nothing for five hours at the boat launch. I wanted to kiss him so badly, I was practically making out with the ice cream cone.

  It took two more dates before I got my kiss, but, damn, it was worth the wait.

  Well worth it.

  “Elise? So what do you think?” Zoe has her hands pressed in front of her, prayer-style.

  “I’m sorry?” I shake my head, half surprised I’m at the linoleum break table and not sitting in the bed of Mike’s truck with his lips pressed on mine for the first time. I need to snap out of it. “What was that, Zo?”

  “Don’t think of it as a date, of course. We’re supposed to be meeting a bunch of people, but I don’t really know many of them. So maybe if you didn’t mind going, just as friends hanging out? Just to keep me company? You know. So it doesn’t go further if I’m not ready. Though, I’m giving it a lot of thought. Mmm, those arms! I definitely might want to go ahead and make the third date official.” She winks at me and makes a satisfied noise in the back of her throat.

  Before I have to come up with some lame excuse, I see the flashing lights of an ambulance pull into the bay.

  “We’d better go see what’s coming in,” I say, but I’m a second too slow.

  “We’ve got a patient coming in, Dupuis!” I hear Nurse Chadwick call. “Seventeen year old female. Overdose. We need you here now! Look alive!”

  Damn.

  Nurse Chadwick is short on patience and quick to snap. Used to be I was one of the only new nurses who could stay on her good side. I even got myself tagged a ‘pet.’

  Now I think even the freshest newbies, only weeks out of nursing school, are getting less flack from her than I am.

  “Sorry. I’m here now. We’re going to need to bring her to trauma- five. Did we discharge the kid with the broken collarbone yet?”

  Zoe nods and rushes behind me into the room with the medics who are moving the girl from their stretcher onto a bed. Once they finish up, the new EMT crosses his arms over his chest and eyes Dean, the serious young EMT who’s only been around for a few weeks. The new guy looks at Dean with his eyebrows raised in disgust and his mouth twisted with humor.

  “Who’s got the report?” I ask.

  The new guy—the gorgeous new guy who I shouldn’t be thinking about as gorgeous--opens his mouth.

  “I do. I’m Caleb Warren. Tara here is a seventeen-year-old female, found unconscious at home by her mother. We arrived on scene to a cyanotic, unconscious patient, respirations shallow, GCS 3. We gave her dextrose and Narcan en route. She’s been in and out since then.”

  It’s all clipped, by-the-book, but there’s something about the way he rolls the words off his tongue that makes it sound exotic.

  “How much Narcan?” Zoe asks, scribbling on the chart.

  “I gave her two mils. Just enough to get her breathing well again. Figured you ladies could take it from there. And, you know, Dean here didn’t want to have to clean chunks out of the back of the truck tonight,” Caleb says, clapping an unresponsive Dean on the back. “Come on, bro. Let’s go find you some coffee.”

  They leave and Zoe tsks her tongue.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “I heard from Bethany that the new guy, the one who was a Marine, was going hard on Dean. I guess that’s that whole soldier thing, you know? Like he looks down on anyone who didn’t go through boot camp kind of thing?” She chews on her lip. “Dean looked like he was in shock. You got this?”

  “Sure. She looks good. You take care of Dean, and I’ll get her stable.”

  I brush the dark bangs back from Tara’s forehead, and realize she isn’t much older than my teenage cousin Isla. She has the kind of face that, if she got all dolled up, she could probably pass for my age or older. But here, lying so pale and peaceful on the bed with her face scrubbed clean and her hair spread around her like a halo, she looks like she’s barely out of middle school.

  I monitor her vitals and double check what I need to do to get her beyond stable and back on the road to recovery. The on-call doc comes in and signs off on her meds and I mark her chart. The medics did a good job. Her respirations are even, though she’s got a long, messy road still ahead of her, especially when these meds kick in and all those drugs she took have to come back up.

  While I prepare the syringe of Narcan I’m going to give her, I whisper in her ear. “You’re gonna be just fine, sweetie. I don’t know how you got mixed up in what you did, but we’re gonna get you back to better than normal. And when you leave this hospital, I want you to toss all that crap behind you, you hear? Next time I see you in here, it better be because you twisted your ankle out dancing or cut your foot on some glass walking along the beach. Something nice and normal that’ll let me know you’re having a good time and living a full life.”

  I keep my voice low, because I don’t wa
nt Zoe to overhear. It’s nursing 101 that you’re supposed to be nurturing but not so much so that you lose sight of your job. I bet this girl has a mother to dote on her. And if she doesn’t, I’m not here to mother her. I’m here to give her the best medical attention I can.

  But I can’t help getting attached to people, especially the ones I know are going to have it rough even if they go home with a clean bill of health. This young woman on the table reminds me of Lawson and all he’s going through.

  My wandering mind gets brought back to the room by Zoe’s voice, lashing out like I’ve never heard it before.

  “I can smell the booze on your breath!” She has her finger poked into Caleb Warren’s chest, and he’s giving her that same cocked eyebrow look he gave Dean in the hall, minus the amused lips. She leads Dean into the room and sits him on the bed, but her attention is on Warren.

  “Who the hell are you again?” he asks, his voice strong and so sure, it knocks Zoe down a peg immediately.

  “I’m...well, I’m a nurse. Nurse Lee,” she says, pointing to the name tag on her ridiculous teddy bear scrubs. “And I’m a friend of Dean’s. And I’m also a part of Crescent City Memorial. I’m responsible for the patients coming off your trucks, and I’m not just going to sit by when a driver reeks of alcohol—”

  “First of all,” he cuts her off with a lazy half shrug of his wide shoulders, “Dean was the driver, and a shitty one at that. Secondly, you may be right, ma’am. I may smell like beer. That’d actually make sense, since I drank it last night. A lot of it. But I’m not lucky enough to stay drunk off beer eight hours after my last drink, no matter how much I might have had. I suggest you stop sniffing around me and go take care of good old Dean before he passes out and gets himself a concussion.”

  I glance over at Dean, who does look gray and sagging. Zoe rushes to him, lays him down gently, and checks his blood pressure. Then she whirls back to Warren and narrows her eyes.