Lori Avocato - Dead On Arrival

Jagger started to talk more about work, trying to get her mind into focus, I assumed.

Every time she answered, she looked at me.

I caught Lieutenant Shatley looking at me and winking. He wanted me to get her into my confidence. Okay. I could do that. I’d worked psych before. And I’d worked neuro, so between the two, I should be able to get Pansy’s mind off the gang in the room and get her to tell us something.

Dano made a kind of groaning sound as if irritated, or more like it, impatient. I looked to see him edge his way toward the bed, kinda pushing Jagger out of the way.

Oh…my…God.

They looked at each other and remained calm, although I felt the tension.

“Hey, Pansy. It’s me, Dano. ER Dano.”

Suddenly I felt as if Pansy had just returned from Oz and the Tin Man, the Scarecrow and Lion Jagger were all re-introducing themselves to gain her confidence. Only thing was, in Oz Pansy would’ve only had to worry about a “non-waterproof” witch, where in Hope Valley, there was a potential killer on the loose.

She kept looking at me as she spoke, and I had to admit, she got a hundred percent of the answers-wrong. Didn’t know who the president was. Said the year was 1951, and although the guy was an enigma, she really didn’t know who ER Dano was, despite the longevity of his employment with TLC.

I looked at the men in the room and we collectively frowned. A few of them cursed.

“Pansy, do you know where you are?” I asked, hoping my femaleness might give me an upper hand over the guys.

She made a coughing noise. I checked her monitor and her heart rate and respirations were okay, although a little fast, which I chalked up to stress. Who wouldn’t be stressed with this gang in their room interrogating them right after they’d woken up from a few days of a deep sleep?

I waited until she calmed down and said, “That’s all right. How do you feel?”

She looked at me. “I’m fine, Pauline.”

My eyes widened at that lucid statement! Everyone in the room looked hopeful, so I continued on with my line of questioning. “Do you remember what happened to you?”

“Of course. What the hell are you all doing in those stupid outfits? Is it Halloween?” She started to chuckle and it turned into a cackle.

The hairs on my neck stood on end.

I gulped and felt myself being nudged from behind. Jagger. Natch. He’d had my back all right, but was pushing me forward as if the woman in the bed was some sweet young thing who’d just awakened like a harmless Sleeping Beauty.

I think the only time Jagger touched my back was to push me into something or someone.

I looked at Pansy, and her face contorted into a shape that made me remember the witch with the poison apple in Snow White.

Jagger nudged.

I turned around and said, “Stop that!” Again, Stella Sokol’s tone.

He didn’t look as if he were smiling under the mask. “Ask her.”

Oh, great. He wanted me to ask her who had stabbed her, which was the same as asking who had killed her precious clone of a brother. Yeah, right. My luck would be that Pansy would drift off into a self-induced coma in fear of her life.

So, I chatted more until she answered a few questions correctly. However, Dano looked at me and said, “Those are pretty generic. She could be just mumbling.”

“She might be,” Jagger interrupted with, “but we have nothing else. Go for it, Pauline. We could lose her again.”

Whoops. Pauline. Pauline. There it was. The serious tone. The serious name. The one word that got my knees knocking, and I stepped forward in some out-of-body experience and asked, “Who stabbed you, Pansy?”

She looked horrified. Then she turned toward me and spat!

Thank goodness for masks, I thought. “I didn’t mean to upset you, Pansy.”

She started to babble, and often I wasn’t even sure it was English. Visions of the Exorcist came to mind. She yelled. She screamed, and then she whimpered like a little child, all the while thrashing about and yanking on the IV tubing.

Tears streamed from her eyes, and she babbled on for a few more minutes.

I grabbed her hand and released the IV tubing so she wouldn’t pull it out. “We need to leave,” I said, so the patient wouldn’t relapse in front of our eyes and it’d be my fault. “Someone get the nurse,” I ordered and Jagger pushed the call button.

Then Pansy started to say random names. They all seemed to be either employees or family, which was only Payne, come to think of it. She repeated his name over and over.

The door opened and in walked Nurse Ratched, who gave us all the evil eye. It didn’t take us long before we were hurrying out the door and disrobing from our isolation garb.

I breathed a sigh. I felt relieved to get the hell out of there, until the nurse opened the door while we were disrobing isolation gear and asked, “Which one of you is Pauline?”

I curled my lips at her since I was the only female there and raised my hand and waved it at her. “That’d be me.”

“Well, she said she wants to talk to you and-” She stuck her head back into the room and asked Pansy, “Who?”

“Jeremy.”

“Oh, Lord,” I said to Dano. “Buzz will pass out if he has to deal with that Pansy, the evil incarnate, who’s in there.”

Dano chuckled.

“It’s not funny. He’s such a wimp. Why on earth would she want to talk to him? Why would she want to talk to me?” I asked.

“I’m guessing she just relates to you as a female that she knows works for her. A nurse. A new hire, so not involved in the politics of the company,” he said.

Sounded plausible.

“They’re pretty tight, Pansy and Buzz,” he said. “She hired him and kinda took him under her wing. Like a mother figure, if you can believe a Sterling having maternal feelings.” That’s why he was upset when he visited her, I figured.

“Ah.”

Before I could say anything more, Dano had his cell phone out and was ordering Buzz to get his ass over here.

I looked at Jagger. “What?”

He was smiling. “This is gonna be better than Leno’s monologue.”

I punched his arm, turned and punched Dano. “You were thinking the same thing,” I said when he looked all confused.

But in the back of my mind, I worried that poor Buzz Lightyear would not survive on his own.

I needn’t have worried about dear Buzz last night, I thought as I fixed my horrible tea in the TLC lounge. By the time he’d gotten to the hospital-looking much paler than Pansy herself-curiously enough, she’d slipped back into a coma.

Self-induced? Or new complication?

No one could be sure, but darling Buzz and I were off the hook.

Jagger, Dano and I had waited to go in with him and when he came down the hallway with tears in his eyes, I was glad we all had. Those guys were shits at times, but each had a heart of gold, and both would rather kill themselves than admit it.

“Morning, Pauline,” Buzz said, coming up from behind me.

I touched his arm. “Oh, hey, how are you today?”

“I’m fine, ma’am.” He spilled a droplet of coffee on my clog.

We both looked down at the same time to see it spread out like a California wildfire on my white shoe. Before he could do his usual apology, I said, “Don’t worry about it,” but in seconds he was down on all fours wiping away.

Yes, I felt stupid and sorry for him all at the same time.

“Bu…Jeremy.” I touched his shoulder.

He stood up and threw the paper towel toward the trash can.

It landed on ER Dano’s foot.

Yikes. I hurried over and said, “Hey, morning,” so he wouldn’t take it out on poor Buzz, who was now bending down to pick it off Dano’s very worn black boot. Those boots had character and, I’m sure, some stories to tell.