Chapter Eleven
Alex pulled into the parking spot in front of his grandfather’s apartment building, turned off his trusty ten-year-old Honda Civic and rolled his tongue between his teeth and his cheek. Unlike the last few trips to take Grandpa to the Alzheimer’s trial, this one he dreaded.
Never one to chase a woman to the point of ridicule, he had taken Josie’s hint after phone messages and texts went unanswered. Her sudden Ice Queen behavior—especially after the heat between the two of them—made absolutely no sense. Sure, it had only been a week, but a week without her felt like a lifetime, and it was killing him.
Time to act. Not wait.
As he climbed out of the car, the door creaked, a reminder to put some WD-40 on there. He stopped and sized up Grandpa’s apartment complex. It was small—only sixteen units—and income subsidized, which was a great help to Ed. Grandpa was the son of immigrants who had come to the Boston area seeking something better. Five years ago, when Grandma had died and Ed found himself alone at the end of a long line of bills for her care, the best solution had seemed to be an apartment in a complex with other senior citizens.
His Social Security check and meager savings allowed Grandpa to live a comfortable life; when Alex had his own finances under control, the six-figure student loans were tamed to a number that didn’t make him gag every time he thought about it, he hoped to be able to help out Grandpa and his mom.
The building itself looked like just about any other building in Cambridge—brown paint, white trim, a long and narrow triple-decker, spanning far more of the backyard than you would expect. The front door bisected the entire building, splitting it down a long, narrow hallway with two front staircases at the entryway. Ed had scored a first-floor apartment, something that was hard to get. An old knee injury from fighting in Korea still plagued him occasionally, making everyone glad that he didn’t have to battle stairs on top of his other obstacles.
It was Grandma’s death that actually had made them all figure out just how mentally deteriorated Ed had become. What had been laughed off as his forgetfulness, while Grandma was still alive to compensate, had turned into whispered conversations between his mom and her sisters as they huddled around the kitchen table, looking at piles of bills that had gone unpaid, evaluating everything from the status of Ed’s wardrobe to the spoiled cartons of milk sitting between cans of penny nails at his workbench.
Alex had been an intern then, too busy with his own world and sheltered by his mother and the aunts who wanted to keep him on the fast track to physician success. It wasn’t until two years ago that anyone had bothered to bring him into the secret of Grandpa’s Alzheimer’s. Even then, it wasn’t until he called Grandpa’s property manager to get the front stairs fixed, citing ADA requirements with authority, that his mom and aunts had really realized he wasn’t Little Alex, needing to be sheltered, anymore.
Med school had taught him one important skill that had absolutely nothing to do with medicine itself—be the squeaky wheel. If a patient could not advocate for himself, it fell on a family member to do it. And for most patients, that was at least sometimes the case. Most family members, though, weren’t bold enough to ask for everything the patient needed. Grandpa’s family was no different—until Alex took control.
Alex had no problem being bold—he’d gone immediately into medical databases, found advanced research trials, made phone calls, shamelessly used his credentials. Funny how the title “Doctor” in front of his name led to instant respect on the phone. He had totally manipulated whomever, whatever, however, any system needed, to get Ed into his current research trial. And also to find a primary care physician who would do something more than prescribe what had become a brown bag full of conflicting medications that actually added to Ed’s addled state.
Seeing what everyone had thought was early-onset dementia partly reverse itself, little by little, as the med confusion had lifted, reinforced Alex’s boldness and further emboldened him to step into the role as family patriarch. His aunts had all had girls—everyone had called him Little Alex, the youngest of the cousins, his mom’s only child—so far. Only eighteen years older than himself, she was young enough to still manage another child if she wanted to.
The thought made him chuckle. Mom was forty-six, happily married to a man who had no interest in any more children. He’d been kind and pleasant when he’d entered Alex’s life his senior year of high school but the two had little in common. They were cocktail party guests at best, competitors for his mom’s attention at worst.
Ed’s door was painted China red, with a little sign that said Welcome. Rapping three times on the door, Alex waited, knowing Ed, clean shaven, freshly showered, and dressed, was sitting with his hands folded in his lap at the kitchen table. All ready for what had become one of his favorite events. You would never know that Ed Derjian had Alzheimer’s—but Alex did know, and that was why every month this trial became more and more important, as they hoped to unlock some kind of secret that would make them hang on to who Grandpa was.
The door opened slowly and Alex saw himself, about forty-six years in the future. Grandpa was about three inches shorter than Alex, with a full head of pure white hair. It was perfectly coiffed; a little bit of hair grease at the temples and around the ears to tame the little curls to smooth waves. Alex’s own chocolate brown eyes peered back at him, buried behind layers of wrinkles around the eyelids.
Ed’s practiced smile cracked into a wide natural grin upon seeing someone familiar. At the recommendation of one of the nurses, Alex wore the same outfit every time he came to pick Ed up. It had turned out to be an extraordinary tip. Now May was turning to summer, he was beginning to wish he hadn’t chosen his merino wool burgundy sweater—but he’d find a way to deal with it.
