Brain Damage, page 4
part #2 of Prescription: Murder Series
“That’s so old!”
Dr. Greenberg smiles down at me. “You’re younger than I am.”
If I’m thirty-seven, does that mean I have wrinkles on my face? Is my hair turning gray? Thirty-seven is pretty old, right? I don’t want to be thirty-seven! That’s so old! I would rather be twenty. But I guess if he says I am thirty-seven, I must be.
Dr. Greenberg takes out his stethoscope and starts listening to my chest. I take a deep breath so that he can hear me breathing. He always tells me when he’s done that my breathing sounds very good. Then he touches my belly, which I really don’t like because the feeding tube is still there and it hurts a lot. The good news is that if I eat enough, Amy said we could take it out.
“Sounds great, Charly,” he says.
I smile.
“Just one more question before I leave,” he says.
I nod, determined to answer this one correctly.
“How old are you?”
I stare him straight in the eyes. “Twenty-itch.”
By the look on his face, I don’t think I got it right.
_____
Amy, who is my speech therapist, says that the only way I will get that stupid tube out of my belly is if I eat. She’s allowed me to start eating food, but it’s not real food. Not in any sense of the word.
I am sitting in my wheelchair in my room, and my mother is sitting beside me. She is almost always around during meals, and I hate it. She keeps saying things like, “you have to eat, Charly,” or “just one more bite.” Of course, after she tells me one more bite, then she says again that I have to take another bite. So it’s all just a big fat lie.
Today I am having steak, potatoes, and green beans for lunch. My mother circled it for me on the menu I got this morning, and it sounded good at the time. There’s nothing wrong with steak, potatoes, and green beans. But now I look down at my plate, and it doesn’t look so good. The steak is a big pile of gray mush. The potatoes are big pile of white mush, and the green beans are… you guessed it, green mush.
If I had to pick one to eat, I guess it would be the potatoes, because potatoes are usually served kind of mushy anyway. I definitely don’t want to eat the meat, and I’ve never liked green beans. In any case, they don’t benefit from being mushed up. I don’t think green bean purée is going to turn into a hot new food trend.
“Come on, eat something,” Mom says to me.
I pick up the fork with my right hand. I take a little bit of potatoes and bring it to my mouth. They taste terrible.
“Oh, Charly,” Mom sighs. “Please don’t spit it out.”
I wasn’t intentionally trying to spit out the potatoes. Sometimes it’s hard to keep food from dribbling out the side of my mouth unless I swallow it right away. Which is hard to do if the food tastes awful.
“Why didn’t they bring me a drink?” I ask.
“They did bring you a drink,” my mother says. “It’s right here.”
I look down at my tray. I see my plate of three piles of mush, my knife and fork, and that’s it.
“It’s over to the left, Charly,” she says.
This keeps happening to me. I keep looking for something that supposed to be in front of me but I can’t find it, and then somebody tells me that it’s over on the left. That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. But when somebody asks me where something is, something that I can’t find, I’ve figured out the correct answer is: “It’s on my left.”
My mother does something to my tray, and all of a sudden, a cup with orange liquid comes into view. It’s not really liquid though. It’s sort of the texture of those ice slushies I used to drink when I was a kid, except it’s not ice cold, so it tastes sort of weird. I mean, who wants to drink a lukewarm orange slushy? But something has to wash down the mashed potatoes.
“Good, Charly,” mom says. “Now take another bite.”
All my solids have been turned into almost liquid, and my liquids have been turned into almost solid. I don’t know how they expect me to really eat this stuff. But I have to try. If I can get the feeding tube out, it will be worth it.
Chapter 8
One Year, Nine Months Before
I had planned to run a marathon next month. That’s not going to happen. My training is completely screwed.
I can run five miles. That’s the upper limit before the pain starts up in my right knee. It hurts on the lateral side of my knee, a sharp unrelenting pain that won’t stop until I do. At first, I hoped I could run through it. But it’s obvious I can’t.
