by JD Hawkins
“Yeah. Thanks for the concern, Jackie. I’m fine. Just a little tired. How about you?”
Sighing, she says, “Hanging in there. I’d like to wring the new admin’s neck though, to tell you the truth. Have you seen what she did to the nurses’ schedules? Good lord.”
“I guess the rotation has been a little off,” I admit. “Maybe it’s just an efficiency experiment?”
“She’ll have to experiment with something else, then,” Jackie says sourly. “That woman’s going to get a piece of my mind. Speaking of which—”
Jackie breaks off mid-sentence, shouting something at an EMT pushing a gurney down the hall. I pat her arm before heading off myself.
Jackie’s right, in a way—this is starting to feel like an illness I’m battling, just not the type there’s any sort of medication for. An illness of body and mind that no medical textbook can help me with. I’m infected with him. Suffering from a case of Doctor Pierce. And the only time I don’t feel like I’m in a fever is when I get home and shower and in a moment of weakness let myself imagine his mouth all over me again.
Days pass where I feel like a total zombie, going through the motions while the real me is somewhere else entirely, somewhere back in his living room, resting on his chest, pulling his hair, taking him in my mouth… When I see Colin at the hospital, I offer cool nods or distant pleasantries, but both of us keep our distance like we agreed. It’s torture.
Thankfully, everyone seems too excited at the new administrator and all the changes she’s implementing to notice that I’m barely there. Saskia gets to work quickly changing up schedules, rearranging staff, drawing up new protocols for patient aftercare, and even calling several “efficiency meetings” with the separate departments. I don’t know whether to be pleased or disappointed when I discover that she’s moved Colin back into the closet office. Disappointed for him, but half grateful that it means I’ll bump into him less.
The few times I have to interact with Colin more than just in passing, however, it goes surprisingly well. Strictly professional, with none of the former awkwardness. Mainly because I practice a thousand things to say to him whenever we have to talk—like an actor rehearsing lines until they can embody the part. The role I’m playing is of someone who doesn’t care about the personal, who’s entirely focused on work, who doesn’t get emotional about anything. It’s a role I’ve been playing for most of my adult life—it’s just a little tougher these days, that’s all. I don’t even allow myself to run to Maeve for advice. That would mean admitting that I’m not completely over my little fling, which I refuse to do.
Colin plays his character well too. Maybe too well? He seems resolute and distant—and he’s so good at it I start to wonder if I’ve been played. If he just got what he wanted and is completely uninterested now. When I think that a flash of anger rushes through me, but I suppress it like everything else beneath the cold reality that it doesn’t matter—what matters is the future, and that it never happens again.
Despite the toughness of work, the admin’s changes, and even Colin, it’s the nights that become the hardest. Three or four hours of sleep becomes the norm, even though I start to feel a deep fatigue constantly. I start eating junk food almost exclusively to soothe myself, and then get cramps from the hit to my health. My breasts feel constantly achy with pent-up desire, to the point where it hurts. I keep burning up and trying to wrestle my mind like a wild horse away from those erotic thoughts until inevitably giving in—which only provides a brief relief anyway. I fill an entire notebook with thoughts, scribbling furiously in the early hours like the Russian novelists who can barely hold my attention now.
I even bail on my Thursday dinner date with Maeve for the first time in ages, just so I can lose myself in another evening of degenerate ice-cream eating and shower-fantasizing and writing that would get me committed if anyone were to attempt to read it. It doesn’t matter though, because before I know it the next Thursday comes around, and this time Maeve doesn’t take no for an answer.
“Honey, there is no way I’m letting you ditch me again. Not without a real reason. What’s going on? Are you meeting someone?” she says on the phone.
“No. It’s not that. I just—”
“Are you home?”
“Yeah. But honestly, I feel like shit. I doubt I’ll be good company—”
“I’ll be there in half an hour with some takeout.”
“Maeve—”
She hangs up before I can protest.