“Alex!” Ed shouted, arms out, welcoming his grandson into a hug.
Alex accepted the old-world embrace happily, a kiss planted on his cheek, the feel of Ed’s smooth skin loose and soft like a baby’s arm. Sandalwood and lavender mixed in with a light peppermint scent greeted Alex along with Ed.
As they pulled apart, Ed said the same words he said every time. “Let me take a good look at you. Boy, have you grown! Where’s your mother? Where is Meribeth?” he asked, looking behind Alex into the hallway as if genuinely expecting to find her.
“Grandpa, she doesn’t pick you up for this appointment.”
“Oh.” His eyes clouded and Alex felt the bottom of his stomach drop. It was rare, but once in a while Ed could go into that place where only his daughters, in the flesh, could anchor him. Alex was one generation removed, just enough to make Ed hesitate.
The cloud lifted and Ed’s smile widened even more. “Of course. It’s just us boys. There aren’t many of us, are there, Alex?”
“No, sir,” he said, smiling.
“Just those lousy sons-in-law of mine and my delightful granddaughters. It’s you and me Alex, all the way.”
“That’s right, Grandpa.”
Ed shut the door, carefully sliding a key into the deadbolt, clicking it, turning it back and sliding it out, slipping the key on a thin string under his shirt. They had taught him to do this about three years ago and he took it as deeply serious as a big, overgrown latchkey kid. But no more lost keys, no more frantic phone calls from a neighbor who found him wandering.
As they walked back to the parking lot, Alex glanced at Ed’s old car, forlorn and rusting out at the wheel wells. No matter how many times they explained to him that his license was expired, Ed would still try to get in the car. A handful of times he had managed to drive somewhere; the farthest he had gotten was from Watertown to Greenfield, a good hundred-mile jaunt that no one could really figure out. He must have just gotten on Route 2 and kept driving until he stopped at a Dunkin’ Donuts. He had munched happily on about a half-dozen chocolate glazed before an employee had figured out that he was lost. It wasn’t the first call from a kind Samaritan, but it was the last. Since then, Alex had disabled the car’s engine and his mother, aunts, and uncles took turns about every third or fourth day, surreptitiously reconnecting the battery terminals and driving it around a bit. Just enough to keep it functional.
“My car is broken, you know,” Ed said, pointing to the old gray clunker. “Damn engine—probably cost more to fix it than it’s worth.”
“Yeah, Grandpa, sorry about that.” Alex diverted the conversation by blurting out, “So, I met a new girl.”
“Your mother lets you date?”
Oh, boy. This was one of those days when Grandpa thought he was fourteen.
“Grandpa, I’m twenty-eight years old.”
Ed frowned. “I guess that means you can drive then today, right?”
Ed reached Alex’s car and he slapped the top of his green Honda.
“Yes, sir.” The less said, the better.
They both climbed into the car. Alex started it up and they wended their way a handful of miles through the Cambridge streets, past coffee shops, Alex’s favorite Eritrean restaurant, and finally Ed’s favorite hang-out in Harvard Square—the chess tables.
When the study appointment was done, he would take Grandpa to his favorite diner for lunch and then over to Harvard Square for a few games of friendly chess. If Alex deviated from that routine he would never hear the end of it. Ed may float back to 1953 sometimes, and even as far back as the early 1940s, but there was one thing that he knew about 2013—and that was that he was going to get his piece of pie at the diner and he was going to play three or four rounds of well-matched chess.
“This girl,” Ed asked, “she cute?” He held his hands out in front of his chest and mimicked a set of breasts, ogling his own creation.
Alex bit his lower lip and tried not to laugh. “She’s… pretty, Grandpa. She’s pretty.”
“Did you… y’know?” Ed leaned over and nudged him with his elbow.
“Did we…?” Oh, God, he thought. Please. Not this conversation. It was easier to lie. “Uh, no.”
“Not yet,” Ed teased. “So, there’s another date?”
“That’s up to her.”
As they made the left turn to go into the parking lot at the nondescript medical building where the research trial was held, Alex felt his body flush. It had been one thing in the abstract to decide that he was still going to bring Ed for their monthly routine, that he would catch her and leave her no choice but to face him. It was quite another to slide into the parking garage, press the button for the ticket, and move slowly through the dark concrete jungle.
*
Josie did a double-take when Ed Derjian walked in to the room because there, standing behind him, was his two-generations-younger double. Taller, broader in the shoulder, and with a touch of something different, an ethnicity she couldn’t put her finger on but a body she wanted to put all her fingers on.
Dammit!
Of all the people in her life to be Ed’s grandson, how had she missed it? Somehow she had compartmentalized her life enough that work was work and everything else was everything else so Alex’s last name hadn’t rung a bell. Alexander Edward Derjian. She’d been blinded by lust. He’d blinded her with his lust. The easy familiarity in his eyes should have been a clue.
