Curing the Uncommon Man-Cold (26 page)

“I’m guessing you really stood on that brake pedal — a natural reaction when the vehicle stopped in front of you. When the other car hit you, it put even more pressure on your braking foot than those toes could withstand. So they cracked.” The doctor’s chin jutted out slightly. “I see lots of broken feet in car crashes.”

“Didn’t know that.”

“It gets worse as women age, of course. Bones lose density and strength. But you’ve got plenty of time before you need to worry about osteoporosis. Not too early to take calcium supplements, though.” The doctor waggled a forefinger as she handed Amanda a prescription for a week’s worth of pain pills.

“How long do I wear this boot?”

“Hard to say. Maybe a week or so. Take off the boot for your shower, but wrap a freezer bag or something around your foot so the splint bindings don’t get wet.”

That sounded awkward. Maybe she’d have to skip showers for a few days.
Ha.

“Come back here in a week… next Thursday. The nurse will take off the splints. You can show us then how much movement you can stand. Pain isn’t visible, but those toes won’t let you walk on them until they’re ready. No need to rush things. Take care of your toes — you’ll need them in good shape when you’re an old lady.”

This doctor
is obsessed with old age.

On their way from the doctor’s office, Christine drove to the pharmacy again to fill the new prescription. She also stopped at a fast-food place and got a bag of roast beef sandwiches, plus curly fries and two gigantic diet drinks. “This ought to keep you going until supper.”

“All that?” Amanda pointed.

“As if. Half is yours.”

“Not sure I can eat that many little sandwiches. Let me have two and you take the other four.” Amanda sorted. “Oh, I’ve been meaning to ask you: what about your book?”

“On hold. Maybe we should proceed more slowly. I shouldn’t have expected to fix several generations of man-cold problems in two weeks.”

Now
she becomes cautious!

Getting from the car into the apartment was still quite awkward. People say you don’t get accustomed to temporary crutches until you don’t need them any more. Christine helped as much as possible, but she was mostly in the way.

“If you wrap that wrist, it’ll be easier to grip the crutch handle.” Christine pointed. “Do you have an Ace bandage?”

Amanda nodded and then got misty again. It was the bandage she’d used for Jason’s alleged injuries. He’d left it wadded up on the bathroom counter.

After Amanda calmed down again, Christine hugged her briefly. “I’ve got to abandon you this afternoon. I have another face-to-face with my delicious lawyer downtown.”

“Be careful entering the parking lots.” Amanda smiled slightly, despite the drying tears.

“Ha, yeah. Well, Bruce works for a firm with its own private parking area, thank you very much.” Christine started to leave. “Are you going to be okay for supper? I mean, with the stuff in that big bag?”

“I don’t remember what’s in there, but, yeah, I’ll be fine. You go ahead. And thanks, Christine, for helping me yesterday and today.”

Christine just waved… then left.

Amanda spent a few moments thinking about Christine’s several kindnesses these past two days. In contrast, she reflected on how horribly she had treated Jason when he came to her for help. The injured patient turned on the television and cried through part of another movie.

The doctor had said Amanda should stay home for at least three days… during her crunch weeks! The grant cycle process couldn’t survive with her missing
any
days. She figured everything was ruined: her job, her relationship, and her car. She blamed Louis for sending her to a meeting that
he
should have attended.

Amanda also blamed Jason, who’d made her late and indirectly caused the wreck. But mostly it was his fault for moving in despite her protests.

She additionally had every right to be furious at Christine, for too many reasons to mention, but mostly for escalating everything. The entire matter could have been settled quicker and with significantly less collateral damage if she’d never asked her older friend for help. Curiously, however, though she felt wounded
by
Christine, Amanda was not actually angry
at
her. At least Christine had tried to help. Her methods were far afield, but her motives were unselfish… more or less.

Amanda brooded, limped to the bathroom and kitchen a few times, and cried at the television some more.

———

In early afternoon, her phone rang… a work number. Louis! She knew she had to answer.

“Didn’t you get my voicemails and e-mails?” He couldn’t be bothered to ask how she was feeling after her wreck.
Dang
Yankees.

