Curing the Uncommon Man-Cold (9 page)

“Oh.” Jason returned to his duties like a prisoner forced to mop his cell before his own execution.

Amanda discreetly dumped the remaining contents of the pan into the trash and covered it with two paper towels. She found herself making the
kahh
sound, though much quieter than Jason’s rendition.

She grabbed her purse. An egg sandwich would be nice this morning on the way to work. Maybe with a fried potato patty. And freshly brewed coffee.
Ha.

* * * *

When Amanda got to work, she phoned Christine and reported on her enterprising breakfast.

“Where’d you find acorns? And how on earth did you grind them?”

“I took a page from your plan — I made it up. It was just weak tea with a little salt added.”

“Well, necessity caused mothers to invent things. I’m in traffic. Gotta go. Bye.”

The call ended before Amanda could correct her friend’s mangled quote. All of a sudden, she didn’t remember how it really went.
Sheesh.
Not enough sleep.

In the middle of Amanda’s lioness yawn, Louis walked in, plopped down, and started talking about how far behind he was because he didn’t have her evaluations.

The pressure at her office was intense. The other workers — all female except the boss — were civil, but not really friendly. No one was assigned to assist her and nobody voluntarily helped. Some, including her Yankee supervisor, actually hampered Amanda’s productivity. His frequent drop-ins were very distracting and nearly 90 per cent were pointless. During most of the usual year she could cope with these typical circumstances, but during Hell Weeks everything bothered her. Especially King Louie
.

“Well, Louis, I’d be farther along if you could carve out a couple hours of clerical help for me during these grant reviews. Gayle or Joan probably wouldn’t mind helping if you’d let them. Or one of the other ladies.”

He was already shaking his head. Sometimes when he shook his head with particular vigor, Amanda thought she could see his toupee shift slightly.

“And I could get more done without all the interruptions.”

“You mean like phone calls to and from your darkly tanned friend?”

Amanda yawned again. It was either that or scream at King Louie.

Later, during an afternoon break, Amanda quickly checked the blog and scanned Christine’s update — very little posted. There were more comments, however, from blog readers. Most were excited and optimistic that someone was finally undertaking a cure for the uncommon man-cold. A few predicted the project’s total failure. As one blogger — presumably female — wrote, rather pithily: ‘
A man’s a man. You can thump ’em, but you never really know what you’re getting. When a melon goes sour on you, only thing to do is toss it out.
’

One comment, presumably from a male, in a different vein: ‘
What you two are doing to that guy is hateful. Somebody ought to slap you silly!
’

She clicked on the link to Kick-Marty, the adjunct blog discovered yesterday. The new tally was
Kick
Marty
Out — 15
… an overnight increase of only four.

Back to work.

* * * *

Possibly worse than her office stress was that which waited in Amanda’s apartment. Since Jason’s invasion, she’d lost all her solitude and was getting hardly any rest during the night. Until Monday evening, he had been her sweet and comfortable — but not always remarkable — lover. Now he was her noisy, uninvited leech. That image bothered her, but it was accurate: Jason stuck to her, sucked out her resources, and wouldn’t let go.

Amanda was near complete exhaustion as she dragged herself into the apartment. She stood in front of her couch and dropped like a rag doll. Her purse remained in her hand and she stared straight ahead without speaking.

Jason wandered in from the bathroom with a tube of toothpaste in his hand. It was 5:30… he was cheating. He waved lamely and coughed just to remind her how sick he was.

Amanda studied him as though he were a pesky ghost after an unsuccessful exorcism attempt by a seminary student intern. “So how was the patient’s day?”

“Some kid tried to sell me a magazine subscription so he can go to Paris or something.”

“You buy any?”

“Thought about subscribing to
Maxim
, but he said it’d be at least ten weeks before the first issue arrives. I figure I’ll be gone from here by then.”

Amanda figured ten
days
of live-in Jason would kill her.

He changed the subject. “You think I could have a normal breakfast tomorrow?” Jason briefly scraped his tongue with two fingernails. “I can’t handle scrambled tofu again.”

Amanda sighed very heavily and put down her purse finally. “Well, it depends. What would the patient like?”