He knew her—or at least, knew of her when they met at Laura’s birth. Or did he? Maybe he really hadn’t recognized her and she was just making this all up in her mind as she looked him square in the eyes while Ed introduced them
“Oh, hey, Jackie. So, this is—”
“Josie, Grandpa. Her name is Josie,” Alex whispered. It was a stage whisper with a quick little look of amusement that Alex intended only for her.
“Josie!” Ed said, slapping his forehead. “That’s right. Josie. I knew that,” he chided Alex. “Josie, let me introduce you to my single, eligible, bachelor grandson. He’s a doctor,” Ed added, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.
Josie couldn’t help herself and laughed and extended her hand as if she had never met Dr. Alex Derjian before. “Josie Mendham. Pleased to meet you,” she said, her palm pressed against his, sending an electric current through her body that made her back stand at attention, her body filled with ice and heat, her breathing steady and slow in contrast to her heart, which sped up as if it were sprinting to the finish line of some race she didn’t even know she was running.
“We’ve met before, Grandpa, actually,” Alex said without relinquishing her hand, the steady pumping of their embraced palms slowing until Alex was just holding her hand for no reason other than she let him.
Their eyes locked and Ed crossed his arms over his chest and gave them a puzzled look. “Then why did Josie pretend she hadn’t met you?”
She could feel the rush of blood to her cheeks and knew that she was blushing, but couldn’t pull her eyes away. Finally, she did, tearing them as if fibers had been ripped in half by warring impulses. Ed’s very amused, red-rimmed orbs met hers.
“Because I’m afraid I’ve been quite rude to your grandson,” she said, filled suddenly with a perplexing shame. As if not answering a guy’s calls and texts made her a disappointing child. It was funny how grandfatherly figures brought that out in her, as if she ceded authority to them simply because of their age. You would think that working on an Alzheimer’s unit—and a research trial, no less—would disabuse her of that tendency. In fact it had strengthened it in her, leaving her helpless at times, feeling completely not up to the task of carrying the moral weight of being a good girl.
Alex was persistent, she had to give him that. It must have taken guts to come here in spite of her ignoring him.
Why?
Men played around with women like her—they didn’t chase them. So, when Ed cleared his throat she realized she was in a trance and then quickly lifted the clipboard lying limp in her hand and said, “Let’s get on with the appointment, shall we?”
Ed gestured gallantly to the small room where her short interview would take place. “Ladies first,” he said, leaving Alex in the waiting room without a backward glance. Ed seemed relaxed and grounded today, really on his game—aside from forgetting her name, such a small lapse that it didn’t trouble her. The handful of steps into the tiny interview room gave her just enough time to wonder about that level of comfort.
Routine was so important with Alzheimer’s patients…if Ed were this fine and grounded, then coming here with Alex must be his routine. How long had Alex been bringing him? And how could she have missed such a fine man right in front of her face?
*
Alex felt like a drowning man holding on to her hand as he shook it, as if it were a life preserver or a last-minute attempt to pull him out of troubled waters. In reality it was neither. The expression on her face said that what had started out as a polite gesture—a farce, really—for Ed’s benefit had turned into an acknowledgment of the attraction that he so keenly felt.
A million questions peppered his thoughts and nearly threatened to come out in a rush. Why had she ignored his phone calls? Why had she ignored his texts? What had he done to turn her off? What could he do to turn her back on? Did she remember him from these appointments? From the shocked look on her face he guessed not, which made him feel fairly pathetic. How could she be so memorable to him when she found him so easy to overlook?
Maybe he wasn’t her type on the deeper level that he’d thought, and he was making more of this than there really was. Surface-level attractions could probably be as hot as their connection had been, and surface-level explanations were often enough.
He didn’t really believe that, but some part of his bruised ego needed to think it through and at least contemplate it, because why else wasn’t she jumping into his arms right now? What made her hesitate? Why would someone so interesting and quirky—and so passionate only a week ago!—be so measured in her reaction to him?
Measured—that was a hell of a euphemism he was coming up with, wasn’t it? She wasn’t measured. She was blowing him off. She’s just not that into you, Alex, a voice said.
There was not enough in the waiting room to distract him from his thoughts, either. He was rather used to being at this sort of loose end. Few typical distractions engaged him—his interests were medicine, Grandpa, and quite a bit of philosophical contemplation over a macchiato as he tried to figure out what he was going to do with the rest of his life.
Med school had been the big goal, then internship, and now residency. He was solid in his knowledge that delivering babies and providing women’s health care was exactly where he needed to be. It was a vocation and not just an occupation.
Outside of work, though, life was a giant hole, occupied occasionally with friends, a game of basketball that he picked up here and there. Could he fill that hole with something as satisfying as medicine? Could life away from work actually balance, complement, his work? Could finding someone be the same? Could you really find one person, like one career, with every element you needed in one package, an anchor for your sense of being, unswayed by drama or volatility? Was it possible to love someone and have them love you back, not 50/50 but 80/80?