Suddenly I’m aware of what a mess my apartment is. A rumpled blanket and pillows on the couch from when I tried to fall asleep to an old movie last night. A half-eaten bag of bbq potato chips on the coffee table surrounded by crumbs and candy wrappers. A day-old glass of Alka-Seltzer on the side table. Dirty clothes thrown over my armchair. Pens (half of which are used up) scattered everywhere. Even my socks don’t match.
Immediately, I set about clearing the place up, and I’m just about done by the time my doorbell rings. I start the washing machine and go to the door, checking myself quickly in the mirror to see whether I look as ragged as I feel.
“Hey Maeve,” I say, once I see her there clutching a bag of food. She’s wearing patterned yoga pants and a Lululemon shirt, her short blonde hair pushed back with a headband, clearly having just come from the gym. But the expensive shades and tight body still make her look a cut above.
“I was going to get curry but I didn’t want to be late, so I settled for the Thai place up the street,” she says, walking in like she owns the place. She looks around as if searching for evidence as I shut the door behind her.
“Thanks. Just set it on the coffee table and I’ll bring us some drinks and dishes.”
In a few minutes she’s sitting on the floor, leaning back against the couch, and trying out several of the dishes while I pour out some Coke for us. I kneel on a cushion on the other side of the table and join her in emptying some of the cartons onto a plate.
“So?” she says after a few minutes, in between mouthfuls of peanut chicken.
I shoot her a confused look. “So what?”
Maeve draws circles with her chopsticks in the air as if to say “let’s skip the obvious” and I let out a deep sigh.
“So, what the hell is going on? Why do you sound so bad on the phone? What’s the status with this Colin guy? Something’s going on, and the fact that you’re not telling me has me genuinely worried, honey. I’ve barely heard a peep from you in weeks.”
I shrug, and then start to speak. At first only intending to tell her a broad-stroke overview of events, but soon finding myself rambling and blathering about everything. From a complete reenactment of our meeting with Jake to an in-depth examination of what Colin told me about the woman at his last job to the several theories I’ve concocted around the moment I tried to leave to a verbose and florid description of the way he said “thank you” to me just a couple of days ago.
It’s only half my fault—Maeve is a great listener when she wants to be. Attentive and interested, asking all the right questions, filling in the pieces I can’t quite verbalize myself. After repeating several things multiple times, I feel like there’s nothing more I can add. Maeve’s eaten half the food and I’ve only had a couple of bites I’ve been talking so much.
“So?” I say, as I finally attack my plate of pad thai and spring rolls. “What do you make of it all?”
Maeve ceremoniously puts her chopsticks down and dabs her lips. “Firstly—he’s right about vanilla: massively underrated.”
I shoot her a mildly amused, frustrated look. “Maeve…”
“I mean, the first thing you have to think about is yourself, honey. Not sleeping. Eating trash. Staying up all night writing and thinking and driving yourself crazy.”
“I know. It’s like I’ve got a disease,” I say with my mouth full of noodles, making me sound even more pathetic.
“And clearly there’s only one cure. Him.”
I shake my head vigorously as I
swallow quickly to speak.
“No. Maybe he’s just the medicine. The placebo. The drug that’ll deal with the symptoms, that’ll keep me going a little longer, but will eventually bring me right back here again because the problem is still there. You know, maybe you were right all these years, and I neglected relationships, and sex, and then he comes along and blows it all open for me. And even though he probably just played me—just took what he wanted and then put a lid on it—I’m left having to deal with all… All this.
“But even if he didn’t play me, I can’t do it again. It’s too risky. I have to think about my job. And it’s not like he doesn’t have his own issues with it. That whole thing with his previous workplace. I mean, I might be in a bad state, but it could only get worse if we did it again. Or maybe… I dunno. I’m trying to figure it out…”
I finish my little rant and then concentrate on getting the pad thai inside of me as quickly as possible, not even caring that Maeve is staring at me like I’m a zoo exhibit gone wrong.
