Melissa Good - Tropical Storm

“Well, I’ll certainly try my best. I try to get along with everyone, if I can,”

Kerry answered with a thin smile. “We have so many things going on at once, Tropical Storm 155

it’s hard to not rush through the social niceties.”

“Honey, your biggest communication problem is right down the hall. We all love dear Dar, but she can be a bit difficult at times.” Eleanor positively oozed fake affection for her fellow executive. “Don’t you agree?”

Kerry cocked her head slightly. “Actually, no. I’ve found her to be extremely easy to work with,” she replied politely. “So I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

“Really?” Eleanor gave her a pitying stare. “Well, give it a few more days, sweetie.” She patted Kerry’s arm condescendingly. “We’ll be talking.” She patted Dar’s new assistant again, then stood up and straightened her tight, bright red skirt suit. “It’s nice to have someone with manners over there for a change.” She gave Kerry a smile, then walked off across the room to where a table was set to one side, four other business-suited figures seated at it.

Kerry shuddered and resisted the urge to wipe her sleeve with her napkin where the woman had touched her. “Ugh.” She picked up her tray and carried it to the washing room, setting it down and dusting her hands off. “I gotta do something about her reputation.” Deep in thought, she started walking back to the elevator.

KERRY PUT HER magazine down and peered around the waiting room.

Then she checked her watch and sighed. Two hours. The room was pleasant enough, with decently padded chairs set around in a double figure-eight and low tables with an assortment of surprisingly current magazines. She’d already gone through PC World, Windows, Infoweek and Time, and had been flipping through People when she decided to give it a rest.

She wasn’t really interested in reading about the fifty most intriguing people of 1998 anyway. She leaned back and crossed her ankles, wondering what Dar was doing. Or to be more precise, what was being done to her. She’d picked up her boss at seven thirty, and they’d made the short drive over to the beach in relative silence. Dar kept her emotions hidden very well, but Kerry had seen the motion as she kept swallowing, and the tense pursing of her lips.

Poor Dar. She felt so bad for the taller woman. Being that nervous was bad enough, but having to pretend you weren’t was worse. Kerry had almost just told her it was okay to be scared, but she didn’t think Dar would appreciate the attack on her defenses at the time.

With a sigh, she stood up, wandering out of the empty room and down the hall to the small vending room nearby. The walls were covered with pale blue vinyl, and the floors were polished until they shone, but the most curious thing about the place was the plaques.

Plaques were everywhere. There were memorial rooms, memorial wings, memorial staircases, a memorial elevator shaft, and, as she glanced up while she was walking, a memorial water fountain. All in honor of people who gave money to the Heart Institute. Kerry was intrigued and wondered why someone would bother contributing just to put a plaque on a bathroom door.

Personally, she would rather just give the money and let them do more productive things with it, like design hospital gowns that didn’t expose your butt. Surely some research dollars could be shaken free for that, right?

Kerry ducked into the vending room and ambled over to the coffee machine, popping her quarters in and selecting a cappuccino. She retrieved her frothy drink from the dispenser and headed back to the waiting room.

DAR KEPT HER eyes closed, trying to ignore the tiny pinches and strangeness of the gear attached to her body. Leads were over her heart, under her arm, and one was on her back, and they’d just finished setting up a machine off to the side of the bed. It had a small wand-like device, which the Tropical Storm 157

head nurse had told her sweetly was like what they used to observe babies in the womb; it would emit sound and map the return waves as a picture. Oh.

Dar chewed the inside of her lip to prevent herself from snapping at the nurse.

Like I’ve never heard of an echocardiogram. You wanna know how to take those pictures, convert them to light waves, and reassemble them, little girl? How about if I reroute that current in there so it zaps the hell out of your hand when you pick it up?

Condescending little…

But no, she was being good, so she just closed her eyes, and waited.

Finally a male voice rumbled close by, and she opened them to see a tall man with a shock of gray-shot dark hair standing over her. “Hi.”

“Hello, Ms. Roberts.” The man stuck a hand out within her reach. “My name is Richard Berger, and I’m going to be taking a listen inside you to see if your plumbing needs work.”

“All right.” Dar liked his frankness. “Lay off the pipe wrenches, though, huh?”

