Bad Medicine

by Caroline Fardig

“That’s the least of my worries. Thanks, Julia.” I give her the phone and a one-armed hug and flee the scene.

  Kim’s house is only a mile from the office, so it’s no big deal for me to walk. It’s actually a good thing that Bethany dumped her drink on me earlier. It made me chilly so I changed into a pair of slacks and flats with socks. Perfect attire for a little midday stroll. Plus, the walking will give me a chance to clear my head.

  I shudder at the thought of poor Jason, sitting there dead with a bottle of pills clutched in his hand. What would have made him do such a thing? And how is Kim going to deal with mourning the loss of her husband along with the stress of taking care of a new baby? At least Julia didn’t get the chance to tell her about Jason’s infidelity. That little secret can die with him.

  I get back to work and wait impatiently for Julia to return. She’s gone about two hours, and once she arrives and sits down at her desk, I go over to talk to her. “Well? What happened?”

  She sighs. “You were right. The police came out and asked all kinds of questions.”

  “Thanks for letting me get out of there.”

  “I don’t think it’s exactly legal to leave the scene, is it?”

  “That’s just for car accidents,” I hastily reply, not wishing to debate the subject.

  “Anyway, there’s something I need to talk to you about. Something that Kim said.”

  “What’s that?”

  She hesitates. “Kim insists that Jason never did drugs, and never would.”

  I bite my lip and point out, “Maybe Jason’s cheating wasn’t the only thing Kim didn’t know about.”

  “She wants you to look into it, to find out if there are any weird circumstances surrounding Jason’s death.”

  “Say what now?” Why would she want me to look into it?

  Shrugging, Julia says, “Kim thinks you’re some kind of rogue investigator.”

  “Maybe Kim is the one who’s on drugs,” I reply.

  “Not funny. Kim thinks there’s something fishy going on.”

  “Then Kim should take it up with the police.”

  “She did, but she said they treated her like she was crazy for bringing it up.”

  I sigh. “They kind of have a point. You saw him. Jason was sitting comfortably on the couch, no signs of a struggle whatsoever, and there were pills in his hand. It’s pretty clear that if you die with a bottle of pills in your hand, you’ve OD’d. And, as for me sticking my nose into this mess, I’m not doing it. Besides, I’m retired from sleuthing. Forever.” I cross my arms for extra emphasis.

  Julia’s eyes fill with tears again. “Then I guess I’ll have to do it.”

  “Seriously? You’re a worse sleuth than I am, and that’s really saying something.”

  “I’m going to help my friend,” she says in a small voice.

  “In case you’ve forgotten, you’re pregnant. You shouldn’t do anything remotely stressful or dangerous. Your husband would kill us both if I let you run around spying on people.” Dillon hasn’t spoken to me much since Julia got kidnapped by Sanchez. It was kinda my fault.

  Julia brightens. “So you’ll do it?”

  “No,” I reply emphatically.

  “Please?”

  “No.” She’s not talking me into this one.

  “Think of it this way. It’s not a murder, right?”

  Warily, I reply, “Right.”

  “So there should be no harm in asking a few questions, right?”

  “Technically, no.” What is she doing here?

  “And Dillon would frown on me being involved, right?”

  “True.”

  “So you’re the only one who can handle this,” she states matter-of-factly.

  Beginning to get confused, I wrinkle my nose. “I guess…”

  Julia beams. “That’s close enough to a yes for me.”

  Shit. What did I just get myself into?

  I drag back to my desk and throw myself into my chair. Did I really just agree to poke my nose into a possible murder? Stupid, stupid, stupid! I guess it was too much to ask that I just live a normal, simple life. I blame Blake Morgan. My life was absolutely boring and non-eventful before I met him. I don’t know how this particular situation is his fault, but I’m pretty sure it is anyway.

  Honestly though, I’m not at all buying into the whole “weird circumstances surrounding Jason’s death” theory. I’m going with the “Jason freaked out over a new baby, decided to have an affair, and accidently took too many drugs” theory. But, I guess now I have to run around and ask some questions. Probably the most likely place to start is with one of the last people who saw him alive—Dr. Thomas. As luck would have it, I have an appointment with her this afternoon.

