Nurse in Acapulco

By Jane Converse

(pseud. Adele Kay Maritano), ©1964

 

Mrs. Breckenridge’s maniacal possessiveness had turned her handsome son into a peevish playboy, her daughter into a shrill, contemptuous and cheating wife, her son-in0law into a drunken failure. When it seemed as though one of her captives might break away, Mrs. Breckenridge had another heart attack and threatened to change her will. In accepting the wealthy hypochondriac as a patient, special nurse Donna Walton had no way of knowing that she was to be used as bait in the old woman’s devious scheme to keep her son by her side … forever.

 

GRADE: C-

 

BEST QUOTES:

“They close the bullring and jai-alai court for the summer. The really chic parties don’t get off the ground before December. Prepare to perish, Miss Waldron.”

 

REVIEW:

We’ve been to Acapulco before, in Beauty Contest Nurse and the other Nurse in Acapulco. This trip is about as successful—which is to say, not very—as our last two expeditions, I’m sorry to say. Here, it’s Donna Walton who is stalking the moonlight beaches and feeling “deeply touched by the warm, trusting simplicity of these people, by their unsophisticated love.” Donna’s come to Mexico to care for an aging (but not old, she’s in her 50s) hypochondriac Grace Breckenridge, who keeps her children, Enid and the unfortunately named Buzzy, on a short leash that they dare not slip, lest she cut off the funding for their louche lives of luxury. Donna has only agreed to take this job because she’s come off a particularly demanding case, caring for a terminally ill cancer patient for the past seven months. For once, this dying patient is actually broke, and Donna received no pay for her final nine weeks of work when he ran out of money. So she needs a vacation, and she needs to replete her bank account; this job, which pays twice her normal salary, seems to fit both bills.

 

But at what cost? There’s the small matter of her conscience, soon smote when she’s called to help an actual injured patient, the grandchild of the hacienda’s gardener. When she delivers the boy to the local medico, Dr. Emilio Camargo, who has a garden full of impoverished patients waiting hours to be seen, he asks her, “You will come again, no? When you have nothing of greater importance to do than that which you are doing from day to day?” Her agenda thus far has been no more taxing than learning to surf, attending parties, and playing bridge, and she thinks, “I wish he’d had reason to respect me as a nurse, instead of looking at me as though I was a conscious parasite.”

 

Then a houseguest arrives, an old friend of Enid’s husband, Kenny. Dr. Stanley Sherwood, a psychiatrist practicing in New York, went to medical school with Kenny before Kenny married Enid and decided to switch careers and become a kept boy and gin aficionado, though I’m sorry to report that he appears to prefer his cocktails served in a coconut shell rather than in a coupe, so low has his self-worth fallen. For Dr. Sherwood, Donna decides after one day with him, “she herself had waited all her life.” But how does he feel? Ah, if only these women of the 1960s actually had the gumption to just initiate an honest conversation. One night, when a drunken Enid accuses Donna of running after Buzzy, Kenny, Dr. Camargo, and now Dr. Sherwood, the latter overhears, but she takes no action at all. “If he had heard Enid’s vicious accusations, there was no way of knowing what conclusions he had reached. To throw a robe over her nightgown now, to deliberately run out into the corridor and deny the accusations Enid had made, might only give them credence.” Really?

 

So while he goes off to a conference for five days—and will he ever return for her?—she works in the evenings at Dr. Camargo’s clinic to buff up her conscience and reputation. The days pass, and pass, and no call from Stan, though when she learns that Stan is staying at a nearby hotel, she actually manages to pick up the phone. He’s not in, though, and she’s just hung up when an earthquake strikes! Because there’s nothing as redemptive as a major natural disaster to improve everyone’s character! The hacienda’s idle rich leap into action: Enid opens the house to wounded victims and cares for them to her best ability, Kenny forcibly drags his brother-in-law from under a chandelier that collapses moments later and then labors with Enid to tend the wounded, Buzzy taps his ham-radio hobby to contact San Diego for a pint of “rare” blood, AB positive (though in fact they can receive blood from about 92 percent of the population; it’s AB negative that’s the rarest blood type, carried by only 1 percent of the population). Stan and Donna, of course, work with Dr. Camargo at the clinic, and sad, hysterical, screaming Mrs. Breckenridge is left untended—indeed, she’s told to “mix yourself a drink and relax” while everyone else works tirelessly. When the crisis has passed, Enid and Kenny are plotting to buy a house near the University of California in Berkeley, apparently unaware that the otherwise stellar educational powerhouse has no medical school, and Stan is suggesting that instead of returning to her job in Oregon, Donna might instead consider New York. But that’s it for redemption; Buzzy’s emancipation is anticipated but not witnessed, and we never learn whether the histrionic Mrs. Breckenridge rebounds from her abandonment.

