There was nothing for the dozen or so patients to do but sit and wait, reread the Out of Order notice attached to the candy machine, and wish they were next. Today, of course, Lucy was here as an observer. How could she have left home without a book!The door opened and here came two new people to look at, a woman in a blue buttoned blouse who was leading a crooked old body by the elbow. The old person looked all nose and chin; the woman in the blouse, neither old nor fat, had abandoned the search for a shape. Her bare legs were mapped with varicose veins. She led the old person to the bench next to Lucy and said, “Sit. You sit here, okay?” and then she went and waited behind an unusually tall old man with a smashed face, who had to bend his head to talk with the nurse through the triage window. When he had finished and gone to sit down, the woman in the blouse talked with the nurse. “She’s my neighbor. Name is Ida Farkasz, except she doesn’t remember. She doesn’t remember which is her apartment or anything, and I got to get home, I have my own things I have to do.
