The following version of this story was used to create this guide: "Two Nurses, Smoking." Means, David. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/06/01/two-nurses-smoking.

Note that parenthetical citations within the guide refer to the page number from which the quotation is taken.

"Two Nurses, Smoking" begins with a description of the two nurses standing outside next to a medical trailer. One of the nurses is a young woman with thin arms, and the other is a young, muscular man who had served in the Army. The narrator notes that the woman expresses desire for the man through her body language. In snapshot paragraphs that continue throughout the text, the narrator documents the stories the two nurses share with one another. These stories include information about their pasts, experiences from the man's time in the Army, and one patient dubbed "Kidney Boy" whom the woman once treated and who eventually took his own life.

Through their interactions, the narrator reveals that the man's name is Marlon and the woman's name is Gracie. Marlon works at the hospital and Gracie is a traveling nurse who follows the medical trailer to different locations. Inside the trailer is a machine meant to break up kidney stones to make them easier to pass. Gracie and Marlon see each other intermittently whenever the trailer is in town.

One day, Marlon asks Gracie if she wants to go for a drive after their shifts. She agrees, and they travel up north, still exchanging stories about their pasts. Gracie thinks back to all the moments they shared together. The two of them have sex in a hotel room, and the experience compels Marlon to tell Gracie the truth about a woman he killed in Fallujah. Both Gracie and Marlon cry and hold each other in the bed.