 

Jane Converse can be a very fine writer (see Surf Safari Nurse, Nurse in Crisis), but most of the time she settles for mediocrity, as she does here, perhaps opting for quantity over quality (indeed, she was a very prolific writer). Now and again we get the slight sparkle of her sharp wit, but Mrs. Breckenridge, the screaming matriarch character—one I usually enjoy and one of Jane’s usual stock in trade—is no Angela Di Marco, the gin-soaked faded movie star with running mascara and bedraggled marabou from Nurse on Trial; rather, here our grande dame just lamely clutches her heart and sways with eyes closed when her brief screaming harangues are not meeting with success. Donna’s concern that Stan isn’t going to come back to Acapulco after hearing Enid’s slander seems completely silly; after becoming acquainted with both women during his stay, if Stan doesn’t realize the relative substance of each, he’s not worth Donna’s heartache. But I am never impressed when the heroine worries excessively about a ridiculous “crisis” yet fails to take any action whatsoever to set the situation to rights. Nor do I enjoy a ham-handed resolution to everyone’s problems, where personal growth seems more contrived than earned. So while I will always regard Jane Converse as a talent, little is in evidence in Acapulco.

Beauty Contest Nurse

By Diana Douglas, ©1973
Cover illustration by Allan Kass

When tawny-eyed nurse Maria MacKenzie sought to escape the routine and regimentation of the Veterans’ Hospital, she never expected anything like her job at a luxurious resort hotel in Acapulco. Assigned to the girls in the Miss All-America Beauty Contest, Maria soon discovered that her feminine attributes as a lovely young woman were more important than her nursing skill—especially with Dick Trevor, the attractive newspaperman covering the contest. Dr. Mitch Gilbert, her handsome, informal boss, was another surprise; as was Andrew Fisher, the powerful, red-headed doctor who was so mysteriously involved behind the scenes. One of these men would change the course of Maria’s life. Caught up in the heady excitement of her glamorous surroundings, could she trust her heart to make a wise choice…?

GRADE: C+

BEST QUOTE:
“She proved to be too fertile, and the husband, though proud of his efficiency, could not keep up with the needs of his growing family, so he left her one night. She has found others since, but they leave when she becomes pregnant.”

“She had never really trusted blondes with ingenuous, baby-blue eyes.”

“Maybe you could marry the guy and keep a firm hand on the skillet.”

REVIEW:
Maria MacKenzie is the official nurse at the Miss All-America Beauty Contest in Acapulco, but naturally as she steps from her limo at the hotel where the contest is being staged, all the reporters think she is one of the contestants, seeing as how she is just so gosh-darned beautiful! Dick Trevor, a reporter from the New York Evening Star is smitten before she reaches the door. Once inside, she meets Dr. Mitchell Gilbert and Bill Bryant, pageant organizer, who doesn’t remember who she is but knows what hotel room she’s staying in. The job doesn’t seem to be demanding; as Dr. Gilbert tells her, “I expect we’ll need to prescribe and administer an occasional tranquilizer for tantrums, aspirin for the cyclical troubles, or an antibiotic for a chill or something. That would be about the extent of it.”

That afternoon, tanning on the beach with her bikini top untied so as to erase the white lines across her back (remember when we actually did this?), she is approached by a red-haired surfer who tells her that the two guys out there riding the waves are risking their lives, because the surf is dangerous. Sure enough, one of them falls off his board and is dragged under. The red-haired man instantly leaps to the rescue, and when he snags the stricken surfer and promptly loses his own board, Maria swims out to help them both. As she assesses the injured surfer and suggests a “ring pad” for the man’s head injury, the red-haired man naturally reveals himself to be a doctor and orders her to get his bag from his beat-up jalopy, which is parked in the beach lot. His name is stamped in gold letters on the bag—Andrew Fisher, M.D.

Dr. Fisher has been fired from his job at the hotel because he spends too much time at a local clinic giving free medical care to the natives. This intrigues Maria, and soon she and the reporter are wending their way through the slums of Acapulco, looking for him. But he’s not there—he’s gone to a small village, where the natives grow excellent corn, eat too much of it, and come down with pellagra, or niacin deficiency, which gives its victims a beefy red tongue and the three D’s: diarrhea, dementia, and dermatitis. I tell you, if I read enough of these books, I won’t have to study when it’s time to re-take the boards.

Dick Trevor is taken with the idea of publicizing Dr. Fisher’s work in his newspaper, and Maria is taken with the doctor. She rounds with him through the village, treating the natives in their adobe houses where “traces of the vomitus and excreta which were symptoms of the disease still lingered in the small, airless room.” Back at the hotel, Maria puts in an appearance at the hotel clinic and the pageant, where she drinks too much champagne with Dr. Fisher and then goes parking with him, the tramp. The next day she’s back in the village—I can’t believe she doesn’t get fired from her pageant job—but Dr. Fisher falls down a cliff, and the big climax of the book is his rescue. Has he been killed in the fall? How will he find the money he needs to care for the natives? You won’t need three guesses to figure out the answers.

