“Listen to me,” Esther Goldstein said. “I’m telling you it’s nothing.”
“I’m sure it isn’t, Ma,” Barty said, as the cab sped across town toward Eastern. “I’m sure it isn’t, but you’ve been having those pains for two days now and you know about your heart condition.”
“I don’t believe this,” Esther said, knocking the peacock feather away from her face. “I get to Bloomingdale’s twice a year and my worrywart son is rushing me off to the emergency room of a hospital. I mean, oy—”
She didn’t finish the last sentence. The pain had intensified and was shooting up and down her left arm. She felt short-circuited.
But mostly, even as she suffered from her heart, Esther Goldstein’s main sensation was one of embarrassment. She had come to show them how she had survived, by God. She had come to be an object lesson for Barty who was prematurely aging and had started to play it safe full time. And now, oh God, the pain was getting worse. Perhaps she should have listened to Dr. Benson in Cincinnati, when he suggested that she not try to get in shape too quickly. But no matter what it was, no matter how bad the pain became (and there was no let-up), she was going to pull through this. She knew it. She was dead certain.
“We’re here, driver,” Barty said. “Don’t get out, Ma. I’m getting a stretcher.”
Esther tried to get up, but she was beyond that stage now. She stared out the window of the cab and made out the name Eastern Medical. In less than two minutes they had wheeled her through the crowded halls of the Eastern Emergency Room. Her nervous son and shell-shocked daughter-in-law tried to keep up with the residents who rushed her along.
“To think,” Esther said, “twenty minutes ago I was in Bloomies.”
“Mrs. Goldstein,” said a fat nurse, “you must try and keep quiet.”
“Keep quiet?” Esther said. “Keep quiet? I might be dying. And if that’s the case, I’ll have years to keep quiet.”
But the pain hit her again, a great nauseating wave of it, and for the moment she wasn’t able to speak.
They wheeled her quickly by the nurses’ station and then by the anesthesiologist’s Ready Room.
“Some ride,” Esther Goldstein said, as the pain cut back a bit.
A couple of the residents even laughed at that one. Their voices caught Peter Cross’s attention as he was checking out his armamentarium. He looked up and saw the frizzy-haired lady staring at him, with enormous eyes. He smiled at her and snapped shut his case and headed off to the cafeteria for lunch.
They wheeled Esther Goldstein into X-Ray, and then into the Cardiac Monitoring Room, and two doctors attached the electrocardiograph machine to her. She looked down at the electrodes on her chest.
“Look, Barty,” she said, “I’m the bionic yenta.”
Above her, a round doctor named Tompkins, with a nose that made him look like Mr. Potato Head, began talking to another doctor, a short man with small, slit eyes.
“This woman needs a coronary bypass operation,” Tompkins said. “I think it’s as simple as bypass, two months in bed, and she’s as good as new.”
But the shorter man, Dr. Snyder, waved a small, eloquent finger in the air. He looked as though he was conducting an orchestra.
“Not a chance,” he said. “Her color is good. She’s awake, and her pulse isn’t too bad. I’m not at all sure we can’t treat her medically.”
Tompkins turned and pulled out some X-rays they had just worked up on Esther.
“Look at these, will you?”
“Forget it,” said the short man. He stared at his own fingers as if he were transfixed.
“That’s right, Doc,” Esther gasped. “Forget it. I’ve seen better acts than yours on the Gong Show.”
“Good,” said the little man, patting the fading Barty on the arm. “We’ll get you into the Cardiac Monitoring Unit … work up some tests. We’ll get her ready for the angiogram. There’s nothing to really worry about. We’ve caught this in plenty of time.”
“You’re sure she’s going to be all right?” Barty said.
“Absolutely. It’s the best unit on the floor. We’ve got around-the-clock nurses and closed-circuit TV. Any problems arise, we nail them down in a minute. Nothing will go wrong.”
Barty took out a handkerchief and rubbed his head.
“Trust me,” the doctor said.