Passage

She took the elevator down to first and ran down the stairs and along the hall to the ER. Vielle was at the central desk, making entries on a chart. Joanna hurried over to her. “You found out what it meant, didn’t you?” she said. “What was he trying to say?”

“Who?” Vielle said blankly. “What are you talking about?”

“Greg Menotti. The heart attack patient who coded on Tuesday.”

“Oh, right,” Vielle said, “the myocardial infarction who kept saying, ‘fifty-nine.’ ”

“Fifty-eight,” Joanna said.

“Right. I’m sorry. I was going to check his girlfriend’s phone number,” she said, pushing her elasticized cap back off her forehead. “I forgot all about it.” She looked past Joanna. “I’ll check on it this afternoon, I promise. Is that why you came down here?”

“No,” Joanna said. “You called me, remember?”

“Oh, right,” Vielle said, looking uncomfortable. “You weren’t there.” She busied herself with the chart again.

“Well?” Joanna said. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

“Nothing. I don’t remember. It was probably about Dish Night. Do you know how hard it is to come up with movies that don’t have any deaths in them? Even comedies. Shakespeare in Love, Sleepless in Seattle, Four Weddings and a Funeral. I spent an hour and a half in Blockbuster last night, looking for something death-free.”

And you are clearly trying to change the subject, Joanna thought. Why? And what had she called about? Something she had obviously changed her mind about telling her.

“You can’t even find kids’ movies,” Vielle was rattling on. “Cinderella’s father, Bambi’s mother, the Wicked Witch of the West — what is it, Nina?” she said to an aide who had come up, and that was odd, too. Vielle usually shouted at aides who interrupted her.

“Mrs. Edwards at the desk said to give this to you,” Nina said, handing a blown-up photograph to Vielle. It was a picture of a blond, tattooed teenager in a knitted cap, obviously a mug shot since there was a long string of numbers along the bottom.

“You didn’t have another shooting, did you?” Joanna asked.

“No,” Vielle said defensively. “It’s been quiet as a church in here all day. Nothing but sprained ankles and paper cuts. Why did Mrs. Edwards say to give this to me?” she asked Nina.

“The police said if this guy comes in, you’re supposed to call them, he shot a guy in the leg with a nail gun—”

“Thank you, Nina,” Vielle said, handing her back the paper. “Go show it to Dr. Thayer.”

“If the guy he shot shows up, you’re supposed to call them, too,” Nina said. “They’re both gang members—”

“Thank you, Nina.”

As soon as Nina was gone, Joanna said, “A nail gun! Vielle, when are you going to transfer out of here? It’s dangerous—”

“I know, I know, you’ve told me before,” she said, looking past Joanna. “Oops, gotta go.” She started toward the front of the ER, where two men were holding a pasty-faced woman up by the armpits.

“Vielle—”

“See you tomorrow night at Dish Night,” Vielle said, breaking into a trot.

Too late. The woman vomited all over the floor and the two men. One of the men let go and jumped backward out of the line of fire, and the woman slid sideways onto the floor. Vielle, her worried look back, caught her before she fell.

There was no point in waiting around. The woman was obviously going to take some time, and it was already nearly two. And what could she say if she did stay? “Vielle, why did you really call me? And don’t tell me it was about Bambi’s mother!”

Joanna went back upstairs. Amelia still wasn’t there. “Did you find out what you needed to know?” Richard asked.

“No,” Joanna said. In more ways than one.

“By the way, Vielle—”

There was a knock on the door, and Amelia swept in, exclaiming, “I am so sorry I’m late. Can you believe my professors all decided to give an exam the same week?” She divested herself of her backpack, gloves, and coat with the same speed as she had two days before, talking the entire time. “I know I blew it. I hate biochem!”

Her long black hair was twisted up into the messy-looking topknot all the college students were wearing these days. She shook it out and twisted it up again into an even messier knot. “I got a D, I know it,” she said, securing it with a large gold plastic clip. “Do you want me to go get undressed, Dr. Wright?”

“Not yet,” he said. “Dr. Lander needs to ask you some questions first.”

“Amelia,” Joanna said, indicating one of the three chairs. She sat down herself, and Richard came around and took the other one. “You’re a premed student, is that right?”

Amelia plopped down in the third. “Not after the biochem exam I just took. It was even worse than anatomy. I was premed. Now I’m dead meat.”

Joanna wrote down “premed.” “And you’re how old?”

“Twenty-four,” Amelia said. “I know, that’s old to still be in premed. I got a BA in music theater before I decided I didn’t want to be an actress.”

An actress. Good at playing roles. At fooling people. “Why did you decide you didn’t want to be an actress?”