Page 11 of Hidden Desire

Lena made a face. “Won’t be nearly as much fun. Just don’t get burnt out like others have.”

Sage smiled. “Don’t worry. I won’t. Enjoy your lunch.” Lena walked away, and Sage yawned. She covered her mouth to stifle it. She was tired, but she had to push through it. She had too many patients that relied on her.

“Hello, Fran. How are you doing today?” She entered the room to one of her familiar faces. Fran, a forty-eight-year-old, sat in a chair. Her nod was a bit jagged, but she had come far since they began therapy two months earlier. “How’s the weakness in your arm.”

“Getting less,” she said, holding up her arm. She could only hold it up briefly, but it was longer than when she first began. She was back to driving herself, so that was a plus that you didn’t find in many patients. There was a knock on the door, and Sage turned to the door. She opened it ajar and found Stassi fidgeting in the hall.

“Yeah?” she asked.

“I’m sorry to bother you, but Mitch Grey just walked in. He thought he had an appointment. It’s supposed to be tomorrow, and he is going out of town tomorrow.”

Sage sighed. “Put him in after Betty. I’ll make the schedule work.”

“Thank you, Sage.” Stassi rushed off, and Sage watched her for a minute. This job was liable to be Stassi’s demise. Working at the hospital wasn’t something everyone could thrive in. She just hoped it wouldn’t break the young woman. She closed the door and turned back to her patient. With another patient on the books of an already busy day, she would be forced to work unpaid overtime, and she wasn’t looking forward to that, but it was all a part of her responsibility, and she would make the best of it. It wasn’t as nearly as bad as others were facing. That was what she had to hold onto. Hopefully, she would have that appointment the following month, and they could finally get some resolution to everyone’s problems.

Stassi

Stassi typed out the correspondence for her last patient and then scrolled down to the next one that would be there at any minute. Another two days passed, and while there were things that didn’t go quite as smoothly as she would have liked, she felt like she was getting into the job.

“Hey, Stassi.” Stassi looked up and smiled. Sage approached the desk, another smile on her lips. She had a beautiful smile. When Stassi wasn’t stressing, she could actually enjoy it. However, it seemed to be not as often as she would have liked, but she would appreciate what she could take. “I have to run to a lunch meeting. Joellen from ER is going to come to grab this chart. It’s imperative that she gets it ASAP. She’ll be up in about ten minutes. Also, if Lena shows up, tell her I have a lunch meeting and won’t be able to hit the cafeteria with her.”

“Sounds good. This goes to Joellen, and I’ll pass the message off to Lena. You can count on that.”

“Great!” Sage smiled and gave a generous nod. “Catch ya later.” She disappeared around a corner, and Stassi focused her eyes back on her computer. She released a yawn and shook her head, hoping to clear it before her next patient came in. Stassi grabbed some papers that needed filing and copied and headed off to do the jobs. Now that Darlene was gone, she had to manage everything independently. She did the copying and went to the filing room. She was just finishing her filing when she heard a bell at the reception desk. Stassi hurried back to the desk and saw a woman dressed in scrubs.

“Joellen, right?” Stassi asked.

“Yep. Just here to grab a chart. Sage said she had it. Is she around?”

“Just left, but she gave me…” Stassi’s words trailed off as she looked at her desk. The desk was empty. She had put the chart right there. She was confident about that. “Um, it was right here,” she mumbled.

“Excuse me?” Joellen asked.

“I mean…” Stassi cleared her throat. “Sage had to run off for a second, and she said that she would run it down to the ER when she gets back. Shouldn’t be any more than five minutes.”

Joellen frowned. “That’s weird. She knows that this is extremely important. And she knew that I would come up and get it.” Joellen frowned.

“I know, but I think she had a hundred things that had to be done. I’ll make sure it gets to you ASAP. I promise.” Joellen shrugged and accepted Stassi’s half-hazard reply. “If she can’t bring it to you, I’ll make sure someone else does. No worries.”

“Alright then. Hopefully, it’s no more than five minutes.” Joellen skirted away, and Stassi turned back to her desk. Stassi took a seat and frantically looked around her workstation, including the trash, just in case it accidentally fell into the trash.

“This can’t be happening,” she groaned, rifling through the HIPAA box that sat underneath her counter. She spun around, spotting Lena heading her way. She had only had a brief encounter with her, where Darlene introduced them, but she would have taken any assistance at this point.

“Have you seen Sage?” Lena asked. Lena, a pediatric nurse, had scrubs with little puppies on them. Stassi envied that Lena could wear something other than drab colors, but that was a situation that she could argue about later.

“She’s at a lunch meeting. She asked me to let you know that she couldn’t do lunch, but I need your help.” Stassi felt awkward making this their first attempt at a bonding moment, but it would definitely be her job on the line if she didn't find the chart.

“What’s up?”

Stassi told her everything about the missing chart. “I have looked all over my desk, and it’s just gone. I’m going to lose my job, and I really need this job.”

“Just calm down. Retrace your steps. Where were you after you had possession of the chart?”

“I went to the copier and the filing room.” Stassi took a breath, trying to calm her nerves.

“You go to the copier, and I’ll go to the file room. It couldn’t have just vanished.”

Stassi swallowed. “I also threw some things away in the compactor.”

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