Chapter 16 Chapter 15

The time was two minutes to 12 o'clock at night. Patty Greer, the nurse who had been trying to take Stu's blood pressure when he was on strike, was at the nurse's desk, flipping through the latest issue of McCall's magazine, waiting to go in and check on Mr. Sullivan and Harper. gentlemen.Harper would be awake watching Johnny Carson, no problem.He likes to tease her.Mr. Harper was frightened, but he was cooperative, unlike that annoying Stuart Redman.He just looks at you, as timid as a mouse.Patty Greer thought he was one of those "good guys."As far as she was concerned, all patients fell into two categories: "good guys" and "bad guys."Patty broke a leg rollerblading when she was seven, but she never spent a day in bed, and she had no patience for pussies.Either you're really sick and you're a "hero" or you're a hypochondriac "ass" and make things difficult for a poor working girl.

Mr. Sullivan always sleeps and always pulls his face when he is woken up.It wasn't the nurse's fault, she had to wake him up.She always thought Mr. Sullivan would understand that.He's getting the best care the government can offer and it's free, and he should be grateful.If tonight he starts being a "coward" again.She had to tell him that. The clock ticked midnight; time to go. She left the nurse's desk, went down the hall, and walked toward the white room, where she would take a shower and change into her clothes.Halfway there, her nose started to itch.She took out a handkerchief from her pocket to cover it, sneezed three times, and then put the handkerchief back.

She was too preoccupied with dealing with the eccentric Mr. Sullivan to pay much attention to her sneeze.This could be hay fever.There are instructions written in big red letters on the nurse's workbench: no matter how mild the cold symptoms are, they must be reported immediately.She hadn't thought much of the instructions.They were worried that the virus carried by those poor people from Texas might spread outside the airtight chamber, but she also knew that it was impossible for a little virus to penetrate the self-contained environment of the angel in white . However, on her way to the white room, it infected an orderly, a doctor who was just about to leave, and another nurse on the way did the same thing.

A new day begins.