"Dr. Norwood to Trauma One, Dr. Norwood to Trauma One, Stat,"
Natalie looked up with bleary eyes from her cup of burned coffee. The little break room seemed dreary, but it was a sanctuary from the pandemonium of Watkins General on a Friday night. She rose unsteadily to her feet and gulped down the bad coffee, tossing the cup into the garbage as she hurried out.
Dr. Natalie Norwood was a tall, striking woman of twenty - three. Angular features and long brown hair set off her arresting gray eyes. She was tall and slender with boyish hips and very small breasts that rode high on her chest. She had the body of a dancer and in fact, she attended dance classes on her off days. Her long, shapely legs and tiny feet were her best features in her opinion, but her admirers always seemed to be enchanted with her eyes. Tonight those eyes were bloodshot and felt twice as large as they should be.
Watkins General on a Friday night. Her first Friday night on the trauma team and she was not sure she could handle it. She had seen seventeen patients so far, mostly kids; gun shot wounds, stab wounds and the occasional OD. There was a gang war going on in the mostly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods around the inner city hospital.
I don't think I am going to be able to do this, she thought as they wheeled in another gunshot case. A child, she thought, no more than twelve. His chest was torn open and he had a sucking chest wound. For a fraction of a second Natalie felt faint, but then the steely professionalism that had allowed her to graduate in the top of her class at med school took over.
"Suction," she said in a firm voice.
* * * * *
Natalie had grown up in a small, racially homogenous mid- western town. In High School she had shown great aptitude for anatomy and dreamed of becoming a doctor. Her parents, who ran a small farm, could not afford college for her much less med school. She found out from her guidance counselor about a government program where the Federal Government would pay for your medical school, if you agreed to spend your first five years after graduation in an area that needed doctors. She had happily agreed, imagining herself the Florence Nightingale of an Indian reservation, or in some remote community out west.
Watkins had been a major shock to her. Not only was she dreadfully uncomfortable in such a big city, but being one of three whites on staff made her feel even more isolated. Natalie was a shy woman and did not like the club scene so she had met practically no one whom she didn't work with. This added to her sense of loneliness, as well as to her rising need. She missed Dawn, the sandy haired butch who had been her regular lover in med school. Dawn was a bit of a nympho, very nearly insatiable and Natalie was used to sex at least once a day. Sunday would mark a month in this strange city, and her vibrator was quickly losing its ability to get her off.
Natalie she sat in the break room with tears in her eyes. Her shift had ended five minutes ago, but she could not make herself move. Twenty kids had come across her operating table. She had lost eight of them on the table, and two more had died after the operation in recovery. They weren't using Saturday night specials anymore, now they used heavy artillery, guns that shredded flesh, splintered bone, tore open organs and left fist sized holes in people. The gangs had gone high tech, and there was only so much she could do. They didn't need doctors here, She thought, they needed army medics. The really depressing part was when she found out from the head resident that she had done better than himself and Dr. Coombs. She could not accept loosing half of those she treated as a success, but here the norm was closer to thirty percent.
She looked up as someone entered the break room laughing. It was Tasha, one of the trauma room nurses. She was a short black woman, about twenty-five years old, with a pretty face, ebony skin, a massive bust and what Natalie had heard the orderlies refer to as "junk in the trunk". Competent, efficient and unfailingly cheerful, she was a favorite of doctors and patients alike. She also had an intangible quality about her, one that left Natalie wondering what she would be like in bed.
She and Tasha had gotten off to a rough start. The black woman had been standoffish and defensive, sometimes even bordering on belligerent during Natalie's orientation period. Her parents would have classified the woman as "uppity". Natalie had shrugged it off, along with the rest of the staff's seeming dislike of her. She had always been shy, and the angry looks from under veiled lids simply made her want to become invisible. That had all changed her first night in the trauma ward, Tasha had gone from being her nemesis to being her most ardent supporter, seemingly by magic.
"You all right hunny?" Tasha said, concern replacing the laughter in her voice.
"I don't know,"
"Poor baby, this was your first Friday wasn't it?"
