“No,” she said, sitting up, turning on her lamp, and rubbing her eyes. “I got up around noon and ate and took a walk around the gardens.”
“That sounds lovely.”
“It was. It’s such a great spot. I heard you were in the Pacific before. What was that like? Beaches and palm trees?”
“And rats,” I said with a laugh. “Sometimes snakes. A storm that carried away the tent we lived in. And had to take Atabrine so we wouldn’t get malaria, which turned our skin a not very attractive shade of yellow.”
She wrinkled her nose, and I nodded and got into bed.
“You going to sleep already?” she asked. “I’m usually wired after a shift. Except for yesterday. That was too long.”
“I want to get up early. There’s a patient I want to check in on before I fly out for the day.”
“Uh-oh,” she said, a smile in her voice.
I grinned and shook my head. “It’s not like that.”
“It never is, hon.”
She swung her legs over the side of her bed and stood.
Hazel and I were about the same height, but opposites in every other physical way. Her long hair was raven black, skin olive, eyes a reflection of her name. Where my figure was slender, hers curved. Where my skin was free and clear of what my mother had deemed imperfections, hers was beautifully marked with the freckles my childhood self had read about in books and dreamed of having.
“So,” she said. “Who is he?”
I shook my head. “He’s just a patient who had a rough flight. Nothing untoward.”
“Well then, that’s a damn shame. We could all use a little untoward. Unless you’re married, of course.” She glanced down at my left hand.
“I’m not.”
“Me neither!” she said and clapped her hands, reminding me of Char. “Maybe I should come with you. Is he cute? Or do you think he maybe has a cute injured friend for me, in case you change your mind? Preferably one on his way home so we can write letters and he’ll wait for me, but won’t get in the way while I check out other options.”
She was definitely like Char.
“Hazel,” a woman walking by our open door said. “For goodness’ sake. Give it a rest already.”
“That’s the problem, Beez,” Hazel said to the woman I now remembered was named Beatrice. “I’ve been at rest for far too long.”
I laughed as Beatrice walked away.
“I’m gonna shower,” Hazel said, giving her armpit a sniff and grabbing some clothes off the floor. “You really off to bed?”
“I am.”
“Alright. Guess I’ll see you in the morning? Unless you’ve left to see your love before I wake.”
“He’s not—”
“Nighty-night!” she called, disappearing down the hallway.
The house was silent when I woke the next morning, no one wanting to wake before they had to.
I crept quietly from my bed to the bathroom where I got dressed in a hurry and pulled my hair back into a bun. Staring at my face in the mirror, for once I wished I owned a bit of rouge or lipstick, my pale skin like a blank sheet of paper compared to Hazel’s sultry looks.
I rode through the quiet of the early-morning hours to base, listening to leaves rustle softly in the breeze and the metallic scent of rain in the air. As I parked my bicycle, a drop landed on my cheek and I hurried inside the hospital.
A gentleman sitting at a desk in the entryway glanced at the insignia on my shirt and gave me a tired smile.