Alex didn’t know. He gave up entirely on the magazines in front of him and gave in to an Angry Birds app on his phone. His brain was exhausted. Flinging little red, round electronic renderings of real-life animals was easier than navel-gazing.
*
“Josie, are you dating anyone?” Ed asked, reaching across the table and placing his hand on hers, the gesture grandfatherly and not at all a pass.
She decided to turn it into a joke anyhow. “Why, Ed? You looking for a girlfriend?”
Mirth filled his eyes and the boom of his laughter carried, she imagined, out into the hall. “Oh, no! Don’t you dare even imply it,” he said, laughing, his hands slapping the table. “I have a girlfriend, honey. I’m taken.”
“Bummer!” she said, snapping her fingers in a gesture of frustration.
Ed just shook his head, those brown eyes filled with a kind of wisdom and focus that she didn’t get to see very often in her patients. “My girlfriend and me, we’ve been together for two years, and Josie, honey, if she thought you were making a pass at me she’d come in here and rip your head off.”
“Really?” Josie answered, slapping her palm against her chest. “You got yourself a sweet young thing who could beat me up?”
“I got myself a sweet old thing who’s been around the block a few times and could take a whippersnapper like you down like snapping a twig.”
Josie stood and Ed picked up on the body language, standing as well, understanding that the session was done. It was a small test, but one that she used for almost every appointment, along with a few other nonverbal social cues to see how aware her patients were. Ed was doing well—not as well as she had hoped, but reasonably well for a man his age and with his level of Alzheimer’s advancement.
Her sense of empathy broadened, blossoming, carrying out to cover Alex. She didn’t know which of Ed’s daughters was Alex’s mother, but all had come in here at various times with their dad, loving and supportive. The worst patients were the ones who were dumped off, left alone, the caretaker absent. Just a body in the driver’s seat of the car waiting. Patient outcome or disease progression for those people wasn’t nearly as positive as for those who had a strong family support network.
Ed would do fine compared to some of her other patients, but the whole family had a long road ahead of them. Thinking about this was depressing her, all of it floating through her mind in seconds, as she took Ed down to the prize closet.
Most patients loved the prize closet, especially those who’d grown up poor or who were currently poor. Even if they hadn’t, or weren’t, the prize closet seemed to be a nice little place where folks could indulge. She opened the slim door and there, before them, were three shelves. On the first shelf was a smattering of gift cards to local restaurants. The most popular had surprised her—a local coffee shop, not a chain, and after the fifth or sixth person in a row chose to take the $25 gift card as a “thank you” for the monthly meeting, she asked why.
“Every morning, before 9 a.m.,” one of her patients explained, “seniors can get a dollar coffee. This will give me coffee for most of the month, and it’s a real nice place. You get to sit there and just chat with people.”
The next time the administrator went to order gifts for the prize closet, Josie had made a point to let them know about patient feedback and she found herself gently steering some of her older, lonelier patients to pick that, imagining a group of them sitting in this local coffee shop, sharing a cup of joe in the morning, finding the companionship they needed.
That could be you, she thought, the voice invasive and melancholy.
Pushing that thought aside, she returned her attention to the closet. The second row was covered with books. Large-print books leaning more towards Nora Roberts and Tom Clancy than anything else, though some of the women delighted in the romance novels, clutching them to their chests and covering the book cover as if it were a clandestine gift.
The men tended to go for the third shelf, which had mostly sporting goods: golf balls, tennis balls, swim goggles, and kites—things designed to be played with a grandchild or to be enjoyed by the more active seniors.
Ed’s hand went straight for the gift-card shelf and then stopped.
“Have you been to the coffee house?” she asked.
His hand was suspended in midair, shaking just a little. He didn’t have an official diagnosis of Parkinson’s, so she knew it was just the slightest of tremors that come with age. He put his hand back down, pursed his lips, and gave her a disapproving look. “If I’m going to get coffee I’m not going to get it there.”
“Why not?” She had been thinking about gently suggesting that he take that to get out more, and enjoy conversation.
“I can get all of the coffee I want whenever I want. My girlfriend works at a restaurant,” he said, nudging her in the ribs.
“Oh. That’s a nice perk.”
“No, honey, the sex is a nice perk. The coffee is just an extra.”
If she’d been drinking something she would have done a classic spit take. Instead, she just choked, Ed grinning madly at her. “Okay, that’s a little too much information, Ed, but uh… thank you for sharing.”
“My pleasure,” he said. “No pun intended.”
“Okay, Ed, so let’s stick to umm… finding your gift,” she stammered, trying to extract herself from a very uncomfortable conversation. “How about this one?” She pointed to a card for an ice cream shop.
He snatched it up. “Oh, I love Christina’s. Absolutely. I can take my girlfriend there for a cone.”