"Yes,"
Tasha was standing close to her and before Natalie could move, or even think the short nurse wrapped her up in a big hug. Natalie's face was pressed tightly against the nurse's huge breasts, they were soft and yielding, and Natalie couldn't help but snuggle into the fleshy pillows. Tasha held her tightly, stoking her back.
"It'll be all right, hun. They shouldn't have left you alone on a Friday yet," she said in a voice that seemed as soothing to the exhausted Doctor as her mothers had been when she was a child. "What's this?" a heavily accented Spanish voice called out. Natalie started to pull away, but Tasha held her tight.
"Nothing, Doc Norwood just needed a hug," Tasha said easily.
"Looks like she wants a tit," the voice said sarcastically.
"Maria, you lay off. It was her first Friday in trauma, and I remember what you were like after yours,"
"Sorry, Mama T, I didn't know," the voice replied, suddenly very soft and sympathetic.
* * * * *
Saturday was set to make Friday look like a picnic. The radio blared warnings to everyone to stay out of the inner city and the Governor was about to call out the National Guard as Natalie made her way in to work. It was very early, but there were already angry people in the streets and she was happy it was still dark. When she arrived, she passed Maria in the locker room and received a curious look from the Hispanic woman. She had barely made it to her tiny office when the first cases started coming in.
"Dr. Norwood to Trauma One, Stat," the intercom blared. It's going to be a long night, She thought as she hurried towards the elevator.
Natalie sat in the break room again, so drained she could not even make herself move to refill her coffee cup. Maria Sanchez sat across from her looking just as drained as Natalie felt. Maria was a short, compact Puerto Rican woman, with beautiful olive skin and sharp features. She had soft, dark, expressive eyes that were all that kept her from looking fierce, unless she was mad. Her black hair was worn short, almost in a crew cut. Maria's chest and hips were full and gave her a figure that Natalie would have loved to possess.
They had gotten off to an even more rocky start than Natalie and Tasha had. The fiery Hispanic woman had seemed to resent her for her education and for her aloofness. After seeing Natalie in action, working to save the lives of people without any consideration of race Maria had backed off a bit. Now she seemed to want to apologize for her earlier attitude. Natalie knew it was the last patient that had brought this about, a two-year-old Hispanic girl, hit by stray gunfire.
The girl had flatlined before they even got her on the table. Natalie had refused to let her die and had used the paddles three times before she got a faint heartbeat. She spent almost 5 hours straight reconnecting blood vessels and muscles. Maria had stayed with her the whole time, wiping her brow, providing the needed instruments, and in the end, providing the support Natalie needed to keep trying when the small girl seemed destined to die.
The child was in recovery now, and the head doctor's prognosis was good. He had been very impressed with Natalie, but his congratulations had paled in comparison to Maria's warm smile when Natalie staggered into the break room after making her rounds.
Now they sat in silence, each trying to recover from the ordeal. Natalie's hands were cramped because she had been forced to work on such a fine scale with the small child. She flexed them carefully but she was so fatigued that they were shaking uncontrollably. Maria started to speak a few times, but seemed incapable of finding the words. Finally she licked her lips and spoke up.
"Look Doc, I gave you a hard time, and I'm sorry. I thought you were a racist, but I saw you tonight for what you are. I know the doctors here, and every one of them would have let that little girl go. You didn't, and I am sorry for treating you bad,"
"It's all right Maria, we didn't have any minorities in my town when I was growing up. I am sure I must have seemed like I was disdainful, but I just didn't want to say or do anything wrong,"
"You couldn't have said anything to make me change my mind. I would have told you to prove it. Well, you did,"
"Thank you,"
Tasha walked in before they could continue and as if by mutual ascent they let it drop right there.
"Whoooeee, it's a zoo out there tonight," Tasha said as she got herself a cup of coffee. She took Natalie's mug and filled it too, without even asking if she wanted more.
"Yeah, I can't wait for tomorrow night," Maria said.
Tasha chuckled. "Me either,"
Natalie was suddenly aware of both women looking at her. She blushed although she wasn't sure why.
