by David Perry
“Shouldn’t you slow down?” Jason urged. Chrissie noticed him looking at her empty drinks.
Christine ignored him. “It got worse in the last six or seven years, you know. Conspiracies consumed everything in his life. Money. Relationships. He pushed me out.” She locked eyes with him, her voice thicker now. “His whole life became that stupid box of files.”
He played with the edge of a napkin and then tried to change the subject. “You look tired. Good, but tired,” he whispered.
“Thanks, I think. I am tired. It’s been a long week. I still have a lot to do to settle Daddy’s affairs. I can’t believe he’s gone. At first, it was almost a relief, but each day it gets harder. I had to identify his body. That’s something I never want to do again.”
He reached over and squeezed her wrist. “I’m sorry.”
The waitress arrived to take their orders. Christine pulled her arm away.
“I’m hungry. We should order,” said Jason.
“Yes,” she said, tears welling.
After the waitress moved out of earshot, he defended his mentor. “Your father was a good man, incredibly passionate about pharmacy. There wasn’t a detail he missed. He was a perfectionist, and he demanded it of his pharmacists and his students.”
“That was one of the things that drove me nuts about him,” she said wistfully. “He was the most anal man I’ve ever known. Did you know he folded the end of the toilet-paper roll into a nice little point, like they do in hotels?”
Jason chuckled. “That’s what made him a great pharmacist. In our profession, you have to look at the smallest details. Miss a decimal point or misinterpret a doctor’s scribble, and it could mean big trouble. That was one of the first lessons he ever taught me. I remember, early on, I filled a prescription for an old man. He was on heart medication, digoxin, and he had liver failure. The doctor made a mistake, prescribed the higher dose. With his advanced age and kidney disease, the larger strength could have been disastrous. Your dad knew the patient and his condition. He let me fill the prescription, then as I was about to dispense it incorrectly, he stopped me and said I was about to kill the man. Of course, he didn’t let the patient know what was going on. Later we called the doctor and had it changed.
“The man had a wife, three children, and eight grandchildren. Your father described his hobbies, his concerns about finances and the stock market. How his kids were busy and didn’t come by enough. Your father always took the time to know his patients. Not just their medications and medical conditions. He knew their stories. He said if I screwed it up it would affect a lot of people, not just the patient. ‘Every prescription should be filled like it was for your own mother,’ he always said.
“I looked at your father very differently after that. Before, patients were just a disease, a medication, and a prescription to me. Your father made me see that there were real people behind what we do. That was the first time I realized how important what I do is.” Jason stopped, a faraway look clouding his eyes.
“Go on,” she said softly.
“We always need to be at our best, perfect. He told me never to forget that. And I haven’t.”
“Are you okay?”
He nodded. “Fine,” he said. “Just remembering too much.”
“Is that what happened back then, Jason? Daddy put too much pressure on you?” Christine asked.
“No, that’s not why I left. It was something else completely.”
“Are you ever going to tell me why you deserted me?”
Jason winced as though the word hurt to hear. “Someday soon,” he said. “Not tonight. You’re drunk.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You’re close.”
Through the fog of the vodka, tequila, and gin, she read anguish in his face. “You make him sound like Superman.”
“To me he was. He certainly wasn’t paranoid. He didn’t drink and he certainly didn’t drink and drive.” Jason opened his mouth to continue, but stopped.
“People change,” she said.
The waitress returned with a thick hamburger and steak fries for Jason and an oriental chicken salad for Christine.
“You were going to ask me a question,” she said.
Jason nodded, slathering mayo on his burger. “Something’s been bothering me about your father’s death.”
“Yeah?”
“What was your father doing in Smithfield when he died?”
“I have no idea. The police officers asked me that too. Maybe he just went out for a drive.”
“After drinking?”
“I told you, we weren’t talking much. He could’ve kept it hidden. What are you trying to say?”
“What I’m trying to say is, in the last thirteen years, did you ever see him take a drink? Beer, wine, whiskey?”
“No, never.” Christine had never thought of it that way before. Perhaps she wanted to believe he father had been drinking. It would explain his obsessions.
“Doesn’t that tell you something?”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Christine replied. “Are you the same person you were thirteen years ago?”
“I guess not.” Jason took a large gulp of his gin and tonic.
“So what happened to that, Jason?”
“I was young and didn’t know what I wanted.”
“What about now? Do you know what you want now?”
“Your Honor,” Jason said, chuckling, “counsel is badgering the witness!”
“I think I deserve some answers.”
Jason screwed his face up and bit into his burger. A minute passed. They used the food as a distraction. Jason finally broke the silence.
“It’s good to see you again,” he said.
“Is it?”
“Are you going to keep answering questions with questions?”
Christine could sense the thoughts bounding inside his head like overheated molecules. He wants to spill out the whole mess, she thought.
* * *
She’s an enigma, Jason thought. He had expected a barrage of questions about their breakup. In a way, he wanted her to be angry. It would be easier to talk about it if she were angry. She would have her guard up, her defenses in place. He could take comfort in the fact that his words would hurt less.
