Page 142 of Doctorshipped
That was it. Fiona didn’t offer more. When it looked like Margot might push, I sent her a warning glance. She backed down. I don’t even know if Margot is going to resettle in St. Louis. I told her to email me any communication in the future. She might be calling Fiona weekly, but if I have anything to say about it, I’ll be keeping my interactions with Margot restricted to electronic correspondence.
Now, three excruciating weeks have passed with Jayme coming to tutor three to four days a week while I sequester myself in my office. Fiona and I eat meals together. I see patients, though fewer people come to see me these days. A good number of them have been requesting appointments with Hazel. This town holds a grudge worse than a scorned Shakespearean character. Everyone looks at me like I’m a pariah when I run errands.
I spend more time worrying over how Jayme’s doing than I even do licking my own wounds. Though, whenever I hear her with Fiona, she seems cheerful—a fact that both comforts and pains me.
I’m sulking in my office, being the pathetic remnant of a man that I am these days, when there’s a knock at the front door, followed by a woman’s voice.
“Hello? Grant? Are you home?”
“In here.”
Shannon slides open the door to my office. She walks over to my desk and scatters a pile of tiny paper scraps on the surface.
“What’s this?” I ask.
“These are the kinds of fortunes Jayme is writing lately. Ever since you broke her heart. We’re all calling them mis-fortunes.”
Ouch.
“Read one,” she instructs me.
I pick up one crumpled slip of paper and read the caption:Don’t get your hopes up too high.
Jayme wrote that?
“Read the next one,” Shannon says.
“Life might give you lemons. You can’t always make lemonade.”
“Really?” I ask.
“Next.”
I fish through the pile and pick up another.
“Confucious says: Pain is part of life.”
“Someone will eat orange chicken and get this fortune?” I ask Shannon. “They’ll never come back to that restaurant again.”
“I doubt it. Jayme will probably lose her position as a cookie writer if she doesn’t cheer up. Read another.”
I pick a few up at once.
“Don’t always trust handsome men.”
“Personally, I think they should print that one,” Shannon says. “Multiple copies. Enough that every Chinese restaurant in the country can potentially carry a cookie with that warning. Don’t you think?”
“Very funny.”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
I shake my head and read the next one. “Say hello to darkness, your old friend.”
“Isn’t that from a Simon and Garfunkel song?”
“Close enough,” Shannon says, her scolding face softening to show the compassion she’s feeling for Jayme.
“This is tragic. I can barely read any more,” I tell Shannon, honestly.
