Free Fall

30

The Dinky Dinghy advertises itself as “fine dining without the atmosphere.”

It’s basically a squat, flat-roof building that could double as a dry cleaner’s. Bright, shrimp-pink poles hold up signs advertising clams, shrimp, lobster, and chowda. It’s mostly a fresh fish market that does a brisk takeout business but has five or six picnic tables out front in the gravel lawn for people like Christine and me.

We take a table two away from one occupied by a tourist family on their first day of vacation (you can tell by the farmer tan lines and SHNJ tee-shirts). They’re happily digging into a seafood feast, what the Dinky Dinghy calls “The Works”: fried shrimp, fried scallops, crab cakes (sort of fried), fried flounder filets, fried clam strips, a bucket of fries, and a quart of coleslaw. I don’t think the coleslaw is fried but I bet they’re working on that.

“This looks amazing,” Christine says, sitting down with her blackened salmon sandwich, garden salad, and bottle of Vitamin Water Zero. I went with the “Scrumptious Scampi.” Lots of garlic. If I know my breath stinks, I won’t be so tempted to kiss Christine when our non-date dinner date is done. I’m drinking a Stewart’s Orange ’N Cream. We came in my car. I am the designated driver.

“You want a beer or some wine with dinner?” I ask.

Neptune’s Nog, a package store, is right across the street, on the other side of Ocean Avenue.

“No, thanks.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. Thank you. Some of the meds I take … well, it’s best if I don’t drink.”

“Cool,” I say, even though I probably should’ve thought of something better.

Christine pushes her tray a few inches away. Gets this serious look on her face.

“It was right after Katie died,” she says. “My whole life went into a kind of free fall.”

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“I do, Danny. You and Ceepak and Ceepak’s mom have done so much for me. Besides, talking is good.”

“Okay.”

“It started right after Katie died. I just couldn’t do my job any more. Every time the ER doors swung open, I saw Katie, covered with blood, lying on the gurney. It could be a guy who’d been in a motorcycle wreck, but I’d see Katie. I started making mistakes. Little things. But even little mistakes can kill someone who’s already in a trauma situation.”

“So you quit?”

Christine nods. “They called it a long-term leave of absence. Set me up with a program. The hospital was very helpful.”

“Because you’re a very good nurse. They don’t want to lose you.”

That earns a small smile. “Well, you’re very sweet to say so.” She shakes her head. “I thought PTSD was just something soldiers earned in war zones. I didn’t think it could happen to me. But I had never had someone that close to me die before.”

I wish I could say the same.

“So how’s it going?” I ask. “Now?”

“Better. I feel like I could, maybe, go back to the hospital. Maybe not the trauma unit, right away …”

“That’s a good idea. Maybe you could work someplace, I don’t know, happier. Maybe the maternity ward.”

Christine laughs. “Screaming babies? Anxious new mothers? Nothing stressful about that …”

I’m laughing now, too. “Guess you’re right. Anyway, I think it’s great that you still want to be a nurse. Someday. Somewhere.”

“I don’t know what else I’d do, Danny. My mom always said I was born to be a nurse.”

Funny. Mine always says I was born to be a pain in her patootie.

“And Shona Oppenheimer knew all about this … situation?”

“It was supposed to be kept super-confidential.”

“But somebody told Shona.”

“One of her plastic surgeons. The lady who gives her the Botox shots.” Christine taps her forehead. “Dr. McWrinkles works at the hospital sometimes, too. I guess she knew somebody who knew somebody who was in the mood to gossip …”

“Ohmigod,” I hear a woman shout.

“He should’ve chewed it more!” growls a man.

I whip around. It’s the family. The mom and dad are up off their picnic benches, hovering behind a kid, maybe ten, who keeps coughing.

“He’s choking!” screams the mom.

“I’m okay, mom,” gasps the boy. “It’s just stuck.”

Christine is up and over to their picnic table two seconds before I am.

“Can you breathe?” she asks the boy.

He nods.

“I’m a nurse,” she says, calmly taking the little boy’s wrist in her hand.

“I’m a cop,” I add. “I’ll call nine-one-one.”

“Hang on, Danny,” says Christine. She looks at her watch, checks the boy’s pulse. “His vitals are good.”

A waitress-a pal of mine named Ansley Parker-comes running out of the seafood shop.

“Do we need to do the Heimlich, Danny?” she asks.

Guess Ansley’s been studying that poster every restaurant has hanging on a wall for so long, she’s ready to jump into action and pump the kid’s abdomen with her fist.

“Hold up,” I say.

“Does it feel like it’s stuck?” Christine asks the boy.

“Yes,” the boy answers, proving that his airway is clear. He taps his sternum. “Right here. I can’t cough it up.”

“Danny?”

“Yeah?”

“Pour some water on my hand, please.”

“Oh-kay.”

I grab a bottle of Poland Spring someone at the table had been drinking. Do as I was told.

“Okay, hon,” Christine says to the kid, “we need to upchuck that chunk of food. You willing to give it a shot?”

The kid smiles.

“You’ve thrown up before?”

“When I had the stomach flu,” he says, his voice a little hoarse. “Yeah.”

“Good. This will be just like that.” Christine looks to the parents.

“What are you going to do?” asks the mom.

“Stimulate his gag reflex.”

The dad raises his eyebrows and makes the classic “gag me now” gesture: two fingers to his open mouth with the tongue lolling out.

“Right,” says Christine.

“Okay,” says the mom.

Christine turns to the boy. “You ready to do this thing, buddy?”

The kid nods.

Christine places her (sort of) clean fingers into the boy’s mouth.

He gags.

Up comes an explosion of brown, chunky mush.

And one white hunk of scallop.

Christine’s cute chocolate brown top? It is now slimed with dribbling tan slop.

“Thank you!” gushes the boy, breathing deep just to prove that he can do it without coughing.

“Thank goodness you were here,” says the mom.

“You’re lucky to have her as a girlfriend,” the dad says to me, shaking my hand, like I did something to be congratulated for.

I think all three of them want to hug Christine.

But they hesitate.

No sense in everybody’s top getting ruined by all that regurgitated chum.