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hospitals.
    The paramedics wheeled Cecilia into the emergency room at a dead run and disappeared behind double doors marked NO ADMITTANCE, leaving me to battle a wearily indifferent admitting clerk through two inches of Plexiglas. I looked through the purse in my hands, not my own, but the one I’d been numbly clutching since we left Superior Plating. I turned it upside down on the Formica counter in front of me and scrabbled through the mess: bus transfers and used tissues, two condoms still sealed in their foil packets, a hairbrush grotesquely clotted with blond hairs, and a half-eaten candy bar.
    From the front of a tattered romance novel a barechested man stared up at me with unbridled lust. Thrust between its pages I found what I was looking for. Attached to an Illinois driver’s license with a paper clip Were four soiled dollar bills, a disconnection notice for an apartment in Uptown, and finally, a dog-eared insurance card, all in the name of Cecilia Dobson.
    Relieved, I passed the identification to the clerk, who disappeared to make copies. Behind me a toddler with a runny nose played with the knobs of the candy machine while an old woman in bedroom slippers and a greasy raincoat sat in a chair by the door and sobbed.
    After the clerk returned I set out in search of the pay phones. I found them cleverly positioned between a blaring television set and the speaker of the public address system. Three of the four were not working and a girl who looked as though she was about fourteen was using the fourth. In one hand she cradled a very new baby and in the other the receiver.
    “But I don’t have no money for no bus,” she was insisting to whoever was on the other end.
    Back in the cramped waiting room I found a row of vinyl chairs that were bolted to the floor and sat down to wait. I tried hard to worry about Cecilia Dobson, but felt instead an unreasonable pang of longing for the quiet order of Callahan Ross, where clients wait among the brass lamps and the Chippendale. After a while my beefy paramedic returned, emerging from behind the steel doors of the emergency room with a Styrofoam cup of coffee in each hand. On his face was a broad smile that I suspected of having been practiced in the bathroom mirror. My heart sank.
    “I’ve got cream and sugar in my pocket if you want,” he said, sitting down beside me and nodding in the direction of his chest. It was obvious that he spent his off-hours lifting weights. He wanted to be sure that I noticed.
    “Black is fine, thank you,” I replied. “Do you know if she’s going to be okay?”
    “They’re still working on her. They’ll come out and get you when they know anything. I just wanted to see how you’re doing.”
    “Fine,” I replied primly.
    “You did a great job back there.” He moved a little closer. “Not many people woulda kept their heads the way you did.”
    “Thank you,” I said, pressing my knees together and wishing he’d go away.
    “I know how upsetting something like this can be. You know, I see a lot of stressful things on my job. I handle life-and-death situations every day.” He leaned so close to me I could smell what he’d had for lunch. “I know how to handle it. I can help you deal with the stress....” I gritted my teeth and grimly evaluated my options. I was debating whether to declare myself HIV positive, a lesbian, or both when the doors to the emergency room swung open and a tired-looking nurse in pink scrubs motioned to us.
    “They want to see you now,” he said, giving my hand a squeeze. “You want me to come with you?”
    “No,” I replied hastily, scrambling to my feet.
    “If I’m not here when you get finished, I want you to call me. All you have to do is dial nine-one-one and tell them you need Frank.” His last line had the polished delivery of a professional.
     
    The doctor’s name was Kravitz, and despite the camouflage of her white coat, I could see that she was pregnant. She saw me in a cramped