Page 18 of The Devil You Know
In any case, I’m certainly not going to have it out with him here and now.
“Listen,” I mutter to Ben, “I’ll take care of Leah. Just… go.”
It’s the right thing to say to diffuse the situation. He sighs, his shoulders slumping as the fight goes out of him. “Okay, thanks. You know I hate these things, Jane.”
“Right.” I glance at Leah, wondering how fast I can get out of here. If I have to stick around this place for another hour, I might slit my wrists.
Chapter 7
I smell like a chimney.
There should be a law about smoking prior to a doctor’s appointment. You can’t eat after midnight prior to a surgery, and you shouldn’t be allowed to smoke within an hour of a doctor’s appointment. Because being trapped in a tiny room with a man who hasclearlyjust been outside smoking two packs of cigarettes is torture. If you think primary care docs aren’t at risk for disease from second hand smoke, think again. By the end of my visit with Mr. Callahan, my eyes were watering and I was practically having an asthma attack.
I spent a good ten minutes gently lecturing Mr. Callahan about his smoking habits. Smoking is one of the worst vices, in my opinion. When I was a kid, I remember all the anti-smoking people would talk about how if you smoke, you could get lung cancer, so that’s why it’s bad. Now that I’m an adult, I think that’s an awful way to present smoking—because kids think that either they’ll get lung cancer and die or else they won’t.
Except the reality is that smoking will inevitably mess you up, no matter what. Nobody escapes it. It ages you well beyond your years—it makes your teeth yellow and your skin wrinkled. It causes strokes and heart attacks, and it could land you with an oxygen tank you’ll have to lug around everywhere you go. And hey guys—it can cause impotence.
Also, it causes lung cancer. That too.
Mr. Callahan already has difficult to control high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and I heard a bruit in his carotids last time I saw him, so I ordered a carotid ultrasound that ended up showing the blood vessels going to his brain are more than fifty percent occluded.
“I’m going to quit smoking,” Mr. Callahan promised me. “Just as soon as I turn fifty.”
“You’re forty-nine,” I said.
“Right. So… next year.”
“Why not now?”
“It’s a decision I made,” he said. “When I turn fifty, I’m going to quit. Cold turkey.”
If he makes it to fifty.
I walk briskly down the hallway to the elevator, hoping that maybe I’ll air myself out. I don’t know how to get the stink of cigarettes off me. It’s permeated my hair molecules. I feel like I need a shower. Maybe it’s not as bad as I think though.
I get into the elevator with George the Elevator Operator and I can see his nose wrinkle up when I step inside. He looks like he wants to wave his hand in front of his nose. Damn, it really is bad.
“Cafeteria,” I tell him.
George hits the button for the second floor, all the while glaring at me like I’ve brought Ebola into the elevator.
“I don’t smoke,” I blurt out.
George shrugs but gives me a skeptical look. Oh well.
The VA cafeteria isn’t terrible. I know it’s supposed to be healthier and cheaper to bring my lunch, but I already have to spend time packing a lunch for Leah and I just… can’t. Today they’re serving salmon burgers, which are surprisingly not terrible. Salmon burgers seem like something a hospital cafeteria could never get right in a million years, but somehow, they make it happen.
I order my salmon burger with fries and then fill a cup with tap water instead of one of the soft drinks. That’s me being healthy. Well, at least I don’t smoke.
Unfortunately, there’s only one lunch-lady on duty right now and it’s Gloria. Gloria and I are not simpatico. I’m not entirely sure why, because I’m always perfectly nice to her, but she seems to despise me. Why do all the VA staff members hate me?
Gloria peers up at me through her half-moon glasses and pats the dark bun at the back of her head. “What you got?”
“Salmon burger and fries,” I tell her. “And this is just a cup of water.”
Gloria rings up my purchase. “That’ll be four dollars, one cent.”
I left my wallet upstairs but I put four crumpled dollar bills in my pocket because I know that the lunch entrée always costs three dollars and ninety-one cents, including tax.
