by Sarah Ready
It’s not him.
Nick leans back and moves farther away from me. He glances over and there’s an ironic twist to his lips. “Pine River,” he says.
“Those were the good days,” says Matt.
I shake out of my reflections and turn back to Matt Smith. It could’ve been him. It’s not, but it could’ve been.
“It was nice meeting you,” I say. “I hope you can find music again—” I stop.
Nick scowls at me and shakes his head like he’s disappointed in me. Like in this moment, I’ve failed to be the person he thinks I am. The look hurts and I don’t know why. I sit back down.
“I was in a band,” says Nick.
I do a double-take. How did I not know this? But Nick’s ignoring me.
“Yeah, man? What’d you play?”
Nick shrugs, “Drums. Badly.”
Matt Smith snickers. “You gotta be okay sitting in bad for a long time before you get to good.”
“Yeah,” Nick says. “I never made it to good.”
Matt settles back in his chair and nods in understanding.
“How’s this?” Nick says to Matt. He starts to tap his hands on the tabletop. It’s a quick, rhythmic beat, and then he starts to hum.
I stare. This is a side of Nick I’ve never seen. He’s refusing to look at me, instead he’s facing Matt Smith.
“You got it?” he asks.
“Yeah, man. Yeah. That’s beautiful,” Matt says.
Nick shrugs and keeps up the beat.
Matt starts to hit his fingertips on the tabletop. Then he starts to sing. “All day long they work so hard, til the sun is going down, working on the highways and byways wearing a frown, you hear them moaning their lives away,” sings Matt. He has a voice of pure gold.
After a moment he stops singing and looks at Nick. “Awww man,” he says. “Thank you. You guys needed something?”
“No,” says Nick. “It’s alright.”
“Anything you need,” says Matt.
Nick nods. “We’ll see you around.”
Nick stands and holds out a hand for me. I take it and then pull back just as quickly. There’s too much feeling there when I touch him. We walk out of the prison in silence. I’m confused. I don’t understand the emotions under the surface and I don’t get what he did in there.
When we make it to the parking lot, I turn to him. “Hey,” I say.
Nick’s shoulders stiffen but he keeps walking. His strides eat up the distance to the car. We make it back and he shoves the car key into the passenger door lock.
“Hey,” I say louder. He ignores me, so I nudge at his back. “Hey.”
“What?” he asks. He yanks open the door.
“What was that?” I ask.
He swings around, and I take a step back at the expression on his face. He’s angry. Really angry.
“What was what?” he asks coldly.
I wave my hands toward the prison. “That. You signed on to help me find my soul mate. Why do you keep trying to prevent it from happening?”
“Are you kidding?” he asks.
“No. Why would I kid? What’s wrong with you?”
He paces the length of Shelly and back again. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Only I just realized the girl I’ve known since I was two years old would rather marry a stranger who’s spending the next fifteen years in prison than walk away with me. You’d choose a convict you don’t know over…” He stops pacing and faces me. “I forgot life’s ultimate truism—people always disappoint you in the end.”
I stare at him in shock. He runs his hand through his hair and swears long and low.
“But what about the song? What about what you did?”
He turns away. “I don’t know, Chloe. I was trying to give him a little light in that dismal place.” He gestures to me and I look down at my bright pink dress and high heels. “You prance in there looking like a magical rainbow and then you prance right out again, not caring about the empty wreck you leave behind. Let me tell you, it sucks to be left behind. I was giving him something to have rather than the memory of your back.” His mouth twists into a bitter line, and then he turns away from me.
I try to articulate a response but I can’t. Finally, I manage to say, “I can see how it might’ve come across.”
He shakes his head. “This isn’t a game. These guys are real people.”
“I know that.” Tears gather in my eyes. I’m not sad, I’m frustrated. Really, really frustrated. I see where this is coming from. I step up to him. “You had your chance,” I say. “You blew it.”
He flinches. “That’s not what this is about.”
“Really? Isn’t it? There was a time I thought you were the one.” A tear falls on my cheek and I swipe it away. “I would’ve followed you in a car, to a prison, or across the world. Anywhere. But you blew it.”
“If I’d known you’d have such high standards for your first lay, I would’ve practiced more. But don’t worry, Sparky, I’ve improved with time.”
I gasp. “You’ve got your head up your butt.”
I turn away and get into the passenger seat, sealing myself away from him.
Nick stands a moment with his hands on the hood of the car and his head bent. Finally, he gets in and turns the key until Shelly revs to life.
“For what it’s worth,” I say, “I would’ve forgiven you anything but that.”
I remember the day after we had sex. How much the after hurt.
He pulls out of the parking spot.
“It’s funny,” he says, “back then, for what it’s worth, I would’ve forgiven anything. Full stop.”
I turn away from him.
Next stop, Nebraska.
12
Nick
* * *
Four Days Left…
Matt Smith Number Three
* * *
We’re in Lincoln, Nebraska at the medical office of Doctor Matthew Smith. It’s a little after nine in the morning and the office just opened. Doctors’ waiting rooms are funny. They’ve got vinyl chairs that can be sanitized easily, laminate counters that can be sanitized easily, and magazines that carry all the germs in the place.
