Dr. Barry’s Nurse

By Arlene Hale, ©1968

Betty Richards, R.N., was upset. Old Dr. Barry, her highly respected employer, was going to retire—and had planned on turning over his practice to his physician-son, Mike. But that wasn’t all. The old doctor was bound and determined to see Mike and Betty married! It was hate at first sight when they first met … but they soon realized that the elder Dr. Barry was dangerously ill. So, out of consideration for his health, they went through with the pretense of falling in love. Then—one dramatic afternoon—the curtain fell, once and for all, on the scene they’d performed so well.

GRADE: B

BEST QUOTES:

“All the doctors in the building ogle you. So you’re not such an innocent little lamb!”

“The intellectual types always had moods, it seemed.”

REVIEW:

Arlene Hale is not my favorite VNRN author; of the 20 books she’s written that I’ve been obliged to read, this is only the fifth to score in the B range (she’s never gotten an A). Here we have an example of her finer work: Dr. Barry’s Nurse is not a flashy story, but it is moderately interesting and doesn’t make you sorry you picked it up. A low bar, I know, but unfortunately that’s all we have to work with.

Betty Roberts is actually a fine character: strong, competent, hard-working, and intensely loyal to old Dr. Barry, who paid her way through nursing school after—you guessed it—her parents died, so that she could keep her house, and offered her a job after graduation. That must have been about five years ago because now she’s practically arthritic at 25, a dog’s age in VNRN terms. She’s paid off her debt to him, but he’s like a father to him—she even calls him Pappy—so she’s continued working for him out of her love and loyalty.

But Dr. Barry is bringing in his son Mike from Chicago, fresh out of his residency, to take over the business. Mike is not red-hot on the idea, and Betty, who’s met Mike in passing over the years, hasn’t been overly impressed with him, either, though it’s not clear why: “For reasons she couldn’t quite pin down, she was in no hurry to begin their association,” we learn before he’s even shown up. He blows into the office “like a cold wind off the Arctic,” snippy to the staff and even to patients who could use some reassurance. Betty tells her roommate that Mike is “a stiff-necked, arrogant, cold fish,” and he deserves it. “She could never, never like that man,” she decides, but we have heard that one before!

It soon comes out that Dr. Barry has been hiding a heart condition that has conveniently held itself in check these years until son Mike shows up, and now he’s clotting off his coronary arteries like it’s going out of style. As he’s going down for the third time, Mike tells Betty that they should pretend they are dating to make the old guy feel better. “We both know he could have a severe attack at any time and might not pull out of it. Why would it be wrong to pretend a little, for his sake?” She can think of a lot of reasons why it would be wrong to pretend a little, for his sake, and never exactly agrees to this crazy scheme, but she never says no when he drags her out to the gazebo and starts kissing her because Dr. Barry may be watching. “Make it look good,” he says, so she does—and berates herself endlessly afterward. “Why had she kissed him back so ardently? For Pappy’s sake or her own?” So when the ersatz couple visits Dr. Barry in the hospital after his fourth and final attack, he tells Mike he wants them to marry. “Now. It must be now!” Later that day Mike proposes, and Betty indignantly turns him down—and then realizes she’s in love with Mike after all, and decides she’s only turned him down because he does not love her. But back in Dr. Barry’s hospital room, she and Mike tell him that they are engaged. “Good. Good! That’s all I wanted to hear,” he says, and promptly drops dead. Mike tells Betty she doesn’t have to go through with it, that he’s leaving for Chicago, and she packs up her car to head out of town too. Guess what—they both end up back at Dr. Barry’s office, and you will never guess what happens there!

Though obvious from the start, this book isn’t a complete waste of time. There’s even some humor in it, such as when a would-be masher tells Betty, “I promise you an evening to remember,” and she answers, “That’s what I’m afraid of,” and ducks under his groping arms and out the lounge door. Or when Mike tells her she has “good common horse sense,” she says, “Well, that’s one thing I’ve never been accused of before.” (Though like those trailers on TV that give you every funny line in the film, there aren’t many more in the book.) There are a few curious side plots, like the patient who falls off the Ferris wheel and has amnesia, and her sort-of boyfriend who draws a comic strip is an interesting character. It is too long at 158 pages, and there’s not much new VNRN ground here (even the amnesiac patient is a well-worn old hat; see Doctor Down Under, Nurse Kathy, Nurse Deceived, Nurse with a Problem). But you could do worse, as Arlene Hale certainly has, so maybe we should just be content with that.