Chapter 7 Chris
CHRIS
I blinked at the customer. “I’m sorry, can you repeat that?”
The young woman on the other side of the counter looked impatient. “My boyfriend takes it instead of me,” she said, slower this time like that would help it make sense.
“Your boyfriend takes your birth control pills…” I said carefully.
“Yes. I said this already.”
I was too stunned to speak. Truly, no one prepares you for retail pharmacy.
“He says the hormones make me crabby,” she said. “So I just need you to change the phone number on the prescription to his so he can get the calls when it’s refilled.”
“How long has he been doing this?” I asked.
“I don’t know? A year?”
I fought to keep my face neutral. “This medication isn’t safe for men to take,” I explained. “There are extensive side effects, not one of which is pregnancy prevention.”
She stared at me. “What do you mean?”
“It doesn’t work as a contraceptive unless you have a uterus,” I said.
She was quiet for a long moment. “What kind of side effects?”
“The development of breast tissue, decreased libido, erectile dysfunction—”
She slapped a hand over her mouth and stood there, eyes wide. She stared at me just long enough for it to be weird, then spun and walked stiffly from the counter.
My pharmacy tech Waylon came up behind me. “What’d you do to her?” he asked, leaning over to see her break into a jog down the aisle.
“I think I just explained why her boyfriend’s penis hasn’t been working.”
“Nice. There’s someone in the drive-through asking for you.”
“Asking for a pharmacist or asking for me?”
“You.”
I turned for the window and found Mike waving at me from his truck. My dog was on his lap and Larissa was in the passenger seat, smiling.
I immediately perked up at the surprise.
We’d been sharing Woofarine for a few weeks now.
She was a good dog mom. She’d send me pictures of them on a walk, or her giving Woofarine a bath.
I paid for all the food and supplies and packed a bag for her on the days she took him so she wouldn’t have to buy anything.
I gave her a key to my house so she could get in to walk him while I was at work.
I liked having a dog. I just didn’t like having a dog that was going to be home alone all day. But this arrangement was actually working.
I had to admit I liked co-parenting with her.
We’d swap books when we did the handoff.
Sometimes we’d stand in my doorway talking about them.
But mostly I liked the way Woofarine would smell when he’d come home.
Like tangerines. My hoodie also probably smelled like tangerines.
I wouldn’t know, I refused to check, and the moment I realized I wanted to, I threw it in the washer.
“Hey,” I said, smiling, picking up the receiver to talk through the window.
“What’s up, McNougat? Thought maybe you’d want to come to lunch with us,” Mike said. “We’re eating at a sushi place across the street.”
I looked at my watch. “My break isn’t for another hour.”
“We can bring you something,” Larissa said, leaning forward so I could hear her.
“Okay. Thanks.”
“We’ll send you the menu,” Mike said. “Hey, wanna go on a walk tomorrow? You’re off, right?”
“Uh, sure?”
“Jesse’s coming too. I’ll text you the info.”
Then he gave me a peace sign and left.
I smiled after the truck.
“Damn,” Waylon said when I hung up. “Your boy’s got a hot girlfriend.”
Yes. Yes, he does.
Larissa had the kind of face that you could see for five seconds in passing and think about for the rest of the day. Unforgettably beautiful.
And she was nice too.
Also, she was hilarious. The texts between us about Woofarine cracked me up.
The last one was from this morning. He’d caught a mole at the dog park. I got a photo of a limp rodent with the words Time of Death 9:31 a.m.
Woofarine was so fast, you couldn’t stop him.
You had to check his mouth to make sure he didn’t have a carcass before you let him in from the yard—and he was an escape artist too.
He was so tiny he could fit through a crack in the fence.
I was half convinced he had a collapsible rib cage, I had to line the yard with chicken wire.
The potty training was going great though. He was smart. Really smart. They could have used him for police work if he wasn’t so small. He was like an itty-bitty Belgian Malinois that wore sweaters and liked to snuggle.
I went back to work. An hour later, Mike came in and dropped off my lunch. Larissa didn’t come with him. I took my food to the break room and was eating when the cemetery called. Mom’s headstone was finished.
That was it.
The last thing that I would ever do for my parents was done. There was something so final about it. They were gone. I was all that was left of our family.
I would give every penny to go back in time, knowing what I know. Maybe I could have changed things. Maybe not.
But I’d have to live with it now, either way.