The Dog Year Page 2

  Lucy exhaled. “Listen, patients will use slang. Boobs, knockers, hooters, cans, whatever. Usually not tits though. Tits are crude and smack of strippers.” He swallowed and looked around the room. There was a poster on manual breast examination on his right. He glanced away.

  Lucy squinted at him. “Orthopedics, huh? I’ve told Stanley to rotate you people through proctology first. After you do sphincter work, a few knockers are nothing.” Lucy moved to the door and touched the handle.

  He frowned and said, “Excuse me, but don’t we do a psychology consult for some of that stuff?”

  “Oh my God, seriously?” Lucy dropped her hand and turned, blocking the med student’s way. “That woman in there knows that she no longer needs to accommodate her breasts when hugging friends, carrying groceries, or feeding a child. Her scars and the sympathetic look in her husband’s eyes will only cement those facts. Some of us know what it’s like to lose their entire world in an afternoon. In this rotation, I decide your future. Do you need a lesson in loss?”

  For probably the first time in his life, the medical student standing there was without experience or answers. Lucy took a deep breath and softened her voice. “Here’s the thing, Blake. Breast reconstruction is all about remembering three things. Number one, nobody wants a belly that sticks out farther than their breasts. Two, women don’t entirely equate breasts with sex but they know men do. And three, given the choice between having a man or having breasts, in most cases the man might not make out so well in that competition. Women reconstruct for themselves.”

  She stared at the medical student until he dropped his eyes. “Wow,” he said.

  Lucy closed her eyes and said, “Yeah, Dr. Phil. Wow. Now go do your write-up.”

  Back at the nurse’s station, Melissa pulled her head up from her notes.

  “Did you set him straight?”

  Lucy shook her head. “For one glorious minute maybe, but not for life.”

  “He’ll get better. Most of them do after this rotation.”

  “I guess. It’s exhausting work, training a person to be human.”

  “Maybe he should try being a human for Halloween. It’d be a stretch. Nobody would be able to guess his costume.”

  Melissa offered Lucy a piece of candy from a plastic jack-o’-lantern sitting on the desk and said, “You’re coming, right?”

  Lucy looked away. “Yes. Well, maybe. But I have another party I have to make an appearance at.”

  “Dr. Peterman. You’re lying and you know it.”

  Lucy pursed her lips and tried a feeble, “I’m not. My brother . . .”

  “Your brother called and said all was clear for you to go. Look, I know it’s hard, with Richard gone.”

  Lucy raised her head at the mention of her husband’s name. Her Richard. He’d been the kind of guy that women overlooked—not because he was unattractive, but because he was just a brown-haired guy with a kind face. When Lucy described him to people, she’d say, “He’s one part Matt Damon and three parts that plain guy you don’t mind sitting next to on an airplane because you know he’ll help you with your luggage and otherwise leave you alone.” The Matt Damon part was on the inside but was the only part Lucy could see. Richard was everything to her. He was the social one. He carried her through parties, dinners, and balls like a Ford pickup hauls a pop-up camper on Memorial Day. He made sure she had no lipstick on her teeth, whispered reminders of spouse’s names in her ear, and carried on a breezy running commentary at any party they attended together. It was the small talk that wore her down. She just couldn’t do it. Didn’t have it in her. Like any good surgeon, she either went right to the center of a person or deflected him with humor. There was no in between. That’s just who she was. “I can get to work,” she said to Melissa. “That’s what I can do. I don’t want to go to a Halloween party. I don’t want to smile like I’m happy, make conversation about the weather, or meet new people.”

  Melissa put her hand on Lucy’s shoulder but Lucy pulled away gently.

  “Look,” she said, “it’s not your job to take care of me. And my brother’s job is to just shut up.”

  Melissa rolled her eyes. “It most certainly is my job to take care of you. We don’t have to be friends. God forbid,” she added dramatically. “But this place pays me to watch over you.”

  “Only during office hours.”

  Melissa stared unblinking across the nurse’s station.

  “All right already. I’ll try to come to the party.”

  Triumphant, Melissa saluted Lucy and said, “It’ll be fun. You’ll see. Now carry on, Doctor. Your minions need a tune-up. I’ll see you tonight.”

