Chapter 3
Brendan
My morning started with an iguana on the loose.
I’m not speaking metaphorically.
This was an actual iguana, four feet of prehistoric attitude named Chairman Meow, who had exited his carrier while his fourteen-year-old owner was attempting to show me a TikTok video about iguana wellness.
The good Chairman now somewhere in exam room two expressing his opinions about the situation.
"He does this," the fourteen-year-old said, craning his head to search for his escapee.
"Often?" I said.
"Only when he's bored."
"He's at the vet. How could he be bored?"
"He finds it understimulating," the boy said, sounding more like a pet psychologist than a middle schooler.
I looked at the empty carrier, then I looked at the boy, whose name was Oliver and who had the untroubled energy of a child for whom this was a completely normal Tuesday.
I checked the corner of the room where Chairman Meow had wedged himself behind the supply cabinet, a creature who had found his spot and was prepared to defend it philosophically.
"Mister Chairman," Oliver said with a bit too much respect for my liking. "Come on."
Chairman Meow glared at Oliver.
Then looked at me.
Then his gaze drifted toward the ceiling.
He did not “come on.”
We spent the next ten minutes retrieving the stubborn iguana.
Oliver provided encouragement. I provided the patient, non-threatening approach that worked on roughly ninety percent of lizards. Chairman Meow provided resistance and little more.
Diane, my office manager, appeared in the doorway at minute seven with a piece of cucumber she'd procured from somewhere I chose not to ask about, which was what finally resolved the situation.
"Why do you have a cucumber," I said.
"I have a lot of things," Diane said.
"In your scrub pocket."
"Dr. Davis." She rolled her eyes and handed me the chart. "Room three is ready."
Room three was a rabbit named Copernicus whose family had named him after the astronomer and wanted me to know why at some length.
The mother explained it, while the father provided historical context, and their twelve-year-old daughter corrected both of them with the bloodless precision of a child who had done the reading and was not going to pretend otherwise.
Copernicus sat on the table and chewed air with serene detachment.
His teeth were slightly overgrown, even for a bunny.
"More hay," the daughter told me, before I could say it.
"More hay," I confirmed.
She looked at her parents and cocked one supercilious eyebrow.
I finished Copernicus's exam, made my recommendations to the appropriate adult family members (though I suspected the daughter would do better than either of her parents), and went back to the hallway where Diane was waiting, one foot tapping against the linoleum to some beat only she could hear.
"Room four," she said.
"What's in room four."
"Président."
I froze.
We had discussed Président at our morning briefing, and I had made my peace with him.
Président was a capybara, ninety-two pounds of short-haired and squatty snouted rodent, owned by a Mrs. Okafor who had previously employed a vet in Caracas and whose home apparently contained a small solarium.
None of this was standard but all of it was documented.
"Is he in the room," I said.
Diane's expression shifted slightly.
"Define in," she said.
I opened the door to room four.
Président had conducted a thorough investigation of the room's lower half and was now wedged behind the exam table that had been moved approximately eight inches. Mrs. Okafor stood near the wall in a linen blazer with her hands folded.
"He explores when he's anxious," she said.
"How long has he been out," I said.
"Since the waiting room," Diane said, from behind me.
I turned around.
"He got out in the waiting room?" I asked.
"Briefly." Diane pulled the door mostly closed. "Marcus handled it."
"Marcus is a front desk coordinator not a wrangler."
"Marcus was very brave," she grinned. “Besides, you know we all do everything around here.”
I turned back to Président who looked back at me with small, beady eyes.
I crouched down.
He came out from behind the table with surprising dignity for a rodent, the movement of a creature who had decided to do something and wanted it understood that the decision was entirely his.
I examined him on the floor, which was not standard protocol, be he was Président and the world bent to his will. Diane documented this without comment beyond the amused smirk she wore whenever cataloguing material to tease me with later.
“Mild vitamin D deficiency. Needs more sun,” I muttered, knowing Diane would nail the notes.
"He has a solarium," Mrs. Okafor said.
"The he needs a larger one with better lighting," I said.
She produced a business card from her blazer. "My vet in Caracas will send his notes."
Getting Président back into his carrier required me, Diane, another piece of cucumber, and Marcus, who appeared in the doorway with his hands clasped and a smart-ass smirk to match Diane’s.
"Can I assist?" Marcus asked, knowing full well we needed his help.
"We're fine," Diane said, from behind Président.
"It appears—"
"Marcus," she said.
He retreated but maintained his position inside the now closed door.
Président made a sound at me when he was settled. I chose to interpret it positively. Mrs. Okafor told him to say thank you and he made the sound again, which she received as confirmation.
Next up was a parrot named Cracker who had once, ironically, belonged to a sailor and retained the vocabulary to prove it. A dachshund followed. He had a back issue and an owner who also walked with a slight lean.
Owners and pets mirroring each other never failed to amuse me.
Then there was a goldfish in a travel container whose owner, a woman named Sandra, wanted a second opinion on a diagnosis she'd received from a vet in Clearwater. She had printed out fourteen pages of research to support her position.
"He's very intelligent," Sandra told me.
"The fish?" I said.
"His name is Gerald."
I looked at Gerald. He came to the edge of the container and stared back.
"He knows things," she said.
