Her second day on the job, Paige returned from lunch determined to keep up the pretense of being perfectly happy in this unwelcoming place. Surely her co-workers would come to accept her presence here eventually.
Clarissa was standing at the counter, talking to a woman who had just approached with a prescription in her hand. “Mrs. Mag-nusen, this prescription is not from your regular doctor, is it?”
“Nah, I just went to the walk-in clinic so I could be seen right away. Why, something wrong?”
“Did you tell the doctor you saw today anything about your past medical history?”
“No. The nurse gave me that fill-in sheet with all those check-a-box questions.”
“Did you mark ‘yes’ beside kidney disease?”
“Um, well, now that you mention, I think I got so busy going down the list and marking no, I might have forgotten.”
“Let me call them for you. I think they’ll probably want to decrease the dose. Have a seat.”
Clarissa walked around behind the counter, dialed some numbers, and waited. “Yes, this is Clarissa at Richardson Apothecary. I’ve got Susie Magnusen here right now and she’s got a prescription for Cipro 750 every twelve hours. I wonder if Dr. Stone is aware that Mrs. Magnusen has kidney disease?” Clarissa rolled her eyes as she waited in silence. Paige guessed the nurse was trying to track down the doctor.
“Hello, Dr. Stone. Yes, according to her primary care physician Susie Magnusen’s creatinine clearance is down around twenty. Do you want to change her Cipro strength to 250? Yes. Yes. Thank you.” Clarissa marked out the 750 mg and changed it to 250 mg, then began counting out the pills.
Mrs. Magnusen came to the counter. “Everything okay?”
“Yes. Make sure you always mention your kidney issues to a doctor you’re seeing—especially when it’s outside your usual clinic. The good news is, he cut your dose, which will cost you less. So, how about that?” She rang up the purchase and handed Mrs. Magnusen her prescription.
“Thank you so much, young lady.” Mrs. Magnusen walked out beaming.
Paige looked at Clarissa, amazed at what she’d just seen. “How did you know about the renal disease?”
“Last month her physician called about renal dosing of some of her other meds. I noted it in the computer.”
“Yeah, but you hadn’t even been back to the computer yet when I walked in, you were still at the counter.”
Clarissa shrugged. “I just remembered, that’s all.”
The same way that she’d remembered that Cipro’s dosage needed to be adjusted without the computer warning her. Paige realized that whatever else she might be, Clarissa was one smart pharmacist. Once they got past the bumpy start, she’d be a great person to learn from.
Paige said, “Well, now that you’ve gotten that all taken care of, why don’t you take a lunch? With Dawn here, I can handle it.” Even though Paige still felt very awkward in this new place, Dawn was a proficient tech in every aspect of the word. Maybe this gesture would help bridge the gulf.
Clarissa looked toward Dawn, then back at Paige. “I’ll do a quick sandwich out front.” She looked at Dawn. “I’ve got my cell. You know the drill.”
Paige watched Clarissa walk out and tried to make small talk with Dawn. “So, did you grow up around here?”
“Yeah.”
“Your family still here?”
“Yeah.”
Paige couldn’t force the girl to talk no matter how awkward it was, so thankfully there were several refills to keep her occupied. Paige kept telling herself it would just take a little time, that’s all. This time next week, they would all laugh that there had ever been a problem.
An older woman in a gardening hat and faded jeans entered the store, carrying a prescription bag. Paige walked down to meet her at the counter. “May I help you?”
The woman removed the plastic vial from the bag. “Hope so. I picked up the refill of my blood thinner a while ago, and the pills aren’t the same color they usually are.”
The strangest sense of detachment came over Paige. She saw herself lean forward, heard herself speak. “Really? Let me see.”
The woman handed her the bottle. This other Paige, the one who moved like a robot, performed tasks but felt nothing, looked at the label. Clarissa’s initials were printed in the corner. Inside the bottle rested pills that were supposed to be warfarin 2.5 mg but weren’t. Paige felt herself lift her head to look at the customer.
“See, they’re purple. Mine are usually green.”
Thankfully, this new Paige kept her composure, smiled calmly, spoke in a soothing voice. “Just one minute, Mrs. Harris, let me see what I can find out. Have you taken one of these?”
“No, I always take ’em at bedtime. Don’t know why I even looked at ’em, but I did.”
Paige could not look at Dawn when she came behind the counter, went to the shelves, and got the warfarin 2.5 mg bottle. She poured the green tablets onto the tray and counted a double portion for good measure. She put them in the bottle and fastened the safety lid in place. There, now everything was fixed as good as new.
She went back to the counter, a cheerful smile on her face. “Here you go, Mrs. Harris. I have your green pills ready for you. I gave you an extra month’s supply for free to make up for the inconvenience of having to come back in.”
“What happened? Did I get the wrong stuff?”
Paige put the bottle into the bag in the woman’s hand. “Nothing like that. Sometimes the manufacturers try a new color. In this case, they did, and found out all their patients were upset, so they switched it back. It should always be green from now on, but don’t ever hesitate to come back with questions like that.” This new Paige, the detached one, felt no remorse at all for the lie. It was simply something that had to be done—for everyone’s sake.