They walked back out to the waiting room, where Alex jumped up as if burned by their presence. “Josie,” he said.
“Alex,” she said, mocking him.
His mouth flatlined into an embarrassed frown. “How are things going?”
“We were just talking about our sex lives,” Ed answered.
A couple of people sitting in the waiting room tittered.
“Really?” Alex’s eyebrows shot up.
“Yes. Why don’t you share, Alex? There’s that new woman that you kissed recently. You were telling me all about her in the car ride over here.”
Alex froze.
Josie turned slowly and looked at him, imitating what he’d just said a few moments ago, her own eyebrows shooting up to her hairline. “Really?”
“Grandpa, I think you’re remembering that wrong,” Alex said slowly, slipping his hand around the old man’s shoulders. “Why don’t we just get going now? It’s time for—”
Ed interrupted him. “Josie, you done working yet?”
She reflexively looked at her wrist, checking the watch she hadn’t worn for years. “Actually, I can take a break for an hour, or so…an early lunch. You offering, Ed?”
“I don’t know, Josie, I’ve got a girlfriend. I can’t really take you up on…asking me out.” He waved his hand at her, as if saying “pshaw.” “No, I’m just asking”—he glanced pointedly at Alex, and then at her—“if you’d like to go out for coffee and a bite to eat. There’s a sweet thing I really adore over at Jeddy’s.”
Jeddy’s. God, she couldn’t get away from that place, could she? How did a hole-in-the wall diner like Jeddy’s suddenly become the center of her social life? Alex had a look on his face like he was struggling to remain neutral, to seem as if he didn’t care whether she said yes or no. The intensity of his eyes gave away what he was really feeling.
Ed’s expectant look, so friendly and simple, was what broke her. Awkwardness be damned; she wasn’t going to disappoint a very nice old man, who had just failed every part of the test that indicated any sort of halt in his disintegration through Alzheimer’s. A pang of sadness shot through her—for Ed, for Alex, for his entire family—as she began to suspect that Ed was either on a rapid decline or, more likely, might be in the control group and not in the group that was receiving the experimental medicine.
“Sure, Ed,” she said, reaching out to touch him tenderly on the shoulder, gazing firmly into his eyes, so he had her full attention. “I would love to enjoy a nice, sweet thing at Jeddy’s.”
They took two different cars, despite Ed’s not-so-subtle attempt at getting her into Alex’s old Honda, the kind of car you expected a six-figure-in-debt medical resident to be driving. Her own car was on par, a twelve-year-old Toyota Tercel that she held together with duct tape, gum, and a lot of atheistic praying.
Jeddy’s was just a few miles away, and she scored an awesome parking spot, which made this ridiculous bit of Kabuki theater almost worth it. Finding a good parking spot was a form of sport in Cambridge and Boston, and she wanted a ribbon for getting one directly in front of the restaurant. A pang of guilt hit her as she watched Alex circling the block repeatedly, finally letting Ed out at the entrance to Jeddy’s and then driving off, leaving her alone with the old man.
His warm, confident brown eyes were a bit clouded now, filled with a tentative fear, a look she had come to know all too well, professionally. He was confused, and in his confusion he reverted to the past. “Meribeth? Meribeth, what are we doing here?” he asked.
She remembered that one of his daughters was Meribeth. She wasn’t sure whether it was Alex’s mom or not, but right now it didn’t matter. A split-second decision made her choose to ground him as much as possible in the truth, reserving the right to shift if needed.
“Ed.” She touched him again, making that connection, smiling, exuding as much warmth and familiarity as possible. “Ed, you just came from the medical building where you go every month with Alex. Remember, you came to my office and I asked you some questions? I’m Josie, Josie Mendham.” Maintaining eye contact, and speaking as simply as possible without condescension should do the trick. The fear dissipated, as if her words had marshaled an army that fought it back. Victory, she thought.
“Josie! Of course, I know you! How’s my gal?” he said. This was a technique that some of the sharper patients used. He was covering, and she knew it. He didn’t realize it…or did he?
She took a chance. “Ed, you don’t have to pretend you know me, I want you to really know me. I’m the girl Alex…kissed.”
His eyes shifted instantly, as if someone snapped their fingers, into complete focus. The man whiplashed back into himself, completely in the present. “Hot damn, I knew it! I knew you and Alex were a thing!”
“We’re a what?” a deep voice said from behind her.
She closed her eyes and pressed her lips together in agony. This was not how helping Ed to ground himself was supposed to work. “Alex, you’re here!” she said, acknowledging him because it would have been far worse had she shown her humiliation or acknowledged what Ed had just said. Looping her right arm through Ed’s left, she marched him toward the entrance of Jeddy’s, sidestepping, for now, Alex’s expected question about why on earth Ed would have any idea that he and Josie were a thing.