“Sorry, I got tied up with hospital, insurance, drug stores, and doctor visits. But my laptop was in my wrecked car, so I couldn’t read any e-mails you sent.” That was a truth variant — no way could Louis know she’d had access to a borrowed computer.

“When are you coming in?”

“Doctor told me to stay prone for at least three days.”

“When did those three days start? Yesterday morning when you collided with that other vehicle?”

“I didn’t collide with anybody. Some old lady ran me down!”

“Whatever.”

“Louis, I’ll be back on Monday. Okay?”

There was a short pause on his end. “How about I send over the rest of these apps, so you can read while you’re relaxing?”

“I’m not relaxing! I was in a car wreck!” She was just about to scream.

“Well, I could send some over tomorrow, then. That’d give you the weekend to catch up.”

“Louis! I already worked my entire Saturday and Sunday
last
weekend, with no extra pay and no hint of appreciation. Plus, I’m allowed paid sick leave like everybody else on the county payroll. Nobody else works while they’re sick.”

“But you’re not sick. It’s just your foot.”

“And concussion and wrist. Look up
injury
in the county manual, if you want. But I’m not reading any dreary grant apps until I get past this pain medicine. I’ll be in the office early Monday.”

“But who’s going to prepare the recommendations?”

Amanda sighed heavily. “I’ve left notes and evaluation forms on each app as I’ve read them. All they need is to be typed up.”

“What about the ones you haven’t read yet?”

“If you can’t wait, Louis,
you
read them. I’ll be there Monday. Bye!”

After she folded her phone, she wondered if she’d even have her job by Monday.
Hairy hell!

Monday would be the 24th, which meant six more work days before September 1st. If she could keep Louis out of her office for that period and wrangle even one hour of clerical help for each of those shifts, Amanda could still pull this grant cycle together.
Possibly
. Hobbling around on broken toes certainly wouldn’t help things, but she could survive.

Amanda was, if anything, a survivor.

And, now that Jason had clearly exited her life, she was also solitary again — no distractions at home. Well, except noisy kids and a yodeling neighbor.

Amanda realized she was looking in the direction of the television but not actually watching the program. Her mind had wandered. How could she have let things go that far? Why hadn’t she just asserted herself more vigorously at the beginning and chased Jason away with a broom handle?

Would the repercussions of a physical ejection have been any worse than the fix she was in presently?
Couldn’t be
. At worst, Jason would have sulked for a couple of weeks and then one of them (or both) would have looked for opportunity and means to make up.

Why had she let it go so far?

It hadn’t been just the manic overconfidence of her domineering friend — though surely that remained a driving force. It had not been merely curiosity at how long Jason would endure the deprivation — though she had been captivated by that question.

While not aware of this during Jason’s stay, Amanda was now convinced of an element distinct from all these others. She realized she’d been given a unique opportunity to learn more about her lover. At his nadir, to be sure, but information to weigh when considering if Jason was a viable long-term mate. It sounded rather clinical as she reflected on it now.

The January episode had been difficult and exhausting, of course, but it had lacked the intense work pressure of Amanda’s annual crunch at the office. Plus, that had been only about ten weeks after they’d first become lovers, so there had still been something of a honeymoon aura.

In January, she’d thought his saggy, rumpled pajamas were kind of cute. In August, they’d just looked sloppy and rank. What a difference those few months had made!

Did such awareness signal that — if eventually married — their relationship would continually slide downhill away from love and attraction? She didn’t know. But surely this recent crisis was a test of all that “richer / poorer… sickness / health” mumbo-jumbo.

Amanda watched the Lifetime Channel with one eye and listened to incessant yodeling practice with one ear. Incredibly, she was still able to nap briefly on the couch.
Love those pain meds.

———

Though unsteady and slow, Amanda was up at about 6:30 p.m. when her doorbell rang. It took nearly five minutes to hobble to the entrance on her too-short crutches. Though aware she looked awful, she had no inclination to check a mirror, so she just sighed heavily and opened the door. Jason’s mom. “Hi, Margaret, come on in. The place is a mess.” Amanda moved aside clumsily.

“I’m sure it’s typical of a place where a sick man has held forth for a week and a half and an injured woman has just come home.”

