Friends Without Benefits (Knitting in the City) (2 page)

He was Nico
in person. But he was only
The Face
on TV.

The last time I saw Nico
not in person
was on the TV in the doctors’ lounge two weeks ago.

A group of
—all male—surgeons were gathered around the TV set. They were watching a busty blonde and a sylphlike redhead Jell-O wrestle with a bare chested Nico on his Comedy Central show
Talking with The Face
.

He’d been dubbed
“The Face” because he used to be a male model in New York before it was discovered that he actually had a brain and personality. Never mind the fact that both his brain and personality were used for evil. For that matter, so was his face. I had firsthand, secondhand, and thirdhand knowledge of how he used his face for evil.

Even though I avoided his show
, I’d purposefully purchased and watched his stand-up special and had come face-to-The Face complete with advertisements plastered on billboards and the Internet. Regardless, I wasn’t prepared for an in-person encounter. In person he was real, present in a way that he wasn’t in a still-life picture or a video clip.

The fact that his mother was in the room, openly inspecting us as we reacted to each other, only served to crank up the awkward dial
. Though, even if we’d been alone I wouldn’t have known what to say to him.

I could have tried:

“
Hi—about deserting you after your best friend died, that was really shitty of me. Also, about disappearing that morning after I handed you my V-card and never returning your calls or reading your emails and letters, that was also shitty of me. In my defense, I’m pretty sure that one time we slept together meant more to me than it did to you as I was a grieving teenager who was frightened by my feelings for you and you’ve always had girls tripping over their panties in pursuit. I’m fairly certain that night for you was mostly pity sex. Furthermore, I’m sure you didn’t even notice my absence—what with all the poontang you must’ve been getting in New York as a male underwear model
.
Since you basically made my adolescent years hell, let’s just call it even-steven.”

I swallowed memories
down, down, down along with all the recriminations that surfaced immediately afterward. I wasn’t at all proud of how I behaved, but it was a very long time ago; I’d just turned sixteen and he’d just turned seventeen. We were kids. He may have been my first, but I most definitely had not been his.

I knew that i
f he were still upset with me it probably had less to do with my abandoning him after sex and more to do with my abandoning him after Garrett’s death. And, for that, I still felt ashamed.

I
commenced with an attempt at a smile and nodded my head in his direction.

“Of course. Hi
. Good to. . . see. . . you.”

Full lips flattened. H
is frown deepened. He visibly swallowed. He didn’t respond.

He just looked at me
, and his stare felt like a brand.

“Oh—
and this is Angelica, my granddaughter.” Rose led me by my hand to where Nico held the small girl. Pride was evident in Rose’s voice, but so was a trace of sadness.

I used the movement as an excuse to shift my attention away from Nico and smiled at Angelica as I approached. She was
dressed in a kid-sized hospital gown, and I knew better than to offer her my hand. Cystic fibrosis would make her extremely susceptible to pulmonary infection even though she was likely already on prophylaxis antibiotics.

Angelica smiled at me
briefly then buried her face in Nico’s neck.

“It is nice to meet you, Angelica.” I kept my voice soft
. “I’m actually here to talk to you and your-your-your dad about a research study which might help you feel better.”

Curses!

I didn’t know why I stuttered over “your dad,” but I did know I needed to pull my shit together before shit got everywhere and shit got crazy.

“Oh, Lizzybella,
Angelica isn’t Nico’s. Nico is her uncle.” Rose leaned forward, and her whisper assumed a wavering, watery quality. “Angelica was my Tina’s.”

I nodded in dejected and horrified understanding. On the tragedy scale this news was an eleven
. . . ty thousand; that’s right:
eleventy thousand
. Not only did sweet Angelica have a chronic life-threatening disease, her mother—Tina—was dead. Tina was Rose’s third daughter. My father told me of Tina and her husband’s death last year via freak car accident.

It was horrible and senseless
, and I now felt the sudden need to drink scotch, brood, and read Edgar Allen Poe or the ending to
Hamlet
. Maybe I would top it all off with some YouTube videos of drowning kittens while listening to Radiohead.

“I see.” Was all I
could say.

Again, without meaning to, my gaze sought Nico’s. I found him studying me.
I tried not to fiddle with my stethoscope, hoped my eyes conveyed my condolences. Yet, I couldn’t help but feel foolish and inadequate. I wasn’t used to feeling foolish and inadequate, not any more, not since high school.

H
e
made me feel foolish and inadequate.

At last
Nico spoke. The sound of his voice—deeper than I remembered, raspy—made my spine stiffen in automatic response.

“We’
re in Chicago to see a visiting disease specialist, but then came to the ER because Angelica had a fever this morning. She’s on the inhaled antibiotics since two weeks ago. I’m worried that—” he paused, his soulful eyes shifted from me to his mother then back. “We’re worried that they aren’t as effective and they did a chest X-ray downstairs, but we haven’t heard anything about the results.”

I
motioned to the aptly appropriate depressing beige furniture and endeavored to slip into Elizabeth Finney, MD”
mode; “Here—let’s sit down and I’ll take a look at Angelica’s chart.”

Rose sat next to Nico on the couch and Angelica moved from his lap to hers. I deposited the consent forms on the table then crossed to the mounted computer
station on the wall; Angelica’s electronic medical record had two procedural tabs for April 1. The first was a full blood panel and the second was a chest X-ray. The actual image wasn’t yet available, but the radiologist’s report indicated that her lungs were negative for infection.

