The corridor expanded into the waiting area for the GYN clinic. It was dense with patients, children, and cigarette smoke. Katherine crossed this central area and entered a cul-de-sac to the right. The university’s GYN clinic, which served all the colleges as well as the hospital employees, had its own waiting area, although the decor and furniture were the same as the main room. When Katherine entered there were seven women sitting on tubular steel and vinyl seats. All were nervously flicking the pages of outdated magazines. The receptionist sat behind a desk, a bird-like woman of about twenty-five with bleached hair, pale skin, and narrow features. Her name tag pinned firmly to her flat chest proclaimed her name to be Ellen Cohen. She looked up as Katherine approached the desk.
“Hello, my name is Katherine Collins …” She noticed that her voice lacked the assertiveness she had intended. In fact, when she got to the end of her request she realized that she sounded as if she were pleading.
The receptionist looked at her for a moment. “You want your records?” she asked. Her voice reflected a mixture of disdain and incredulity.
Katherine nodded and tried to smile.
“Well, you’ll have to talk with Ms. Blackman about that. Please have a seat.” Ellen Cohen’s voice became brusque and authoritarian. Katherine turned and found a seat near to the desk. The receptionist went to a file cabinet and pulled Katherine’s clinic chart. She then disappeared through one of the several doors leading to the examining rooms.
Unconsciously, Katherine began smoothing her shiny brown hair, pulling it down over her left shoulder. It was a common gesture for Katherine, particularly when she was under strain. She was an attractive young woman with bright attentive gray-blue eyes. Her height was five-two-and-a-half, but her energetic
personality made her seem taller. She was well liked by her friends at college, probably because of her openness, and deeply loved by her parents, who worried about the vulnerability of their only daughter in the jungle of New York City. Yet it had been Katherine’s parents’ concern and overprotectiveness that had led to Katherine choosing a college in New York, believing the city would help her demonstrate her innate strength and individuality. Up until the current illness, she had been successful, scoffing at her parents’ warnings. New York had become her city and she loved its throbbing vitality.
The receptionist reappeared and sat down to her typing.
Katherine’s eyes surreptitiously swept around the waiting room, recording the bowed heads of the young women waiting their turns like unknowing cattle. Katherine was immensely thankful she was not waiting for an exam herself. She loathed the experience, which she had endured four times: the last just four weeks ago. Coming to the clinic had been her most difficult act of independence. In reality she would have much preferred to return to Weston, Massachusetts, and see her own gynecologist, Dr. Wilson. He’d been the first and only other doctor to examine her. Dr. Wilson was older than the residents who staffed the clinic and he had a sense of humor, which had defused the humiliating aspects of the experience, making it at least tolerable. Not so here. The clinic was impersonal and cold, and combined with the city hospital environment, each visit became a nightmare. Yet Katherine had persisted. Her sense of independence demanded it, at least until her illness.
The nurse practitioner, Ms. Blackman, emerged from one of the rooms. She was a stocky forty-five-year-old woman with jet black hair pulled back into a tight bun on the crown of her head. She was dressed in a spotless white uniform, starched to a professional crispness. Her attire reflected the way she liked to run the clinic: with cool efficiency. She’d worked for the Med Center for eleven years.
The receptionist spoke to Ms. Blackman, and Katherine heard her name mentioned. The nurse nodded, turning to look in Katherine’s direction for a moment. Belying her crisp exterior, Ms. Blackman’s dark brown eyes gave an impression of great warmth. Katherine suddenly thought that outside of the hospital Ms. Blackman was probably a good deal nicer.
But Ms. Blackman did not come over to talk with Katherine. Instead she whispered something to Ellen Cohen, then returned to the examination area. Katherine felt her face redden. She guessed she was being deliberately ignored; it would be a way for the clinic personnel to show their displeasure about her wish to see her own doctor. Nervously she reached for a coverless year-old copy of Ladies’ Home Journal, but she couldn’t concentrate.