  * * *

  The amber light of the fall day morphed to the purple black of late evening as Lucy shrugged on her wool coat. She glanced in the mirror on the back of her office door and touched her hair, trying to smooth the frizz that had escaped her careful blowout. Even with piles of product, her naturally curly hair regained its shrubbery appearance the second a drop of moisture met even one follicle. Opening her carefully folded, empty lunch bag, she filled it with the contents of her lab coat pockets: a handful of packaged needles, several gauze pads, three rolls of tape, two suture kits, and a small 250-cc IV bag.

  In the hall, Lucy moved through the less-traveled avenues to the front entrance, avoiding the cafeteria, where workers had hung a banner—THE NIGHT OF THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS—printed in bleeding-red paint. Black and orange balloons and streamers decorated its edges.

  Spotting a colleague click-clacking down the hall toward her, Lucy veered into the restroom. As the door closed, the handle caught the lab coat she’d gathered in her arms and yanked it and her lunch bag to the floor.

  Rushing to gather the dropped supplies, with footsteps echoing in her ears, she watched a roll of tape bounce behind the toilet bowl. Scrambling to retrieve it, she bumped her head on the ceramic sink just as the sound of the footsteps retreated.

  Pressing her hand to her head, her eyes filled with tears. She allowed one fat tear to escape, feeling it slowly traverse from her lower lash to her cheekbone to her chin. Sniffling, she wiped her face with the crumpled white coat still in her arms and stuffed the hospital supplies back into the wrinkled brown paper bag. Then she yanked open the door and headed straight for the exit, counting in her head. Five, four, three, two. Just before the electronic doors opened, she pitched the filled bag into the garbage next to the entrance.

  The security guard tipped his hat to her, “Two points, Dr. Peterman.”

  Lucy was startled to see law enforcement so close to her. “And the crowd goes wild,” she deadpanned.

  Finally, safely ensconced in her car, exhausted after a day of playing a saint, she drove home to turn herself into an original sin.

  2

  If You’re Happy and You Know It

  A spray of leaves—yellow, brown, and red—swirled on the sidewalk of Med One Hospital and Clinics like a litter of dogs chasing their tails. Lucy pulled her coat closer to her neck and looked at her brother, Charles.

  “Don’t make me go in there.”

  A laughing couple ran past the car in a flutter of black fabric. The woman had a witch’s hat perched on her head. Two people swathed entirely in green—skin included—stopped to kiss under the hospital overhang, then dashed inside.

  “I’m not making you do anything.”

  “I hate how they look at me.” Lucy shook her head. “I should have driven.”

  “Exactly why I’m here. You’d weasel out.”

  A man with a toilet seat around his neck and a zombie mask looked in the front window and jogged on.

  Charles said, “You gotta admit, this year’s party is better than last year’s. That ‘Come as Your Favorite Dead Person’ theme was the epitome of bad judgment for a trauma center.”

  Lucy smiled at the memory. “It was a fun party though.
Richard as Marilyn Monroe. That wig.” Lucy looked down at her hands.

  “Look, make your costume work for you. Put on your Road Rage license plate and get moving. Stage an uprising. It’s Saturday night!”

  “Be serious. Come with me.”

  “I’ll be back in two hours. Have a drink. Be nice to people. Make some friends.”

  Lucy looked outside and watched as the car’s rising exhaust swirled and disappeared into the night. Charles’s voice softened. “It might help to talk to someone about it, you know.”

  “No way, Charles.”

  He leaned across Lucy and opened the latch on the car door. “I love you. You’re stalling. Now get going.”

  An October wind hit Lucy full in the face. She grabbed the mesh John Deere hat on her head and threw it into the backseat. “See, even the wind thinks this is a bad idea.”

  Charles retrieved the hat and jammed it back onto his sister’s head. Then he pointed to the front door of the hospital. “Go.”

  * * *

  Lucy dragged herself through the large revolving doors into the hospital’s atrium, and a security guard appeared from behind his kiosk. “Hey, Joe,” Lucy said, smiling.

  “Dr. Peterman. Have a nice evening. And stay out of trouble, okay?”

  “No promises,” she said.