I grab a Popular Mechanics and flip through it while Chloe talks to the receptionist. We had a five-hundred-mile drive to cool down and get over the Number Two incident. It was my bad, I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did. I know Chloe, and one of the best things about her is her certainty and purpose. She decides something, and then she does it. Don’t get me wrong, I still don’t believe in soul mates, I give human free will a little more credit than that, but I have to give Chloe her due for sticking to her beliefs.
Maybe by the end of this she’ll chuck nearly thirty years of romanticism, but I doubt it. I’m starting to realize that I care more about making her happy than making her see she’s wrong about love.
I glance at her. She’s leaning on the receptionist counter, an earnest look on her face.
“I really need to speak to the doctor for a moment,” she says.
“Does your husband need an appointment?” asks the receptionist.
“Who?” asks Chloe.
The receptionist lowers her glasses and stares at me.
“We’re not—”
“He’s not—”
“Your husband needs an appointment to speak with the doctor. He has a cancellation and can see you at ten.” The receptionist holds out a clipboard. “Fill these out, I need ID and insurance.”
“But it’s not a medical issue,” says Chloe. “I just need to ask him a quick question.” She ignores the clipboard that the receptionist is waving at her.
The receptionist drops the clipboard and eyes me. “Sir. All questions for the doctor require an appointment.”
“Excuse us a minute,” I say. I pull Chloe to the side wall near the Purell dispenser. “Just make the appointment.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t want to be in a hospital gown or something when I ask him if he’s my soul m
ate.”
Her face is pinched and pale. “Are you afraid of doctors?” I ask.
“No, don’t be silly, that’s completely—”
I raise an eyebrow.
“Accurate,” she says. She lets out a long breath. “Yes, okay. I’m terrified of doctors.”
I try to hold back a laugh, but a little huff slips out.
“It’s not funny.” She pushes my arm, but she’s such a lightweight I barely feel it. “They have gloves, and weird masks, and they…” She waves her arms around.
“They?”
She sighs. “They give bad news.”
I remember now that when she was eight her dad was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Chloe was there for the bad news. He survived, but…I get it.
“I’ll do it,” I say. “I’ll make the appointment.”
“Really?” she asks in a hopeful voice.
“Yeah. You keep saying I’m trying to sabotage you, but I’m not.”
She gives me a small smile. “You are, too. Anyone that didn’t have their head up their butt could see it.”
I wink at her. That was an apology for yesterday if I ever heard one.
“Harsh, Sparky. But I’ll show you. I’ll do whatever it takes to find your Matt.”
She looks surprised, but hadn’t I already committed to this job back in Romeo?
I walk back to the receptionist. She’s typing on her computer and ignoring me.
“I’d like to make an appointment,” I say.
She picks up the clipboard full of paperwork and gives me a knowing smile. “Good. Sometimes you men take a little coaxing. I see it all the time. What’s your complaint?”
“Um,” I look back at Chloe. “Pain.”
“Okely-dokely. Fill out these forms and they’ll call you when the doctor’s ready.”
I sit down in a vinyl waiting room chair and start to fill out the twelve pages of history and consent forms. I’m not really paying too much attention to them. Chloe sits down next to me and leans close.
“Thanks for doing this,” she says.
I shrug and keep scrawling on the pages. “It’s not a big deal.”
But I can tell it is. Her eyes keep shifting nervously to the door to the back.
“You can hope this Matt isn’t the one. I won’t tell,” I say.
Chloe waves my suggestion away.
An old man with frizzy hair sits down next to me. For a full five minutes he stares at me. I shift in my seat and try to ignore him, although it’s really hard not to feel uncomfortable when someone keeps looking at you.
Finally he leans across me to talk to Chloe. “Who y’all seeing?”
“Oh.” She turns to him. “Dr. Smith. Do you know him?” She pauses. “Is he nice?”
The old man’s face splits into a huge wrinkled smile. “Nice? You could say that. Around town we call him The Cucumber.”
I cough into my fist. “What did you say?”
Chloe cuts off a laugh.
“The Cucumber.” He looks at me and winks.
“Like, baby gherkin kind of cucumber?” asks Chloe. “Or the big baseball bat kind?”
Unbelievable. The doctor is so famous for the size of his schlong that even the senior citizens have heard about it.
“Is this your first exam?” the old man asks me.
“Yes,” I say.
He smiles again and leans back in his chair with a sigh. “Then you’ll be seeing what I mean real soon.”
Chloe turns to me with wide eyes. What the…?
I scowl at the man. “With all due respect, you shouldn’t accost perfect strangers with tales about a doctor’s cucumber.”
The man’s face turns red and then he starts to laugh in a long whiny wheeze. “I’m talking about his finger. His finger.”
I have no idea what to make of that. The door to the back opens and a nurse calls out, “Mr. O’Shea.”
Chloe and I both stand and walk to the back. In the room, I change into a blue gown with ties to the back. Chloe sits in a chair in the corner. I look around the room at the medical posters on the walls, the anatomy models on the counter, and the instruments set out on a metal tray. I swallow. Hard.
“Do you notice a theme?” I ask.
