All dolled up in pristine paper pajamas and a fresh pair of slipper-socks, Bunny is accompanied by an aide who leads her through a maze of hallways, where, at the end, she is handed over, like a baton in a relay race, to the nurse who is waiting for her. This nurse introduces herself. “Sondra,” she says. “With an o.” Sondra is short and has the body of snowman, including no neck; all o’s, and Bunny thinks about how Ella, the other nurse whom she also likes, the one on the ward, is gangly thin. Not that she makes anything of it. It just is.
Bunny has no fever. Her heartbeat is strong. Her blood pressure remains gorgeous. Her pulse is a little rapid, but that’s to be expected when you’re nervous.
Sondra takes her hand. “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Sondra tries to reassure her. “Dr. Tilden is the best there is. I’ve been at his side for hundreds, maybe even thousands of procedures,” Sondra says. “Nothing has ever gone wrong. I wouldn’t lie to you.”
Sondra sounds sincere, but still Bunny says, “Everyone lies.” In a far-off kind of way, as if she’s drifted into the past, and not referring to Sondra, she repeats, “Everyone lies.”
As a seasoned professional as well as a sensible woman who has raised three children and survived their adolescences, Sondra knows when and when not to engage. With her clipboard in hand, she runs through the checklist: Breakfast? No. Liquids after midnight? No. Hearing aid? No. Pacemaker? No. Prosthetic devices? No. Dentures? Contact lenses? No. No. Jewelry? Not Allowed. “You’re going to be fine,” Sondra says.
“Isn’t it pretty to think so?” Bunny says.
“Pretty?” she asks.
That Sondra does not recognize one of the most famous lines in all of American literature does not lessen Bunny’s opinion of her. Nonetheless, she pegs Sondra as illiterate, the word coming to mind as il-lit-er-ate, almost like Lo-li-ta; almost, but nowhere near as good. Nowhere near as good is never good enough.
Sondra then sends Bunny to an adjacent bathroom to empty her bladder, an instruction that, for no reason other than that not all of her faculties are intact, Bunny cannot make sense of until Sondra clarifies, “Urinate. Pee.”