Blue Like Elvis (15 page)

“It’s not enough
that my day started with my friend and pastor brought in by ambulance, fighting
for his life.” Her voice cracked. And even though I knew it was an exaggeration
(after all, Tucker had told me Dr. Love was upstairs laughing with his nurses),
I felt bad for her. I knew how close she was to Dr. Love and Elsie.

“It’s not enough
that I took care of an entire waiting room of church members, all of them
immersed in prayer on behalf of their beloved shepherd.” She blew her nose into
her handkerchief. “It’s not enough that I’d barely come back to the office
after making sure he was stable, when I heard about friends of mine who were here,
awaiting the birth of the daughter they were adopting, only to find out the
baby was stillborn . . . and then I lead that poor grieving
young couple into one of our sacred prayer rooms only to find the whole lot of
you in there, sacked out like a bunch of LAZY COWS!”

Her voice echoed
in our office. I felt the first of my tears break free. If only the floor would
open and swallow me whole. All of us.

“How DARE you?”
she bellowed, her voice breaking again. “How dare you . . .”
This time she lost her voice altogether.

We all broke down,
the quiet sobs bouncing around the small room like one of those beach balls at a
rock concert. This was worse than awful. This was wretched.

She continued
pacing, wiping her nose, and obviously trying to compose herself.  After five
of the longest minutes of my life, she slowly took a seat, took a deep breath,
then leveled her gaze at us. “I’m so profoundly disappointed, I’m in absolute
shock here. What you don’t know—what I haven’t yet told you is that our program
is in trouble. With the current economic situation, there will be a lot of
employee cuts in the coming months. There are many programs a hospital simply
can’t survive without. Ours is not one of them.”

We took turns
looking at each other, startled by this unexpected news.
Did she mean what I
thought she meant? Could the hostess program be axed? Would Dr. Grieve’s pet
program be on the chopping block?

I hadn’t thought
things could get worse. I was so wrong.

“Right now, I can’t
even begin to think how to handle this . . . this absurd
situation you’ve put me in. So for now, I want you to gather your things and go
home. I need you to be out of my sight, because at this moment in time, you
disgust me.”

And with that, she
stood up and left the office.

You might think we
would’ve had a few things to say about what had just happened, but you’d be
wrong. In utter silence, we gathered our purses and went home.

Chapter 21

On our drive into
work on Tuesday, Sandra and I quickly discovered we had no tolerance for Rick
Dees and his craziness that morning. Sandra hadn’t been part of the crowd
lounging in Mindy’s prayer room yesterday, but she’d been there many times
before. She felt bad for me, but nowhere near as bad as I felt about myself. My
eyes were still pink and puffy from crying half the night. No amount of
Maybelline seemed to disguise the misery etched on my face.

Mrs. Baker wasn’t
in the office when we got there, though a half-empty cup of coffee was on her
desk along with her reading glasses. We quietly made our way to the back office
and put our things away. A lot of silent communication roamed the air as we went
about our regular routine, getting ready to go to work. I was just thankful
Mrs. B hadn’t returned by the time we left the office. The others made their
way to the cafeteria as always, but I had no appetite for breakfast. I quickly
hopped on the elevator to go to my floor.

When the elevator
stopped at Seven, I almost got off to go see Dr. Love until I realized that’s
most likely where Mrs. B was. I stepped back, thankful I hadn’t made that
blunder. I made a mental note to go see him later.

On Nine, I checked
in at the nurses’ station and went over the updated list of patients. Next, I
stopped by to see Donnie but the respiratory therapist was there working with
him. I told him I’d come back later. I made all my new patient visits and had
just started my revisits when I heard myself paged.

And I knew.

Ten minutes later
I entered one of the administrative conference rooms where Mrs. B, the other
prayer room slackers, and the rest of the hostesses had gathered. I said a
silent prayer, wondering if this might be my last day at BMH.

“Come in, Shelby.
Have a seat.” After I did so, she continued. “I’ll address my opening comments
to those of you I caught in the prayer room. But I’m well aware you seven aren’t
the only ones who’ve been lollygagging up there, so that’s why you’re all here.
As well as some announcements I need to make.

“But first, we
might as well clear the air. When you seven went home yesterday, I hope you had
time to think long and hard about what happened in that prayer room. I spent a
lot of time in prayer over it last night. It breaks my heart, girls, to think
that you have so little respect for your jobs that you would even consider
doing something like that. And after a few phone calls, I’ve learned it’s
hardly the first time.”

Uh oh.

