"Come on, ladies, break it up," Caleb said, peeling me off of her and setting me on my feet.
"Crazy little bitch!" Trixie spat.
"Look, all we want is the wedding ring," I told her as Caleb carted me outside of swinging distance. "We just need the ring, and we'll get out of your face."
Trixie nodded slowly, considering. Caleb put me on my feet, and I approached her.
I patted her arm. In a gentler voice, I told her, "If you want, I will personally deliver pictures of you straddling one of those beefy fellas to Lolo, so he knows what he's missing."
Trixie nodded again, but this time, she was swaying on her feet. I didn't think it was because of my vicious blows.
"OK, OK," she panted, slipping the ring off her finger. "Just take it. I didn't want the stupid r-ring . . . any-anyway."
As she dropped it into my waiting palm, a red flush crept across her skin, and her breathing went unsteady and shallow.
I shoved the ring into my pocket. "Hey, are you OK?"
Trixie shook her head, just before her eyes rolled up and she collapsed to the floor. Her head bounced off the planks with a sickening crack.
"Trixie?"
"Come on, get up," Pam called. "She beat you fair and square, Trix. Have some dignity."
I knelt over Trixie, prying her eyelids apart, watching through my good eye to see if her pupils responded to the harsh lights of the bar.
"No, I think she's really sick," I told the bartender as I watched Trixie's lips swell. If this reaction was what I suspected, her airway could swell shut in minutes, and she wouldn't be able to breathe. And contrary to every medical TV show ever made, it's not that easy to improvise intubation with an empty ballpoint pen.
"Trixie!" I called. "Trixie, do you have any allergies?" The only response I got was a muffled grunt. I looked up at the bartender. "Do you know if she has any allergies?"
Pam shrugged. "Just shellfish. You know, shrimp and stuff? But she's really careful to . . ." Pam glanced back at the remains of my sandwich and my hands, which were touching Trixie's neck. "Ohhh."
I raised my crab-contaminated hands away from Trixie's skin and dashed for the bar. I grabbed a prepackaged pair of yellow rubber kitchen gloves from the bar sink. "Is there a clinic in town?" I asked. Pam nodded. "Call them and explain the situation. Tell the doctor that we've got anaphylaxis, plus a possible concussion. We're going to need Benadryl and an epi shot, plus fluids. You got that?"
Pam nodded and dialed the phone behind the bar.
I looked to Abe. "Go into the ladies' room and get Trixie's bag. She probably has an EpiPen."
"I can't go into the ladies' room!" Abe protested.
"It's an emergency," I told him, depressing Trixie's swollen tongue with my gloved fingers. "And you own the bar."
"Sorry, right," Abe mumbled sheepishly, before booking across the room to the bathroom door.
Caleb dropped to his knees beside me, watching me with a confused expression. "Is she faking?" he asked.
"You can't fake that," I said, nodding toward her swollen mouth and face. I folded Caleb's jacket and placed it under Trixie's head, tilting her head back to keep her airway open. "She must be pretty sensitive if contact with my hands could make her react like this. Of course, I bloodied her lip, which may mean the shellfish contaminants got into her bloodstream."
Abe jogged back to us with a pink camouflage canvas rolling bag. I unzipped it and dug through a rainbow of sateen bustiers, feather boas, and thongs, until I found a small toiletry bag kept separate from the enormous makeup kit stuffed inside the lid. The black nylon bag was cleaner and newer than the makeup kit and was clearly used less. I unzipped it and found a plastic tube with a purple label marked "EpiPen."
"Does anyone have any scissors or a knife?" I called. "I need to split her pants."
Sheepish again, Abe knelt beside me and reached for the hem of Trixie's uniform pants. He gave the leg of her pants a sharp jerk, and they split up to the knee. He pulled at the tear-away pants, splitting the Velcro to her thigh. My mouth hung open for a moment before I snapped myself out of it and removed the tube's flip-top. I clicked the blue release button and jabbed the auto-injector into her outer thigh, holding it there to make sure the medicine was injected.