He smiled, then slipped his stethoscope into his ears, and warmed the end of it between his fingers before he laid it on her chest.

Dar liked that touch. A physician had once cheerfully told her it would only chill for a minute She’d answered by taking a metal bedpan and sticking it between his legs, right up against his testicles. It only chilled for a minute, she recalled, before the doctor had gone flying in the other direction.

She watched Dr. Berger’s face as he listened intently, his head turned—a natural human reaction to listening, even though the stethoscope was bringing the sound to his ears evenly. “Hmm,” he muttered, then picked up the wand and spread a gel-like substance on it, then on her chest. He pressed the instrument down, moving it in tiny circles as he glanced up at a monitor overhead. After a moment, he frowned down at her. “No offense, Ms. Roberts, but you have damn low blood pressure.”

Dar cocked an eyebrow at him. “Not my fault.”

“No, but it’s making it real hard for me to see anything. Can you, um, think of something that would get your heart pounding a little?”

“I don’t…well, I’ll try,” Dar closed her eyes in concentration. A thought came to her mind with surprising quickness and she let the image go, feeling her breathing increase and the blood start pumping faster, warming her skin in a soft blush. “How’s that?”

“Much better,” the doctor complimented, patting her shoulder. “Okay, just hold that thought. I want a few more pictures. Got it. Okay.” He half turned. “Did you get that on the EKG? Good.” He gave her a professional little smile. “All right, Ms. Connors here will get this stuff off of you, and you can get dressed.”

Dar gave him a puzzled look. “That’s it?”

He nodded. “That’s all I needed to see. I’m going to go review the tape, then talk with your doctor, okay? Get dressed, then we’ll chat in the consultation room.”

Her mind racing with possibilities, she swallowed hard. “Okay.”

He patted her on the shoulder again and walked out, carrying a cartridge he’d ejected from the machine.

The nurse closed in and reached for her. “Honey, let’s get you sitting up 158 Melissa Good here a minute so I can get this little old patch off your back, okay?” Dar ignored the outstretched hands and sat up, feeling the pull against her abdominal muscles as she leaned forward.

“My goodness.” The nurse, a tall, heavyset cherubic-looking blonde, laughed. “You must work out, right?” She plucked the lead off Dar’s back and touched her shoulder. “Okay, back down now.”

Dar laid back down, trying to empty her mind of tension as she waited for the idiotic woman to finish pulling off the electronic attachments. She suddenly had an unreasoning desire for a teddy bear to hug. She wished she could just leave, not go into that consultation room, and not listen to what the very nice and thoroughly terrifying Dr. Berger was going to tell her. She didn’t want to be sick. She hated being sick.

Dar swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood, taking the clothes the nurse handed her with a brief nod. “Thanks.” She slowly slipped back into the familiar wool, tucking in her cream-colored shirt and zipping up the skirt, then hanging the jacket over her shoulder as she made her way out in the waiting room. Anxious green eyes met hers, and she felt a quiet warmth ease the fear a little. Kerry jumped up and trotted over, her gaze searching Dar’s face intently. “Well, it’s over,” Dar told her. “Now I have to go in and find out the bad news.”

Kerry hesitated, her lips tensing. “You think it’s bad news?”

Dar just nodded, a tiny bit. “Yeah, I think so.”

The younger woman reached out and circled her arm with warm fingers, rubbing her thumb against the soft hairs on Dar’s skin. “You…do you, um…want some moral support in there?”

The executive hesitated, drawing breath in, then letting it go. “Sure.” It felt good to have someone with her, and she gave a resigned little sigh before she motioned Kerry towards the small room to one side of the waiting area.

“Let’s get this over with.”

It was very small, in fact, almost claustrophobic—two chairs, a small desk for the doctor to sit at, and a print of three apples, two oranges and a banana above the desk. Dar sat down in one chair and folded her arms over her chest as Kerry took the other seat, tucking her feet under it and leaning forward a little.

Dr. Berger joined them, sat down and put a large envelope on the desk, and folded his hands over it. He gave Kerry a curious look but didn’t ask who she was. Instead, he focused his attention on Dar. “Well, Ms. Roberts, you are a very interesting case.”