The entrance to Jeddy’s seemed bare without the warlock waitress who wore the pair of balls, but since it had been auctioned off at some autism event, it was probably now sitting in some millionaire’s garage, gathering dust. At least the poor warlock waitress got a chance to retire. Madge, on the other hand, didn’t. She marched right up to the group and then, to Josie’s utter amazement, reached out for Alex, stood on tiptoes, and planted a loud smackeroo on his cheek. The kiss, intimate and friendly, and the kind a grandmother gives her grandson.
“You two know each other?” Josie asked, incredulous.
Ed walked over to Madge and slipped a sly arm around her waist, goosing her hip and laughing when Madge playfully slapped his hand. “You’re the threesome girl, aren’t you?” Madge said, pointing at Josie, narrowing her eyes.
Josie turned into a beet on the spot. A bright red, flaming beet. “What? No, I…what do you…?”
Alex and Ed looked at her with eyebrows practically up to the ceiling. “Threesome girl?” Alex asked, with a half-smile on his face.
“It’s not what you…No, that’s not what I…oh…” she stammered, completely flummoxed by Madge’s comment.
“Yeah, she comes in here all the time,” Madge said, “with this incredibly big, pregnant blonde, and the blonde is pregnant by one of two guys, but not in that Maury Povich kind of way, more in a…Mormon sister wives kind of way, except sister husbands, no…brother husbands.” Madge waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “Bah…now she’s got me stammering trying to explain it. It’s all…this quirky thing involving Thor and his little…model boyfriend.”
“Mike and Dylan,” Alex said.
Madge snapped her neck back in surprise. “You know them?”
“Yeah, I was just at Laura’s birth.”
“You delivered the baby?” Ed asked.
“No, but I assisted in the case.”
“Maybe you’ll get a fighting chance at some of those coconut shrimp now that she shat out the football,” Madge laughed to Josie, a conspirator’s smile on her face.
As the four of them stood there, ignoring the growing line behind them, Josie realized that suddenly she was something different to Madge. “How do you all…?” She cut off her own question. “Madge is the sweet thing that you like at Jeddy’s, isn’t she, Ed?”
His smile stretched so wide across his face, she thought it might meet at the base of his neck in the back. “Yes, ma’am, me and Madge have been together for a good long time, and she’s my sweet thing.”
“I thought you meant you had a favorite dessert here.”
“I do,” he said, with a lecherous smile.
Alex just shook his head and pretended not to be there.
Josie cackled. “We’re quickly getting into ‘too much information’ territory here, Ed.”
“When you’re my age, you take whatever information you can get,” he said.
“All right, all right.” Madge batted his hand away. “I need to get you guys seated. Come on.” She grabbed three menus, and Ed followed her, giving her a quick goose on the ass, making her giggle. The idea that Madge was capable of giggling threw Josie for a loop. As Madge showed them to their booth, Josie made it a point to sit across from the two men, claiming her space and needing to get as much distance as possible from both of them, to preserve whatever shred of dignity remained.
The first words out of Alex’s mouth, as he sat across from her and locked eyes, were exactly what she expected. “Threesome. Care to explain?”
“You know what she meant,” Josie retorted.
“No, I don’t,” Alex said skeptically. A smile struggled to stay inside as he grilled her, leaning forward, invading her space as much as possible in an effort to unsettle her. She knew it, and he knew it, and damn if he wasn’t succeeding.
“She called me ‘threesome girl’ because I came in here with the threesome, not because I’m part of a threesome.” She looked down at the menu, knowing exactly what she was going to order, but needing to break eye contact. “I don’t seem to be part of anything these days.”
He frowned, genuine concern pouring into his features. His eyes warm again as he let go of the guardedness. It made her want to let go as well and talk to him openly, rather than play this stupid game that she knew was one-sided, all on her, trying to shut him out.
“You can be part of whatever you want to be part of,” he stressed. His fingers started to tap the tabletop, and she knew that he was purposefully engaging his hands so that he didn’t reach across and try to take hers. The gesture was touching.
That day in the elevator, their heated embrace while Laura was in labor, he had said to her something about games being what people who don’t know what they want engage in. Damn, if he wasn’t right. Playing this game was a reflection of her own internal turmoil, and she really didn’t know what she wanted.
That was the problem. The longer she sat across from him, though, the more she wanted him. He was the real deal. Diving in with Alex would be a mature relationship, one that she knew involved giving it all. This wouldn’t be a 50/50 or a 20/20, which was what she was more accustomed to. This would be a full on, 100% involvement, with each person giving their all. He’d mentioned having a family, and children, and she knew that she couldn’t offer that. That’s what had kept her away, the worry that he really was the whole package and that she just wasn’t.
“Coconut shrimp and fried green tomatoes for you,” Madge said to Josie without looking at her as she scribbled something in that little electronic device of hers. “Coconut cream pie and a cup of coffee for Ed…and Alex, I still haven’t quite figured out what it is that you want.”
“I know exactly what I want, Madge,” he said, his eyes boring into Josie. “Unfortunately, it’s not on the menu.”
