LIONS AND TIGERS AND NURSES: FREE EXCERPT

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Behind the nurse’s desk, Haylie hung up the phone and turned around, looking sullen.

“What’s wrong?” Donna asked, with concern in her voice.

Haylie shook her head. “I just agreed to a blind date. Ugh. Could you shoot me already?”

Donna laughed. “And here you had me all worried. Looking all sour like that. I thought your best friend had died or something.”

Haylie sank into a chair and crossed her arms. “If only you had been on my last blind date, you’d understand why I’m so ill. My mom and my sister keep trying to fix me up, and so far, all the guys have been complete goobers.”

“Goobers,” Mel laughed. “I keep telling you, Brad’s cute and young and smart, and he’s not a goober…”

“No, thank you,” Haylie returned. “I’m not looking for cute and young and smart. I don’t really want a boyfriend right now. This is all about my mom. She’s all panicked that I don’t have a boyfriend and she’s worried that I’m not going to have a date to my sister’s wedding in a few weekends. It totally stinks because now they’re sending me out on all of these blind dates.”

“With goobers,” Mel chuckled.

Oh, it can’t be all that bad,” Donna wrapped an arm around Haylie and gave her a squeeze. “You know what they say… plenty of fish in the sea. If you don’t catch the right one the first time, just throw it back and keep fishing.”

Miriam jumped into the conversation. “Did I hear you say something about fishing?” She smiled, looking almost human to Haylie for a change. Miriam dug into her pocket and pulled up a wallet-size picture album that was well-worn from years of being toted around and shown off to anyone that would look. She thumbed through it until she found a picture of her husband, wearing a flannel shirt, a blue baseball cap, and grinning from ear to ear. He was holding up a large wide-mouth bass. “You know, my Homer just loves to fish. Or… he loved to, anyway.” And just like that, her smile was gone.

Haylie watched as Miriam tucked the pictures away and sighed. She wondered why Miriam kept talking about Homer like he was dead. He was still alive, wasn’t he? She hadn’t heard any differently from anyone else. She just didn’t get it. Miriam had been married to Homer – a wonderful, loving man, according to everyone, including Miriam herself – for more than 30 years, yet she instantly became depressed at the mention of his name. What was it about Homer that was so upsetting? Did Miriam really have to be so dramatic?

“We were just talking about Haylie’s love life,” Donna confessed to Miriam.

Mel leaned against the counter and shrugged. “I just don’t get it. I don’t know why someone so young and pretty is still single. Surely someone like you has a million guys chasing after you at any given moment.”

“Not really,” Haylie sighed.

Miriam shook her head and laughed. “Well look around, there are PLENTY of nice young men your age working right here in this hospital.”

“Like who?” Haylie asked. “And don’t say Brad again,” she insisted. “I don’t think I want to mix work with my love life just yet. That would be too weird.”

“Just trying to help,” Mel interjected. “He’s a good guy.”

“So YOU date him,” Haylie laughed.

Mel shook her head. “I’ve sworn off men. Didn’t work out so great the first time I tried romance and marriage and the whole nine yards, so I’m afraid I’m going to be an old maid.”

Donna threw her hands up in the air in protest. “Oh please. You know you’re full of it. You’ll find someone new and move on someday. Your heart isn’t so broken that you won’t be able to let someone else love you again.”

“Enough about me,” Mel said with frustration. “We’re trying to fix up Haylie, remember?”

“There are plenty of others, aside from Brad,” Miriam said. “Like my friend Shirley’s son, Dan. He’s that nice-looking blonde young man that works in Emergency.”

Haylie glared at Miriam. “Dan Matcher. I went to nursing school with him. Not my type.”

“And why not?” Miriam demanded to know.

Suppressing a grin, Haylie looked away. “Well, he’s gay.”

“Oh no he’s not,” Miriam shot back at her. “I’m friends with his mother. I’m sure she would have told me if he was gay.” She rolled her eyes. “See Haylie, you’re just making excuses. No reason why you can’t go talk to him and get to know him better. Go have lunch with him someday. He’s always eating around one o’clock with his roommate, Eric – that cute little fellow from Medical Records. See… there’s another possibility for you. Both Dan and Eric. They’re such nice, handsome young men.”

The room suddenly cleared. Mel ran into the break room, faking a coughing fit to cover her laughter, and Donna quickly jetted away into one of her patient’s rooms with her hand cupped over her mouth and tears spilling down her cheeks.

Haylie arched one eyebrow. “Please tell me you’re kidding. Miriam. They’re gay. As in… boyfriends… to each other. They’re not interested in women.”

Miriam’s face burned crimson red. “You’re assuming that. Just because they live together and eat lunch together doesn’t make them gay. But I guess you just know everything, don’t you? Here I go again, trying to help you out, but you don’t want my help. No, you’re just so smart, I couldn’t possibly know what I’m talking about.” Her tone was much more nasty and bitter than usual.

Haylie was taken aback. “There’s no need to get defensive, Miriam.”

“Of course not. You whine and complain to Donna about what a witch I am, but when I try to be nice to you, you throw it back in my face. Do me a favor – the next time you need someone to come in and clean up the messes you make with your patients… don’t call me.” Miriam gave her a dirty look, then shook her head and shuffled away, mumbling something under her breath.

Haylie’s vision blurred, and she felt tears spilling down her own cheeks. Oh no you don’t, she scolded herself. Get a grip. Do NOT cry at work. Do NOT cry over witchy old Miriam, she’s not worth the tears. Don’t cry. DO NOT CRY!

But she couldn’t help it.

Haylie covered her face and ran to the bathroom, locking the door behind her, shutting out everyone and everything on the unit. She sat down on the floor and wept for a long, long time.

And when she was done, she happened to glance up at a piece of paper taped to the back of the door. It was a poster from the infection control department, with a picture of a grinning devil on it, complete with horns and a pitchfork. The caption read: “You don’t know what the devil is on your hands, so wash them!”

Haylie stood up and reached into her pocket for her ink pen. She crossed out the infection control poster’s caption, and wrote one word over the devil to replace it:

MIRIAM.

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