“What?” I say, still chewing.
Maeve shakes her head nonchalantly and then says, “You did use precaution during your little fuckfest, didn’t you?”
“Of course! What? You really think I’d be reckless enough not to?” Despite my indignant protests, I pause to mentally rewind and review all the details of our various sexcapades. We definitely used condoms every time. I think. Except…maybe that time in the middle of the night when we were half asleep, or during that quickie after he gave me head…
Maeve smiles. “Just making sure.”
“I’d know if I was pregnant, Maeve. This isn’t that. I’m just going through some things.”
“Don’t they say that doctors have the worst health? Psychiatrists have the most messed-up kids. It would be appropriate for a gynecologist to get knocked up accidentally—by a pediatrician, no less.”
I roll my eyes at her. “I didn’t—”
The sound of my doorbell interrupts me. Maeve frowns, and I shrug at her before putting the chopsticks down and getting up to go to the door.
“Who is it?”
As I ask the question my whole body stiffens as I instinctively presume it’s him—the only other person on my mind, the only other person I can conceive of visiting me suddenly.
“Who do ya think?” Toby’s voice announces behind the door, and I immediately relax as I open it.
“Toby. Why don’t you ever call me before you come?”
“You were right, Mia. Right, like always,” he says as he marches inside. “Why don’t I ever listen to you? I’m an idiot, that’s why. I’m a fourteen carat idi—”
I shut the door and turn to look at him standing in the doorway of the living room, eyes glued to where Maeve is sitting.
“Hello, Maeve,” he says.
“Hello, Toby.”
I take a moment to steady myself before following him into the living room, making a silent prayer that there’s no trouble between two of the most important people in my life—two people who’ve got some heated history together.
I enter the living room just as Toby’s settling on the armchair, having picked up the carton of spring rolls.
“If I’d known you were having a girls’ night in, I wouldn’t have—”
“You would have barged in anyway,” Maeve says with a smile. “You were never the type to avoid any action.”
Toby chucks the end of a spring roll in his mouth and chews with a cheerful smile.
“Long time no see, Maeve. You look great, as usual. Last I heard you were dating some hot-shot agent from New York.”
“Fucking—not dating,” Maeve says, looking right at him. “And not anymore. I consider him fucked.”
Toby laughs gleefully. He tries to put his feet on my coffee table but I smack them away as I settle back down in my place.
“You’ll never find a husband with that attitude, Maeve,” Toby mock scolds.
“Good. If I did you’d probably hit on me again,” she replies with an equally jolly smile.
Toby looks at me with horror. “You told her?”
“She didn’t tell me anything, darling,” Maeve says, stealing his attention back. “Is there anyone in L.A. who doesn’t know about your married cougar fetish at this point? You’re not exactly the most subtle of gentlemen.”
“Why be subtle when you can be great instead.”
“Spoken like a true narcissist.”
He shrugs. “We’re both narcissists, Maeve—difference is, I can still love others.”
“The difference is, I can make others love me.”
It’s not the provocative bickering that worries me now, but that they genuinely seem on the verge of tearing each other’s clothes off and fucking right in front of me. I make a show of clearing my throat.
“Ahem… Can I just interject for a second to ask if you want something to drink, Toby?”
“No. I’ll leave you girls to your playdate,” he says, tossing the carton back on the table and making to get up.
“Why not stay?” Maeve says, nodding at me. “Might be good to get some male perspective.”
Toby eases back in the armchair and looks at me.
“On what?”
Maeve turns to me as if letting me decide whether I want to tell him. I hesitate for a moment, not because I wouldn’t tell my brother about it all—God knows he’s told me about every relationship problem he’s had for a decade—but because I don’t even know where to begin. In fact, I don’t even know what my problem is.
All I know is, I have one.
