“I’m in a hurry.” The elderly man pulled on the straps of his overalls and rocked back and forth on his feet. “Could you make it quick?” His forehead creased with agitation, accentuating the lines baked into his skin by a lifetime of hard work in the hot sun.
Paige looked at the paper in her hand. “Mr. Pauling, is this a new medication for you, or have you been on it a while?”
He released one strap in order to slap his hand on the counter. “What’s it matter? Quit your blabbing, I ain’t got the time for it.”
Deep breath. Calm voice. Help him understand. “It matters because the doctor didn’t write the strength. If you know what you take, I’ll fill it now and confirm with his office later. If you don’t, I have to call now.”
“I know what I take—the strong one. It’s kind of pinkish-orangish.”
A tug began to pull in her gut. “Have a seat. I’ll get this as soon as I can.” She picked up the phone.
He leaned across the counter and drummed his fingers. “What’re you doing?”
Dawn came up behind her. “Why are you calling?”
Multiple rings sounded on the other end of the line. Paige pointed at the paper. “He doesn’t know what strength he takes.”
“He said the pinkish-orangish one. Can’t you figure it out from that and get him and his scowling face out of here?”
The phone line finally clicked. “Dr. Janke’s office, hold please.”
Did no one else understand what was at stake here? Paige shook her head at Dawn. “Ten milligram propranolol tablets are orange, sixty milligram are pink. I think that’s too big a difference to guess at, don’t you?”
“Thanks for holding, can I help you?”
Paige explained the situation to the receptionist, who sounded bored with the whole thing. “I’ll need to transfer you to the nurses’ station. One minute please.”
Before Paige had a chance to argue, Barry Manilow was singing about a girl named Mandy.
Paige pulled two bottles off the shelf, ten milligrams and sixty.
She counted out sixty of each pill so that she would be ready for either answer, and get Mr. Pauling’s tapping fingers off her counter that much faster.
The nurse came on the line. Paige repeated the question.
“Let me find the chart. Just a minute.”
Mr. Pauling leaned across the counter, his face red. “Are you going to fill my prescription or not?”
“Almost got it.” She turned her back toward him. His attitude was too much to handle so early in the morning. Didn’t he understand she was going out of her way to make certain he got the right medication? Why should conscientious service make people angry?
Three more minutes ticked past. The music stopped. “Sixty milligrams.”
“Thanks.” Paige’s fingers flew across the keyboard. She rushed to the printer, tore off the label, placed it on the bottle, then opened it to double-check the contents. “Sorry about that, Mr. Pauling. Now that we’ve got you in our system, we’ll know next time.”
He pulled out his insurance card. “Forgot to give you this.”
She would have to redo everything. Her stomach felt like it was caught between a mortar and a pestle, turning her insides to a powdery dust.
The phone rang. She grabbed it up and put it on hold, frantically typing in the numbers from Mr. Pauling’s insurance card. Two more calls came in rapid succession. Five minutes later, she got everything entered and collected his co-pay.
“ ’Bout time.”
Paige attempted to smile at him, but it felt more like a grimace. “Sorry for the delay.”
He stalked down the aisle, almost crashing into a just-arriving Clarissa and her latté. He stopped, pointed back toward Paige, and spoke loud enough for the entire store to hear. “Slowest service I’ve ever had. She’s just plain incompetent.”
Paige barely managed to gulp back the gasp. She busied herself putting away the bottles, but wanted to find a corner and cry.
Clarissa came behind the counter, her lips twitching at the corners. “What was that all about?”
“There wasn’t a strength on his written prescription, so I had to call the doctor. He handed me his insurance card after the fact.”
“Yeah, I’m sure he’s just a grumpy old coot.”
Something about the gleam in Clarissa’s eye made Paige more than a little uncomfortable.