The Breakup Doctor (10 page)

twelve

  

The sun had sunk out of sight and dusk had set in by the time I limped into the ER. Only one other patient slouched against a chair in a corner of the quiet waiting area, a man reading the spread newspaper that rested on his lap. Behind the counter a blonde in scrubs chatted animatedly with someone out of my eyesight. I hobbled to the counter and stood in front of her for a minute or two, my wounded foot propped at an angle against my left leg, before finally clearing my throat.

“Can I help you?”

A curious greeting.
Yes, I have come to the emergency room of a hospital. Clearly you
can
help me.

“I have an injury—I stepped on some metal nails. I think I need a tetanus shot.”

“Insurance?”

“Yes, I do.”

She finally looked up. “I need your
card
,” she said in the tone you use with morons.

After I dug it from my wallet and placed it on the counter, she clattered a clipboard in front of me. “Fill out these forms, please, and have a seat. We'll call you in a few moments.”

The guy in the waiting area was sitting next to the sole table provided, so I took a chair on the other side of it and started filling in the paperwork. A sour smell came off of him, like the weight room of a gym, and I breathed through my mouth.

By the time I had filled out the information form (front and back), my medical history, the release form, and the privacy policy—which I had actually had time to read—we were both still sitting in the teal-and-white waiting area. Molly Welcome Wagon was continuing her involved conversation with her unseen confidante.

“You have to wonder how long we'd have to sit here if it
wasn't
an emergency.” The man's voice was strained, but amused.

I looked over. He was younger than I thought—maybe mid-thirties. He wore a plain T-shirt that had probably started as white, but was now smudged and sweat-stained. His jeans were faded and as dirty as his hands.

“How long have you been here?” I asked him.

He checked the watch on his left wrist, never moving the arm from where it rested across his lap. “Maybe an hour, hour and a half?”

I lifted my eyebrows. “Great. Well, I guess they have to prioritize.” I slumped back against the chair.

He nodded to my bandaged foot in the sandal I'd stepped gingerly into as I left the house. “Cut your foot, huh?”

“I just need a tetanus shot.”

“Ow. Step on a nail?”

“How did you know?”

“That's the only reason anyone ever gets a tetanus shot. That or opening beer cans with their teeth, and you don't seem the type.”

I couldn't tell if he meant that as a compliment.

“How about you?” I asked politely.

He shrugged, right shoulder only. “Broken, maybe,” he said, indicating his left arm with his chin. “Fell off a ladder onto a retaining wall.”

“And they've left you sitting out here all this time? Doesn't it hurt?”

“Not as bad as it did when I fell. Maybe they've got someone else back there in worse shape than us,” he said, again with the one-armed shrug.

We fell silent, having exhausted our conversational repartee.

I thought about calling Sasha, or Stu, or my dad, but I didn't want to worry them, and there was nothing they could do about it that I wasn't already taking care of myself.

I really wanted to call Kendall. But he was working, and until I could make things right after our argument, I didn't want to call him about something trivial.

More long minutes ticked by. It was awkward sitting so close to the man in the empty waiting room without talking, and I was grateful when the blonde at the counter called my name. I sneaked a glance over at him as I stood, his head bent a little and his mouth tight with pain. He still had the newspaper open on one knee, but clearly he wasn't seeing it.

“Excuse me,” I said quietly when I reached the counter, “but you might want to see that gentleman before me.”

“I can't hear you, ma'am.”

I leaned over the counter close to her face and raised my voice not at all. “That man has a broken arm,” I bit out. “My injury isn't that serious. I suggest you take him back first.”

She pulled back, but her face stayed expressionless. Finally she snapped my insurance card down sharply on the counter in front of my chest. “We aren't ready yet,” she said icily. “I was calling you to pick up your card.”

I slid it toward me across the laminate counter as noisily as possible, glaring at her the entire time. She looked bored.

I went back to my seat, braving the man's sweat smell in a futile show of solidarity.