“The Shuney’s mega-breakfast buffet.” Shuney’s was locally owned by an investor who’d bought the facility and property from a former holder of a well-known national franchise. To keep existing customers and save money on remodeling and decor, the new owner simply altered one letter in the name. “But, if that’s out, I’d settle for some ordinary, normal cereal. Lucky Charms, Froot Loops… any of the standards.”

“Cereal might be possible. I’ll call Christine and have her bring some when she comes over.”

“No!” His voice was shrill. “I mean, not Christine. She’ll just find some rat poison in a box. Can’t you call somebody else?” He paused. “Wait, who’s coming over?”

“Some girlfriends.” Amanda wasn’t really up for any kind of event that night, but this was all part of Christine’s elaborate plan to render the apartment inhospitable for a man. “We’re having a crop.”

“A what?”

“Crop.” Amanda rolled her eyes.
Where has he been?

“Crop what?” Still standing, he trembled slightly. “Not… me?”

Amanda touched his arm reassuringly. “Crop
you
? Of course not. Why would you think that?”

“Well, after that witch yanked out half my chest hair, I thought maybe she was going to practice some more black arts or something, with some of my body parts.”

“Which body parts were you thinking about?”

“Uh, never mind.” Apparently without realizing it, he pressed his legs together tightly. “So what are you going to crop, and when?”

“It’s for scrapbooking. We crop pictures, photos, artwork, headlines… stuff like that. I guarantee there’s no bodily harm for you.”

“When?”

Amanda looked at her watch. “About half an hour. I’d better call somebody about that cereal. Sunny lives near the Verde Grocery. She probably won’t mind.”

———

Jason’s brain had already shifted to the crop party. He knew whenever women gathered to talk and conduct some kind of activity, there was always food. Usually, good food. Of course, in this case — as desperate as his stomach was — even bad
real
food would be better than the health diet items he’d been nibbling on. He thought of something else. “Uh, can you ask Sunny to bring me another tube of toothpaste? Maybe something with spearmint flavor.”

Slightly less than ten minutes later, Christine arrived at the apartment with a flourish and a large canvas tote bag. She motioned for Amanda to remove the slightly gaudy floral tablecloth and then plunked her bag on the table. Amanda folded the material and draped it over the back of a dining chair.

“Amanda says you’re starving.” Christine looked at Jason. “You’re in luck. I downloaded this diet from a website I got from my nephew who’s on staff at Johns Hopkins Medical School. He’s a nutritionologist…”

Amanda interrupted. “Uh, I believe that’s nutritionist.”

Christine waved her hand. Small details didn’t typically concern her. “Anyway, he highly recommends this. Perfect balance, all natural. Zero carbs. Astronauts use this during their training phase. It’s truly the right stuff.”

Jason was already drooling. He’d been without real food for parts of four days. After the doctor visit on Monday, he’d grabbed a burger, fries, and shake. For the time, so far, at Amanda’s apartment, the staple had been dry, unsalted crackers.
What’s in those crackers?
They tasted like dog biscuits going down but had the aftertaste of the earliest supplemental fiber liquids. Added to the crackers had been small mugs of bland, thin consommé, tiny glasses of unsweetened prune juice, a soy hotdog with no bun, and some of the nastiest sardines ever caught in a mildewed net. He was not counting the tofu since he’d so thoroughly excoriated the inside of his mouth afterwards. He’d barely tasted the acorn coffee brew. Had it not been for his hourly — and sometimes half-hourly — inch of toothpaste, he was certain he would have expired at least 24 hours ago. He was starving… and had to restrain himself from diving into the canvas bag.

Though he did not like her or trust her, right now Jason viewed Christine as a buxom Red Cross worker visiting his refugee camp. “You know, this
starve a cold
thing is pretty austere. I’m so weak from hunger I can’t even take a dump.”

“Too much information, Jason.” Christine held out her vertical palm. “Anyway, I’m on duty… to the rescue. This stash here will keep you going for at least four more days… unless you decide to go home, of course. By then I’ll have located the second stage of this special NASA diet. That’s important, because it prepares your intestines for the colonic bath next week.”

“The what!” Jason’s voice cracked like a fourteen-year-old boy’s.

