But I’m not dying today.
Today, I’m just learning to breathe.
Epilogue
Grace
A lot can change in five years.
After I lost my job, I got a lot of calls from people who had heard what I was trying to do at M.E. If that press conference was good for anything — debatable — at very least, it boosted my public image.
Still, it’s taken me this long to find a position that I really wanted to take.
I moved out of the city after Jace was told that he would keep his license, but he was fired from the hospital. There was nothing left for either of us there.
I’m waiting in Jace’s office for him to show up. Apparently, one of his patients came down with pneumonia, a result of chemotherapy’s assault on her immune system.
After a while, though, he finally comes in, saying, “Hey, Grace. How are you this morning?”
“Annoyed,” I tell him. “When I agreed to marry you, you told me that you’d give me the world, and now look at me.”
“I think you look great,” he says, scanning over the file in his hand.
“Whatever,” I tell him. “Your ten o’clock is waiting in your office, and Mr. Landau called to say that he’s going to need you to come by. I guess his nurse called in sick and he can’t make it to the door on his own.”
“The help can’t make it to the door?”
“No, the patient,” I tell him. “You’re really going to do the grammar thing with me right now?”
“Give him a call and let him know that I can get out there on my lunch break,” he says.
“After your ten o’clock,” I tell him, “you’re clear for the rest of the day.”
He stops before entering his office and says, “You know, in New York, I maintained a very busy schedule. Of course, I had competent help back then, too.”
He stops laughing when the stapler I throw dents the wall near his head.
“Jeez,” he says. “Calm down. I was just kidding.”
“So was I,” I tell him, looking back down at the cross word puzzle in front of me. “If I was serious, you’d probably be on the ground right now.”
Okay, so maybe being the secretary to my husband of three years isn’t the most glamorous job in the world, and I should know; I used to have one that was a lot closer to that particular peak.
I finally heard back from the station I’ve been wooing for the last few years or so and they’re bringing me in for a second interview. Hopefully, that means I can stop treading water as Jace’s assistant — a term that I cling to dearly — and get back doing what I’m good at.
Ironic as it may seem, after all the time I spent trying to put the now defunct Memento Entertainment in a position to acquire KJBP, I’ve found myself in a position where KJBP is trying to acquire me. I just hope it’s not Andrew asking the questions or I think my chances might not be so great.
It only took the station five years to start taking me seriously.
Jace finishes up with the patient in his office and calls me in through the open door.
I get up and bring my purse, as there are no more patients in the office to see.
I’ve been telling him that we should have opened up his office a little closer to one of the major parts of the city, but he’s gotten to be very adamant about his free time nowadays.
“Yes, Doctor?” I ask in my best Marilyn Monroe voice.
“Sit down,” he says. “Your scans finally came in.”
He tells me that the oligodendroglioma is still in my head, but that it doesn’t seem to have shown any significant signs of growth. He’s been giving me the same speech for the last five years.
“I know you’d like to hear something different,” he says, “but with this thing being as slow growing as it is, it’s not likely we’re going to see much change month to month.”
“Yeah,” I respond absently.
“I have good news, though,” he says. “There’s a clinical trial coming up and I should be able to get you into it.”
I just start laughing.
“Are we going to have to go through the whole you being disbarred or whatever the hell it is they do to doctors again?” I ask.
“Disbarment is what they do to lawyers,” he says. “With doctors, they take away your license and no, you actually qualify for this one. I won’t have to break any laws or ethical codes to get you in.”
“You’re still nailing your patient, though,” I tell him.
“Yeah, but I hardly think that’s relevant to the trial,” he says. “Besides, if you’ve never bothered to notice, I always fill out your paperwork under the name Zoe Brinkman.”
“Zoe Brinkman?”
“Yeah,” he says. “It was a girl I used to date before I met Melissa. She was totally out of her head, but she was a demon in the sack.”
I think I may have rubbed off on him a little too much over the years.
“How charming,” I tell him. “So, what you’re saying is that you’re going to get me into the trial without lying this time, except when it comes to my name or the fact that we’re married, right?”
“Actually,” he says, “none of that’s going to matter. I called Dr. Marcum and he’s going to recommend your inclusion into the trial so we don’t have to falsify anything.”
“Yeah, except any and all records of me ever being his patient,” I scoff.
“I sent him your file so he could send it to them,” Jace says. “You’re already in if you want to be in.”
“What kind of drug is it?” I ask. “Is it going to be better or worse than the chemo?”
“Part of the fun is finding out,” he says and I’m now convinced that me rubbing off on him at all is a bad idea.
“All right,” I tell him, “but if it puts me in a bed unable to move, I’m going to have to insist on breast massages at least three times a day.”
“I’ll check with your trial doctors,” he says and looks back to the paperwork on his desk.
A lot can certainly change in five years, but a lot stays the same, too.
