Fog City Nurse

By Florence Stonebraker

“Every attractive woman should take time out for love now and again. It keeps you young, helps the circulation, and it’s very broadening. Don’t you want to be broadened?”

Nurse Jane Walters has worked for two years in the San Francisco office of Dr. Philip Hastings, a high-profile and profitable doctor to wealthy, idle women who summon him to administer a “nightcap” when they can’t sleep—a career he’d taken up after he was drummed out of surgery by a scandal involving him in the suicide of his mentor’s wife. When Phil stumbles back into his office after a five-day bender that included a black eye from several fistfights, Jane declares she’s fed up with his lazy lifestyle, and she’s leaving to find honest, satisfying work. But he begs her to talk it out with him over lunch, the first time he has shown any interest in her. “You’re the first woman who ever talked to me like that,” he tells her. After a long afternoon in Chinatown, Phil begs Jane to stay, and admits that he’s fallen in love with her—and she replies that she’s always loved him.

 But their new-found romance isn’t going to be easy. Phil’s most frequent evening companion is the married Cynthia Bolton—Sin for short—and she’s a gal who knows how to use a black chiffon negligee to get what she wants. When he attempts to break it off with her, she refuses to go quietly, telling him that she will demand a divorce from her husband and splash Phil’s name all over the papers. When Jane’s attempt to save Phil from ruin lands her in a scandal of her own, will Phil believe what he has known about Jane all along, or what the vindictive Cynthia is whispering in his ear?