Ten Weeks Later
Paige Woodward contemplated the reinforced back door of Nashville’s Free Clinic and the patchwork of blue covering the exterior. Each shade of navy, indigo, or azure covered another level of graffiti. The defacing spray paint wasn’t gone, simply hidden beneath a layer of color that didn’t quite match the original. Patch jobs. They didn’t change the truth; they only covered it up.
She shook off the thought and put her key in the door. The musty odor never seemed to fade here, in spite of the janitorial crew’s best efforts. This dingy lobby would soon be packed to capacity with illness, hunger, and hopeless faces looking to Paige for help—but she could only do so much. Some pain went beyond the bounds of medicine. She had been living that truth for the last few months.
Rufus Toskins emerged from a back hallway, wearing his usual overburdened expression, baggy suit, and bow tie. Paige stopped and waited for him. Today, at least, would bring good news, and now would be a perfect time for him to walk over and deliver it.
Rufus did not acknowledge her presence. In fact, he jerked his head around and blitzed through a door to the opposite hall—like a medical resident rushing toward a code blue.
Strange. Her stomach tightened, just a little. You’re imagining things. Get busy.
The usual array of workers from the Richardson Construction Company passed through the lobby as they went from one wing to the other. One of the men—older than the rest, perhaps late sixties—walked over to her. “I need to take some measurements in the pharmacy. Okay if I come back there with you?” He wore a faded flannel shirt, scuffed boots, and a friendly smile.
Paige unlocked the glass door and held it open for him. “Have at it.”
He nodded, then walked to the back wall of the dispensing area, measuring tape in hand.
Why was Rufus acting so funny? The thought would not leave her mind. She removed the stack of yesterday’s prescriptions from their tray, put them in numerical order, then filed them in manila folders. She picked up the phone and retrieved voice messages, wiped down the faded surface of the chipped countertop, and washed her hands. Still, the door to the back hallway remained closed, with Rufus somewhere on the other side. It’s just not like him to turn away like that.
A mistake? Just the thought of the word caused this morning’s bagel to sink in Paige’s stomach.
It couldn’t be. She checked everything so carefully now. Please no. She jerked open the file of yesterday’s prescriptions and flipped through it, one white rectangle of paper at a time. The doctors’ black scribble varied in legibility, form, and neatness, but her own blue-inked initials beside the date and the drug manufacturer remained constant. She checked and rechecked what she’d written, looking for any hint of a slip. There was nothing. Of course there wasn’t.
She allowed no room for error in her work. None. Never again.
At nine o’clock, Rufus emerged from the back hallway, unlocked the front door, and edged toward the pharmacy. He began to twirl a ring of keys in his hands, the keys jingling through repeated somersaults. Why wouldn’t he look at her? “Paige, there’s something I need to tell you.”
“Something to tell me?” She adjusted the lapel of her lab coat. “Something like I’m off probation, I hope.”
He put the keys in his pocket and looked up, but not quite at Paige. “Oh, well, yes, of course you are. But there’s more to my news, unfortunately. Bad news.”
Paige didn’t want to hear any more. All that mattered to her was that she had completed her probationary period. She’d get a pay increase and full benefits. More important, she’d be returned to the ranks of the worthy for the first time since Atlanta.
Rufus tugged at his tie and shifted from side to side. Whatever it was, he obviously didn’t want to say it any more than she wanted to hear it.
“Out of my way. This is an emergency. I’m dying.” A shriveled woman in a filthy denim dress shoved Rufus aside and plopped her elbows on the counter. She pounded against her chest, coughed once, and pointed a bony finger at Paige. “I need you to give me one of these right now. I know all about the procedures, but give me a pill now, or I’ll be dead and all that paper work won’t matter.” She wheezed again, as if to illustrate the point.
Paige took the prescription from the woman’s hand. When she looked at the words scrawled in black ink, she took care to keep her face solemn. “Of course, Mrs. Stonehenge.”
She hurried to the metal shelves, found the right bottle of pills on the lowest shelf, and tapped out a single capsule, blue on one side, clear on the other to reveal the dozens of blue and white beads inside. She put the capsule into a paper cup and rushed back to the woman. “There’s some water just around the corner.”
“Humph, if I live that long.” Mrs. Stonehenge grabbed the cup from Paige’s hand and bulldozed a path toward the water fountain.
Paige avoided eye contact with Rufus and began hammering out the label on their ancient typewriter. The behind-the-counter door squeaked and Rufus came to stand beside her.
“One of the funding sources for the foundation just dried up. So . . . no raises this year. That means you’ll stay on probationary pay, even though you’re off probation. In fact, after next month’s budgetary meetings, everyone will likely take a pay cut.”
The homeless clinic offered a small enough salary as it was, and probationary pay was ten percent less. Don’t they understand that my mother has cancer and my parents can’t keep up with the bills? Don’t they understand that I’m just now digging out of debt from being unemployed? “They can’t do that.”
“This clinic is run by a private charitable foundation. They can do whatever they wish—including withdrawing all funding if it suits them. Given some of the rumors floating around here, I’d say we need to be grateful they’re still paying us at all.”
“Grateful? I have responsibilities. I need that money.”
“That’s the way life works. May as well accept that while you’re young, because it’ll only get worse by the time you’re my age.” He let himself out of the pharmacy without another word.
Mrs. Stonehenge returned, still thumping against her chest, but no longer wheezing. “Good thing that stuff works so quick. I thought I was a goner there for a minute.”
Paige forced herself to smile, although she felt her irritation rising. “I’m glad you’re feeling better.”
“Oh, child, just pray you never get as sick as I am.”
The woman walked away, carrying her bottle of placebos that she believed to be a miraculous heart remedy. Sometimes just a little positive thinking worked better than medicine. A good thing to keep in mind.
“I’ve been watching you work the last few weeks. You’re good with people.”
Paige startled, having forgotten all about the man with the measuring tape in the back of the pharmacy. She wondered how much of the conversation with Rufus he’d overheard. “It’s just part of the job.”
“Maybe so, but some people have a gift for it, and some people don’t. Name’s Lee, by the way.”
“I’m Paige.”
“Well, Paige, my granddaughter’s a pharmacist in Shoal Creek— she’s brilliant when it comes to all the medical stuff, but dealing with the public is not exactly what you’d call her strong suit. You should go to work for her, so she could learn by example.”
“What, and miss all this?”
He smiled as he pushed open the glass door that led to the lobby, then stopped at the customer counter. “You think about it over the weekend. I’ll be back sometime next week, we’ll talk more about it.”
Paige laughed to herself. She’d think about it, all right. How could she help but be charmed by the man who thought he could hire help for his granddaughter? She must be a very lucky girl to come from such a supportive family.