“Thanks. I can always count on you, can’t I, sis? I love you.”
“I love you, too, Mike.”
One day, Kat said to Paige and Honey, “Do you know what we all need?”
“A month’s sleep?”
“A vacation. That’s where we should be, strolling down the Champs Elysées, looking in all those expensive shop windows.”
“Right. First-class all the way!” Paige giggled. “Well sleep all day and play all night.”
Honey laughed. “Sounds good.”
“We have some vacation time coming up in a few months,” Paige observed. “Why don’t we make some plans for the three of us to go away somewhere?”
“That’s a great idea,” Kat said enthusiastically. “Saturday, let’s stop in at a travel agency.”
They spent the next three days excitedly making plans.
“I’m dying to see London. Maybe we’ll run into the queen.”
“Paris is where I want to go. It’s supposed to be the most romantic city in the world.”
“I want to ride a gondola in the moonlight in Venice.”
Maybe we’ll go to Venice on our honeymoon, Paige, Alfred had said. Would you like that?
Oh, yes!
She wondered if Alfred had taken Karen to Venice on their honeymoon.
Saturday morning the three of them stopped in at the Corniche Travel Agency on Powell Street.
The woman behind the counter was polite. “What kind of trip are you interested in?”
“We’d like to go to Europe—London, Paris, Venice…”
“Lovely. We have some economical package tours that—”
“No, no, no.” Paige looked at Honey and grinned. “First-class.”
“Right. First-class air travel,” Kat chimed in.
“First-class hotels,” Honey added.
“Well, I can recommend the Ritz in London, the Crillon in Paris, the Cipriani in Venice, and—”
Paige said, “Why don’t we just take some brochures with us? We can study them and make up our minds.”
“That will be fine,” the travel agent said.
Paige was looking at a brochure. “You arrange yacht charters, too?”
“Yes.”
“Good. We may be chartering one.”
“Excellent.” The travel agent collected a handful of brochures and handed them to Paige. “Whenever you’re ready, just let me know and I’ll be happy to make your reservations.”
‘You’ll hear from us,” Honey promised.
When they got outside, Kat laughed and said, “Nothing like dreaming big, is there?”
“Don’t worry,” Paige assured her. “One day we’ll be able to go to all those places.”
Chapter Ten
Seymour Wilson, the chief of medicine at Embarcadero County Hospital, was a frustrated man with an impossible job. There were too many patients, too few doctors and nurses, and too few hours in a day. He felt like the captain of a sinking ship, running around vainly trying to plug up the holes.
At the moment, Dr. Wilson’s immediate concern was Honey Taft. While some doctors seemed to like her a great deal, reliable residents and nurses kept reporting that Dr. Taft was incapable of doing her job.
Wilson finally went to see Ben Wallace. “I want to get rid of one of our doctors,” he said. “The residents she makes rounds with tell me she’s incompetent.”
Wallace remembered Honey. She was the one who had the extraordinarily high grades and glowing recommendation. “I don’t understand it,” he said. “There must be some mistake.” He was thoughtful for a moment. “I’ll tell you what we’ll do, Seymour. Who’s the meanest son of a bitch on your staff?”
“Ted Allison.”
“All right. Tomorrow morning, send Honey Taft out on rounds with Dr. Allison. Have him give you a report on her. If he says she’s incompetent, I’ll get rid of her.”
“Fair enough,” Dr. Wilson said. “Thanks, Ben.”
At lunch, Honey told Paige that she had been assigned to make the rounds with Dr. Allison the following morning.
“I know him,” Paige said. “He has a miserable reputation.”
“That’s what I hear,” Honey said thoughtfully.
At that moment, in another part of the hospital, Seymour Wilson was talking to Ted Allison. Allison was a hard-bitten veteran of twenty-five years. He had served as a medical officer in the navy, and he still took pride in “kicking ass.”
Seymour Wilson was saying, “I want you to keep a close eye on Dr. Taft. If she can’t cut it, she’s out. Understood?”