“Apparently it’s
become quite a routine for most of you to hide out in that prayer room. As I
searched my soul last night, I tried to understand why any of you thought that would
ever
be an acceptable thing for you to do. Of course, there is no answer
because it’s completely unacceptable. When I think about the trust and
responsibility you’ve been given by this hospital and by Dr. Grieve himself, it
literally makes me sick.”

She didn’t sound
mad, which surprised me. She sounded resolute. Which could be very, very bad. I
closed my eyes as she continued.

“That said, I
suppose part of this is my fault. I gave you girls complete and total freedom
to do the job you were hired to do. I’ve never checked up on you, and I’ve
never asked the staff on your floors how were you doing. Why? Because I thought
I could trust
you.

“Clearly I was
wrong. So here’s what I’ve decided to do. Starting today, I will begin a
systematic routine of checking up on each and every one of you. Systematic, in
that I’ll cover every floor, but you will never know when I might show up on
your
floor. You will never know when I might stop in a patient’s room to see if he
or she has had a hostess visit. You will never know when I might have a little
chat with your floor staff to see how you’ve been doing.”

Oh my goodness.
I swallowed hard.

She held up her
hand. “I realize by these actions, I’ll be treating you like irresponsible
children instead of young adults. But let’s be honest. You give me no choice.”

“Mrs. Baker,” Debra
interrupted. “I can’t begin to tell you how sorry we are. I don’t think any of
us got much sleep last night. We feel so badly about what’s happened.”

“I appreciate
that, Debra.”

“She’s right,” Chelsea
added. “It’s inexcusable. You have every reason to be ashamed of us. We’re
ashamed of ourselves.”

We all murmured in
agreement.

“Be that as it
may,” Mrs. B said, “I have no choice but to put you all on probation. For the
next month, your behavior while on the job must exceed my expectations, or I’ll
be forced to let you go. As I mentioned yesterday, I’m fearful our program may
soon be on the chopping block with all the upcoming budget cuts. At the very
least, we may have to reduce our number of hostesses. I’m fighting as hard as I
can to save your jobs—
our
jobs. But unless you all start stepping up and
performing the job you were hired to do, then I’ll be forced to let you go long
before those cuts come through.”

She looked around
the room, making eye contact with each of us. Again.

I couldn’t figure
out why we’d let ourselves slide back into such lazy habits. I loved my job. So
why did I take it for granted? Why did any of us?

“Now, I’ve said
what I had to say. But I want you to understand something. I know part of this
job involves simply waiting for pages from your patients. I also understand
that you can only visit your patients so many times, and if you have patients
who have family members with them, then your services aren’t as needed. I
really do understand that. Of course, that’s why I’ve always allowed you to remain
in the office once mid-afternoon rolls around. That’s why I’ve not insisted you
be present on your floors the entire time you’re here.

“As I was thinking
about all of this last night, I realized we may need to make some changes.
Perhaps, by having nothing to do at times, you’ve grown complacent. Some of you
rush through your visits and errands in order to zip down to the office to work
on your knitting or needlepoint. Or whatever. Perhaps I’m to blame for allowing
such complacency.”

Why do I have
the feeling things are about to change drastically in our little office?

“So I’m going to
talk to Vice President Evans about the possibility of expanding our
responsibilities in this hospital. I’m thinking we need to have a hostess
working in the ER waiting room. In the ICU waiting room. In the surgical
waiting rooms. We can add these to your responsibilities on a rotating basis.”

“Mrs. Baker, that’s
a great idea,” Leila said. We all stared at her, but I have to admit, I agreed.
Rather than just running errands, we could offer more assistance to those in
critical situations.

“Good. I’m glad
you think so. I hope you
still
think so when it’s your turn to work
third shift or on the weekend.”

“Whoa,” Debra said
below her breath. “Weekends?”

“Yes, weekends.
After all, that’s when there’s the greatest need in the ER. Of course, some of
you may prefer those shifts, giving you days off during the week. But we’ll
sort all that out later.

“Now, one more thing.
I’ve talked to Chaplain Perkins, and he’s agreed to begin meeting with us once
a week. I’ve asked him to lead us in a Bible study specifically focused on our
call to serve others. I think it’s time we all started taking the ministry God
has given us here at Baptist more seriously. Attendance will be mandatory, and
there will be homework involved. But more than anything, I hope it will give us
all a fresh new perspective about our jobs and the Lord’s expectations for each
and every one of us.

“Oh, and I will be
meeting with each of you individually in the next few days. A little one-on-one
time of sharing, if you will. I’d encourage you to do some serious thinking
about your job, your service, your attitude . . . and be
prepared to give me some darn good reasons why I should keep you on.”

She whisked around
the table and made her way to the door. “That’s all.”

After she left, we
sat there and tried to take it all in.

