Page 43 of The Devil You Know
It would be nice if Barbara could be responsible for something like that, but I’m just happy to get free lunch. Back when I was a poor med student or resident, free lunch was something I used to get obscenely excited about. And weirdly enough, I still do. But to be fair, I’m not exactly rich now.
“By the way,” I say to Dr. Kirschstein. “Do you have that book from your wife about raising children?”
He looks at me blankly. “What book?”
“You told me that your wife had a book about…” I see from his face that he has no clue what I’m talking about. “Never mind. I’ll get the plates.”
Dr. Kirschstein’s going senile. It was only a matter of time.
I hurry down the hallway, hoping to grab the plates fast because I’m absolutely starving. Also, Lisa always takes the egg salad sandwich butIwant the egg salad sandwich. Maybe I can beat her to it.
I get to the cafeteria and find a stack of crappy paper plates. Our cafeteria has the absolute worst plates—they’re always threatening to fall apart the second you put food on them. Still, they’ll do the job. I grab five of them and head for the exit. Then I hear the voice of Gloria, the cashier:
“Are you buying some plates?”
I laugh at the joke. “Yeah.”
I continue on my way, but then I hear Gloria call out, more sharply this time: “You have to pay for those plates!”
Wait. She wasserious?
For a moment, I debate pretending I didn’t hear her and making a run for it. After all, it’s five paper plates. What are they going to do? Then again, this is the VA. It could be a felony to steal plates from the cafeteria.
Reluctantly, I turn around and trudge back to the cashier. “How much are the plates?”
“Five cents each,” Gloria reports.
They may as well be a hundred dollars each, because naturally, I don’t have my wallet. And I didn’t take any cash with me downstairs because I thought I was just grabbing some freaking plates.
Ryan, where are you when I need you? Moreover, I’m certain Ryan would easily be able to charm Gloria out of a few measly plates.
I consider going up to a random stranger in the cafeteria and begging for a quarter. But I just can’t make myself do it. So I leave the plates behind and run up the four flights to go get my purse.
The plates are right where I left them when I return. I also decide that since I now have money, I’m going to grab myself a pack of gummi bears, just to make myself feel better about how pissed off I am. I lay the gummi bears down with the plates in front of Gloria.
“Oh,” she says. “Since you’re buying something, I can give you three of those plates for free.”
I think I hate this woman.
My stomach growls with hunger. I shove the gummi bears into my purse, and ring for the elevator. The doors open instantly and I see George sitting on his stool. I hesitate. I don’t want to be in the elevator with George, but I’ve already wasted way too much time. I’m too hungry to wait for another elevator and my legs are exhausted from running up and down the stairs. So I get inside.
Smile, Jane!
My lips curve into something resembling a smile. George doesn’t return my faux-smile. In fact, he’s staring at the five paper plates that I’m holding.
“You know,” he says, “you’re supposed topayfor those plates.”
If I make it out of here without being arrested, it will be a miracle.
_____
The worst part about snow days is what your car looks like at the end of the day. After seeing patients all day with a brief reprieve for sandwiches (Lisa got the egg salad—I had tuna), then returning phone calls and charting for another hour, I’m dreading having to spend the next twenty minutes cleaning off my car. It’s probably half buried by now.
I trudge through the parking lot, feeling the snow seeping into my boots. I don’t have stylish, high-heeled boots like Lisa. I have the ugliest black boots you’ve ever seen in your whole life, which I bought specifically because they were advertised to be warm and waterproof. They’re warm—at least, until the ice-cold water starts seeping into them. Then, not so much.
This is so wrong.
My poor car barely resembles a car. It looks more like a big car-shaped lump of snow. Moreover, the snow plowhas been doing a crappy job clearing the parking lot, because there’s lots of snow around the tires of my car, that will almost certainly make it difficult, if not impossible, to drive out of my parking spot. But I’m not going to think about that now. Hopefully, if I gun the engine, it will all be okay.
