Page 22 of Under Southern Stars
The waiter appears. We haven’t even looked at the menus. Jack orders for us both in Italian that definitely didn’t come from Duolingo.
“Hidden talents?” I ask.
“Spent a summer in Rome during uni. Family business.” He makes quote marks. “Learned the important things. Wine, food, how to apologize for being a tourist.”
“What else don’t I know?”
“Let’s see. Can’t sing at all. I play rugby badly, not like my sisters.”
“You seem pretty good at chaos management too, though,” I say, “or else you’re in the wrong line of business.”
He smiles, taking a sip of his wine. “I was just thinking the same about you. Though you were built for chaos too, in your way,” he says, circling back to my earlier comment. “Tell me more about that.”
I take another sip of my wine, considering how much to share. “Three years into nursing, I was working this quiet Tuesday morning shift in triage. I was taking the blood pressure of a sweet little blue-haired lady who probably had a UTI, when we heard the crash.”
Jack leans forward slightly, his food momentarily forgotten.
“Almost right outside our ambulance bay, a driver had a seizure, lost control, and plowed into a farmers market. Bystanders started loading victims into their cars, ambulances were scrambling. We had maybe a thirty-second warning before seventeen people arrived. Simultaneously.”
“Jesus,” Jack murmurs.
“Our manager—” I shake my head, “nice guy, but he’d come from a medsurg unit, wanted to try his hand at the ER. God knows why administration thought that was a good idea. But anyway, he just…froze. Complete deer-in-headlights. And I knew we had seconds to get organized.”
I find myself gesturing with my hands, the memory vivid even years later. “So I just started barking orders. Pulled every available nurse, called in the off-duty docs who were sleeping in the lounge, commandeered the hallways for overflow. Toldtransport to clear the CT scanner, redirected elective cases. Started tagging patients—red, yellow, green.”
“Mass casualty protocol,” Jack nods approvingly.
“We had three critical head traumas, two pneumothoraxes, a near-amputation, and a pregnant woman in premature labor. But we saved them. Every single one.” I pause, then add more quietly, “I never got any recognition beyond being made a permanent charge nurse after that. But you don’t get ‘attagirls’ for just doing your job, right?”
Jack’s looking at me with something that feels like respect mixed with admiration. It’s different from Troy’s dismissive tolerance of my work, or Cameron’s performative praise that always felt like a prelude to asking me out.
“That’s…incredible, Sophia,” he says finally. “You probably saved half those people before the doctors even touched them. Just by organizing the chaos.”
I feel a flush of pleasure at the genuine appreciation in his voice. “It’s what we do, right? You see it on the streets, I see it in the department.”
“Still,” he says, “that’s not just doing your job. That’s leadership under fire.”
“Sounds like something you’d see plenty of in paramedicine,” I deflect, not used to this kind of attention.
“Different kind of chaos,” he acknowledges. “But I think I get it now. Why you’re so good at being charge. It’s not just experience—you’re naturally wired for it.”
“My dad was military,” I hear myself saying, surprised at the disclosure. “We moved constantly. Maybe I learned to adapt quickly from that. To take control where I could.”
“Is he still around?”
“Passed a couple years ago. Heart attack.” I swallow against the sudden tightness in my throat. “He was my rock when my marriage was ending. Used to drive four hours just to take Madison for a weekend so I could have a break.”
Jack reaches across the table, his fingers brushing mine in a gesture so natural it doesn’t feel intrusive. “He sounds like a good man.”
“He was.” I smile, pushing back the melancholy. “Would have liked you, I think. He appreciated competence and had no patience for BS.”
“Man after my own heart,” Jack grins. “What about your mom?”
“Retired teacher, lives in Florida now. Calls Madison twice a week for ‘girl chats’ and sends me articles about how I work too much.”
“She’s not wrong,” Jack teases gently.
“Probably not,” I concede. “Though having a fifteen-year-old doesn’t leave much downtime. Madison’s great, but—” I laugh, “—she has strong opinions about everything. Last month she made this ridiculous PowerPoint presentation titled ‘Why Mom Needs a Social Life’ with actual pie charts about my work-to-fun ratio.”