It was. “I was about to scratch around for supper. You’re welcome to join me.”

Margaret smiled. “Well, let me see what you’re offering. If it’s any of the dishes detailed on Christine’s blog, I think I’ll pass.”

“No, this is fairly ordinary stuff as best I can recall. I haven’t even opened the bag Christine brought back.” Amanda pointed toward it.

“Let me give you a hand.” Margaret hoisted the sack onto the table and began removing things. Suddenly she stopped and looked around the dining area. “Where’s your tablecloth?”

“Your son was wearing it when he vamoosed. Bright floral design… should be easy to find him.”

“Florals aren’t usually his colors.” Margaret sorted items as she unloaded the bag. “Looks like soup is the best possibility of this array. Would you like me to heat it?”

“Please.” Amanda sat at the table and leaned her crutches against the next chair. “When was the last time we talked? Saturday?”

Margaret nodded. “You stopped by to ask if you were being too harsh on my Jason. I didn’t think so at the time, but under the present circumstances, I guess you were.” A slight pause while she located a saucepan and opened the soup can. “How’s the foot?”

“Toes. They hurt… throb.”

“Your head is better? The concussion, I mean?”

“Yeah. Did Christine fill you in?”

Margaret nodded as she stirred the soup. “She called this afternoon.”

“Well, my wrist also hurts, especially when I have to hold those crutches. But what really hurts… is in here.” Amanda pointed to her chest and choked up again. “I’m sorry. I’ve been doing a lot of that for the past two days.”

———

Margaret kept tending the soup. “It’s okay, Amanda. It’s natural for your feelings to kind of flood out right now.”

“One reason I feel this bad is that I was so awful to him. I mean, I told him I couldn’t handle any company and I made several direct suggestions that he leave, like ‘
Maybe you should go to your own apartment, Jason
.’ And I gave him plenty of other hints.”

“Too vague, for a man,” Margaret interrupted.

“Probably.” Amanda nodded. “But mostly, for the time he was here, I just kept making snide and sarcastic remarks.” She shook her head. “Does Jason not
get
sarcasm?”

Briefly silent, Margaret smiled softly. “I used that with Henry, too — for years — with little measurable result. Finally, one evening in the middle of an awful argument — no idea what it was about — I just flat-out lost it. I said, ‘
Don’t you know when I’m being sarcastic?
’ He had this shocked expression on his face and then he said, slowly, ‘
No, I don’t
.’ So I said, ‘
Well, what the blazes did you think all these years when I’ve made comments like that to get you on the same page with me?
’ And he said, ‘
I just thought you were in a bad mood
.’ That cured me of sarcasm. I realized he’d managed to ignore some 90 per cent of what I thought I had clearly communicated… by attributing it to my supposed moodiness.” She stirred again, leaned closely to gauge the steam, and took the soup pan off the stovetop.

“I’ve heard Jason say something about moods, too.”

Margaret looked in three cupboards before locating two bowls. “If you just want to zing him while impressing yourself with your own cleverness, then keep up the sarcasm.”

“Ouch, that hurts.”

“It was meant to. I learned… and now you.” Then Margaret softened. “But if you’re trying to communicate some nugget of information or thought, or attempting to explain what you’re feeling about something… just say it plain. Straight and simple. Men aren’t stupid — well, some are.” She smiled slightly and selected two spoons from the second drawer she opened. “Okay, most men are pretty darn dumb. But some are perceptive enough to get the simple things. If what you say is likely to be dismissed as moodiness without any substance, then you haven’t accomplished much besides hurt his feelings with the nastiness behind the sarcasm.” Margaret thought for a moment to determine if she’d left anything out. “Plain, straight, and simple. Add loving, if you can muster it under the circumstances of the moment.”

Amanda’s eyes clouded. “I feel rotten — being so nasty to him, on top of everything that I let Christine do. Poor Jason.”

Margaret ladled soup into the bowls. “Don’t beat yourself up, Amanda. I read a lot of the blog before it went down this morning. Sure, some of your friend’s ideas were pretty harsh, but sometimes a grown man does need a whipping, so to speak. If I’d had Christine’s imagination back when my Henry went through this phase, it might have been easier to cure him of his colds.”