“Ouch?” Debra
whispered.

We all laughed
quietly. Actually, it wasn’t so much a “laugh” as a collective release of
nerves.

“Well, at least
she didn’t give us the ax,” Chelsea said. “Could’ve been a lot worse.”

“I don’t know
about you guys, but I think it’s a wake up call,” Mindy said. “She’s right. We’ve
all gotten really lazy. I think this is going to make us better. And I’m
actually kind of excited about the idea of working in the ER or the ICU, aren’t
you?”

A variety of
different reactions skittered around the table. Some shrugged their shoulders,
some nodded in agreement, and some weren’t so excited.

“I didn’t take
this job to work weekends,” Sandra piped in.

“Which is fine,
Sandra, because it sounds like the ones who want to can opt for those shifts,”
Leila said.

“You know, all
things considered, I’m relieved,” I said. “It’s like the air has been cleared.
Now we just have to regain her trust and prove to her we’re worthy of it again.”

Sandra patted me
on the back. “Well said, Shelby.”

“Well, all I can
say is, it’s about time.” And with that, Sarah Beth stood up and left the room.

After which, we
all had a good hard laugh.

Chapter 22

“So you basically
got your butt chewed, is that what you’re telling me?” Donnie rearranged the
blanket covering his legs.

“Oh, yeahhh,” I
groaned. “But we deserved it. Honestly, I can’t figure out why we all got so
lax in our jobs. Why would we do that?”

“Oh, don’t be so
hard on yourself. It happens. I remember taking our own sweet time back at Taco
Barn. Remember, when business was slow how we’d sit on the back counter,
munching on nachos and talking for hours?”

“Yeah, but then we
wouldn’t finish closing til two or three in the morning. How stupid was that?”

“Exactly. We were
young and stupid. And maybe you girls just fell back into young and stupid. It
is what it is. Stop beating yourself up.”

“That reminds me,
Donnie, you’ve never told me what kind of job you have. You said you were in
Memphis for a meeting when you had those chest pains. What kind of meeting?”

“I’m in hotel
management. I work for Holiday Inn.”

“Which explains
why you were in Memphis. Their headquarters is here.”

“Smart girl. I
just started in their PR department in January. I’m in the southeast division,
primarily the Florida panhandle. I moved to Tallahassee right after Christmas.”

“I can’t believe I
lost track of you so soon. Some friend I am.”

“Well, it goes
both ways. I haven’t kept in touch with much of anyone.”

There was a
sadness in his eyes which I didn’t quite understand. He caught me staring at
him.

“What?”

“I’m worried about
you.”

“Well, I’d hope
so. They just rooted around in my heart yesterday. I’d be worried if you
weren’t
worried.”

“No, not that. It’s
just that—you’ve changed. Something’s missing. I can’t quite put my finger on
it.”

He patted my hand
like I was a school girl. “And I suggest you keep those fingers to yourself or
I might have to report you to that mean devil boss of yours.”

I laughed. “She’s
not mean, but I’ll try to keep my fingers off you. Donnie, I’m serious. What’s
going on? Besides your heart condition. What have I missed that you’re not
telling me?”

He turned and looked
out the window. I waited.

“Life just gets
messy sometimes, Shelby. You know that.”

“You’re right. I
do. But what’s messed up your life?”

“Oh, it’s just this
heart thing. I wasn’t completely honest with you about it.”

“How so?”

“You remember my
sister, Megan?”

“Sure. Your twin.
Did you ever forgive her for choosing UT over Samford?”

He turned his gaze
back to me. “She died, Shelby. Last Thanksgiving day.”

“Donnie, no . . .
what happened?”

“To no one’s great
surprise, Megan had the same heart defect I have, only it affected her much
worse. Three days before Thanksgiving, she had a massive heart attack while at
work. They did the same bypass surgery I just had yesterday.” His face
crumbled. “Only she didn’t make it.”

I grabbed his hand
and held it tight as he wept. I couldn’t believe it. Beautiful Megan. So young
and full of life. She’d often visited her brother when we were at Samford, and
we loved having her around. She was every bit the comedian he was, maybe even
more so. The two of them together kept us entertained with a whole repertoire
of outrageously funny routines they’d performed for years.

“I’m so sorry. I
just can’t believe it. She was so young . . .”

“Much too young,”
he whispered, his voice husky.

“No wonder you
were so scared before your surgery. Why didn’t you tell me?”

He wiped his
tears. “I couldn’t talk about it. I was quite sure I wouldn’t survive the
surgery either. I told you I was terrified, but that didn’t come close to what
I was feeling. Losing Megan was like losing part of myself. I can’t seem to get
beyond it, to let her go.”