I saw a doctor and he said it was my iliotibial band. His brilliant suggestion was to try stretching it out, maybe do some physical therapy. If that’s the best he’s got, this race is definitely not going to happen.
I’m on my first mile now, running around the small park by the office where I practice, while listening to a Fleetwood Mac album on my iPhone. I already feel a tiny twinge in my knee. This is so freaking depressing. I keep hoping that maybe the problem will go away on its own. Like maybe I would start running today and it would just be magically gone.
Guess not.
“You’re pretty fast,” a male voice says from behind me. “What’s your time for a mile?”
I slow down to a stop, channeling my frustration into anger. I don’t like it when people talk to me when I’m running. The last thing I want when I’m trying to train for a marathon is comments from the peanut gallery.
But when I turn around, I get a surprise. Jogging behind me is none other than Clark Douglas.
You know, the hottie? The one I thought I’d never see again in a million years? The one with the blue eyes like the Pacific Ocean, or maybe like my laundry detergent. They’re both pretty blue.
“Hello there, Dr. Charlotte McKenna,” he says, smiling that perfect smile as he too slows to a stop.
This is a coincidence, I’m sure. But still, I can’t help but feel the tiniest bit excited. He couldn’t possibly be here just to see little old me. Could he?
Figures that today I’d be wearing an old baggy pair of running shorts and a T-shirt two sizes too big.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, pulling out my earbuds. Stevie Nicks’s voice fades into the background.
“It’s been three months,” he reminds me.
Oh my God, he really is here to see me.
I need to put a stop to this. Right now. Damn, why does he have to look so good in his shorts and T-shirt?
“Mr. Douglas,” I begin.
“Clark,” he corrects me.
“Mr. Douglas,” I say again, more firmly this time. “This isn’t appropriate.”
“You said that after three months,” he says, “you’d consider going out with me.”
I shake my head in disbelief. The most handsome man I’ve ever met in my life is standing in front of me, begging me for a date. There’s something very wrong with this picture.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”
Clark nods. For a minute, I think he might actually accept my refusal and put an end to this ridiculousness. But then he says, “How about a race?”
At first, I think I’ve heard him wrong. “What?”
“I’ll race you one lap around the park,” he challenges me. “If I win, I get to take you out on a date. If you win, I’ll leave you alone.” He grins at me. “Seems like a pretty good deal for a runner like you.”
I look down at Clark’s muscular legs. He’s got more power than I do and more length. In a race around the park, he could beat me easily.
“Make it twenty laps,” I say. Clark might be able to beat me during a single lap, but I’m willing to bet I have much better endurance.
Clark’s smiles. “You’re on.”
He starts to run then, giving himself a few second head start, but I’m right behind him. Too late, I remember the issue with my knee. Twenty laps will put me over the five-mile mark. If I’m in agony from my knee, it might slow me down.
I square my jaw and pick up my pace. I’m going to win this race. Now it’s a matter of pride. I can be pretty competitive when I want to be.
Just as I suspected, Clark is ahead of me after the first lap. After the second lap, he’s still in the lead. But by lap number eight, he’s slowing down considerably. I can tell he’s starting to breathe heavier, and I wonder if he’s even going to make it the entire distance. I’m going to clobber him.
“You’re going to lose,” I inform him, as I pull up beside him, running with easy strides. I’m trying not to sound too braggy, but it’s hard.
“We’ll see,” Clark huffs.
Except I can tell that even talking is becoming an effort for him. He is so going to lose.
For the next few laps, I’m ahead of him. But not by as much as I could be. My knee feels wonderful for a change, and I could probably be two laps ahead by now. But here’s the weird part:
I feel myself hanging back.
I keep glancing over my shoulder, seeing Clark about half a block behind. I could zip ahead, and finish the race with an embarrassingly big lead, but I don’t do it. I always keep Clark in my sight.
