Chapter 5

It was two days later and Carol was sitting in the cafeteria having a cup of coffee.

She was feeling very squeamish about life in general. She had had high hopes for Gary Peterson, hoping that their relationship would evolve into something permanent. But Gary had been a bitter disappointment, and she had taken it as a great insult when he had offered her a position as his mistress, someone to receive his sexual satisfaction from whenever he could sneak away from his wife.

She was having a bad case of the blues, and furthermore, she didn't seem to know just how to work her way out of it.

As she sipped her coffee, she observed a familiar face walk toward her.

It was Dr. Wayne Ames, one of the newer doctors on the ward. She remembered when he had served his internship at the hospital, and from the beginning she had disliked him.

Dr. Ames had done his best to make a play for her on numerous occasions, and several of her fellow nurses had told her in effect that she was crazy for turning down his offers for dates.

"You've really done something silly," she recalled one of her friends saying. "He's so good looking and with that determination of his, he'll be a wealthy man some day."

"I'm not interested in the wealth factor," Carol recalled replying. "I don't like him as a person, so that's that."

"You're a hard case to figure out," the girl had said, walking away at that point.

Carol had not regarded it as a difficult case to figure out at all. All she knew was that Wayne Ames was not her type. He had played college football at a major university, and was very muscular. He was proud of his body, and proud of the fact that he had attained note worthiness on the gridiron.

The first time that she had met him was when he was finishing out his interning at the hospital. He had introduced himself to her, then had exclaimed:

"Of course, I'm sure that the name rings a bell, doesn't it?"

"I'm sorry, but it doesn't. Should it?" she had replied.

"What do you mean? Surely you're kidding?"

"I'm not kidding about anything. I just said that I wondered why the name should ring a bell."

"I was an all conference guard at the university here," he replied in a miffed tone, angry that he had to even mention that fact to her. "Don't you remember me?"

"I'm sorry, but I never have gone to football games. I don't know much about the sport at all. I had an uncle who liked to go to baseball games, and he took me to a few. But I don't even know about baseball."

"Well, if you knew anything about football, you'd know about me," he snapped.

Later that same day, after he had cooled off a little, he had asked for a date.

Disliking him any way, Carol savored the opportunity to tell him no, which she promptly did.

"And why the hell not?" he had stormed.

"I'm going to be a doctor here and I'm going to really carry quite a bit of weight. If you know what's good for you, you would really be a bit more diplomatic and try and get better acquainted with me."

"I'm sorry, but I can't make it," she had told him steadily.

"O.K., O.K.," he had shaken his head, "have it your way."

Now he was moving toward her table, sporting a huge grin.

It had been touch and go between them ever since they had first met. Wayne had been perpetually on the go, attempting to get her to go out with him. She, on the other hand, had been just as determined to turn him down.

Now Wayne was standing before her at the table, holding a cup of coffee in his hand.

"Mind if I join you?" he grinned.

"No, go ahead," she said, smiling back.

She tried as best she could to be diplomatic toward him, even though it was sometimes highly difficult.

He sat down and took a long sip from his coffee. Then he looked lengthily into her eyes, smiling all the while.

"You grow more gorgeous every day, sweetheart," he said.

"Thank you."

"What do you owe your beauty to?"

"Oh, I don't know. My clean living, I guess."

"You know something ? Clean living is a synonym for boredom," he laughed.

"Oh, I don't know. It's enabled me to carry out my nurse's duties very well."

"Well, honey, I'm certainly no slouch when it comes to surgery or any of the other aspects of a doctor's professional existence," Wayne Ames said. "But I'll tell you one damned thing. When I get through after a long day, I'll go to a party and I'll sip my share of booze. I'll fuck my share of broads. I dig women and I dig booze, and I think it makes me a better doctor. It motivates me that much more. If I didn't have these other things to look forward to when I get off work, I don't think that I could even take it, not even for one day."

"Well, God made us all a little differently," she replied tactfully.

"What's God got to do with it?"

"Just this. What I'm saying is that we're all a little different, and I guess that's good."

"It can be, but when a chick's too different from me, there's no way of getting together. I mean there's no communicative rapport."

"I guess a person can't have a rapport with everybody anyway. There are differences in people."