“Okay… Well…”
I begin to talk, and just like before, quickly find myself rambling in several directions at once—only with Maeve filling in certain points, giving me guidance. I leave out the messier, more carnal details, but go in just as deep into all my theories and counter-theories.
Once again, I don’t so much end as run out of things to say and start to get hungry for the meal I’ve hardly even begun. Even Toby works his way through more of the food than I have while I tell him everything.
As I get to work on the pad thai again, Toby settles back in the armchair like a king listening to his subject’s problems, drumming his fingers as his brow creases in thought. A few moments later, he hands out his verdict.
“Sounds like the guy’s full of shit.”
Both me and Maeve look at him in shock.
“What?” I say.
Toby nods, doubling down.
“He’s full of shit.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Because I’m a guy—”
“Who’s full of shit,” Maeve quickly concludes.
“So I know when a guy’s pulling moves. Look. Mia. I know you like building up these weird philosophical double-helix astronomical scientific theories about stuff, but just come down to Earth for a minute. What’s that thing”—he starts snapping his fingers and pointing at Maeve—“where they say the obvious thing is always the most right?”
“You mean the ‘simplest explanation is often the correct one’?” Maeve says.
“Right. Yeah.”
“Occam’s razor,” I add pointlessly.
“Sure,” Toby says, not understanding what I just said. “He’s a guy—so he thinks with his dick. All three of us can agree on that, right? He takes this new job, he sees you. Finds you attractive. You go for drinks, and you sleep together. He regrets it because you work together and he has to see you again, blah blah blah—so the next day he acts weird.
“So then you talk about it, and he feels like an asshole—which he is—so to make both of you feel better and cover his own ass, he comes up with some bullshit about an ex-colleague—honestly, it’s a weak story, I would have done better myself, but it worked, so… But see then he’s got you alone again, and pish-pow, he’s thinking with his dick again, and there you go. He pulls another one-eighty. That’s all she wrote. I don’t even know why you girls have to make a big deal about every little thing like that. He�
�s a dude, he acted like a dude.”
I swap a look with Maeve that tells me she’s just as incredulous as I am.
“That simple?” Maeve says mockingly.
“That simple,” I think Toby says, though his mouth is full of the last spring roll.
“Did you miss the part,” I say, “where I’ve been messed up for weeks because of it?”
Toby grabs my Coke and washes down his food, then says, “What’s there to be messed up about? Do you wanna sleep with him again or don’t you? Seems pretty clear and simple to me. Just keep your emotions out of it.”
“Honey,” Maeve tells me softly, “your brother’s an idiot.”
“How am I an idiot?” he says defensively.
“First of all,” Maeve says, “his story about an ex-colleague wasn’t a lie.”
“How do you know that?” Toby says, scanning the table for what he wants to eat next.
“It’s too”—she waves her chopsticks in the air as she thinks—“vague. Too messy… Men make terrible liars because they always want the lie to make them sound good as well.”
“That’s not true!” Toby interjects. Maeve flashes him a glare, and his shoulders slump a little. “Well, fine. I guess sometimes it applies. Fair enough.”
Shaking her head, Maeve goes on, “Like I was saying. That story makes him sound too vulnerable and weak—as if he ran away from a woman who ‘defeated’ him. No. That’s not a lie. If he wanted to lie about why he was avoiding you, he would have said something like: ‘I don’t want to hurt you’ or ‘I’m worried that I might fall in love with you.’ Something that made him sound romantic and noble. He’d tell you what he thinks you’d want to hear. Not some crazy story about an insane ex he’s afraid of.”
Toby tries to protest but he can only grunt with his mouth full of peanut chicken.
“So… If he was telling the truth, then that’s it. It would be best to just not do anything,” I say. “Deal with the fact that we slept together, and move on.”
“Not necessarily,” Maeve says. “If his hang-up is some bad experience in the past, that’s not stopping you from taking it further. Personally, I love a guy who’s been burned by the last woman—they’re usually very grateful.”