Finally, at around lap number nineteen, Clark stops running altogether. He had been steadily losing his steam for the entire last lap, so I’m not surprised. When his footsteps go silent, I turn around and I see him resting his hands on his knees and leaning forward, gasping for air.
He’s done. There’s no way he’s finishing the race before me.
I could walk away right now. I could inform Clark that he’s lost and that he is now required to leave me alone. But naturally, I’m far too stupid to do that. Instead, I walk back to where Clark is busy catching his breath.
Clark’s face is red from exertion. When he lifts his face to look at me, his blue, blue eyes meet mine and he gives me an apologetic half-smile.
“You’re too fast for me,” he manages. I can see a droplet of sweat roll down his temple. “I guess you win, Dr. McKenna. I’ll leave you alone.”
God, I’m such a loser for having a crush on this guy.
“Come on,” I say. “Only one more lap.”
Clark’s eyes widen. His half-smile widens into a grin, and he straightens out with a newfound burst of energy. We jog together side-by-side for the last lap, and I hang back at the end to let him win.
Chapter 9
One Year, Nine Months Before
“Oh my God, this would look so cute on you!”
As I huddle between two large racks of dresses at Macy’s, trying not to feel stifled by the crowds of Saturday shoppers, I wish I could be anywhere else. Somehow I’ve allowed my friend Bridget to talk me into a shopping trip in honor of my upcoming date tonight with Clark. I didn’t even want her to know I had a date, but somehow I let it slip, and I swear, I think she’s more excited than I am.
It’s been a while.
“You need to try this on,” Bridget insists. She’s holding up a green dress that’s covered in shiny beads and sequins. What sort of person wants to be seen in a dress that looks like that? Do adult women actually wear dresses with sequins? The sight of it makes my eyes hurt.
“I don’t think it’s me,” I say. I gently attempt to pry the dress out of her fingers and return it to the rack.
“And what’s so wrong with that?” Bridget says.
“Because if I show up to a date wearing a dress that’s not me,” I explain, “then the guy won’t actually like me. He’ll just be liking some weird bead, sequin girl. I need to be myself.”
“Yeah, and where has that gotten you?”
Ouch.
Okay, to be fair, I haven’t been out with a man in close to a year. Honestly, I’m not entirely sure how that happened. I used to go out on dates, I swear. Things have just gotten so busy at work, and more and more, my dates were beginning to feel like a huge waste of time. They felt more like a chore… the obligation of trying to find another person to spend the rest of my life with. There was certainly nothing enjoyable about the forced, awkward conversations with variably attractive men.
So I took a break.
A year isn’t that long though. Obama was president during my last date. It isn’t like it’s been decades or something. It’s just a short dry spell. Bridget is really overreacting.
Bridget reluctantly drops the green dress and makes her way to a rack of little black dresses courtesy of Ralph Lauren, while I nearly get elbowed in the boob by two eager shoppers. Why is it so crowded here? Don’t people have better things to do on a Saturday than go shopping for dresses? I want to shake them and tell them to enjoy the sunlight.
“Okay, how about one of these?” Bridget asks.
The Ralph Laurens are classy, at least—something I could conceivably wear. I pick up the price tag on one of the dresses and gasp.
“Bridget!” I cry. “Look how expensive these are!”
Bridget rolls her eyes. “Charly, you’re a doctor. You can afford a stupid dress.”
She’s right. I spent so much of my early life being poor that it’s hard to transition to thinking of myself as moderately wealthy thanks to my income and my lack of a social life. It also doesn’t hurt that I’ve had some really good investment tips from Bridget, who works for a pharmaceutical company. Really good tips.
Bridget had money growing up, and you can tell by the way she shops. Watching Bridget shop is more mesmerizing than watching a lava lamp. She can pluck a thousand dollar vase off a shelf and buy it without a second thought. She doesn’t seem to experience the soul-crushing guilt that I feel whenever I spend a lot of money. Right now, she’s in her second trimester of pregnancy, but instead of food, she craves clothing. It’s the weirdest thing ever.