But she was drunk and in no condition to discuss their history. He wanted her at her best, he rationalized. The last thing he wanted was latent, raging emotion combined with alcohol-fueled irrationality.
“Do you remember how we met?” he asked.
Christine looked away, remembering the past. “You were a petrified little extern, waiting for Daddy to come back into the office, trying to figure out the answer to that stupid question he asked all his students. Of course I remember.”
* * *
Thomas’s tiny office was tucked behind the pharmacy department in a dark corridor. Uneasiness besieged Jason like swarming mosquitoes. At six foot four, Thomas Pettigrew towered over the technicians and pharmacists he worked with and supervised. His hands were so large he could hold a dinner plate by the edges with one meaty mitt. His eyes were older, more intense versions of his daughter’s, framed by crow’s-feet and mottled skin. His white, flowing hair always seemed to be in desperate need of a trim, which, coupled with his full-length white lab coat, gave him an Einstein-like appearance.
Pettigrew appeared absolutely gigantic inside the closet-sized office. Cramped and miserable, insignificant and puny under Pettigrew’s gaze, Jason sat stiffly in the uncomfortable metal chair. His knees rubbed the front panel of the dented metal desk as he fended off the barrage of questions. “Ums” and “ahs” drifted from Jason’s lips like chaff in response to Pettigrew’s barrage of questions. Jason later learned it was part of Pettigrew’s strategy, his game. He didn’t care what your answers were. He wanted to see how you handled the stress. The pharmacist’s workday was a pressure cooker. It produced diamonds or spit out chunks of dirty, bituminous coal. Jason was failing miserably. Forty minutes after it
began, Pettigrew stopped and peered unblinkingly at Jason for a few seconds. An eternity yawned. The old man asked a final, unhurried question. “What philosophy should dictate your practice of pharmacy?”
Jason opened his mouth, unsure what answer might spew forth. Pettigrew raised a long, slender hand, cutting him off. “You and I,” Pettigrew said in his powerful baritone, “have undertaken a respected profession. Did you know that pharmacists are more trusted than doctors and clergy?”
“No.”
“They are. We are a respected bunch. I’ve had patients tell me that their doctor instructed them to do such and such. But they wanted to ask me before they did anything.”
Jason nodded nervously, already aware he had never considered his professional mantra.
Pettigrew held up a bony finger one more time. “I want you to think about your answer for twenty minutes. I have to check some prescriptions. When I come back, I will hear your response. If I’m pleased, I will consider taking you on as my extern. It should be one short sentence, appropriate and succinct. Then be prepared to defend it.” Pettigrew stood and left the small office, brushing past Jason.
A minute later, she poked her head in the door, her lips wide in an impish smile. Dark brown eyes glimmered with a hint of mischief through the curtain of soft brown tresses. Jason smiled weakly, trying to push his dilemma into a cerebral closet.
“Are you the pharmacy student?” she asked.
Jason nodded. His throat was dry, tongue thick.
“Did he ask you the question yet?”
Jason gave her a vacant stare.
“You know, the same one he asks every extern. ‘How are you going to be the best pharmacist’ or something like that?” The girl-woman added air quotes around the word “pharmacist.”
Jason nodded a second time. “He’s coming back in a few minutes. Got any advice?”
“I sure do.” She smiled. Her eyes sparkled with devilry as she turned and walked away.
Like a largemouth bass taking the bait, Jason followed her into the cramped hall. She was leaning against a wall. She beamed. “That didn’t take long.”
“Are you having fun?” Jason hissed.
“I sure am. So do you want the answer?”
“I want this externship. If you have information that will help me, I’d like to know what it is.”
She looked him up and down. “I like a man that goes after what he wants.”
“You’re just playing games. You don’t have any advice.” He turned to reenter the office.
“Oh, I have the exact answer he’s looking for,” she explained.
Jason stopped, wondering who this woman thought she was. “And how do you know that?”
“Because he told me.”
“Who are you? Do you work here?”
“You can call me Chrissie. And I work here, in a manner of speaking.”
“So what’s it gonna take to get the answer?”
“Dinner.”
“Dinner? Do you do this with all the externs, Chrissie?”
“No, as a matter of fact, you’re the first,” she replied.
“I have two questions. Why am I so privileged? And why don’t I believe that?”
“You better decide,” she declared. “He’s gonna be back soon.”
“First, tell me why you want to help me.”
“Because you’re cute. I saw you come in. You’ve got a nice ass.”
He huffed and looked away, certain he was being played.
“So what’s it gonna be?”
“Okay, I’ll buy you dinner. But only if I get the externship. Deal?”
“Uh-uh. Maybe you won’t use the answer I give you. It’s dinner or nothing. What you do with that information is up to you.” Christine twirled strands of hair around a finger. “Deal or no deal?”
* * *
Jason smiled again, remembering. “Your father was really impressed by the Latin. Considera aegrum totum.”
