Chapter 3 #2
“They appreciate him,” Regina had explained to me. Her expression told me that they had better, or they would be dealing with her.
We all got a plate of what turned out to be hamburger casserole and as we ate, we talked about little office things. Pinar also provided an update on the couple having sex in the building across the way. “Twice already,” she told us.
“Impressive. They have more free time during the day than Dr. Winter,” Regina pointed out. She had discovered that they were ophthalmologists, and they definitely weren’t as busy as Theo was.
Then he brought up the previous topic. “Grace, I want to talk more about your living situation,” he said in his quiet way, and both of the other ladies nodded. They also wanted to talk more. “Why did you rent that particular place?”
“It wasn’t really my choice. I was living with a guy named Murrough but then he got evicted, so he moved in there and I went along with him. Then he went up in smoke.”
“Like the magician you worked for? He left his family for an affair partner,” Regina explained to the others.
I had been speaking literally about Murrough but that wasn’t a very pleasant subject while we ate, so I only shrugged.
“I don’t know why you say that you didn’t have a choice,” Pinar said slowly. “Like, he could have gone there to live, and you could have gone somewhere else. Right? Also, you didn’t have to stay.”
“But I’m not bothered by it,” I pointed out. “You guys are.”
They looked at each other.
“You’re the ones who want to talk about it, not me,” I continued. “I don’t like the needle stuff but I’ve met some nice people and learned valuable skills from them, too.”
“Like what?” Regina asked suspiciously, and I opened my mouth to talk about bump keys, but then shut it as I remembered how mad Sophie had gotten when I’d explained those to her.
“I’m fine where I am,” I repeated. “Could you please pass the casserole?”
They were still watching me suspiciously, though, even as I continued to eat. It was delicious, much better than what I could have made if I’d had pots and pans, ingredients, and a kitchen.
I’d realized that Theo stayed later than the rest of us, reading things or working on charts, and also responding to patients.
They called, texted, and emailed him all the time, and when I emerged from Pinar’s office at the end of the day, I could hear him speaking to someone.
His voice was measured and calm and I found it very soothing, even though I couldn’t catch the actual words.
He might have been reading a grocery list or giving directions about where to hide your drugs when you were arrested.
I had learned about several good places—another benefit of living in my current house. I frowned, though.
He was startled when he came out and saw me. “Grace? I thought you left hours ago. Is something wrong with the fish again?”
I shook my head, because they were doing better than ever. “I was waiting for you,” I explained.
“Is something wrong with you instead?”
“Not really. I’ll walk you out,” I suggested, and he said ok but still seemed puzzled.
“Did you want to talk more about your apartment?” he asked as we waited for the elevator.
“It’s just a room, and I guess I did. I know it’s not the nicest place and this morning, there was a needle—”
“You got stuck. I knew it,” he said. “It’s all right, we’ll go right over to the hospital.”
“No, I didn’t get poked by anything,” I assured him.
“But there was a needle in the sink where I was going to brush my teeth, and there was some blood. It did make me rethink whether I wanted to stay there or not.” It was extremely cheap and that had appealed to me before, and the needles and other problems hadn’t bothered me as much.
“Biohazards in your sink. I agree that it would give me pause, but I also lived in some real snake pits.” He paused. “Before you ask, I’m using that figuratively.”
“You lived in a figurative snake pit?” That was wrong for him, someone so nice and naturally neat.
He kept talking on the way to his car about an apartment he’d had, one he’d shared with nine other guys. “We didn’t have our own rooms. We didn’t have our own beds,” he told me.
“I’ve shared beds with my sisters, but they complain that I kick.”
“Luckily, we didn’t have to be in them at the same time because most of us worked different shifts. But Regina would have something to say about how I slept in dirty sheets like that. I don’t know when we ever changed them.” He scratched his neck. “It makes me itchy when I think about that place.”
“Was that when you were in college?”
“Actually, I was living on my own before college. I left home when I was seventeen, and I finished high school and then went to IU. I got to live in the dorms there and they were the nicest place I’d ever stayed, without question.
People were always complaining about their roommates or the food, but I was in heaven. I—”
He stopped walking. “I’m not sure why I’m telling you this, but I’m very sure that your car isn’t on this floor. There’s no way to miss that green color.”