She looks at the posters and the models. “Ummm.”
There’s a wide display of butts, rectums, and arseholes. You get the idea.
“He’s a proctologist,” I say. I sit down on the exam table and plaster my bare bottom to the cold paper. These cheeks are not moving.
“How did I not know this?” I ask. His sign said Matthew Smith, M.D., not Matthew Smith, M.D., explorer of rectums.
Chloe must see my panic because she stands and points at me. “You said you’d do this. You said you’d help me find my Matt.”
“That’s before I knew he was a proctologist.”
“Please, Nick.”
I shake my head. She folds her hands in front of her.
“You don’t have to do anything but lay there. I’ll ask my question right away,” she says.
I stare at the wall in front of me. There’s a row of latex gloves. Small. Medium. Large. None of the small or medium boxes have any gloves removed. The large box is almost empty. My world zooms into that one box. Large gloves mean large hands. Cucumber hands.
“I can’t do this. No way.”
The door swings open. A tall man in a white coat walks in reading from a clipboard.
“You must be Nick,” he says without looking up.
He turns his back and washes his hands in the sink. I try to scoot forward to get a look at them, but I can’t see around his wide back.
“Uh…yup,” I say.
“What are you here for today?” he asks.
He turns. I look down. He’s wiping his hands with a paper towel so that I still can’t see them. How big are they? I look over at Chloe. Can’t she ask him already? She sends me a pleading look. I turn back to Dr. Smith.
“Pain,” I say. Pain in the butt.
He finally drops the paper towel into the trash and his hands are revealed. My mouth goes dry. The old man was right. At least I think he was. I’ve lost the ability to ascertain a hand’s normal size.
“Can you describe the pain? Dull, sharp, persistent?”
I can’t look away from them. I back up on the table. “Persistent. Definitely persistent. What do you say, Chloe? Would you say persistent?”
I turn to her and realize she’s staring at his hands as well. “Enormous,” she says, like she’s in a freaking trance.
“Chloe, didn’t you have a question for the doctor?”
She shakes her head and snaps out of it. “Dr. Smith, did you ever go to summer camp in New York?”
He chuckles and reaches for the wall of latex gloves. I watch as he pulls out two large gloves.
“You’re a New Yorker, too? I thought I heard an accent. That’s excellent. Now just lay on your side for me, facing the wall. We always do a physical exam on the first visit.”
Oh, no. I send Chloe a beseeching look and move my hand in the wrap it up gesture.
“I am. I’m from Romeo. Did you go to summer camp in upstate?”
“Lay down, please,” says the doctor.
I watch as he picks up a long tube and squirts a glob of lube on his finger tip. He moves forward, I can feel him near. I flip and smack my butt to the table.
“Chloe,” I say.
“There’s some lovely camps in New York,” she says. “Did you ever go to one as a kid?”
“Now roll over, this only takes a second,” he says.
Chloe sends me another pleading look. I turn again on my side. The things I do for this woman. What wouldn’t I go through?
“Hmmm, upstate camps,” says the doc.
I feel his finger coming at me again. I flip on my back.
“This isn’t going to hurt,” he says in a stern voice. “Just relax and lie on your side.”
“Please, Dr. Smith,” says Chloe, “I really ne
ed to know. Were you ever at camp in upstate New York?”
He grunts, and then, “No, can’t say I was.”
Thank the lord, it’s over. I move to get off the table. But right when my guard’s down the doc sneaks in and…
“Yaaaa grrr jeez,” I say.
I flinch and tense up.
“Breathe. Relax,” he says in a calm voice.
I am relaxed. I’m always relaxed. I’m the most relaxed person I know.
“Sorry,” squeaks Chloe.
She sounds mortified and suddenly I’m in a great mood. I have an idea…
“Hey, Doc,” I say.
“Yes?”
“You find my head up there?”
He grunts. “No. Can’t say I did.”
I lay on my side and grin.
“Hear that, Chloe? My head’s definitely not up my butt.”
13
Chloe
* * *
Since this is my first cross-country road trip, I wasn’t prepared. There are weird things that happen when you travel thousands of miles on the same road. We’ve been on I-80 for nearly fifteen hundred miles. The road becomes a hypnotic blur, and the long flat stretch of Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska refuse to offer any distraction. There was even a stretch of three hundred miles where there were no coffee shops, which means I didn’t have a single latte to distract me.
Which leads to the weird thing. Sitting in a tight space with Nick O’Shea for thousands of miles makes me antsy. Very antsy. I’ve tuned out the road and become aware of him. I’ve started to memorize his movements again, and his gestures, and his expressions. I can tell whether he’s confident, or happy, or merely content by the smallest shift in the curve of his lips. For instance, the way his lower lip is sloping down right now means he’s mulling something over. My favorite look is when he lifts the right side of his mouth just slightly, because when he does, it means that he’s enjoying himself immensely.
“Stop looking at me like that, Sparky,” he says.
I tilt my head. “Like what?” I ask.
“With your horny ‘can’t wait to find my soul mate’ eyes,” he says.
I grin and settle in for a good back and forth argument. I love this part of road trips. Long stretches with no coffee, bad. Arguments with Nick, good.