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receptionist, had Tina come around to the space where she worked. Maybe eight feet by six, Tina estimated. The entire office was housed in the downstairs of an old Victorian. The parlor was now the reception area, split between the office part and the waiting part, the library the doctor’s private office, and the drawing and dining rooms broken up into treatment rooms. She didn’t know what they’d done with the kitchen or the upstairs. Guessed she’d probably find out.
    “I’m so glad Dr. Ted hired you,” Sylvia said. She was a tiny woman about Tina’s age, wearing a blue pants suit and matching high heels. Blond, blue-eyed, Sylvia already had frown lines between her brows. Tina suspected she needed glasses. She had a nice smile. “I’m having a really hard time getting stuff done because, for me, it’s so disorganized.”
    So Ted had told the help he’d hired her, although she’d only agreed to take a look. What the hell, she didn’t have anything better to do.
    “It’s tough coming in sometimes,” Tina said, “behind someone else and trying to use their system. We’ll have to find out what will work for you. But first, there are some things that seem to work best for everyone. Let’s go over what you have and then we can start.”
    The phone purred. Someone wanted to talk to the doctor, so Sylvia had to take a message. She reached for a pen, couldn’t find one, and rummaged in the desk drawer. The pink phone pad was on a credenza behind her. She found it, took the message, and hung up. Tina wondered what kind of training or work experience Sylvia had.
    Before Tina could say anything, the front door opened and a woman stepped in holding a little boy by the hand. Sylvia had her sign a sheet of paper on a clipboard on the shelf in front of her, then gave the woman some papers to fill out.
    Brenda Cooley came into the room and said hi. She wore bright, patterned scrubs and a big smile. She was just one year older than Tina’s twenty-nine years, and their mothers knew each other, were in the Lunch Bunch together. They’d played with each other sometimes as youngsters and had a friendly relationship.
    “Tina! I heard you were going to get us organized. Boy, we need it. Maybe it’s different if you come in with no one else’s stuff to go through, but man, there’s a lot of paper around here, filed here and there and everywhere. How are you?”
    They hugged, and Tina couldn’t help smiling. “I’m good. How about yourself?”
    “Great.” Brenda turned to Sylvia. “I need more of those lab forms.” Back to Tina. “I’d love to catch up, but we’re really busy.”
    Tina nodded, watching Sylvia rummage through a drawer, looking for the forms. She found them underneath a few legal pads and a box of tissue.
    Brenda took them, wigged her fingers at both of them, and hurried out of the office.
    “Do you mind if I look through your cabinets and drawers to get an idea of what’s here and what we’ll need to do with it all?” Tina asked Sylvia.
    The phone rang. Before she picked it up, Sylvia said, “Go right ahead.”
    This was the fun part for Tina, but also could be confounding. Why was there a faded yellow tennis ball in the second drawer of the four-drawer file cabinet? And a Beanie Baby reindeer in the bottom drawer? Slightly squished. She found a dried-up package of gum, a figurine of mother and child in the very back of a drawer, packages of Ramen Noodles, the expiration date two years ago, and a roll of toilet paper. She checked out a pair of glasses by trying them on. The prescription was so strong it made her dizzy.
    Tina piled all these goodies on the corner of Sylvia’s desk. When the phone stopped ringing, and no one stood waiting for her to do something, Tina asked Sylvia about them.
    She shrugged. “They were all here when we started work. I haven’t touched anything because I was afraid one of the old workers would come back, looking for this stuff.”
    “It’s been six months