Bourbon for Breakfast

A tall, big-boned woman, with a gray sweater thrown across her curved shoulders, comes toward her with her hand extended.

They shake. Edna thinks her own hand in the woman’s looks like a child’s.

The big woman says, “Edna Nowell? Yes, I thought so. Thanks for agreeing to meet me here in Philly. Sorry I wasn’t able to fly you up here or meet you in the Capitol. You know my mother lives in Seattle? You’d have to move out there.”

“I understand, Mrs. Stevens.”

“Call me Ann.”

“Ann it will be. The ad was very clear about that. Let me also say that I think you were wise to run your ad in a national medical journal, and to ask for written responses, and resumes rather than phone calls. So many people use local newspapers for such matters. That would seem to severely limit choices.”

“Yes. And thank you. And your resume is upstairs in my room. I was just going over it before you arrived. How was your drive up?”

“Fine. And yours from Norristown?”

“Except for having to dodge the trucks, not bad.” Miss Stevens sighs and looks down at Edna. “Well, I don’t know about you, Miss Nowell, but I never like to fight the early crowd for breakfast. Any objections to waiting till later?”

“Not at all.”

Without saying anything, Ann Stevens starts walking and Edna walks with her, and they end up standing in front of the elevators. All the while, Ann Stevens is talking, saying she read Edna’s resume and was impressed. “Were you really born in the South? You don’t have a southern accent?”

“Yes, Atlanta.”

One of the elevators comes down from the third floor; and the brass plated iron door opens. The lighted cubical with soft music is empty, and they step in. Ann Stevens presses the gold star on the little pink button for the fourth floor and the door closes. They stand with their backs to the wall; Edna is looking up while Ann Stevens is looking down. Edna is thinking, the blazer would have been better, the blazer and the black and white dotted halter with the fitted bodice.

Out of the corners of Edna’s eyes she can see Ann Stevens is looking up at the circular display of floors listed.

Now they step out onto the fourth floor and start down the hallway. Ann Stevens is saying, “It’s not that I don’t appreciate your work record, you’ve certainly had the training and experience, but—“ She stops, mouth open.

They stop in front of Ann Stevens’s door. Oh, God, thinks Edna, don’t start like that and not finish the thought. Standing behind Ann, Edna quickly checks her cellphone. No calls. Thank goodness!

As Ann Stevens opens her room door she glances back at Edna. For the flicker of a moment Edna wonders if her hair is neat, if any dead skin might be on the tip of her nose, or worse, something visible hanging from just inside.

Ann Stevens glances slightly down and away from Edna as the door opens and she says, “It’s just that I don’t understand why you worked at three different jobs in one year. I must admit that worries me a bit. So, you see, it’s not the work itself. I suspect that you are a competent nurse; and that my mother would get expert attention in your care.”

“My patients died,” Edna says suddenly, abruptly, and with too much anger; then trying to soften it, she smiles and says, “They just died. But they were seriously ill.”

“Yes, terminal,” says Ann.

“I don’t use the word terminal, Mrs. Stevens. No human being, in my opinion, is ever terminal.”

They are now inside the doorway.

Ann Stevens’s eyes stretch a tiny bit as she gazes into Edna’s face. Edna looks back but refuses to hold the gaze.

In the room, which is dark and smells vaguely of an unmade bed, Ann Stevens throws the light switch rather than opening the drapes. And Edna...