Page 32 of Just One Look

Seeing Stripes

Elizabeth went straightto the front desk and talked right over the pleasant chitchat as the worker checked somebody in. “Do you have a medical kit? I need a blood-pressure cuff.”

“Pardon?” It was the guy who’d given her the tour.

“I’m a doctor,” she said. “And I need a blood-pressure cuff right now. Do you have one?”

“Uh … the trainers will have,” he said.

“Get it,” she said. “Now.”

His hand hovered over the phone. “Should I ring for the ambos?”

“Not yet. You should get me that blood-pressure cuff. And a pulse oximeter, if they have one.” This could be nothing, of course. But she was hearing zebras.

The guy didn’t spend more time arguing, at least. He disappeared into a back room and came out with another man, who was holding the cuff. The second man spoke. “What’s the problem?”

She said, “Come with me.” There was no time to explain this. Those hoofbeats were coming closer.

On the patio, Nyree’s husband—Marko, his name was—was holding her and looking worried, and Nyree herself was leaning into his body. Elizabeth took the cuff from the trainer and told Luka, “Get up.”

He did. She sat where he’d been, got the cuff onto Nyree’s arm and pumped it, then watched the numbers. As she ripped it off, she told the trainer, “Call an ambulance.”

He didn’t argue, just pulled the phone out of his pocket and started to do it.

“What?” Nyree said, opening her eyes with an effort. “No. It’s a headache, that’s all.”

“What is it?” Marko asked. His voice was steady, and his hands were, too, but she could see the effort that cost him.

“At a guess,” she said, “acute-onset preeclampsia.”

“The baby,” Nyree said. Her eyes were open, barely slits, and Elizabeth could tell how much the light hurt. “Arielle. Is she …”

“We’re going to get you to the hospital,” Elizabeth said. “They’ll check the baby, and check you out as well. They’ll take care of both of you.”

“Ambos are on their way,” the trainer said.

Marko practically had Nyree in his lap now. He looked up at Elizabeth and said, “Can you come with us, explain to them?”

“Of course,” she said. “I’ll do that, and I’ll follow you, too, once I know where they’re taking her.”

“I’ll drive Elizabeth,” Luka said. “We’ll be there.”

The zebras were thundering now. She could see their stripes.

* * *

Over an hour later,they were still sitting in the OB waiting room, with no more information than that Nyree had been admitted and was being seen to. Luka hadn’t wanted to leave, and Elizabeth didn’t want to leave him alone. Or Nyree, either. Or Marko.

The worst of it was always the families. The look on Marko’s face when they’d lifted Nyree into the ambulance … it hurt. She’d bet he’d never been frightened for himself in his life, but he was frightened today. Frightened, and helpless.

“You know what I was thinking today?” she asked Luka, as much to distract herself as him.

“No,” he said. “What?”

“I was figuring out how to have a fun non-medical day. When Nyree asked me to have a glass of wine with her, I thought—great, because that’s the kind of thing normal people do, right? They go to the gym, then sit around and have wine in the middle of the day, because they don’t need to be productive or stay sharp, and chat about … about non-medical things in a leisurely sort of way. And here I am instead, at my hospital once again.”

“Don’t surgeons go out, then?” he asked. “I thought doctors golfed.”