I kept my fingers at Trixie's throat, waiting for the telltale spike in her pulse. In a few seconds, the swelling in her lips decreased ever so slightly. Her legs began to twitch and shake, as if she had been zapped with a cattle prod. This was a normal nerve response to the epinephrine, something patients complained bitterly about, along with nausea, anxiety, and bouts of the shakes. Of course, I'd be anxious if I'd had a stranger jab an injection into my bare thigh.
I took another jacket from a patron who stood nearby ogling the red spangly top peeking through Trixie's uniform shirt. I glared at him while I draped the jacket over her chest. She needed to stay warm.
A handsome middle-aged man in a maroon St. Nicholas Clinic sweatshirt barreled into the barroom, black leather medical bag in hand. He spotted the woman on the floor and made a beeline for us.
"What in the hell happened to this woman?" he demanded, examining the swelling and bruises on her face.
"We had a minor difference of opinion before she went into anaphylactic shock," I said.
He looked up at me, blue eyes flashing as if he was about to light into me about her condition. "It doesn't look like you're in much better shape, ma'am," he said disdainfully.
I pressed my gloved hand to my mouth and drew back yellow latex smeared with blood. Well, that certainly explained the stinging in my lip. I turned to Caleb, who was glaring at the doctor. Maybe he didn't appreciate his tone with me?
"It's not that bad," Abe assured me.
Groaning, I peeled off the contaminated gloves and reached toward the box of proper medical gloves in the doctor's bag. "May I?"
The doctor gave a curt nod. "Ned Mabry."
"Anna Moder," I told him, the name rolling off my tongue on autopilot, then I rattled off a succinct description of Trixie's condition. "Patient engaged in a fistfight that ended with a blow to the back of her head when she hit the floor. Patient has a severe allergy to shellfish and had contact with residue from a crab salad sandwich. Before hitting her head, she developed respiratory difficulty and early-stage swelling of the lips and tongue. I auto-injected a point-three-milligram dose of epinephrine that the patient carried with her in her purse. Swelling has reduced. Patient is responding as expected."
"Thank you, Nurse Moder." Dr. Mabry nodded, checking Trixie's vitals.
"It's Doctor Moder," I snapped, irritated that, like a lot of male doctors, Mabry had assumed that a woman with medical knowledge ranked below him. I ignored the way Caleb's eyebrows winged up. Stupid pride.
"Pardon me," he said. "I don't know a lot of doctors who engage in fistfights at stripper bars."
"They're exotic dancers," I corrected, becoming more and more irritated with this guy. "And it's none of your business what I'm doing here."
"Well, you've provided appropriate treatment," he said. "I'll take her to the clinic for overnight observation, but she should make a full recovery. I'm open until ten if you want to follow up with her."
I nodded. Trixie was loaded onto a gurney and wheeled away to the clinic. The crowd, which had seen more than its fair share of entertainment that evening, dispersed. I sat heavily on the pool table, swiping at my busted lip with antiseptic. Caleb was at my side in a flash, taking over dabbing duties and then leading me to Abe's office to make full use of his first-aid kit. "You OK?"
"I saw Million Dollar Baby. No matter what I say, do not pull the plug, OK?" I told him.
"Maybe we should go to the clinic and let the doctor check you," he suggested anxiously.
I shook my head. "No, I'm fine."
"I guess you would know. You really are a doctor, huh?" he asked.
"That's what the fancy piece of paper I bought on the Internet says."
"Well, even under the circumstances, it was neat to get to see you work. You usually don't speak with that kind of authority and confidence." I opened my mouth to protest, but Caleb added, "It was a good thing. I felt like I was seeing the real Tina. I wouldn't mind seeing more of her."
He grinned and kissed my bruised lip, making me wince. "My face hurts."
"Here." He pressed a gentle kiss to the tip of my nose.
"Oh, my God, she has you so whipped," Abe groaned from the doorway. He wrinkled his face in disgust. "What did I tell you about being all cutesy?"
"I don't know. Perhaps I can't remember because of the stripping Amazon who pummeled my head!" I shot back, glaring at both of them. "A warning about her being Godzilla in a bikini would have been nice."
"Well, to express our apologies-and our appreciation for not letting our friend die from the food at my bar-here you go." Abe pressed an envelope into my hand. "The fellas wanted me to give you this."