  Richard used to shake hands with the guards every day. Where most people treated security as if they were somewhat invisible doormen Richard did not. He put everyone in the category of equal, and everyone got the same treatment. She thought of his handshake and his strong forearms, developed from years of surgery. Thoughts of her beloved husband dissipated when Melissa shimmied over, straightening her pillow hat and the blanket wrapped around her hips. “Well, look who decided to party with the sinners.”

  “Like I had a choice. Why is this happening a week before Halloween, anyway?”

  “We get to party twice then.”

  “Ugh. Great. What sin are you?”

  “Check out my quiver,” Melissa said, pulling a toy bow-and-arrow set off her shoulder. Red construction paper hearts with LUST printed on each one were attached to all the suction-cup arrows.

  “Nice.” Lucy smiled and removed her coat to reveal a sleeveless flannel shirt and a faux tattoo on her upper arm that read, AN EYE FOR AN EYE.

  “Wrath, huh? I bet your med student would agree.”

  The two women moved down the hall toward the thrumming music and chatter. “I’m not staying long,” Lucy said.

  “I know you’re not a drinker, but let’s get you some alcohol. Just this once.”

  Another partygoer dressed as Wrath and holding an I’M MAD sign, handed Lucy a large red plastic cup filled with something fruity and pulpy. Melissa waved to someone across the room and said, “I’ll be back.” Taking Lucy’s coat with her, she disappeared into the crowd. Lucy finished the sweet tasting liquid in one long drink.

  The cafeteria was in full bloom. Sinners of all shapes and sizes milled around casually, eating spider cookies and tombstone cupcakes. Orange and black balloons and streamers floated among the partiers. A man in an inflated sumo wrestler suit, with an ALL YOU CAN EAT sign under his arm and GLUTTONY stamped on his forehead, chatted with a woman wearing a sandwich board painted to look like a bankbook, with GREED written on each line. Fixing her Monopoly money headpiece, she nodded at Lucy. The heavy base of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” thumped the room.

  “Dr. Peterman!”

  Lucy froze. Charise Schaefer, the wife of the chief of cardiology, Buddy Schaefer, was dressed in a double-knit pants suit and carrying a bulging purse filled with medals, trophies, and ribbons, and sidled up to her. “Don’t you look precious,” she said. “I’m having the after-party at our house.” She wedged an orange flyer into Lucy’s hands, with the words Halloween’s-a-comin’ in Comic Sans printed next to a winking jack-o’-lantern holding a martini. “What do you think of my costume?” She twirled. “I’m Pride, aka Mary Lou Retton’s mother.” On top of the stack of party fliers she held was an eight-by-ten of Mary Lou glued to a Wheaties box. “You know,” she burbled, “Mary Lou was always extremely flexible, even as a baby. They say she has my smile.”

  Overwhelmed, Lucy said, “I . . . great.”

  “That settles it. You’ll come to our house after this.” Charise widened her eyes. “I have someone for you to meet,” she added. “He’s totally delish. A doctor like you. He’s around here somewhere, wearing the most fabulous sloth costume. Has one of those beer-can hats on.” As she scanned the crowd for Lucy’s Miller-Lite-Man-of-her-dreams she said, “I’m a widow, too, and when my first husband died I got right back on that horse—and now look at me. A newlywed at forty-five. Now where is that man?”

  Lucy said, “I’m going to make a quick visit to the restroom. I’ll catch up with you.” She jogged in the opposite direction of the bathrooms, stopping to fill her cup from another sin-manned drink station.

  “So, Wrath Peterman, what do you think?” Stanley Menken, the hospital’s director, sidled up to Lucy and opened his coat like a flasher in a back alley. He wore long underwear, and the inside of his coat was lined with see-through plastic pockets containing condoms, money, pill bottles, candy, and bullets. Pinned to his lapel were several soccer- and hockey-team buttons. “Each of the seven sins is represented by a pocket. I’m all of the sins combined. Clever, right? For the guy in charge?”

  Lucy lifted her Nerf gun and shot a foam bullet at his forehead.

  “Hey. Are you dissin’ my genius?”

  “Genius is one word. I prefer ‘narcissist.’”

  Stanley ignored her. “Marion is here, too. She’s in a French maid costume. Ooh la-la.”

  Lucy grimaced. “Gross, Stanley. Friends or boss, I don’t want to think about you and your wife dressing up as anything other than doctors.”