"I’m sure he does," I said, wondering if I should call for a psych eval on the owner.
It was somewhere between Cracker's second inappropriate word and Sandra's fourth printed page that Marcus appeared in my office doorway and said, in a considered tone that was unlike our affable front desk man, "Your brother is here."
I looked up, my brows bunching. "Alan’s here?"
"He said he brought sandwiches," Marcus said with a shrug.
Alan appeared behind Marcus holding a paper bag. He was twenty-six, five inches shorter than me, and looked like he’d woken up that morning and decided today was a good day to involve himself in someone else's business.
He was also my best friend, which was the reason I hadn't changed the locks.
"I was in the area," he said.
"You work on Harbour Island," I said. "This is South Tampa."
"It's very close."
"It's twenty minutes."
"Only with traffic. Besides, I had a break." He set the bag on my desk and slumped into the chair across from it with the settled confidence of someone intending to stay. "Oh, and Marcus texted me."
I shot Marcus a glare.
Marcus, ever the chicken among hawks, adjusted a pen on the corner of my desk to a precise ninety-degree angle, shot through the doorway, and disappeared.
"Marcus texted you," I said flatly.
"He said you had a granola bar for breakfast. He was concerned." Alan opened the bag and produced two sandwiches. "He's a good person, Marcus."
"Marcus is supposed to manage the front desk not my diet."
"Marcus manages the front desk and apparently also you, which is a lot to ask for one salary. You should consider giving the guy a raise." He pushed a sandwich across the desk. "Now, stop grousing and eat. Tell me about your weekend."
"I'm not grousing. I’m reviewing charts."
"The charts will be there after you finish your sandwich.
" He unwrapped his own and looked at me with the patience of a man who had been reading his older brother's silences for twenty-six years and found them consistently wanting.
"Did you do anything? Go anywhere? Exist outside this building for any portion of the forty-eight hours between Friday evening and this morning? "
I picked up the sandwich. "I went somewhere Saturday.”
Alan went very still. He stared, unmoving, the same way I would with a frightened animal on their first visit to my exam room.
"I went to a bar," I said. "In Ybor. Peter mentioned it at a work thing a while back."
"Peter, the vet surgeon Peter?"
"Yes."
"The same weird Peter who says approximately twelve words a week? That Peter recommended a bar? Where actual people go? To socialize and talk and drink?"
I cocked my head in the “fuck off” way brothers do. "Peter’s not that bad. Apparently, Peter’s dating one of the guys who works there."
Alan nearly dropped his sandwich. "Dear God. Peter is dating an actual human. What has this world come to?”
“Alan, come on.”
“Fine. I’ll play nice. It’s still shocking. That guy is more introverted than, well, anyone I’ve ever known.” He shrugged with his bushy brows. “So, what was it like, this bar you went to?"
I thought about warm walls and a crowd that knew each other and a room that understood what it was.
I thought about a ridiculously sexy, muscled, sweaty man with rich colored skin and floppy black hair moving on a bar counter like some Greek statue made in Puerto Rico then brought to life and give a speedo.
"Good," I said. "It was good. Definitely worth the trip."
Alan glared. His brows bunched, forming one massive caterpillar. He stared so long, mid-chew, that I wondered if he’d flipped a breaker in that thick head of his.
"You going back?" he said, slowly resuming his chew.
"Maybe," I said. “I’ve never loved bars.”
"Maybe, huh," he repeated, in the tone of someone writing something down internally.
"It was a good bar, a sports theme that didn’t feel like a gay bar. They don’t allow smoking inside, so I didn’t leave wanting to burn my clothes. And the guys who work there are really nice." I said. "Peter has good taste."
“Just nice?” his lips curled.
“Fine. They’re hot. Seriously, ridiculously hot, too.”
“There he is! My bro! I knew he was still in there somewhere.” Alan took another bite, his grin turning toothy and disgustingly tuna salad covered. “So, let’s recap. Doctor No-Personality-Peter recommended a bar and you went and it was good and maybe you'll go back."
"That's the whole story," I said.
Alan nodded slowly and said nothing, which was more unsettling than if he'd said something, because Alan's silences meant he had arrived at a conclusion he was choosing to keep to himself.
Alan keeping things to himself was a temporary condition at best.
I had long ago diagnosed him with a chronic case of diarrhea of the mouth. It might’ve been the most accurate diagnosis I’d ever made.
"Marcus said a capybara got out," Alan said, suddenly shifting subjects.
"In the waiting room."
"How big."
"Ninety pounds."
"Marcus was there for that? Isn’t he normally the one running from the room, screaming like a—"
"He was brave," I said, cutting off whatever misogynistic insult he was about to hurl.
Alan crumpled his wrapper, did a basketball free throw shot into in the trash, and stood. "Eat dinner tonight, a real dinner. Maybe even use a table."
"I always eat dinner."
"At your desk doesn't count. I will report to mom. She’ll send the family mafia."
"You’ll be banned from this office if you do."
He snorted. "Love ya bro. Text me."
He vanished through the doorway, and I listened to him stop at Marcus's desk on the way out. He said something that made Marcus laugh, which Marcus almost never did during office hours, and then the front door opened and closed.
I ate the rest of my sandwich and went back to my charts.
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