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spendhours defending her choice. ER at Receiving wouldn’t be anything like Father’s serene Mission-style office, nor would it be patronized by elite members of his club. She hoped she was a match for the challenges of this volatile environment. And anything would be better that a position in her father’s sterile milieu.
    The stark gray stone and glass towers of the Renaissance Center, the Ren Cen, emerged from the shores of the Detroit River. She had only a few miles before she’d be in the parking lot at the hospital complex. She hoped the Center’s name was an omen for her own future. After all, the Ren Cen had its share of ups and downs and was on an upswing. She also heard about attempts to revive other city neighborhoods close to the hospital, so maybe Receiving’s ER wouldn’t be as bad as Pilar envisioned. Still, the queasiness she felt made her regret that second cup of coffee.
    Pilar squeezed her shoulders to her ears and sighed. That exercise didn’t ease the tension. So, she massaged her neck. The pressure remained.
    As she turned right onto Beaubien and away from the tidy line of condominiums edging the river, Pilar agreed with her father about one thing: she was a liberal do-gooder. “And I’m glad,” she said, and slapped the steering wheel. She smiled into the rearview mirror like the Cheshire cat in “Alice in Wonderland”, then had to slam on the brakes to avoid a collision with a sheriff’s car, red and blue lights circling and sirens blaring, that shot onto the street fromthe bowels of the Wayne County Jail. Once Pilar regained her composure, she resumed her journey with a more cautious concentration.
    Soon the hospital complex came into view. As she circled the parking lot to find the employee area, humid air rose up from the asphalt like steam from a boiling pot. Pilar parked, exhaled loudly and got out of the car.
    “Check out the new nurse,” one male doctor said to another when they passed by Pilar outside the employee entrance. She looked forward to their reactions when they discovered she was a peer. Perhaps not exactly a peer. Not until Pilar at least completed her first year of residency.
    With fluttering stomach, Pilar practiced her new title to herself, Doctor Brookstone. She chuckled over the two doctors who undoubtedly only saw a good-looking one-night-stand. When the two Don Juans turned to check Pilar out one more time, an unappealing memory from med school surfaced: The dean telling her he doubted any woman could handle the burden of medical career and family. “So, it really is a waste of time, isn’t it?” he asked.
    Often, the dreadful truth about careers and relationships were delivered to Pilar and similar women like a scalpel which cut into the brain. The comment made by the dean gave Pilar a sound shove into the feminist fight, where she was determined to come out a winner.
    Pilar waited until the two doctors were out of sight before she approached the entrance. She stopped for a moment togloat over the sign that read, “Hospital Employees Only.” Then she drew in a long sustaining breath, pulled the door open, and crossed the threshold.
    O N M ONDAYS , ER WAS considered quiet, especially after the carnage brought in on Friday and Saturday nights. So after Pilar’s initial orientation, meeting the patients assigned to her and making rounds was easy. As she left her supervising doctor after a scheduled lecture and headed to the lounge for lunch, Pilar met one of the doctors from the parking lot. His eyebrows shot up into surprised peaks. “Look who’s here”, his witching smile seemed to say. When he noticed Pilar’s lab coat and checked her name tag, a dropped jaw replaced his momentary seduction. Any pleasure Pilar had from that encounter with the thunderstruck doctor became history when he quickly gathered his poise, leaned his body toward her, and said, “You’re too pretty to be a doctor.”
    Pilar glanced at his name tag — Jeremy Peters. “You