“Well, the good news is that the
radiology report came back and it looks like Angelica’s lungs are—currently—free of infection. Her labs aren’t in the system yet, but the attending will be able to review them with you before discharge.” Unable to find a reason to loiter any longer with the electronic medical record, I crossed to them and chose the beige chair across from Rose. “The reason I’m here is to talk to you about a research study, which it looks like Angelica may be eligible for.”

Nico nodded. He
leaned forward and placed his elbows on his knees, his hands tented before him; “Yeah, the nurses downstairs said that you guys were doing a study and it might help, with the symptoms? Reduce the infections?”

The hope in his voice was heartbreaking. I tried to distance myself from
my history with him, with Rose, with this family, and review the study and consent with measured impartiality, like I would approach any other family.

But, because I was unable to completely detach myself from the strength of memories and guilt—and, therefore, historical emotions—involving Nico, I kept my gaze fastened to Rose as I explained the study visits, risks and benefits.

“Results thus far are promising; increase in mucociliary clearance, improved digestive and pancreatic function. But the study isn’t yet fully enrolled. No definite conclusions can be made about long term benefits.”

Rose was staring at me as though I had three heads.

I reminded myself to slow down, use laymen terms, treat them like any other family. This was safe territory for me: current research trends, the study, risk analyses.

What was less than safe was the realization that I still had an unsafe territory where Nico was concerned. Since leaving high school, I was now used to venturing beyond the pale with abandon. I was not used to feeling like I needed to watch my words, where I looked, the inflection of my voice.

It chaffed. Each time I made a mental note to avoid his gaze my irritability increased. I didn’t like this feeling. I didn’t like the unresolved issues between us. What was unsaid choked me and, honestly, pissed me off.

All things considered, I
felt I hid it well.

I started over.
“This study is straight forward, but also extremely intense: twenty-eight days of infusions administered every eight hours. This means that Angelica will have to return here, to the clinical research unit, every eight hours for twenty eight days and receive medication via IV, in her vein, for a half hour. There are some documented adverse reactions. But, on the plus side, the study is not placebo controlled; this means that all patients will be receiving treatment.”

Rose nodded her understanding, held Angelica tighter.

“You should take some time to read the forms and discuss.” I studied Rose for a moment as she held her granddaughter to her chest. According to Angelica’s chart the little girl was four. She was very small for a four year old. She was also very shy and continued to look away every time I attempted to draw her out with a smile.

Rose sighed. It was a heavy, distracted, helpless sigh
. “I just don’t know. . .” She turned to Nico, “What do you think?”

Nico held his mother’s gaze for a moment the
n glanced at his hands, studied them as though they might answer the question for him. He lifted his eyes to mine and targeted me with a pointed stare. Another stabbing pain in my heart. If he saw me wince he didn’t make any outward sign.

He lifted his chin a notch, “What do you think we should do?”

“Read the study materials and take some time to think about it.”

“No, that’s not what I mean.” Nico’s eyes moved between mine and I was startled by the trust and vulnerability I witnessed in his gaze.
“Will you be her doctor?”

“I
-uh—” My head shook before I knew it was shaking. “No. The research nurses administer the infusions and conduct the study visits. And, this is my last week in research rotation. It is a mandatory six week rotation for all emergency medicine residents and this is my last week. But the study Principal Investigator—Dr. Botstein—is a world renowned pediatric pulmonologist. He is really excellent. He will be the doctor assigned to Angelica.”

Nico
frowned, the earlier trust and vulnerability morphing into something like exasperated desperation. He glared at me through his thick, black lashes then drew his top lip between his teeth and chewed for a moment. His left leg started bouncing. “Couldn’t we request you?”

What??

My head shake increased in speed. “No. Listen, you don’t want me. Really. You want Dr. Botstein.”

“No, Elizabeth.” He said my name slowly,
stubbornly. His eyes narrowed for the briefest of moments then he leaned back against the cushions of the pitiful beige sofa. “I want you.”

I
set my expression to rigid, holding Nico’s challenging glower, determined to win this staring contest.

I spoke first
. “You’re not thinking about this clearly—”

“Whereas you’ve won awards for cl
ear thinking?”

“No.” I gritted my teeth
. “No one is perfect.”

“
Even you?” His tone was bitter, and his indisputably handsome face was marred by an ugly sneer.

“Especially me.”

“That’s not how I remember it.”

My face flushed
at the double-entendre and his eyes ignited with satisfaction. Some of the sneering ugliness was replaced with smug male arrogance. Even as I internally eye-rolled, I hoped Rose wouldn’t pick up on his complisult (compliment + insult)

I
understood that he had every right to be angry with me. I was still angry with myself. But the timing of this conversation, his timing, was exceedingly not cool. This situation was not about him or us or what happened eleven years ago between two grieving teenagers.

He was engaging in
machismo asshattery, and I would have none of it.

I forced casual steadiness into
my voice and redoubled my resolve to resist participating in his bait-fest. “You knew me a long time ago.”

“I’ve known you all my life
. We pulled pranks on my brothers, we had a monopoly game that went on for three years, we built a tree house in your backyard, our dads took us to our first Cubs game together.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“We used to have sleepovers. . .”

I flinched, said nothing.

“I know you better than anyone.” His words were a suggestive whisper and patently false.

“
Not for the last eleven years.”