  ***

  Sitting in one of Dr. Thomas’s exam rooms, I’m a little nervous and fidgety. I don’t want to have to talk to her about her date last night. It’s so none of my business. Plus, if she’s heard that Jason’s dead, she’s probably upset and won’t even want to talk about it anyway. The door opens, and Dr. Thomas enters the room with a huge smile. Oh, boy. Looks like she doesn’t know. I guess it’s show time.

  She says, “Hello, Lizzie. How’s the ankle today?”

  I clear my throat. “Um, better than last night, but it still hurts.”

  “I’m going to manipulate your ankle a bit and see if we can get you some pain relief.”

  As she starts working on my ankle, I ask, “Did you…enjoy Vibe last night?”

  “Yes, it’s a nice place.”

  “My friends and I hadn’t been there before.”

  “I hadn’t either.”

  It seems she’s not going to be too forthcoming about any juicy details. Ugh. I just need to go for it. “I noticed you were on a date…”

  She jerks her head up, eyes wide. “Um…” She composes herself quickly. “Yes. A first date.”

  I may have hit a nerve. Time to back off. “Wow. I hate first dates. The last first date I had was a total disaster.”

  She smiles. “What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “The guy I went out with had…sort of a stalker. She also happens to completely hate me. While we’re on our date, she shows up at the next table, and he has to rip her a new one to get her to leave. A few minutes later, my ex-boyfriend calls me, and my date and I argue about him. The whole evening was just angsty.” Now that my relationship with Blake has degraded into fighting, fighting, and more fighting, I would take that crappy first date any day.

  “Are you two still together?”

  I sigh heavily. “No.”

  “It sounds like you’d like to be. Do you think there’s a chance for you?”

  “I loved him, but I think it just wasn’t meant to be.” I can’t believe I’m telling my chiropractor this. She’s such a great listener. But, wait, I was the one who was supposed to make her talk!

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” She pats my leg. “I’m finished with you for today. I would like to see you again tomorrow.” She turns to exit the room. My appointment is over, and I got nothing out of her. Damn. I suck at interrogation.

  I smile half-heartedly. “Sure. Thanks for seeing me, Dr. Thomas.”

  “After sharing first date stories, I consider us girlfriends now. Call me Lydia.” I think I did more “sharing” than she did, but whatever.

  “Okay. Thanks, Lydia.”

  ***

  The second I get back to the office, Julia spots me and comes over to my desk to grill me. Before going to my appointment, I finally broke down and told her the identity of Jason’s date, but I made her promise not to say anything to anyone (especially Kim) just in case Lydia had no idea about Jason being married or about his drug problem. There is absolutely no reason to drag poor Lydia through a bunch of gossipy drama if she’s completely oblivious to the fact that Jason was a cheating turd.

  Julia demands, “What did you find out? Did the hussy say anything useful?”

  I look at her reproachfully. “Settle down
, Judgey McBlameypants. Lydia may not have known she was going out with a married man. She said it was their first date.”

  “So it’s Lydia now?”

  “Sheesh! Calm down, woman. She’s new in town. I’m sure she’s only looking to make some friends.” Julia needs to take a chill pill.

  “What else did she say?”

  I shrug. “That’s about it.”

  “You were there for half an hour, and all you found out was that it was their first date? Come on, Lizzie, I thought you were getting better at this,” she says, frowning.

  I growl, “It was a real appointment, you know, not a social call. She did some actual work on my ankle.”

  “Well, now what are you going to do to get some more information?”

  “I have another appointment tomorrow. I’ll try to talk to her again then.”

  “Good. Maybe you can do better next time.” she says. She’s getting a little bossy.

  “You didn’t even ask me how my ankle was,” I huff.

  Her face crumples, and her eyes begin to get wet in the corners.

  “Julia, don’t cry on me.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m a terrible friend. You’re doing all of this for me, and you don’t even want to. You know I love you, right?” she smiles hopefully.

  “Yeah, I—”

  I’m interrupted by Alan from the Circulation Department upstairs, who thunders down the stairs and into the room, panting and screaming, “You guys! You guys! Upstairs! On the roof!”