“But Donnie—”

“And I can’t
forgive God for taking her.”

I stopped,
clamping my mouth shut. Now it all made sense.
I’m not into the whole God
thing much anymore,
he’d said. He blamed God for not saving Megan’s life.

“All my life I’d
been told how great and loving God was,” he said quietly. “How He answered our
prayers. All those years of believing everything I heard, believing it all to
be true. All those mission trips, telling people how to trust Him and believe
in Him. Leading worship songs proclaiming how awesome He was and how He hears
the prayers of those who called Him Father. Yeah, well, where was He when
I
needed Him? When
I
begged Him to save my sister?”

“But surely you
know—”

“No, Shelby!”
Tears coursed down his face. “Surely I
don’t
know. All I know is when I
trusted Him to keep His promise, He wasn’t there. He was silent.
Deadly
silent.
When I needed Him most, He was nowhere to be found. And there’s no way you can
sit there with all those Christianese platitudes we all used to spew out to
anyone who would listen and tell me He’s real. He’s
not
real. It’s all a
big joke, Shelby. One big, ridiculously pathetic joke.”

I wiped my eyes,
trying to think what to say. All those answers on the tip of my tongue were the
exact ones he was talking about. Platitudes? Surely they were more than just
words. I’d had my doubts along the way. Doesn’t everyone? When I found out Will
had deceived me, it shook my faith hard. But that was more about trusting in
other people than my faith in God. Still, I hadn’t walked in Donnie’s shoes.
There wasn’t a single word I could say in this moment that wouldn’t sound like
a platitude, regardless of how sincerely I meant it.

I reached for his
hand and wrapped it in mine.
God, help me here. Want can I say?
What
would
You
say?

And before the
thought had even passed through my mind, I knew.

“I love you,
Donnie. I don’t know anything else to say. But I love you.”

He reached for a
Kleenex and blew his nose hard, grabbed another one and wiped the tears from
his face.

“You sure about
that?” he sniffed, his eyes still leaky. “Even if I’m a
God-forsaken
heathen
?”
he mimicked, using his best TV evangelist voice.

I matched his
mimic. “Even if you’re a
God-forsaken, wretched, pond-scum of a worm heathen
—can
I have an amen, brother?” I rasped. “Even then, I’ll always love you.”

He waved me toward
him and I gave him a smothering hug ending with a wet, slobbery kiss on his
cheek.

“I love you too,
Shelby.”

I stood back up
and dashed away the tear tracks on my face. “How much longer will you be here?
Have they told you yet?”

“No, not yet. The
doctors want to run more tests. And there’s some specialist from Vanderbilt
that’s coming in tomorrow to talk to me. Maybe they’ll do exploratory surgery
on my sad little thumper or put me on the heart transplant list.”

“Isn’t that still
rather experimental?”

“Well, yeah, but
what are my options? I can’t lie in this bed forever.”

I pursed my lips
and glared at him. “I don’t know, but maybe I’ll do some research.”

He rolled his
eyes. “Oh, good. I’ll rest so much easier knowing you’re digging into your Junior
Encyclopedia Britannica. Just remember, it’s spelled h-e-a-r-t.”

“Oh, gee, Donnie.
Thanks. And all this time I thought you spelled it c-r-e-e-p.”

“Go. Leave me. You’re
giving me heartburn in what’s left of my aching heart.”

I turned to go. “Yeah?
And how do you spell that—g-a-s?”

I ducked as he
threw his empty barf tray at me. It hit the door and clattered onto the floor.
I peeked back in and blew him a kiss.

“I’m calling your
boss, Colter. I have her number right here . . .”

I closed his door,
ignoring his threat.

When the door
tapped shut, I lost it. I ducked into the staff restroom and hid in a stall and
cried so hard I thought I would throw up. After last night’s weep-fest over the
whole prayer room mishap, I didn’t think I’d ever cry again. I was wrong. I
kept seeing Megan’s beautiful face and hearing her laughter bouncing around in
my head. I watched as Donnie and Megan performed one of their routines at our
Campus Crusade meeting, leaving us all gasping for air from laughing so
hard . . .

Megan. Gone.

And Donnie, scared
to . . . death.

Oh God, please
help me. Show me how to restore Donnie’s faith in You. Please break Your
silence.

I couldn’t stand the
emotional tsunami I seemed to be fighting. Had I really only been on the job a
few weeks? I felt like I’d been here years. I needed to learn how to handle all
of this better. How to be there for my patients—my friends—without falling
apart. I needed to be stronger. I needed to know how to respond in these
desperate situations.

But right now, I
mostly needed God to show me how to help Donnie.