Big Easy Bonanza

Trauma 7, with its almost cheerful clutter. This place was too white, too stark, and she was moving; her whole body was on some kind of track, moving through a white arch. And it was so terribly cold here.
    “Skip? Skip, can you hear me?” It was a woman in a white coat—doctor, nurse, or technician.
    “This isn’t Charity.”
    “Yes, it is. You’re fine. You’re okay. We’re just doing a CT scan to make sure there’s no bleeding and no fracture.”
    Fracture! There probably was one, the way it hurt. She realized the pain was what was making her so sleepy—or not the pain itself, but the need to get away from it. Okay, enough of that. She knew that phrase “extreme drowsiness,” and what it meant with head injuries. It meant “serious,” maybe even “life-threatening.” This wasn’t that kind of injury. She concentrated on waking up.
    The white-coated woman said, “It looks fine. We’re going to do a couple of other evaluations—neurology and ophthalmology—and then I think we can send you home.”
    They sent her back to Trauma 7 first and left her there for a long time. At least she was warmer there.
    A man popped his head in. “Skip? I’m Dr. Saul. How’re you feeling?”
    “What’s your first name?”
    He looked confused. “Uh—Gilbert. Why?”
    “I’m feeling fine, Gilbert.”
    He looked even more mixed-up.
God!
She thought,
I wonder if you have to have an IQ in three figures to get through medical school.
“There’s—um—someone here to see you. Do you feel—?”
    The man couldn’t seem to recover from having his title stripped off—or maybe he was always a wimp. Being the daughter of a doctor—to her mind, the consummate phony—she hadn’t a moment’s patience with anyone in the profession. Damn, her head hurt. Maybe the visitor was her father. Would they have notified next of kin? Oh, God, of all people she didn’t want to see. “Who is it?” she said.
    But too late. A face appeared over Gilbert’s shoulder. A handsome Irish face, the face of a pushy cop who didn’t mind shouldering his way through sacred medical bastions and into trauma rooms where he had no business.
    She said, “Oh, shit. Not you.”
    O’Rourke said, “We were worried about you, Langdon. Silly of us, wasn’t it? You got a hard head.”
    Gilbert fled.
    “I think it was real sweet. Where’s Joe?” She could have bitten back the last two words the moment she said them—maybe she was just falling into their little Mutt-and-Jeff trap.
Oh, face it, you’re already in too deep to get out.
The reality was, she’d love to see Joe right now.
    “On his way.”
    “Would you mind leaving me alone for a little while?”
    “I just wanted to be sure you’re your usual bitchy self.” He turned and left. She heard his quick angry steps retreating and thought,
What’s wrong with him?
But she knew what it was. She had hurt his feelings.
    Goddamn! Why was she supposed to nursemaid some asshole who was nothing but nasty to her while her head hurt like this? She wanted to drift off again, but out of stubbornness—O’Rourke would have said bitchiness—she stayed awake.
    Several centuries later, after sessions with the neurologist and the ophthalmologist, she was given a final evaluation and sent home, with instructions: Come back if she suffered vomiting, noticed the famous extreme drowsiness, or had trouble moving her extremities. And have someone wake her every hour to make sure she was properly oriented.
Oh, great. Who?
she thought.
O’Rourke?
    He was waiting with Tarantino to take her home. Tarantino hugged her, giving her a sustaining whiff of that comforting male smell they all had. She had wondered sometimes if it was a pheromone but thought it couldn’t be; it relaxed instead of aroused. “You okay?”
    “Pretty much. It still hurts, but you can’t do anything for it. Can’t drink. Can’t take codeine or anything. Only aspirin.”
    “Concussion?”
    “Yeah, but that’s all. No fracture.”
    “We’ll take you home, okay? I’ll get the car.”
    She was left with O’Rourke for a few minutes. Did that mean anything? If they were really Mutt-and-Jeffing her, surely they would have had enough sense to have Joe stay with her. In her weakened condition, there was no telling what she might say. She wanted to lean on someone large and strong, but certainly not on Frank O’Rourke. He said, “Langdon, you better sit down.” But where they were standing, in the waiting room part of the