  A collective groan goes up from my co-workers and me. Alan does this about twice a month. He’s the one who found Jesse dead on the Chronicle building’s rooftop patio last fall, and I don’t think he’s ever really fully recovered. It’s kind of obvious by the fact that he keeps reenacting his famous scene in which he runs downstairs to tell all of us the gruesome news. Ever since that day, he faithfully patrols the upstairs patio like a one-man neighborhood watch, and he dramatically informs us about his discoveries, including dead wildlife, large water puddles, and bird poop on the lunch tables.

  “What is it this time?” Hank asks boredly, barely looking up.

  Alan swallows loudly, white as a sheet as usual. “I think it might be…dead.” He loves it when he finds a dead animal. Sick bastard.

  “Is it another bird, Alan? Because that’s not really news,” snips Julia, exasperated. Even after seeing a dead body this morning, Julia is more together than Alan.

  “No. It’s a…squirrel.”

  “Excellent job, Alan. We’ll leave a note for maintenance to dispose of it,” Hank says.

  Alan is looking a little nauseated at this point. “Make sure you tell them to take care of it ASAP. Before it…decomposes.” Poor guy definitely needs the name of a good therapist.

  “Will do. Later,” Hank says dismissively, and Alan disappears back upstairs.

  An uncomfortable silence follows Alan’s exit, and after a few moments, Julia clears her throat and says, “Enough about death. You have a blind date tonight, Lizzie. Are you ready for it?’

  “Ugh. No. I was trying to forget. Surely I could get out of it after the morning I’ve had.”

  Julia and my cousin, Becca, conspired behind my back and decided it was high time I have a love life again. They’ve both set up blind dates for me this week. I was hoping if I didn’t think about it and didn’t talk about it, they’d forget and I wouldn’t have to go on either date. Seems like I’m not that lucky.

  “Oh, stop it. You’ll love Todd.”

  I wrinkle my nose. “His name is Todd? He’s gonna be an ass.”

  “He’s not an ass. He’s a great guy.”

  “A great guy? Translation: he’s ugly. Remember, I’m used to dating Blake, the Greek god.”

  “Look, no one is as pretty as Blake. You’re going to have to get over that. Anyway, Dillon says Todd is a great boss.”

  I clap my hand on my forehead. “You set me up with Dillon’s boss? Are you crazy? Thanks for the added pressure! If he doesn’t like me, Dillon’s job could be at risk. What if he makes a pass at me, and I have to kick him in the nuts?”

  Julia chuckles. “Relax. He’s not like that. Besides, you might actually like him.”

  “I guess my day couldn’t get too much worse.”

  ***

  I need to quit saying “my day couldn’t get worse” and stupid shit like that. I am on the date from hell. The guy, Todd, is an ass, just like I said he would be. And while he’s not exactly ugly, he’s got a smarmy smile and beady little eyes that make my skin crawl. His bleached blonde hair is too long in the front and is constantly falling across his forehead, so he keeps tossing his head like a girl to get it out of his eyes. He’s got a soul patch (a creepy flesh-colored one, no less), something I haven’t seen on a male since I was in high school. Worst of all, he won’t shut up.

  “…I can’t wait to get to my job in the morning…” blah, blah, blah, “…because my job is so important…” He drones, “Being the manager of nearly fifteen employees…”

  We met only twenty minutes ago, and nineteen minutes ago, I decided I didn’t care about anything he had to say. He started telling me how awesome he was the moment we got into his car, and I don’t think he’s taken a breath since.

  Todd goes on, “We’re all a big family, and I like to think of the workers I manage as friends…” It’s like I’m on a date with Michael Scott from The Office. “…I’m a good leader because I work hard to motivate my sales force and push them from behind. My hands-on approach is all they need to rise to the occasion.”

  I have to bite my lip to keep from blurting out a “that’s what she said”.

  Right as I’m starting to nod off, our food arrives. Thank goodness. Maybe he’ll stop talking to eat…

  Nope. No such luck. He’s still yakking! And, it’s exponentially worse, because now he’s talking with his mouth full. If he spits food on me, I swear I’m going to impale him with my butter knife. I beckon our waiter over and order another drink.

  I’ve never heard anyone talk about himself this much. Even Blake, who’s a total egomaniac, has never behaved this way. Why am I thinking about Blake?

