Are celebrities really like you and me under their trappings of glamour, wealth, and chauffered [sic] limousines? Red-haired Cathy Lewis, a skilled and devoted young private-duty nurse, was about to find out. She had accepted a position with New York’s Acme Celebrity Service, an exclusive agency that supplied the rich and the famous with personnel in every category, including nursing. And Cathy’s first assignment was to be a live-in nurse in the palatial hotel suite of famous movie star Roland Keating! The dark and handsome Roland was recuperating from open-heart surgery, and it was to be Cathy’s job not only to administer his medications but also to keep his presence in New York, and his condition, a secret.
When her services to Roland Keathing [sic] were abruptly terminated after an encounter with a press photographer, Cathy was assigned to care for a suicidal theater star and then a crusty old ex-diplomat whose house guest was a Middle-Eastern prince with hemophilia. As Cathy soon learned, Prince Akbar was the target of terrorists, who kept the mansion under constant surveillance.
Prince Akbar’s Secret Service man, Bob Baird, was obviously falling in love with Cathy. But she couldn’t get the special blood-stirring magic of Roland Keating out of her head or her heart. Did she have a chance with him? Cathy was to discover the answer to this and much more as she struggled to fulfill her duties as a celebrity nurse.
Challenges for Nurse Genie
Nurse Genie came to Raiford Cay to care for an old man with a mysterious illness. In trying to cure him, Genie found herself stung by two arrows from Cupid’s bow!
Trouble in Paradise
Nurse Genie Hayes found two challenges awaiting her on her arrival at the small Bahama out-island of Raiford Cay — the challenge of caring for old paralyzed Henry Raiford whose illness was a mystery to everyone, including his family…and the challenge flung at her by the beautiful Janice Burton to keep away from Captain Aleck Rogers and Scott Raiford, the two handsome eligible men on the island.
Genie’s medical training helped her meet the first challenge. But she wasn’t prepared for the breathless effect that Aleck’s and Scott’s kisses would have on her. How long could she continue to blame the tropical moonlight and the romantic scent of jasmine for the wild pounding in her heart?
Based solely on the illustration on the cover, here’s my guess as to how the book ends:
Even after she’d stopped struggling, Scott Raiford kept a firm grip on Genie Hayes’ soft, delicate throat. Her eyes, still wide with astonishment, stared blankly at the yacht that was to have carried them away…away from the cares and troubles of this small, remote island.
But there were only two things that would be carried away that afternoon: Nurse Hayes’ lifeless body, carried out to sea by the ebbing tide…and Nurse Hayes’ heart, so full of hope and promise, carried by angels to a place where she and Captain Aleck could finally be free of Raiford Cay. Where there would be no more…Challenges for Nurse Genie.
Any other guesses?
Change of Duty
Staff Nurse Hilary Bell was rather disappointed when, after a bout of illness, she had to give up nursing for a year and take a ‘light duty’ job as first aid nurse in a big department store.
But Hilary was the kind of girl who always does her best in any job — and she was to get a splendid reward!
Cherry Ames at Spencer
Cherry took a deep breath as the taxi started up the hill. Now she and Josie could see Spencer Hospital, a huge cluster of white buildings on top of the hill. Spencer was really a city in itself with its trim yards, broad avenues, landscaped lawns, and well-kept tennis courts. And to Cherry, in her probationer days, it had seemed like a terrifying labyrinth. But now the very sight of it rapidly drawing nearer filled her with the memories of the three thrilling years she had spent there with her friends who had trained and worked with her until graduation.
Cherry closed her dark eyes, remembering that first week when she, an awe-struck “probie,” had met the classmates who were to share so many exciting experiences with her. She could see them now in their humble gray probationers’ dresses which they, as student nurses, discarded for blue and white uniforms, white stockings, and broad black velvet bands on the cuff of their caps. They had herded together as probies, and they had kept in touch with one another ever since.
There had been red-haired, full-of-fun, Gwen Jones; earnest, rather rabbity-looking, but really very efficient, Josie Franklin; plump Bertha Larsen; hazel-eyed Vivian Warren; Mai Lee, the lovely Chinese-American girl; and Ann Evans, now Mrs. Jack Powell. Later, as visiting nurses, they had all, except Ann, shared an apartment in New York’s Greenwich Village, No. 9, the headquarters of the Spencer Club.
Cherry Ames, Army Nurse
“Cherry! Cher-ry! Come Quick! It’s here!”
A sparkling, dark-haired girl suddenly popped out on the upstairs landing and hung over the staircase. Her cheeks were as red as her sweater and her black eyes shone with excitement. She took one look at her mother, gingerly holding up an envelope; another at her young friend Midge, hopping up and down with a strange lack of dignity for a fifteen-year-old.
That’s — it!” Midge cried. “Hurry up!”
Cherry swooped down the stairs and seized the official-looking envelope.
“What does it say?” Midge begged. Mrs. Ames, too, was trying to glimpse the letter over Cherry’s shoulder.
“Here,” Cherry said, absorbed, and allowed Midge to hold the empty envelope.
Midge read aloud the address in the left-hand corner with awe in her voice, “‘War Department, Official Business.’ Jiminy!”
“What does it say?” Mrs. Ames echoed Midge. She was a small, youthful, brown-eyed woman.
Cherry looked up and grinned. “This is what I’ve been waiting for every day of this two weeks’ vacation! Harumph! You will please stand at attention while I read it to you.” Cherry herself stood erect and read earnestly:
“By direction of the President, Cherry Ames is with her consent ordered to active duty with the Army of the United States, and assigned to the hospital unit as indicated…” On graduating, Cherry had signed up with her whole nursing class to serve in the Army Nurse Corps. She already had indicated that she was available immediately and willing to serve overseas, and had sent her photo, application, school record and State Board Examination record. Cherry took a deep breath and hurried on, “…and will proceed on 21 September this year to station specified for temporary duty pending activation Spencer Gen. unit.”
There was another notice, too. “You are ordered to report to the Service Command at Wabash City…for Army physical examination!” … “Oh, gosh!” exclaimed Cherry.
“You have to weigh at least a hundred pounds and a lot of other things,” Midge warned her.
“She’ll pass,” Mrs. Ames said, smiling at Cherry, “even the Army’s rigid examination.” Cherry’s red cheeks and lips, her shining dark eyes, her eager, lively, pretty face, even her dancing black curls, fairly radiated vitality. She sparkled with youth and high spirits.