"I know, I know, and that's all you've been telling me ever since I sat down at the table."

"Well, I was just responding to what you said. You were telling me about your lifestyle and I was telling you about mine."

"Just what are you trying to tell me?" his eyes narrowed as he looked at her with disgust.

"That people are different."

"No. admit it. You're going further than that. You're saying that we're different from each other. Isn't that right?"

"I think that that is an inevitable conclusion. After all, we probably would get along a little better otherwise."

"Maybe so, maybe so," he said. "I think there's a lot more in the way of common ground than what you care to admit. It's just that for some reason or other you're chicken shit. You just don't want to let yourself go."

"If you're going to talk to me in this disgusting manner, I'll leave."

"Come on and simmer down," he said. "O.K., sorry if I shocked you by using dirty language. Or what you consider dirty language, anyway. I just consider it factual language. You've been acting up, baby, every time that I've talked with you. I've tried to be nice to you, but for some reason or other, you just don't buy it."

"Maybe your idea of being nice doesn't coincide with mine."

"There you go again. You're trying to make it look like we're poles and poles apart when we don't have to be. Why don't you let yourself go and be a human being, have a little fun?"

"I do have fun. I truly enjoy my career."

"That's a laugh," he chuckled. "That's not all you want. Don't you want some good loving from a man?"

"Well, I guess I do."

"You guess?"

"Alright, I do. But I realize that a lot of these things only occur in time. So I don't want to rush anything. I'll just let nature take its own course."

"That's the big difference between us," he said, cockily. "I control nature, whereas you react to it."

"How can you control nature?"

"I control it by controlling the course of events around me. That's how I do it."

"I see. Well, I'm glad you're that shrewd. I wouldn't ever claim to be able to do anything like that."

"Oh no, you're little Miss Goody-good, aren't you?"

"You're getting sarcastic again."

At that point she finished sipping her coffee, getting up from the table.

"Come on, talk to me a little longer," he said. "I'll buy you a cup of coffee, in fact."

"No, thank you. I've got to be getting back."

"Don't you enjoy talking to me?"

"I really have to be getting back. It's not a question of enjoying or not enjoying."

"You sound like one of these Watergate politicians," he said disgustedly. "You ask them a direct question, and they'll figure a way of wheedling out of it. The next thing I know you'll be telling me that you want to make something perfectly clear. You're going to say that?"

"No, I'll leave that up to the President."

"It sounds like it would be a good line for you, if he hadn't thought of it first. That's just about what you're telling me every time that you speak, for the same reason. It's a good way of saying nothing."

"I really must be going."

"Look, honey, why don't we bury the hatchet?"

"I don't know that there's any hatchet that I have to bury."

"Come on, now."

"I mean it. I don't really have anything against you. I just have the feeling that we don't get along with each other as well as certain other people would. So it really is nothing to hold against either one of us."

"I'd like to try and do something about it. What do you say we go out tonight? I'd like to take you out to dinner and a movie."

"No, thank you, I can't make it."

"Why not?"

"I just can't."

"That's the same line of bullshit you're al ways handing me." , "I'm sorry, I can't make it."

"You sound like a broken record."

"I really must be going."

"You just don't want to go with me. That's it, isn't it? It isn't that you've got something else to do, now is it?"

"Goodbye, Wayne. It was nice talking to you."

"Like hell," Wayne Ames growled.

Her heart was beating as she walked out of the cafeteria. Dr. Wayne Ames never ceased making her nervous. She didn't like his attitude, or anything else about him.

He talked to her and the other girls like they owed him something. Perhaps a number of the other girls went along with it, but she wouldn't. It was intolerable to her.

Now she remembered who she would be seeing as she made her rounds.

She felt tension in her stomach as she recognized that she would be going to see Larry Gilbert.

This time, she reasoned, she would be adopting a pattern of inner reserve. She just couldn't let him dictate to her any longer. Even though she might be attracted to him, she recognized that it was just too risky to continue having sex with him.

On top of that, as far as she was concerned, it was just plain wrong. She just couldn't go on acting in such a manner.

With great determination she walked down the hall toward his room. If he tried anything this time, she would shrug him off before" anything was allowed to happen.