My Kind of Town
>> Queen's Medical Center A perfect vision
Workwise it had been a great day for Dr. Laurie Tang. Personally was another matter. Dr. Tang and her team had saved two lives -- the unidentified young woman who was drunk, loaded on ice and stark naked when she crashed Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela-Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka's car and then the young man who had been attacked at a hate crimes rally at the capitol fell and hit his head on a concrete curb. Well, he wasn't out of the woods by any means, but Dr. Tang's team had stabilized him. This is why she loved the ER. Even after a long day part of her wanted to stay with her patients. That was the mothering side, the side she thought might be fulfilled in her relationship with Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela-Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka, in whose car she had made love less than a week ago. She'd had a perfect vision -- she would be the First Lady, and after a few years they would be the first First Couple to have a baby at Washington Place. But now she didn't know what to think. She needed to talk to Donovan.
"You were wonderful today, doctor," ER charge nurse Van Truong said as they slipped around the heavy curtain and into the hallway. Dr. Laurie was her boss, yes, but she was also the woman Van admired more than any other she'd ever known -- more even than the nuns to whom she still dipped her head at mass. Van was proud to work for -- but really with -- one of the best ER docs in Honolulu. Every day they fought a war against the terrible things humans do to one another and to themselves, sometimes on purpose, often by the awfulest of accidents. Dr. Laurie was the general in their war. Van, who learned to be a nurse through the generosity of the U.S. Army, was Dr. Laurie's lieutenant and supply chief and navigator and grunt. Van knew that if she was good at fulfilling her role, Dr. Laurie would be great at hers, and they and the rest of their team would win more battles than they lost.
"Thank you, Van," she said, touching the nurse's elbow. "But you know, it all starts with you."
And again Van dipped her head.
Returning to her office, Dr. Laurie checked messages, hoping for something from Donovan. No luck there, just calls from her mother and HPD Detective Sherlock Gomes, both asking about Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka, both asking her to call.
Laurie thought she'd get the easy part out of the way first and dialed the detective.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin
with weekly summaries on Sunday.
He can be emailed at dchapman@midweek.com