Chapter Seventeen
Eli’s office and clinic were on the second floor of the main building. When I walked in, his nurse, Jake, said he was just finishing up with a resident and told me I could wait in his office.
There was no artwork, photographs, or even trinkets in Eli’s office.
I didn’t realize I was looking for hints about his personal life until I didn’t find any.
What had dear old Eli been up to since college?
Did he go into cardiology and then fall from grace?
Was he married? He didn’t wear a ring, but most of Mom’s physicians didn’t wear rings during their workday.
“I guess you’re here for the car keys.”
I started at the deep timber of his voice. “You didn’t have to do that,” I told him as I turned around.
He sat down and shook his head. There were bags under his eyes and I wondered if he’d stayed up late or got up early to deal with it.
When he set his stethoscope down on his desk, I noticed a grease stain on his otherwise crisp jeans.
“You didn’t fix it yourself, did you?” I asked.
“Don’t sound so surprised.”
“I just never took you for someone who does things you could pay someone else to do.”
He grimaced at that. “Ouch. A thank-you would have sufficed.”
“You’re right. Sorry. I just—” I rubbed my hands up and down my thighs.
Eli’s mom had a cleaning lady that came out to the frat house every other week and Brody once told me he had a live-in nanny growing up.
Not exactly the kind of upbringing that would lend itself to physical labor.
But my default setting with him was always so caustic, and I supposed I could try to be more polite.
My palms were sweating now. Last night I’d decided to ask Eli about the room, but being here and actually doing it was much harder than deciding to do it.
“Sorry,” I said again. “Do you ever say shitty things when you’re nervous?”
He leaned back in his leather office chair, his arms crossed over his chest, that one proud vein wrapping around his forearm. “I make you nervous.” It wasn’t a question.
“No.” I cleared my throat and clenched my fists at my sides where he couldn’t see them. “But the possibility of being roommates with the guy I accidentally married once does make me nervous.”
His pupils widened before that indifferent mask slipped back into place again.
I expected him to gloat at the fact that I was doubling back after such an emphatic no, but instead, he simply said, “The room is yours. I’ll get you the spare key later today.
You can move your stuff in whenever. I’ll be home late tonight, so if you’d rather wait, I can help you.
And I wouldn’t call it an accident. It’s not as though we slipped and fell into a marriage contract. ”
There was a long beat of silence as I found myself wishing I could read his mind and simultaneously thankful that I couldn’t.
“The residents can’t know,” I said suddenly.
“If Ruby knows, everyone knows,” he said.
“Are you calling my grandmother a gossip?”
“Are you saying she isn’t?” he countered. “Gives ’em something to talk about for a few days. Trust me. Some polycule drama will surface by next week and we will be old news.”
Resigned, I stood up and took my car keys. “Marlon can’t eat too many table scraps. He has a sensitive stomach.”
“Understood.”
“And I talk in my sleep sometimes.”
“I remember,” he said.
“We’re splitting everything evenly. The rent, the utilities, everything. Even streaming services.”
“Vera, the employee rent is pennies.”
“Maybe for you,” I spat back.
I could see him chewing the inside of his cheek. “You can start paying next month if you insist, but we’re already halfway through the month.”
“It’s the tenth of September,” I said.
He recrossed his arms over his chest, the white fabric of his shirt pulling over his biceps. Those fantasies from last night began to— No. Bad brain.
“Deal,” I said.
“Deal.” His voice was smug, like he’d won a bet I didn’t even know we had in place.
“Right.” I turned to leave but then spun back around. “Do you know Leonard?”
He inhaled deeply through his nose and nodded.
“What’s the deal with the funeral?”
“So he’s shown you the binder?”
I nodded. “I’m helping him sell his casket on Facebook Marketplace.”
“You’re what?” he sputtered, and then held up his hands. “Actually, never mind. I have a patient coming in, but bookmark that story for me, would you, roomie?”
“Sure thing, roomie.”
He followed me out of his office and closed the door behind us, but before heading back across the hall to the clinic, he said, “I think he wishes he could be there. Leonard. He would want to be there.”
“Huh?”
“At his own funeral.” He shrugged. “Can you blame him? Haven’t you ever wondered what people might say about you at the end? It’s hard not to be a little bit fascinated by it.”
I nodded, like I knew just what he was talking about, because it was easier than explaining that I had no interest in hearing my own eulogy. I’d already seen what Brody—someone I’d known for half my life—had to say about me in that email thread.
Here lies Vera Stein. She was a good girl. A good, boring girl.