This book reminded me a lot of Nurse in Acapulco, and not because they share the same setting. Both are mostly phoned in, with jaunts into a country village and a lot of time spent lecturing on one particular disease. It’s not quite as annoying as Nurse in Acapulco, though. No one is terribly irritating, and Acapulco and the Mexican countryside are well-drawn, so you can do a little vicarious touring. It’s a book to reach for if you are looking for an airy little fling that won’t trouble your intellect or your sense of humor at all.

Nurse in Acapulco

By Ruth McCarthy Sears, ©1971

Candy Conners realized her heart’s desire when she came to work at the fabulous Norte Americano Hospital in Acapulco. While America’s richest and most beautiful people were playing on the beaches and in the villas of this world-famous resort, Candy gave herself wholly to the demands of her job. She was determined not to let romance interfere with her chosen mission, until she met Dr. Marsh Anthony, who was everything she admired in a doctor—and everything she mistrusted in a man. Torn by her confused feelings, she was tempted to accept the comforting security offered her by Dr. Blake Warren. Then came a crisis at the hospital. A heart transplant and a famous patient’s desperate fight for life forced Candy to recognize her deepest needs as a nurse ... and as a beautiful young woman.

GRADE: C-

BEST QUOTE:
“You’ve never lived until you’ve danced all night to a fiddler’s tune with the caller’s ditties ringing in your ears.”

REVIEW:
Nurse in Acapulco is a pleasant enough piece of fluff, though not anything to pay more than a couple of quarters for at a yard sale. Unless you’re really interested in kidney transplantation, in which case you should go as high as a buck.

Candy Connors (and I have to stop and shake my head at this unfortunate name) is a nurse from Kansas City, Missouri, now working in—that’s right—Acapulco, Mexico. She’s there because she needs to support her sister Kathy and her sister’s four children back home. Kathy married “sleek, charming Val,” who then “took off unceremoniously,” leaving them destitute. Kathy clings to the idea that “he might have met with an accident, might be a victim of amnesia.” But Candy knows better! Those cute, smooth guys are just bad news!

Enter Marsh Anthony, who is “romance itself!” He is attempting to master kidney transplantation, and he and Candy have long chats about kidneys over coffee in the cafeteria. He is transplanting kidneys between monkeys, and not having much success. This, however, has not stopped him from believing that he should attempt a kidney transplant on an actual human, in this case one of Mexico’s most famous bullfighters, who is dying of Bright’s disease of the kidney. (In real life, successful kidney transplants had begun occurring regularly ten years before this book was written.)

Every time Marsh sees Candy, he says unbelievably cheesy things, which are meant to demonstrate his attraction to her. To wit: “ ‘I’d like to take your pulse, honey,’ he said, winking at Candy, ‘But I think we’d better consider business before pleasure.’ ” “Depends on my mood, and the girl I’m with … the very special girl I’m with.” “I’ve just come from four hours in surgery and I’m beat. I need the calming influence of a pretty girl.” Are you ready to say uncle?

Despite these horrible pick-up lines, Candy “felt herself getting weaker and weaker at the nearness of this attractive man.” Yet somehow she manages to fend him off. Then she meets Dr. Blake Warren, who is everything she feels a man should be: “so calm and assured, so efficient and self-possessed,” the kind of man who, when he invites you out for a walk on the beach, tells you, “Put on some sturdy walking sandals.”

Mexico itself is described lovingly, and indeed these descriptions may be the best part of the book. But there’s the little problem that the country seems to be filled with, well, Mexicans: “The natives [are] unlearned,” “Mexicans are so emotional.” When Candy meets a young girl, “Immediately the child leaned against her with confidence, beaming. ‘I like you,’ she said. … Candy held the small warm body. How trusting and sweet these children of her adopted land—how beautiful! … The soft rich voices, the beautiful manners, the warmth of Mexican affection—anything would seem pallid indeed in comparison. Even the principles of these people were appealing and sincere—quick tears for the unfortunate and quick joy in the simple pleasures of the easy-going life.” Candy appreciates them, yes, but I find more than a bit of condescension in her approval.

The plot turns are just a little obvious: the dying rich patient leaves a nurse all his money, an identical twin is seen kissing another woman and is mistaken for his brother, and Kathy’s husband Val—I just have to tell—really does have amnesia, but finally remembers who he is and comes home!!! There’s a weird section in which Candy goes rushing off to the mountains of Oaxaca to find a relative of the bullfighter to donate a kidney, and brings home an elderly distant cousin—who then turns out to be unsuitable as a donor. For the rest of the book he hangs out at Candy’s house waiting to be called to the surgery that isn’t going to happen, and Candy and her roommate keep asking each other, “What are we going to do with Uncle Jurada?” I found it to be a lazy, hackneyed story without much going for it. But kidney transplantation is described in great detail, so if you’re interested in nephrology, you might get more out of this book than I did.