“I’ll let you in on a little secret,” said Christine, taking another sip of her iced tea. “He only gave you the spot because of that answer.”
“You never told me that before.”
“A woman likes to have some secrets. I also never told Daddy I gave you the answer.”
“I appreciate that.”
“I didn’t want it to lessen his image of you. He thought the world of you once he got to know you.”
“How did you know the answer?”
“I’m a pharmacist’s daughter. I heard him say it thousands of times over the years. I liked it. It was catchy. So I translated it to Latin. How did you defend it to him when he came back for the answer?” she asked.
“Well,” Jason began. “Your father made me so nervous, I forgot all the tenets I’d learned in school. Your little phrase reminded me what I’d been taught and all the right words came rushing back. Considera aegrum totum means ‘consider the whole patient.’”
“I know that, silly. I told you, remember? So what did you tell Daddy?”
“I said pharmacists are uniquely qualified to understand every aspect of a patient’s condition. Home, work, social. You have to look at the whole person. Look at their overall health, their life. Every organ system. Look at their family and home life, their work situation, and find the therapy that makes the most sense. We see them much more than doctors, and they tell us more than physicians have time for. Sometimes they tell us things they would never tell a doctor. We’re more accessible and approachable.”
“You got all that from one little statement?”
“It’s not a statement, it’s a philosophy.”
Christine nodded, and another silence descended between them.
“So what have you been doing with yourself?” he asked.
“Working, mostly,” she replied. “I’m glad I didn’t get into retail like you did. I don’t think I could stand the hours and weekends. I prefer dull, drab accounting procedures.”
“Are you still with that accounting firm?”
“Collins, White and Casper. Yeah, I am. I’ve been their lead auditor for almost twelve months now. I finally got the promotion. I work a lot, but I make sure I get weekends off. We’re auditing a big auto dealer right now in Williamsburg.” Christine took another long sip of her third drink.
“No time for a husband, huh?” Jason asked casually.
Chrissie assumed Jason had kept loose tabs on her through the grapevine. She wondered if he knew about the few boyfriends and her broken engagement. She also wondered why he was so suddenly, pleasingly, curious about her social life. The drinks had peeled back her inhibition and revealed some of her repressed playfulness. “Why, Jason,” Christine lilted in her best southern drawl, imitating Scarlett O’Hara, “I do believe that you are fishing for information.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“You’re right, Ah didn’t,” she said, batting her eyelashes and pretending to fan her face. She could feel the good ole Chrissie coming out to play. It had been so long since she’d let her out of her cage.
“He must not be very special if you don’t want to talk about him,” he teased.
“Why the sudden interest?”
“I’m just making conversation.”
“No, you’re not. Your girlfriend, Ms. Beauty Queen, what’s-her-name, probably wouldn’t appreciate you asking another woman these kinds of questions.”
“Her name’s Sheila Boquist, and she’s not my girlfriend anymore. Now you’re fishing.”
“Maybe,” Christine replied, smirking.
They held each other’s gaze for a long time.
“How’s your son, Michael?”
“He’s great. He’s eleven.” Jason pulled out his cell phone and showed her several photographs. “Loves baseball, drums, and asking questions.”
“Good lookin’ kid. He must get his looks from his mother.”
Jason smiled and looked away.
“So why did you ask me to dinner?”
“Ca
n’t a friend just take another friend out for a meal?”
“So we’re friends now?” The effects of the liquor and his statement ignited her anger.
Jason gave a shrug.
“What happened to you saying what you had to say and then leaving me alone?”
He moved fries around with his fork. “I can’t talk about it right now.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Chrissie—you’re drunk. We should wait.”
She knew he was right. And that pissed her off. “You started all this. You asked me to come out so you could say what you had to say—” Christine spread her hands, palms up. “Here I am.”
He sighed. “I’m not ready to deal with the—”
“Feelings?”
Jason averted his eyes and studied his food.
Their volcanically painful past was now fully erupting. The words spewed from her like white-hot ash. “You think it was easy dealing with you leaving and not knowing why? All those years, and no answers!” Christine’s voice grew louder, her speech slower, more deliberate.
Several diners looked in their direction.
The waitress appeared, looking between them quickly, hoping to broker a truce. Jason asked for the check and handed over his credit card. She rushed away to process it.
“Keep it down,” he said.
“You keep it down,” she blasted.
“Let’s not do this here.”
The waitress returned with the credit slip.
“I think we better go,” he said. He signed for the meal as Christine glared at him with red, glassy eyes.
“Come on, let’s take a walk. We can talk outside.”
Christine grabbed her purse and tried to stand. She stumbled. Jason caught her by the elbow, but she wrenched free and marched unsteadily to the door. Other diners cast glances their way.
Jason followed her to the parking lot. “Nice car,” he said, admiring the Chrysler 300.
Christine rummaged impatiently through her purse. “I bought it the night Daddy died. It was the last time I spoke to him. You know, he hung up on me.” She wiped tears away and in the process dropped her keys. Jason scooped them off the asphalt.
“I need my keys,” she demanded.