Chapter 69: Gossip and Scandals
NYU Medical Center
"Adam, take this patient to the ICU!"
"Adam, help me get him out."
"Adam, I need an extra hand over here!"
Within a week of starting his volunteer placement, Adam had become the person everyone called when they needed something done quickly. He wasn't sure if this was a compliment to his reliability or simply a consequence of being the most available person on the floor. Either way, the workload was considerable.
His endurance stat was sitting at 460 — nearly at the next threshold — which was the only reason he could sustain the pace without running out of steam by mid-afternoon. Anyone operating at normal human energy levels would have been exhausted by noon.
Since he had no classes on Saturdays, the volunteer shifts ran effectively full-day.
By evening he was genuinely tired, which said something.
Shift Change
Adam signed the attendance sheet, politely declined three separate dinner invitations from nurses, and headed toward the changing room.
He slowed down passing one of the corner wards.
From inside came a voice — clear, unhurried, reading aloud:
"I couldn't wait to tell my mother everything that had happened, how we'd gotten into trouble, how we needed to find a way out. So we rushed into the cold misty night toward the nearest village, not even stopping for our coats. We couldn't see the village yet, but something reassuring appeared ahead: a figure moving toward us through the dark..."
Adam stopped in the doorway.
A young woman in nursing whites sat beside an elderly man's bed, a book open in her lap, reading with the calm patience of someone who had done this enough times to know exactly what pace a person needed to absorb a story. The old man had his eyes closed but his breathing was different — the specific quality of someone listening rather than resting.
The woman closed the book gently. "That's all for today, Mr. Tucker. Get some rest. I'll see you tomorrow."
"Thank you, Caroline," came the old man's rough voice.
"Of course." She tucked his hand back under the blanket and stood. "Ring the nurse if you need anything tonight."
She turned and saw Adam in the doorway. They looked at each other for a moment, then both offered a small, polite smile. Adam nodded and kept walking.
He was honest enough with himself to acknowledge that a day of nurses had recalibrated his point of reference somewhat. The woman — Caroline — was probably a seven under normal conditions. After twelve hours on the floor, his brain had upgraded her to something closer to a nine.
He changed, took the subway back downtown, and spent the rest of the evening at the bar downstairs with Chandler and the others, where he learned the bar was officially closing next week and becoming a coffee shop.
He kept his expression neutral through the complaints.
The Next Morning
Adam arrived for his Sunday shift and was greeted by one of the senior nurses at the nurses' station, arms crossed, expression entirely too amused.
"Our Casanova is here," she announced.
Adam stopped. "I'm sorry?"
"Don't play innocent with me." She waved a hand. "The new caregiver, Caroline. Everyone saw you standing outside her patient's room last night. You were there for a while."
"I heard someone reading and stopped for a moment," Adam said.
"Mm-hmm."
"That's the whole story."
"That's what they all say." She grinned. "If you like her, just say so. I can put in a good word."
Adam spent the rest of the morning navigating variations of this conversation with essentially every hospital staff member he encountered. A thirty-second moment in a hallway had apparently been processed, contextualized, and distributed to the entire floor overnight.
He'd been in high school long enough to know that gossip moved fast. He had not expected a hospital to move faster.
Outside the Hospital — End of Shift
"Adam Duncan?"
He turned. Caroline Ellis — he'd caught her name from the old man's thank-you — was standing near the entrance in her regular clothes, clearly just finishing her shift as well.
"That's me," he said, with the mild caution of someone who wasn't sure which version of this morning's story she'd heard.
"I actually wanted to talk to you about something." She smiled, direct and easy. "Are you the lead singer of Hard Candy? The band that covered 'Don't Cry' a couple years back?"
Adam blinked. "Yeah. How do you know about that?"
"I used to manage rock bands," she said. "Regional circuit, mostly. Hard Candy made some noise — covering an unreleased Guns N' Roses track at a high school event takes a certain kind of nerve. I always wondered about following up, but you were in Texas and I was here." She tilted her head. "What are you doing volunteering at a hospital?"
"Columbia for undergrad, then medical school," Adam said. "Building the application."
"You gave up music for medicine?"
"Music was always a side project," he said. "You gave up band management for caregiving — that's a bigger pivot."
Something shifted in her expression. "My father was sick toward the end and I was always traveling for work. By the time I understood what that meant, it was too late to do anything about it." She looked at the hospital entrance. "A lot of the patients here are in the same position — serious condition, no family close by, nothing but nurses and staff at the end. I can at least do something about that."
Adam was quiet for a moment. He thought about Mr. Tucker with his eyes closed, listening.
"That makes sense," he said.
"Coffee?" she offered.
"Sure."
As it turned out, Caroline had opinions about the homecoming competition story — specifically about the bet, the naked laps, and Cash Goodman's decision to follow through.
She found all of it extremely funny and had approximately forty follow-up questions.
They never made it to the coffee shop. Caroline knew a place nearby where a band was playing, and she had the specific energy of someone who had spent years on the road with musicians and still lit up at the sound of a live guitar.
Adam found himself on a dance floor for the first time in his Columbia career, getting a thorough education in exactly how a former rock band manager spent a Saturday night in New York City.
He got home considerably later than planned.
He also, for the first time in a while, wasn't thinking about the system at all.
End of Chapter 69
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