Mrs. Harris smiled. “Thank you, young lady. And thanks for the free month’s supply. Every little bit helps when you’re living off your retirement.” She walked out of the store, seemingly unfazed.
Dawn stared at her, mouth open. “Why did you tell her that? About the color change?”
Only now did any hint of the old Paige return. It started with the smallest twinge, nothing really. But as each second ticked past, it grew into an ache, then an all-out stabbing pain inside her.
“I . . . it . . . I’ll be right back.” Paige ran into the bathroom and locked the door behind her. She stared at the girl in the mirror, wondering who she was. Where had this person come from? This person who so coolly told lies, who hid truths from the people she worked with. Actually, it was obvious where this person had come from. She had been created. Created by the very system that had ruined her life, the system that she now felt no remorse about working outside of. She took a few deep breaths and walked back into the pharmacy, head held high.
Clarissa stood waiting at the counter, watching her. “Dawn told me what you did—that you covered up for me.”
Paige shrugged. “I knew she’d be all upset if she knew she’d gotten the wrong thing. Fact was, no harm was done. It was Coumadin 2.0 in the bottle.” And what was half a milligram of difference? The increased chances of stroke or heart attack would have been slight. . . . Okay, even if the decreased dosage did pose a significant risk, fact was, the lady hadn’t taken any. End of story. “I figured a little fib wouldn’t hurt.”
Clarissa nodded. “Thank you. I . . . was distracted when Dawn filled that a little while ago, I didn’t check it as carefully as I should have. I’ve never had a mistake come back before.” She toyed with a piece of paper on the counter, then looked up at Paige again. “Really, I know I haven’t exactly been overflowing with warmth toward you since you’ve been here—and it’s nothing personal. It’s just that, well . . .”
“I understand.”
“Why would you have done that? For me?”
Paige looked out through the store. “You’re a good pharmacist. I’ve seen that already. I knew a pharmacist once—a good one. A single mistake combined with a greedy lawyer cost her everything. I don’t want to see that happen to someone else.” Paige stared at the computer screen, and the world around her faded away into the world in which she lived not so very long ago. Still in Atlanta, still working at Sharitz HMO, still without a blemish on her record. The scene became so clear she could hear the voices as if they were still speaking.
“Paige, will you check these for me? Joanna’s caught up with a patient at the counseling window.”
“Sure.” Paige had nodded at Lacy, the pharmacy technician, and walked to Joanna’s computer station. A half-dozen prescriptions lined the counter, a stock bottle beside the handwritten order, and a pharmacy vial with label attached beside that. Paige picked up the first and compared the stock bottle to the label, the label to the written prescription, and then opened the vial to make certain the correct tablets were inside. “Perfect.” She put the vial in the bag and put it on the outgoing shelf.
“Phone call for a pharmacist.”
Paige picked up the phone, tucked it between her ear and shoulder, and checked the next prescription in line. “This is Paige Woodward, may I help you?”
“This is Dr. Webb’s office. A couple of prescriptions to call in.”
“Just one second.” Paige dropped the next vial in the bag and slid an empty prescription blank across the counter. “Okay, ready.”
“The first one is for Mark Schalesky, for medrol—”
“How do you spell that last name?” She scribbled the information as quickly as she could while the technicians and other pharmacists bustled around her.
“Need a pharmacist consult at the window,” one tech called from the front. Another tech called from the back, “I need a pharmacist back here to check these refills.”
It was a mad rush and when she made it back to her computer monitor, Paige found a row of refills waiting to be checked and a folded piece of paper on her keyboard. She opened the paper to find:
EMERGENCY MEETING
TONIGHT,
IMMEDIATELY AFTER SHIFT CHANGE.
FIRST FLOOR CONFERENCE ROOM.
ALL PHARMACISTS MUST ATTEND.
She looked at a colleague who was working at her counter. “What’s this all about?”
The woman shrugged. “Got me. One of the administrative assistants came in with a whole stack of these—gave me one, left that one for you, put one in Carl’s mailbox.”
“I wonder what’s so important that it won’t hold until the monthly wrap-up next week.”
“Whatever it is, I hope they make it quick. The last thing I want to do after work is spend more time here, locked in some boring meeting.”
Paige agreed. She had a dinner date with Brian in an hour, and she didn’t want to rush to get ready. Somehow, though, given the suddenness of the meeting, she doubted tonight’s subject would be boring.
“Paige, you still with us?” Clarissa laughed as she waved her hand before Paige’s face.
“Yeah, sorry. Spaced out there for a minute.”
“No problem. I was just about to show you how to run the end-of-day reports.”
“Let’s get to it.” Paige glanced again at the bottle of Coumadin 2.0 mg on the counter. She looked at the bins of refills awaiting pickup, and every nerve in her body twitched with the need to double check the whole lot.
Relax. She said it was her first mistake. It was the wrong strength of the right drug, for crying out loud. None was taken, no blood clots formed. Stop worrying about what could have been.
There was worry enough in what had already been.