I turned him down that night at the junkyard, but I did eventually relent and allow him to marry me — part of the deal was that he had to say it like that whenever he told anybody.
“You want to head to Mr. Landau’s place with me?” he asks, finishing up signing whatever it is that he’s signing. “There’s lunch in it for you if you do.”
“I’ll tell you what,” I say. “I’ll go with you and you can eat out.”
“That’s what I just said.”
I give him my corniest wink, saying, “Is it?”
“You know,” he says, “I could swear I’m married to a teenage boy.”
“That’s disgusting. You’re way too old to be with a teenager.”
So, this is our life. We work together, we live together, I make juvenile comments, and we laugh about them together.
All in all, it’s not so bad.
The only thing I really miss when I left the city, and this was a surprise to me, was Mags.
Yeah, she was my secretary — excuse me, assistant — and I never really treated her that well, but she was always there in the background making my life run just a little bit smoother.
The good news for her is that she finally landed herself a millionaire, though he’s a lot younger than what she had in mind. Still though, she tells me, with the sheer volume of alcohol he consumes on a daily basis, it can’t be too long until he keels over.
I guess you’ve got to have goals.
Jace finishes up and we walk out of the office together. I forward any calls to my office to my cellphone, though I’m not anticipating any calls.
“So, after I start at the station, what are you going to do for a secretary?” I ask.
“I thought you were very adamant about being called an assistant,” he says.
“I am, but I’m sure whatever bimbo you hire is hardly going to measure up to my incredible skills.”
“Y
ou are by far,” he says, “the worst assistant I’ve ever had.”
“You do remember that Yuri got you fired from your last job, right?”
“Yeah, but at least she knew where the pens were,” he says. “I’ve got someone lined up. I still have to do a final interview, but she comes highly recommended.”
“It’s nobody I know, is it?” I ask.
“You don’t know anybody,” he says.
“I have friends.”
“Oh, right,” he says, “your coven. Forgive me if I don’t count the hateful women you bring over to my house as anybody.”
“They’re not hateful,” I tell him. “They’re spirited.”
“So, I was thinking,” Jace says. “After your clinical trial, maybe we could start trying to build our family a little bigger.”
This is about the only thing we argue about anymore. Okay, we argue quite a bit about a great many things, but this is the only topic that isn’t complete bullshit.
“You keep saying that we should build our family,” I tell him, “but what you’re forgetting is that it’s my vag that family’s going to have to come out of, and I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to figure out what that must be like, but I’ve seen pictures and it doesn’t look great.”
“I’m a doctor,” he says. “I’ve seen women give birth before.”
“Yeah? How was it?”
“It was thoroughly disturbing,” he says, “but I hear they give you some pretty killer drugs.”
“I’ll think about it,” I tell him.
We pull up to Mr. Landau’s house and Jace asks me if I’m coming in.
“Why? So he can stare at my boobs while you’re doing unspeakable things to him in the name of medicine?”
“Give the guy a break,” Jace says. “He’s got cancer. He may never see a nice pair again.”
“I have a brain tumor,” I tell him. “Does that mean that I get to scope out all the junk I want?”
“Are you coming in or not?”
“Fine,” I groan, “but I’m going to have to insist on some quid pro quo.”
“Well,” Jace says, “you may have to do most of the work, but I’m sure Mr. Landau would be all right with that.”
“Not what I meant.”
Jace gets out of the car and, hesitantly, I get out as well.
We walk up to the house, and I can’t help but think how much differently my life would have been if any other doctor had walked into the room that day I had my first seizure.
Attraction often has more to do with proximity than it does with any kind of actual chemistry, but with Jace, somehow I’ve found both.
He’s still a pain in my ass, but I do love him. Yeah, it’s probably going to be a while before he convinces me to squeeze out a kid or two and it’s just as possible that that never happens, but I do know that I’m glad to be spending my life with him.
“Do you really think he’d go for it?” I ask as Jace rings the doorbell.
“Who?” Jace asks.
“Mr. Landau,” I answer. “You’ve seen his bits; do you think it’d be worth my time or would it be like trying to make it to England in a rowboat?”
“Seriously, I’m married to a teenage boy.”
“Seriously, that’s gross.”
We’re waiting at the door for a few minutes.
“You know what we forgot?” I ask him.
“What’s that?”
“Mr. Landau did say that he couldn’t make it to the door,” I answer. “Do we just let ourselves in or what?”
“Call him back and let him know that we’re coming in,” Jace says. “I don’t want to give the poor guy a heart attack.”
“How sensitive of you,” I answer.
I give Mr. Landau a call and he gives us permission to enter, so we do. Jace calls out for him and, from the back, a feeble voice answers.
“Do you really think he’s at risk for a heart attack?” I ask as we’re making our way down the hall.