  Now Todd is talking about his fantastic car. His “Chevrolet Corvette”. Who calls a Corvette a “Chevrolet Corvette” every time he refers to it? Well, Todd does. I mean, yeah, Corvettes are cool. I’m not disputing that. But he had his all tricked out and painted a douchey poison green color. It looks like a car some teenage boy would dream about, not one any adult would actually own. There’s still no end in sight to his one-sided conversation. I order myself another drink.

  When he starts another tangent about his racquetball league, I’ve had enough. I clear my throat and interrupt, “Todd.”

  Todd keeps talking. Doesn’t even bat an eye.

  I raise my voice. “Todd.”

  Still nothing.

  I snap my fingers in his face and bark, “Todd!”

  He looks at me quizzically, like he’s breaking out of a trance. Maybe he’s slowly boring himself to death as well.

  I frown. “I’m not feeling so well. I think I had some bad clams.” I didn’t even have the clams. I had the chicken, and it’s still on my plate. I guarantee he won’t notice. “I’m going to head to the restroom. It may be a while.”

  He smiles politely. “Take your time.”

  I breathe a sigh of relief as I bolt for the bathroom. Freedom! I figure I have a good fifteen minutes to waste after telling him how sick I felt. With any luck, he’ll finish eating and be ready to go by the time I get back to the table. On my way, I glance around the restaurant, noticing table after table of normal couples, seemingly happy and in love, or whatever. A familiar face pops out of the crowd. What do you know—Lydia is here, and with a new guy. I wonder if she figured out why last night’s date never called her back.

  Fueled by boredom and a little too much alcohol, I sidle over to her table to say hello. “Hey, Lydia! We have to quit meeting like this.”

  Lydia g
ives me a startled look. “Lizzie, what a surprise.”

  I glance at her date, wondering if she’s going to introduce me. I don’t recognize him, but he’s handsome, and he’s also not wearing a wedding ring, which is a definite improvement in her dating radar. After a long silence, he smiles and offers his hand. “I’m Mark,” he says.

  I shake his hand. “Lizzie.”

  Crickets again. It’s getting a little awkward, and I’m in a bit of a stupor from Todd’s incessant rambling, so I say, “Well, you two have a nice dinner,” and continue on my way.

  As luck would have it, the bar is right next to the ladies’ room, so I discreetly pop in there instead. I order another drink (I’m up to three or four now…starting to lose count) and sit at the bar, enjoying my alone time. As I sip my drink, I try to remember why in the hell I let Julia talk me into this damn date in the first place. I haven’t the slightest idea. I think my brain may be getting a little fuzzy at this point.

  After squeezing the last second out of the fifteen-minute “bathroom break” I allotted for my “bad clams”, I grudgingly hop down from the barstool, slightly unsteady for some reason, and head out of the bar and back to my crappy date.

  Putting on a sad face, I clutch my stomach and whine, “Todd, I’m still feeling bad. I’m so sorry to have to cut our date short. Could you please take me home?”

  He looks concerned. “Of course.” He flags down our waiter and asks, “Could you please split the check for us?”

  Oh, you have got to be freaking kidding me! I had to sit through an hour of his bullshit, and now I have to pay for my own dinner?!? Wow. The only bright spot is that this date now holds the title for “Worst First Date Ever”. My ruined first date with Blake seems like a romantic fairy tale in comparison.

  Todd tries to take my hand as we exit the restaurant, but I jump involuntarily when he touches me, and he backs away. Gross. His hand felt like a cold, dead fish. Undaunted, he starts his stupid babbling where he left off about his stupid racquetball league while holding the stupid door of his stupid car open for me.

  We have to head the wrong direction out of the parking lot because the road is blocked a couple of streets down. There are several emergency vehicles, so it must be a wreck, and a bad one if they had to block off the traffic in both directions. It occurs to me as Todd heads toward the Chronicle office that I might be a little too drunk to drive my car home. I had him pick me up there because I didn’t want some stranger knowing where I live. Now that I’ve met him, I really don’t want him to know where I live. I’ll have him drop me at Julia’s house. That will kill three birds with one stone. I won’t get a DUI, Todd won’t find out where I live, and I can bitch Julia out for setting me up on this horrific date.