“I’m changing my order, Madge,” Josie said flatly. “Give me whatever Ed’s having.”
“Don’t you want the same thing Alex wants?” Madge said, those smoker’s lips pursed like the puckered butthole of a cat.
That’s the problem! her heart cried out, but her mouth, thankfully, didn’t open and say those words. Josie chose this moment to ignore everyone, her wishes already stated, and took the coward’s way out, standing and slipping past Madge to go and use the ladies’ room.
*
Alex worried that maybe this had all been a mistake. Surprising Josie at work and bringing Ed in today had seemed like such a good idea at the time. Now, sitting across from her at the table filled him with so many conflicting emotions, he hardly knew which to act on. Teasing her about the threesome seemed to be a gentle ribbing that she could tolerate, but her speedy exit told him that he had crossed a line.
Grandpa seemed happy to be in a familiar place with his girlfriend nearby; her fast, sure motions around the rundown restaurant were reassuring, even to Alex. He liked Madge, they all did. She was a crotchety old curmudgeon, but she dearly loved Ed, and Alex, his mom, and his aunts were grateful for her stable, stalwart presence as Ed was in decline.
Alex reached out and tapped Madge on the elbow in one of her many trips past the table. She halted, like something out of a Road Runner cartoon, coming to a screeching halt and turning to him with a look of surprise.
“Yes, Alex?”
“Do you really know Josie?”
“She’s been coming in here for a while.”
“Hasn’t half of Boston?” he asked.
“She’s been coming in here for the better part of a year. It started with the blonde, the pregnant one, and shortly after that, the two guys came in. They’re the ones who made the warlock waitress, you know, back in the day.”
“No way, Mike and Dylan were responsible for that?” he said in disbelief.
“They are indeed.” She nodded somberly. “One of them stole the cardboard cutout from some video store and they came in here with their old girlfriend and they finagled a waitress’s uniform out of me, and I don’t even remember who the hell put the balls on there.”
This was probably one of the longer conversations he’d ever had with Madge, who was already tapping her toe to get back into the kitchen and handle orders. She looked at the table in horror. “I completely forgot about your drinks!” she muttered under her breath.
Ed tapped her on the knee and said, “Don’t worry about it, honey, we’re good tippers, no matter what.” The look of happiness on her face peeled back three decades—not enough to see the young girl she must have been at one time, but enough to see how much Ed’s presence lightened her heart.
He wanted to put that kind of joy on Josie’s face, just with his mere presence. The time they’d spent together a few weeks ago, everything from the birth of baby Jillian, to asking her to go on a walk, to their first time together at her place, it all had seemed seamless and ecstatic, electric and charged, with a strange combination of the new and the familiar. Call it fate, or kismet, or luck…whatever you called it, it had rolled out as if it were meant to be. Was the aberration Josie’s cooling off, or was the aberration the connection that he had felt?
Coming to Ed’s appointment, facing her head on, pushing her just a little to come to Jeddy’s, to sit with him and Ed, had seemed like it was a way to crack the door open, to get his foot in there and wiggle it enough for her to accept him as an audience. To ask questions, to be heard, and maybe, just maybe, to go back to the slow unfurling of what had seemed like a linear development of a relationship.
She came back from the ladies’ room with a chip prominently displayed on both shoulders. Her body edged into the booth with a nonverbal defensiveness that almost made him laugh at its rigidity. Somehow he had done this, and somehow he would undo this.
“Toffee mint cannoli?” he asked as she scooted into the booth.
“Excuse me?”
“Madge said they’re experimenting with some new desserts.”
Josie groaned. “I don’t think I can handle more.”
“What about coffee?” Madge barked, appearing suddenly with a carafe.
“Always room for coffee,” Josie backpedaled.
Alex stopped Madge. “Not now. Thanks. We’ll get a latte somewhere else.”
“Latte,” Madge huffed. “Well, excuuuuuuuse me for offering plain old brewed pig shit,” she said, storming off.
Josie choked on her water. “She’s always like that, isn’t she?”
“Can you imagine being related to her?”
“Yes,” Ed announced.
Josie raised her eyebrows and just looked at Alex, who humored Ed.
“Grandpa?”
“I want to marry her.”
“You go for it, Ed,” Josie said, cheering him on.
Alex gave her a death stare. They’d been over this with his grandpa plenty of times. If he married Madge, it would affect his housing subsidy and maybe future nursing home prospects. Madge was a nice woman, if a bit gruff with everyone but Ed, and she seemed firmly rooted in reality. The gesture was sweet, and he knew his grandpa did it out of a sense of love, but it was complicated.
“We can talk about it later, Grandpa,” Alex said, motioning to Madge to come to the table, pulling out his wallet.
“You think you’re getting a check, Alex? Oh, please,” Madge said, patting his cheek kindly.
“I’ll pay the tip in bed,” Ed added.
