The Dog Year (2 page)

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.

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
M
AD
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.

Lucy veered unsteadily into the supply closet behind the food table. The din of the party muted as she shut the door and plopped herself onto a large cardboard box. Gazing at the developing photo, like her dreams materializing in front of her on the tiny square, she saw herself holding the daughter that would not be hers.

She looked around the minty-green room. There were towers of wire-and-metal shelving, holding every kind of hospital supply imaginable. The fluorescent lighting blinked and hummed above her. She savored the way the supplies made her feel: clean, orderly, and calm. Here she had everything she needed in case of a medical emergency. She could stop bleeding, clear airways, hydrate, and keep shock at arm's length. Lucy slipped five rolls of bandage tape into her camouflage satchel. She ran a finger across a pile of suture kits and selected two, grabbed some IV tubing and a handful of syringes. Shoving the supplies into her bag, she stood on her tiptoes and eyed a package of specimen tubes.

“You hiding out, too?” asked a matronly woman dressed in green from head to toe as she emerged from behind the tall aluminum shelving.

Startled, Lucy jumped. “Oh! I thought I was alone.” She squinted at the woman and tried to discern if she had noticed her theft. “I had to get away from all those people, especially that one with the party fliers.”

The green woman said, “I know. If she had it her way, all employees would have to begin their shifts with a group hug and a facial.”

“No joke,” slurred Lucy. “If she had T-shirts made, they would read
IF YOU'RE HAPPY AND YOU KNOW IT, HUG AN INNOCENT BYSTANDER AND MAKE THEM MISERABLE.
”

“You're funny. I want your hair.”

“No you don't. Once Wisconsin humidity hits, it's all cartoon hair and mirror-avoidance techniques. Trying to tame my hair with any one product is like trying to save the ozone by reusing the occasional Ziploc baggie.”

“Hey, don't misunderstand me. I do like your hair, but I'm Envy. You know. We're supposed to act the part.”

“Oh. Of course; Envy.” Lucy shoved the photo she was holding into her shirt pocket and took another ill-advised sip from her cup. “So, Envy, what're you doin' in the closet?”

“This is my place.”

“Mine, too! I come here a lot.”

Lucy rested her head on the wall trying to stop the unhinged feeling in her head.