“Well, it was a nice try,” he said as I flopped down angrily. “Thanks.”

“You heard? She's horrible.” I leaned back and grabbed a magazine off the table, tearing it as I yanked it open.

“So I'm gonna guess...up on a ladder painting, stepped down onto a two-by-four with a nail sticking out.”

I looked over. I liked that story a lot better than the real one, in which I starred as the mentally unbalanced, dangerously violent destroyer of my own home. “Yup—you got it.”

He winced. “That had to hurt. Major renovations, huh?”

“You have no idea.”

There was an article in the magazine about Brad and Angelina having another child, or adopting another baby, or whelping puppies, for all I could tell. Mostly I was looking at the pictures, too unsettled to concentrate.

“I'm in home improvement myself.”

“Oh, yeah?” I kept my eyes glued to the magazine.

“Yup. I build houses.” I heard a slapping sound and glanced over to see him brushing at his muddy jeans leg. “But you probably guessed that already.”

I thought it rude to tell him that no, I hadn't actually been speculating on him at all. “Oh. Well, tough time for it these days.”

“You're not kidding. Market's dried up like crazy.” He reached into a pocket with his right hand—carefully—and extracted a business card that had lost all its original crispness. “But we're looking to create a niche here—maybe you've heard of us?”

I took the crumpled card by a corner and glanced at it:
Millennium Homes—Conscious Building for a Greener World.

“No, sorry, I guess not,” I said, handing the card back.

He waved me off. “Keep it.”

“I have a boyfriend,” I blurted.

He looked amused. “That so? Congrats. I have a dog. Nice we could get to know each other a little better.”

Heat flooded my face. Ridiculous. I was covered in particles and chunks of drywall, my hair flying in uncontrolled frizzies all around my head, and I still wore a pair of panty hose around my neck. He wasn't hitting on me. I yanked off the hose and shoved them into an outside pocket of my purse, tucked the weathered card in after it, then focused hard on my magazine.

The man went on as though I hadn't made an idiot of myself. “So what are you renovating?”

“My entire house,” I said, and then muttered, “My entire life.”

He whistled. “Whoa. Now that's an extreme makeover. So is that what you do—flip houses?”

I looked up and met his pale, drawn face. The man was only trying to distract himself from the pain his arm was clearly causing him. I yanked myself out of my embarrassment and self-involvement. “No, I don't—that's just to keep the walls from literally crumbling around me. Actually I'm a counselor.” I nodded down at the paper in his lap. “A relationship counselor. I write an article in the paper.”

To my surprise a wide smile came over his face, straight white teeth against his sun-browned skin. He had a really nice smile, actually. “That's you? ‘Ask the Breakup Doctor'? My mom showed me that article.”

“Really? I just started writing it.”

“She says you've got a good head on your shoulders. She loves reading about stuff like that, even though she... Well, it's been a hard time for her.” He pressed his lips closed and stared back down at his paper.

“Divorce?”

“What? Oh—no! My dad passed away a few years ago. She just... Well, you know. Dating's tough at her age.”

“Not in this town.” Actually, his mother's demographic was probably the
only
age group for whom Fort Myers was a dating mecca. It might even be in the welcome materials for AARP.

He gave that one-armed shrug again. “Yeah, well...she's having a hard time letting go of my dad.”

“Oh. I'm sorry.” I didn't know what else to say. My mother didn't have a hard time letting go of
my
dad.

We both heard the blonde's tinny little voice drone out, “Benjamin Garrett?”

He stood up, but didn't walk toward the counter right away, standing in front of me as though he'd had something he wanted to say. The moment stretched out awkwardly until we heard the receptionist call out his name again, this time with a crisp edge of impatience.

“Hope that's not indicative of the bedside manners around here,” he said finally.

I laughed. “Good luck.”

“You too,” Benjamin Garrett said. “With everything.” He continued over to the counter and a moment later disappeared into the hospital's inner sanctum.