That was why I liked it: if I was in the right place, then I couldn’t miss it. And that was also why it had made a very poor getaway car and had ended up in my possession. “I forgot where I parked,” I admitted.
We ended up going to his car to drive around and look for it.
“When you get here in the mornings, you could make a note of your location in your phone. Or take a picture of the signs,” he suggested.
He opened his passenger door and stuff tumbled onto the concrete.
“Holy hell, this is a mess.” We both bent to pick it up, and I didn’t tell him that either I had lost my phone or it had been stolen out of my room while I’d slept the night before. I was hoping for the first one.
“You don’t seem like the type of person who’s messy,” I told him. “I’m messy so the trash in my car is to be expected, but you’re not. Why?” I pointed at the pile next to his open door.
He looked at me for a second and then broke into a smile.
“I think we’ve been spending enough time together that I’m starting to understand you better.
” I helped him toss paper coffee cups, a white takeout container, several medical journals, and two coats into the back seat, along with other crud.
“I’m messy because I’m so busy that I don’t know what to do with myself,” he said when we were both seated.
“This car looks like I live in it. My actual house is almost as bad as the apartment with the nine other guys, except there are fewer beer cans. My office upstairs is completely disorganized and it’s driving Regina crazy.
It’s driving me crazy, too,” he admitted after a moment.
“You’re right, I’m not naturally messy and I don’t like it. ”
“How bad is your house? Is there room to walk?”
We got to the end of the row. “Do you want to see?” he asked me. “You could come over and we could have dinner. Or maybe that’s a bad idea, since you work—”
“I’m only a temp in your office and I know you’re asking me for dinner, not sex,” I interrupted. He wasn’t that type, either.
He seemed taken aback, and I realized that I shouldn’t have talked about sex with my boss, even if he was only a temporary one. It was right up there with “unusual infections of private parts” on my sister Sophie’s chart of what to keep to myself in the office.
“I just mean…” I started to tell him, but he was also talking.
“Good, I’m glad we’re clear. You can come over and there won’t be any expectations, hurt feelings, or weirdness the next day when we see each other.”
“I won’t tell Regina or Pinar, though,” I said, and he nodded.
“That would be best.”
We finally found my car on the top floor of the parking garage, and I remembered leaving it up there because I’d wanted the sun and wind to style my hair. I’d also run down all the stairs so that it would fan out and dry as I moved.
“I’ll give you my address, in case we get separated,” he said. It was then that I had to admit to the absence of my phone, but he took that in stride. “Ok, then stay close.”
I did and we drove far, at least another half hour north from the hospital and that was already half an hour (without traffic) from my room in Detroit.
We stopped to pick up a food order and then kept going, and buildings and lights got scarcer and scarcer.
It was suddenly easy to keep up with him, since we were the only cars on the narrow road.
He made a turn off the pavement and I hoped my green car wouldn’t get stuck in something.
It was small, but it was definitely too heavy for me to pick up on my own.
This two-track was dry, though, and we continued until we reached what looked like the end, but there were no lights and it was hard to see where we were. Theo stopped and I stopped behind him, and we both got out.
“You live far away,” I said.
His phone’s flashlight came on, cutting through the darkness. “I was thinking about that as I drove. You have a long way to go home tonight.”
“That’s ok.” I took a step forward—
“Grace! Are you all right?” He knelt next to me. “Don’t move.”
“No, I can move. I fell in some kind of hole, and there was water in it.” Cold water, and as I found when he helped me up the steps, it had also been dirty water. Fortunately, Theo’s puddle was nowhere the size of the one my mom had in her front yard, so I didn’t get nearly as wet.
“I didn’t even know that was there,” he said, leading me to a chair inside.
He pushed a pile of papers off it so that I could sit down.
The room was pretty bad in terms of disorder, dust, spiderwebs, and mud, but it didn’t bother me.
Neither did my wet sock, shoe, and pants, but it all bothered him a lot. He frowned and rubbed his jaw.
“I’ll get you something else to wear. You shouldn’t go barefoot in here—when was your last tetanus vaccination?”
“I don’t know, but I bet Nicola made sure I had it.”