“The solution bathes the insides of your colon for forty-five soothing minutes of purification. The pure natural extracting herbs literally suck all the impurities from your colon.” Christine acted like she sold the procedure door to door.

“I don’t want my colon sucked! And I’m not getting an enema from some fat-fingered lab technician.” Jason looked at both women. “You’re nuts!”

———

Amanda had predicted a reaction like that. “Now, that’s no way to speak to the lady who just brought your meals for the next four days.” Amanda nodded deferentially toward her older friend.

Jason’s drool seemingly overtook his sensibilities about the threatened colonic procedure. “Okay, sorry, I guess. I’m light-headed from no food. Anyway, you can cancel that enema thing. I’m positive I’ll be up and around by… uh, when did you say it was?”

Christine waved her hand. “Apology accepted. I understand how a sliver of fever can affect your brain. They say half a degree is the worst kind. Most doctors miss it and it can go untreated for who knows how long.”

“Right. So, let’s see what’s in the bag.” Jason actually rubbed his hands together.

Amanda had to step back slightly because she already knew some of the contents and didn’t want Jason to see the grin she was trying to control.

Christine continued her introduction. “Now, there can be some variation on the order of these meals… you know, in case you want to swap tonight’s supper for tomorrow’s lunch. And so on.”

Jason rolled his hand sideways.
Hurry up.

Christine reached in and pulled out some celery stalks. “These are wonderful dipped in hummus.” With a minor flourish, she produced a small plastic tub.

“Hummus!” Jason looked like he’d been poleaxed. “That’s, uh, that’s…”

“Correct.” Christine could have been a game show hostess. “It’s ground-up chickpeas, made into a paste. But this is a special brand that takes out some of the gritty texture. Some people think it feels a little slimy, but they say you don’t notice the consistency as much if you spread it on a rice cake.”

“Hummus? Chickpea paste? Gritty? Slimy?” Jason sputtered for a moment. More syllables slipped out occasionally but no recognizable words. “Why, that’s practically poison! I can’t eat crud like that.”

Christine put the celery and hummus back in her bag. “Very well, you may be right. Sometimes an out-and-out fast might be better for you anyway. As sick as you are.” She turned like she was about to leave.

“Wait. Uh, hold on.” Jason sounded pitiful. “Let’s see what else is in there. Maybe I can eat that celery if I douse it with sugar and microwave it for a minute.”

Christine looked toward Amanda. “Absolutely no sugar for this patient. Nothing that’s been processed. I thought you knew that.”

Amanda pretended to be chastened. “Sorry, I thought I removed all the sweeteners.”

“Not all of them.” Jason spilled his sweet secret before he could stop himself. “This afternoon, I found several little packets — pink, blue, and yellow… I think. Had ’em for a snack.”

“You did what?” It was not easy to shock Christine.

Jason looked a little sheepish. “Little packets of pretend sugar. I found them in the back of a drawer. My head was pounding from sugar withdrawal. I figured, what the heck.”

Amanda was equally startled. “You swallowed a packet of sweetener? Dry?”

“Well, that’s the thing. I took one and just poured it into my mouth at first. Some melted, but a bit of it clotted and formed a lump. So I took a sip of water and swished it around. That pretty much chased it down.”

“I don’t have words.” That was rare for Christine. “I think half a packet of that stuff will sweeten a full quart of tea. What on earth did it taste like?”

Jason closed his eyes and licked his lips trying to remember. “It’s a rush. You can’t see anything for a few seconds and your mouth puckers up.”

“This is interesting.” Christine looked around like she wanted something to write on. “How many packets of sweetener did you eat? Science may need to know.”

Jason thought for a second. “Oh, not more than half a dozen, I guess. One pink, two yellow, and three blue. Awful rich. Plus they’ve made my pee turn a funny color.”

“What color?” Amanda didn’t want to be surprised when she ran a brush inside the toilet rim.

“Well, it’s nothing like you’d expect from the color of the packets. You know, I figured blue and yellow would make green.” He shook his head. “Nope.”

Again Christine held up her vertical palm. “Too much information again. Ab-so-lute-ly too much. You can discuss his urine after I’m gone.” She pulled the remaining items from her canvas bag and arrayed them neatly on the small dining table.