  

The receptionist called me back about twenty minutes after Benjamin Garrett went in, and I waited another forty-five minutes in an exam room until a male intern came in to take my blood pressure (which to my surprise was not 180 over 110). Then I waited another half hour before the doctor came in, glanced at the wound, gave me a tetanus shot, and advised me to be more careful.

When I left the hospital it was after eight o'clock. As I turned the car toward my house to face the mess I'd left and take a much-needed shower, I turned my phone back on—the snarky receptionist had informed me that all cell phones had to be turned off in the hospital, and then stood there in my exam room, arms folded, until I did it in front of her. I thumbed my call log. Nothing from Kendall.

I wasn't surprised, but I felt a pang in my stomach. It was our first argument, and I hated the unsettled feeling it had left me with. Now I wished I had called sooner to let him know about my accident, and that everything was okay with me. And with us.

I dialed his cell number. It rang four times before going to voicemail.

“Hi, it's me...” I started, then trailed off. I didn't want to apologize on voicemail, and I didn't want him listening to it while a client drummed impatient fingers if he was still at the office. I did the best I could in the meantime: “I hope... I hope you had a good day. I'll be over in little while—let me know when you'll be home.” I held my finger over the “end” button, then changed my mind, brought the phone back to my ear, and hastily added, “Love you.”

I pressed the phone off and let it flop onto the passenger seat. I knew he was busy—we both were. But it would have been nice to have someone there to talk to today at the emergency room, to wait with me, help me calm down, and keep me company.

Well, someone besides Benjamin Garrett.

As soon as I stepped in my front door I felt my eyes start to sting and my lungs contract from the acrid smell. My living room was a demolition zone. In the heat of my anger I hadn't fully taken in the damage I'd done to my wall, but after the pristine, clinical sterility of the hospital, it looked even worse to me. Most of the wall bordering my guest bath was gone, the edges deckled haphazardly around a gaping dark pit. Bits and clumps of sodden drywall were splattered on the walls and floor. A trail of dark red blood splotches stained the bare concrete slab leading across the floor. The house felt tired and empty and sad.

Wearily, I unplugged the sander from the wall, noticing as I picked it up to wind the cord that it rattled like a boxful of screws. I'd add buying Dad a replacement sander to my list of expenditures. Along with the cost of fixing my wall—and whatever plumbing catastrophe was happening inside it. And probably the cost of mold remediation. And my visit to the emergency room—since I was nowhere close to meeting the deductible on my health insurance coverage for the year, the entire visit would be out of pocket. On the plus side, if my home improvement efforts kept going the way they'd begun, I'd meet the deductible in no time, and then all my subsequent medical emergencies would be covered.

It felt hard to stay optimistic when my “bright side” scenarios were growing ever more feeble.

When I neatened up as much as possible, I went back to the bedroom and, with arms that felt heavy as lead, threw an armful of clothes into a suitcase. I drove to Kendall's town house and let myself in. I was too tired to even unpack my clothes, just wheeled the suitcase into the closet and dropped it onto the floor, shutting the door so he wouldn't have to see the mess.

In his expansive frameless slate-walled shower I let the hot water run over my shoulders and back for a long time, the high-pressure showerhead loosening up tight muscles.

When I came out there was still no sign of Kendall. I hoped he'd listened to the message I'd left him. If he was still angry or frustrated or annoyed, maybe he was working late to avoid me. Now I wished I'd called him at work and apologized directly. I picked up his house phone and tried him again.

After four rings it slipped into voicemail. “Kendall, it's me. I'm home—here, I mean, at your house. I hope you're not... I'm sorry about today. I know you're busy. So am I. I just get frustrated. I miss you. I miss spending more time with you. I wish our day hadn't ended on such an unpleasant note. I had a great time until then.” I sighed, feeling stupid for pouring my heart out to a digital recorder. “We're okay. This is just...you know, one of those couple things. I miss you. Come on home, okay?” I pressed his phone off and set it on the sofa table behind the couch.