“This,” Bridget says, pulling a short, clingy black number off the rack and shoving it in my direction. “Try this one on.”
The price tag is swinging in my face, and it makes me feel almost nauseated. But I don’t say no. The truth is, I haven’t been this attracted to a guy in a long time. I want to look hot for this date. No, not just hot, I want to look hawt. I want Clark to see me and do a wolf howl.
“Okay,” I say.
Bridget smiles triumphantly. “And then,” she says, “we’re going to look at shoes.”
_____
I don’t want to admit how much money I’ve spent in preparation for this date. Let’s just say it’s a lot. I could feed a family in Ethiopia for a month with that money. I could cure over a hundred children in a developing nation of parasitic infections all for what I paid for an outfit I very well may never wear again.
I can’t remember what happened to the Charly who showed up to dates in jeans and a blouse, and said take it or leave it.
The little black dress is sexy though. It’s perfect. It somehow makes me look like I have this gorgeous hourglass figure and it even makes my muscular calves look dainty. It’s a magical dress. (It ought to be for what it cost.)
I wish I had a little black dress for my face. I blow a layer of dust off my bag of make-up, and examine the contents critically. I only left myself half an hour to work on my make-up, which isn’t nearly enough time. Really, I could use hours, and possibly a plastic surgeon. I do my best to use the tricks I know to make my lips look fuller, and I even dig out my eyelash curler. But then again, it’s an eyelash curler, not a magic wand. Kitty watches me the whole time I’m painting myself, with an expression on her face that seems to say, “What are you doing to yourself?”
Good question, dear cat.
When Clark rings for me downstairs, I am in full on panic mode. I start looking around my apartment, wishing I had time to clean it better. Not that I’ve got dirty socks lying around or anything like that, but I’m really paranoid that the apartment has a cat odor that I’ve become immune to. While I’m waiting for Clark to make his way upstairs, I desperately start spritzing cucumber-scented body mist everywhere. By the time the doorbell rings, my armpits are sweaty.
Clark is standing at my front door, holding a single red rose. He’s wearing a dark dress shirt and tie. Jesus, he looks good. And that rose is admittedly a nice touch.
“For you, mademoiselle,” Clark says, grinning as he holds the rose out to me.
I take the rose and make a big show out of smelling it, although I’m not sure what to do with a single rose. I’m not really into flowers—the only life I can sustain these days is Kitty’s and possibly my own. I toss the rose on my dining table, where it will probably die within a day. Or else Kitty will eat it.
Clark is smiling at me, and my knees start to wobble. Honestly, I’ve never dated a man who looks like him before. They may not have been ugly, many were even passably cute, but Clark is in a whole other category of handsome. If somebody were making a movie about my life, Clark could play himself. That’s how handsome he is.
“I’m ready to go,” I tell him, clutching my purse. I’m desperate to leave before he stumbles on some pantyhose I forgot to throw in the laundry, or a box of tampons I left lying on the bathroom sink.
Clark sniffs. “Are you making something with cucumbers?”
I swallow. “No.”
Clark glances over my shoulder. “How about a grand tour?”
Damn it. “Sure, I guess. I mean, if you want.”
Clark follows me around as I lead him into my small kitchen, followed by the living room, the bedroom, and the second bedroom that I have converted into a study. I had to field the second degree from my real estate agent, who couldn’t seem to get it through her head that the two bedrooms were just for me.
I watch Clark run his finger along the side of my armoire, which I purchased on sale from Ikea. Nervous and excited as I am about this date, somehow I’m certain that he will not be the bearer of any children for my empty bedroom.
“You own this place?” he asks.
I nod. “I bought it two years ago. I wanted to wait, but I figured…”
I stop myself before I inform him that I figured I might as well buy a place myself since I obviously wasn’t getting married anytime in the near future. That’s not a first date conversation topic. When you’re a single woman in her mid-thirties, the goal during the first date is to pretend like you’ve never heard of the word marriage.