“Actually,” Jace answers, “his heart is probably the only part of him that’s still holding strong. Why do you ask?”
“No reason,” I tell him.
We get into the room and Mr. Landau is lying in bed watching the morning news.
“How are you doing today, Mr. Landau?” Jace asks.
“Oh, I’ve been better,” the man says.
“Well, let’s see what we can do about that,” Jace says. “I hope you don’t mind, but I brought my assistant along with me today.”
“I can see her,” the man says. To prove it, his eyes move to me and settle on my breasts as they always do.
“Dr. Churchill?” I ask.
“Yes, Assistant Miller?” he returns in his ass-hat way. This is why I didn’t take his last name.
“You’re certain the patient’s cardiac health is stable?” I ask.
“Yeah, why?”
“Well, like you said, I should give the poor guy a break,” I tell him and lift my shirt. “Is that better, Mr. Landau?”
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THE JOB
By Claire Adams
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 Claire Adams
Chapter One
Quote, Unquote
Jessica
It started as a simple idea: Expand the plus-sized section and add in a new display area for the front of the store. Simple, right?
Well, simple though it may be, this is turning out to be a lot more than I bargained for. I’m getting ready to meet with another contractor to discuss quotes and, so far, they’ve been sky high.
The store’s been doing great, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to expand anything if I can’t get these guys to rein in their estimates.
My next appointment, some guy from IRP Construction, comes through the doors, and I can already see that I’m not going to be his biggest fan.
I’m waiting at the front of the store when he comes in, but as I say, “Hello,” he just scoffs and walks right by me.
Heading to the counter, he interrupts one of my salesgirls, saying, “Hey, I’m here to bid on the expansion job. I’m supposed to meet with the head chick or whatever.”
So, hearing all this and being the head chick or whatever, I walk over to him and introduce myself, trying to mask my general repulsion at his presence.
“Hi, I’m Jessica Davis,” I say and put out my hand to shake his.
He just looks down at it and then back up at me.
“I’m the store owner.”
“Oh!” he says with a only partially-toothed smile. “I thought you were the store greeter or something. Let’s talk about what I can do for you today.”
“All right,” I tell him, “if you’ll follow me…”
I lead him over to the section of the store that I want redone and start pointing things out to him.
“Over here, I’d like to get this section of the wall taken back a bit. From what I understand, it’s just dead space back there. I guess they used to use it for storage when this was a more general department—”
“Yeah, that’s a load-bearing wall,” the man says, “If I knock that out, you’re going to see daylight. Maybe that’s what you’re looking for, though.”
“I’m not talking about the wall behind,” I explain. “I’m talking about this area where it juts out. If we could just remove the small storage space and leave the external wall…”
“Well, that’s not going to be cheap,” the man says. “I’ll have to get my electrician in here to check the wiring, and if he finds it’s degraded, we’ll have to tear up the whole store to do it.”
“That really won’t be necessary,” I start, but he doesn’t let me finish.
“Bad wiring can cause
a fire,” he says. “If you don’t get it taken care of, you’re playing games with your customers’ lives. Is that what you want?”
What I want is to punch the guy in the face right now, but I’m pretty sure he could take me in a fight.
“No,” I tell him. “What I’m trying to say is that the wiring in this whole complex was redone a few years ago when the property was bought by the Richmonds. I’d be absolutely mystified if there was any degraded wiring in there.”
“Huh,” the man says, and I can tell he’s just looking for more ways he can pad his bill.
Luckily for me, I did some homework on this place before I bothered calling contractors to come in and give bids.
“Well,” he says, “I guess I could do all that pretty cost-effective and what not, but I think if you really want to open up this space, you’re going to have to get rid of all those wall displays.”
Now he’s just talking gibberish.
“Those would obviously come down before the wall did,” I say, annoyed. “What I do want to do, in addition to what we’ve already talked about, is to see if we can lengthen this window space up in the front so I can display some more of the specialty items that set this store apart. Is that something you think you could do?”
“Well, that’s going to be pretty costly,” he says. “We’re going to have to reinforce the wall if we’re going to increase your window space here. Now, we have a few options to go with there, but I think it’s best to do it right the first time. Otherwise, you’re stuck paying more over the long run.”
“I absolutely agree with you on that last part,” I tell him. “I’m not looking for a quick and sloppy job. I’m looking for something that’s going to last for a long time to come.”
“My men don’t do a ‘sloppy’ job,” he says.
“I’m not saying they do,” I start again. “I was just saying that I agree with you: I’d rather have it done right the first time than do something that’s only going to end up costing more time and money. That’s all.”
I don’t know if this guy’s actually this dense, or if he’s trying some rudimentary psychology to convince me to pay more for what I could get cheaper from someone else.
Costars (A Standalone Romance Novel) (New York City Bad Boy Romance) Page 50