"Nothing, why?" I replied.
"You look like a love struck school girl," she grinned. "Cam Connor is going to ruin your GPA if you aren't careful."
"The thought crossed my mind, thank you very much," I said primly. "I've got it under control."
"Yeah, sure you do," Liz laughed. "Just like Violet has her meanness under control. It's snake handling, my friend."
I looked at Liz, wide eyed, not believing that she'd said that, but her roaring laughter pushed away any shocked outrage I was feeling and we both laughed until we were holding our sides. Our laughter continued as we entered the lab and prepared for the lesson, earning us nasty looks from Violet and her posse.
"Why is she so nasty to you, Liz?" I whispered as the lab assistant instructed us, yet again, on the necessity of proper slide handling techniques.
"I don't know, she's got a bug up her ass," Liz murmured making me laugh and earning us a stern look from the lab assistant.
Meanwhile, across the room, Violet, Jessica and Lydia all stared with rapt attention at Robert, the lab assistant, who could really only be described as tall, dark and handsome. He was attentive to everyone in the class, and always cheerfully answered questions, so most of the girls in the class had a crush on him; everyone, except Liz. She treated him as if he were part of the furniture, functional and necessary, but of little real interest.
"Robby, can you help us with our slides?" Violet asked in a sticky sweet voice. He sighed as he walked over to the table and showed her, for the third time, what she was doing wrong, and was rewarded with a hand on his arm and an overly grateful, "Thank you so much, Robby!"
Liz mocked the girls under her breath as she mounted the samples on the slides and p
ut them under the microscope. When Robert walked by and asked if everything was going all right, Liz grunted the affirmative without looking up.
"Why are you so mean to him?" I whispered as I stared at a slice of epidermis I'd mounted on my slide.
"I'm not mean, I just don't care," Liz replied. "There's a huge difference."
I watched her closely, wondering what had happened that had turned her mood from good to sour so quickly, then shrugged as I turned back to my own slides. We worked in compatible silence for the next hour and a half, and by the time we were done cleaning up, Violet and her crew were, again, fawning over Robert.
Liz rolled her eyes dramatically as she walked past his desk toward the door. I waved and said thank you as I joined my friend. Liz suggested we get something to eat before we went to the library to study, and I reminded her that we'd picked up an extra shift in the ER that night.
"Aw, crap!" she swore as she kicked a pile of snow in front of the building. "I forgot about that. Alright, well, I'll meet you at the hospital, then."
"You don't want to come over and get ready and go together?" I asked.
"Nah, thanks; I have something I need to do first," she said taking off in the direction of her apartment before I could say another word.
I watched her moving down the sidewalk and wondered what she was up to -- and whether I'd have to pull her out of whatever it was that she was doing.
#
I met Liz at the door of the ER a few hours later and smiled as I saw that she was in a good mood. She'd brought a bag full of fortune cookies and proceeded to pass them around to the ER staff and nurses. For a while, the department was calm and everyone enjoyed their sweet treats, but around ten things started picking up as a guy with a gunshot wound arrived, followed soon after by a stabbing and then a heart attack.
I loved the swift flow of the ER and the way that everyone played a part in keeping the rhythm going. The admitting people got the information and checked the past history, while the nurses took vitals and got a run down of what had happened, then the doctors moved in and evaluated the injury or illness before turning the patient's care back over to the nurses. Chicago General's ER was a well-oiled machine and I loved being a part of it.
Liz, however, did not love the ER, and she took every opportunity to escape it. I often found her hanging out in the pharmacy or in ICU. She had made friends with the people who ran the show there, and seemed to enjoy their company more than she did working the floor. I worried that if she got caught skipping out on her ER rotation, she'd fail this portion of her internship and not graduate in June, and I couldn't imagine not having Liz there on the best day of my life.
"Elizabeth Baker! What are you doing?" I exclaimed as I came around the corner and found her laying face down on a gurney outside of the ICU.
"Taking a short nap," she said in a voice thick with sleep. "I'm tired, Alex. I need my rest."
"You're working, Liz! Get up!" I ordered as I pulled at her arm and tried to get her off the gurney.
"I don't wanna," she protested as she turned her body into a dead weight. "I need a short nap."
"Liz, you're being ridiculous," I hissed as I yanked her arm harder, failing to get her up on her feet. "You need to get up! What if Mrs. Rikka..."
"What if Mrs. Rikka what?" said a familiar voice just behind my left shoulder.
"Oh, um, Mrs. Rikka," I stammered as I let go of Liz's arm and turned around to face the nursing supervisor. She was wearing a mustard color dress with sensible brown shoes and her glasses hung on a pearl chain around her neck. "Liz is sick. I think it's the flu."