  “Speaking of Marion, she wants to get our progressive dinner party schedule back on the calendar. She’s got some new desserts she wants to try out.”

  Lucy looked away and drank a large gulp of her punch. The music filled the space between them. Stan closed his coat. “It’s time, Lucy,” he said more quietly.

  “Who says?”

  Stan took a step back and said, “Talk to Marion. She’s got some great ideas.” Another physician dressed as Gluttony stopped to chat. As he and Stan made conversation, Lucy rested her back against the wall and let their talk about work weave around the music, laughter, and noise of the party. She leaned to the side and filled her cup. Stan said, “Right, Luce?”

  “What? Sorry?”

  “Your husband, Richard, had the best technique of anyone. Even in med school. That SOB showed me up every damn time.”

  “Me, too,” she said.

  “No he did not. You two were a couple of perfectionist peas in a pod.” Lucy took another sip and Stan said to Gluttony, “The two of them schooled the entire staff.” She closed her eyes and stopped listening. When she opened them again, Stan and Gluttony were staring at her.

  “What?”

  “You better slow down with whatever you’re guzzling there, Lucy. The night is still young.”

  Gluttony lifted his cup. “Nah, sin away, baby. Bottoms up!”

  Lucy drank. When she’d finished, she said, “Nobody likes a sober sin, Stanley. I’m going to find Melissa.” Dodging the crowd, she weaved around partygoers, looking for her friend, and her coat.

  Elyse Dietrich, an X-ray technician and the daughter of one of Lucy’s patients, touched Lucy on her shoulder. “Dr. Peterman. I’m so glad to see you. I’ve wanted to thank you in person for your careful work on my mother. So many people treat elderly women like they don’t deserve breast reconstruction because of their uncertain future. She says she feels like a million bucks because of you.”

  “You’re so welcome. Tell your mother hello from me,” she said. “Tell her tube tops are the
new housecoat for women of a certain age.”

  Elyse laughed. “I will.”

  “What sin are you?”

  “None, really. I didn’t want to scare my daughter.” She pointed to a name tag pinned to her Jackie O–style suit that read HELLO, MY NAME IS MRS. GOD, with a small halo dotting the i. “Gosh, these support hose itch like mad.” She scratched her leg and the Kleenex tucked up her sleeve fell to the floor along with a grocery list titled “God’s favorite foods.”

  Lucy’s face flushed as the alcohol hit her empty stomach and she noticed the wallet-sized photo of a small boy labeled JESUS IN 5TH GRADE fixed to Elyse’s pillbox hat. She took another gulp from her cup.

  “So do you have any children?” Elyse asked.

  “Almost,” she said quietly, tripping over her words. “No, I don’t. Your husband, Mr. God, has decided there will be no children for Lucy Peterman. Maybe you could put in a good word with him. Tell him what a good job I did with your mother.” Taking another large drink from her cup, she said, “I’m kidding. Just trying to stay in character. How’d I do? Wrathful enough?”

  “Very convincing,” Elyse said. She touched Lucy on the arm. “It’ll happen. Just be patient. It took me a year to conceive.”

  Lucy closed her eyes, as her heart did a loop-de-loop fueled by alcohol and anxiety. When she opened them, Mrs. God was gone. It seemed as if once again, her prayers had been spoken aloud to invisible ears.

  The spiked punch, scenery, and noise created a mosaic of confusion and activity. A woman in a seersucker toga, holding a baby and an old Polaroid camera, her sin not entirely clear, approached Lucy.

  “Hi, Dr. Peterman.” The woman lifted her mask. “It’s Jeanie, from medical records. Could you hold my daughter?” Before Lucy could answer, the woman flopped a loose-limbed baby into her arms. “I couldn’t get a sitter but I wanted to come and take pictures. Can you believe how great everybody looks?” While Jeanie snapped photo after photo, the baby studied Lucy’s face. She rested her chubby hand on Lucy’s shoulder and stroked Lucy’s hair, winding her fingers into her curls. After a moment the baby sighed and rested her head on Lucy’s collarbone. Lucy closed her eyes and with the flash of the camera snapped them open again. “What a great shot,” said Jeanie. Bundling the baby out of Lucy’s arms and trading the infant for the photo, she bustled off.