Chapter 18 #2
I freeze. My non-answer is an answer. A confirmation.
Anj grabs a fried oyster and continues with a smile. “Dave is your Katrina, and you’re his Patrick.”
Before I can say anything, she waves an oyster at me. “And, no, your non-guy-Dave didn’t say much of anything to me. It just took a few anecdotes about your friend for me to make the connection.”
She reaches a hand out over the table. “I’m so damn sorry about your friend. Dave told us he’d sort of met him over calls when you guys were in Puerto Rico.”
“Patrick.” Apparently, it’s impossible to say his name without tearing up.
“And it’s why you maybe came here. A little escape?”
“Yeah. A little escape,” I agree.
I refuse to cry. My eyes well up with tears, but I’m not going to cave.
“While none of us love why you’re here, we are very happy to have you. Happy for you and happy for Dave.”
Dave delivers bowls of seafood bisque, mercifully breaking up this conversation, and he watches as I take a first spoonful. One taste of this stew about kills me, and without meaning to, I groan.
“Yeah?” he asks. It’s his delivery of that simple word that is so cute and flirtatious.
He’s got a hair flip, a half-smile, even a way he wipes his hand on his apron that is so sexy.
Anjanette has her elbow in her hand and her head in her palm during our exchange, and she is now even more bright-eyed and beaming. She looks like Michael from the movie Elf when Buddy is awkwardly trying to ask Jovie on a date to eat things.
His assistant/cook, Eric, then drops another platter of fried oysters in between us. “Last call! Want anything else?”
“I’m good,” I say softly.
Dave touches my shoulder before he walks away. “See you at home?”
When I nod, Anjanette about jumps out of her seat with an overjoyed smile. “See you at fucking home, he said?”
“It’s an accidentally shared home,” I say.
“Home for you two and home for that feral cat. Whiska Hargitay, right?”
“Yes,” I grumble. Yet I’m wonderfully taken aback that Dave told her about Whiska too. So, I nod.
“He’s kind of wonderful, right?” Anjanette offers. “The boy, not the cat. Like, not my type, but yours? Because he’s good with kids, and people, and feelings? Because he can cook?”
I nod. “Sure. Yes. He is wonderful, and good with everything. But I’m good with nothing. Eating and loving food—that’s where it ends with me. With us.”
Anjanette rolls her eyes. “That’s where it only starts with you.”
As we toss our trash and pass by Dave, she stops and backs up.
“Hey, I was thinking about taking Diana on a lobster run so she can get some fun footage while on the boat. Smashing ocean shots, hauling in the traps, us sorting lobsters.” She turns and winks at me, knowing I’ll perk up. “What do you think, Diana?”
Somehow, I manage not to jump up and down. “What? Really? That would be amazing!”
Dave’s overall tone changes immediately. He kind of sinks. “Anj, no. Even asking me this means you know I’d hate this.”
“Stop,” she says with a smile and reaches up to the counter to touch his arm, clearly trying to cajole him into this idea. “Please?”
He just shakes his head adamantly. “No. Please. Especially not Diana.”
After they exchange a look—and after what feels like too long—her pleading smile fades, and she nods. There’s some understanding between them. “But okay if I get all of us to film stuff for her when we’re out?”
He softens. “Of course. Thank you.”
I’m not sure what just happened here. I don’t know Anj well, but it seems unlike her to back off from anything.
There is a severe tension I don’t understand, and so I fling my cast up to distract them because I am just done with this misery. “So, can we figure out a way to get this fucking thing cut off? It’s been weeks, and I don’t want to go back to Boston to see my creepy surgeon.”
Both of them turn to me and smile and suggest at the same time, “Jay?”
This Jay is apparently a doctor in town, and after a few texts, he agrees to meet up and save me.
“Do I have to be sober for this?” I ask. “Because I don’t want to be.”
“A little numb and fun?” Anj suggests. “Right this way.”
I love her so dearly.
Anjanette and Dave take me out for shots before we hit up Jay’s clinic. As much as I want this arm hostage-holding/bastard of a cast thing off, the idea of leaving my arm unprotected is oddly scary, and I’m not opposed to hyping myself up with some liquid courage.
While tequila has never been my go-to, the mix with the salt licks and lime hits just right tonight.
After I’ve lost my panic, I nod. “Let’s go!”
While this health clinic doesn’t look vaguely scary, the first thing I say when Dr. Jay walks into the exam room, the one where I’m trembling on the table, is, “Please don’t cut off my arm. Just the cast.”
He assures me that the scary circular saw he’s holding will cut only through my cast and not my skin.
I about fling myself into him for a hug when the nasty cast has been cut off. “Oh my God, thank you!”
He laughs. “You’re welcome.”
After yet another X-ray, which seems to satisfy him, he takes my arm in his and bends my wrist back and forth and sideways, and I grimace.
“It’s going to be sore for some time. Do the things that are tough, but not too tough.
Yeah, it’ll feel like you’re going to break it again, but you won’t.
The bones have officially healed, but you’ll hurt for a bit.
Ice is your friend. More importantly, do the exercises that I’m sending you. You’ll hate them, but they’ll help.”
The soft brace he hands me feels like nothing compared to what I’ve been living with, and so I welcome it. While my wrist does feel strange and achy and not like my own, I’m just so happy and rush out of the room, absolutely thrilled to have that bastard cast gone.
“I’m going to lift heavy cast iron pots, and shovel, and whatever!” I exclaim as I burst into the waiting room.
Getting that godforsaken cast off has left me euphoric.
“No, no! No to the shoveling and heavy pots, please!” Dr. Jay calls after me. “Again, ice and exercises, yes?”