But she did do it again.
Many times, over many years. Trips to the principal’s office, notes sent home from school talking about her anger-management issues. Her parents would sigh and give her a good talking-to, and tell her not to do it again; and then she would do it again, and the cycle would repeat.
It wasn’t until high school, after both Mom and Dad were dead, that she realized that the word temper didn’t fit. She had a short fuse, no doubt. But temper implied blind rage without purpose. Her anger sprang from an emotional reaction to a perceived injustice: like that time in high school when, during a close race, one of her cross-country rivals had wielded some sharp elbows to beat back Rita’s final surge. Rita had fumed: not because the other girl had won but because she hadn’t won fairly. She hated cheaters. Their ensuing argument had escalated into a screaming match. Physical intervention from girls on both teams prevented the two of them from trying to rip each other’s lungs out.
Afterward, the anger-management classes her school had required Rita to take as a precondition for remaining on the cross-country team weren’t as bad as she thought they’d be. The counselor who ran the classes was an idealistic twentysomething with a psychology degree from Stanford. Nice enough. She liked to say super a lot, and make liberal use of exclamation points in everyday speech. Super great job, Rita! I’m super impressed! You’re making super progress!
Rita did as told; and, eventually, she’d super managed her anger.
Anger management.
It was a useful skill. But as she’d clawed her way up through the professional ranks, Rita had soon discovered that a measured display of righteous anger could be productive for a career woman—a sad commentary on modern society, maybe, but true: People always moved faster in her OR when they thought she was pissed off, much more so, she thought, than with her male counterparts.
So she’d cultivated her anger—or indignation, or whatever. She’d repurposed it. Domesticated it. Groomed it. Kept it on as a pet. When necessary, she’d let it run loose for a while, do its thing, then tuck it away again before it could do any real damage.
Now was one of those times she needed to let her anger out of her subconscious for a little romp. Wendy was her subordinate, and she was having just a little too much fun this morning at Rita’s expense. Who did she think she was?
“Wendy!” she snapped. The acoustic peculiarities of the cavernous OR propelled Rita’s shout from one end of the room to the other and back, magnifying its effect. Wendy and Lisa flinched, Wendy more so. “Enough already with the twenty questions! We’ve all got work to do this morning. Move on. Okay? You found me here, and I’m awake now. Just get over it!”
Rita put her hand to her temple as the pain in her head spiked briefly to an almost intolerable level. She made a mental note not to raise her voice again until she was feeling better.
“Wendy,” Lisa said into the uncomfortable silence. “Why don’t you go over to the storeroom and grab the surgical trays from the sterilizer?”
Wendy thrust out her lower lip and slouched out of the room.
Lisa shook her head. “Ugh. Sorry about that.” She placed a hand on Rita’s shoulder. “How are you feeling, Dr. Wu? For real?”
Hungover.
The thought shocked Rita before it had finished forming in her mind.
Impossible.
She hadn’t had a drink in over a year.
Unthinkable.
“I’m okay, Lisa. Really.”
Lisa made a face and pointed to Rita’s left ear. “What’s that?”
“What’s what?”
“You’re bleeding.” Lisa retrieved a package from a nearby cabinet, ripped it open, and plucked out a square-shaped piece of white sterile gauze. She dabbed it to Rita’s ear. She had a light touch, but the motion still made Rita wince with pain.
Lisa held up the gauze to Rita’s face. It was spackled with bright-red spots.
Rita frowned. “What?”
“It looks like it’s dripping from inside your ear. Here.” She placed the gauze in Rita’s hand and gently guided it to her left earlobe. “Put some pressure to it. I’m going to get your clothes.”
“My clothes?” Rita said, holding the gauze in place.
Lisa looked stricken. She pointed to a pair of scrub pants and matching top neatly folded on a nearby table, on which were lying a pair of white panties, bra, cell phone, hospital ID badge, and eyeglasses. A pair of white sneakers, with a grey athletic sock tucked into each of them, sat on top of a nearby stool. “Yours?”
Rita blushed. “Yes.”
Lisa carefully laid the cell phone and ID aside, picked up the clothes, and brought them over to her. She checked Rita’s ear again. “I think it’s stopped.” She tossed the blood-dappled gauze in a red trash can. “I’ll guard the door.”