“Oh, God,” Alex mumbled, standing quickly, desperate to get out of there. Josie snickered. Alex guessed she had no idea how badly Ed’s filter had worn away this year. Then again, maybe she had. As much as it horrified him, Alex—or his mom, or aunts—should ask her whether Ed had been coming on to her. Fortunately, he always took “no” for an answer, and most of the young women he propositioned found it amusing, rather than threatening or creepy. But still…
And when he wasn’t hitting on younger women, he openly discussed his sex life with Madge. Alex really, really didn’t need another frank discussion about the kind of nipple clamps Madge liked.
Really.
“Josie, you ever heard of something called ‘pegging’?” Ed asked as they walked toward the exit.
Madge had the decency to wince. “Ed, we don’t talk about that,” she whispered.
Hurrying his grandpa toward the door, Alex caught Josie biting her lips, clearly enjoying watching him squirm.
“I read Dan Savage’s column, Ed, so yes,” she replied as they walked outside, Alex’s eyes taking a minute to adjust in the bright sunshine.
Ed nudged Alex. “Lucky young man.”
And then Josie turned away, tears in her eyes from cry-laughing. Alex wanted to join her but he was too busy turning into a mortified puddle of flesh as his grandfather openly discussed pegging with the woman who had blown him off for the past week. The woman he’d chased down this morning, using his grandpa as desperate leverage.
Who was now talking about assfucking with a strap-on dildo.
So this was what his life had come to?
“I’ll see you next month, Ed,” she said, starting to walk off. “Bye, Alex,” she added, like he was an afterthought. Headed toward her car, her back to them as she walked quickly, shoulders shaking from laughter, Josie faded out, and Alex felt a keen sense that somehow—at some unknown point—he’d just blown everything.
“Wait!” he shouted.
She halted.
“What about the latte?”
She froze, then turned slowly. “I’m too full.”
“Too full for coffee?” The struggle to keep a begging tone out of his voice wasn’t working, damn it. “Really?” he added in an incredulous tone, trying to sound jocular and not quite so needy.
Even Josie had to acknowledge her caffeine addiction. She took a deep breath and said, “Barrington Roasters on Congress. Tomorrow morning?” Her words leaked out like helium through a pinhole in a balloon, as if she were reluctant to let them go.
“When?”
“Seven?” He could do that. He would do that, even if he had to get coverage for two hours to make it.
“It’s a date!” he shouted as she walked away.
“It’s coffee!” she retorted.
Date. Coffee. Whatever.
It was a plan.
*
The head of the research trial that Josie worked on was a lab rat, what they called a Mud-fud: an MD and a Ph.D. For him, practicing medicine was about studying human microbiology—not about touching human beings. Which was probably better for everyone all around given Gian Rossini’s appearance…and mannerisms…and general tone.
He was more interested in glutamate receptors and how they functioned neurologically than in watching the love fade from the eyes of an Alzheimer’s patient who could no longer recognize her husband of fifty-three years.
He was short, though like everyone, taller than Josie, about five-five. Squat, but not fat, more that barrel chested look of an Italian man who played a lot of soccer and ate his share of cannoli. Gian lived at home with his mother on Boston’s North End, the Little Italy section of the city; she knew this only because he talked about his mother nonstop, adoring her and taking her to mass four nights a week and Sunday mornings.
He was in his early fifties, a bit of a recluse, and seemed quite content with his life. He had always puzzled her because she wondered how he could be happy the way he was…and yet, he was.
The problem with Gian had absolutely nothing to do with any of the issues that she’d just been thinking about. She had watched enough patients go through the trial now to notice a distinct difference. She had no way of knowing who was in the control group and who was receiving the new medication.
That was what a double blind study was. No one was supposed to know, and therefore the outcome of the trial could not be compromised. Josie was careful and ethical—and always would be—but that didn’t mean that her very human instincts couldn’t collect their own data, honed through careful observation skills.
Patients who had come in at roughly the same functional level were different. Some, like Ed, were definitely in decline, while others seemed to stand still—and when it came to Alzheimer’s you begged whatever deity you believed in, for the patient to stand still. Some patients had deteriorated even worse than Ed had, losing a temporal sense. Lost in 1938, 1957, 1985, a few mistook grandchildren for children and one had taken to stripping naked every day and doing her gardening in the nude.
Their children, their grandchildren, their spouses, and girlfriends, and boyfriends, pulled Josie and the other nurse on the trial aside to talk about the real issues—not the twenty-to thirty-minute test that they gave every month, but daily life functioning. All she could do was refer them to support groups in the area. But as each week passed her teeth began to clench just a little more, her jaw aching, her occipital lobe tight and straining at her scalp muscles, causing tension headaches as she watched the growing disparity between about half of her patients and the other half, fading faster.
So she approached Gian with a sense of dread, not because she thought that what she was about to say was futile but because she knew how he felt. Well, actually “felt” was inaccurate—Gian didn’t feel anything about science. He deduced, he hypothesized, he analyzed, he collected. Feeling? That wasn’t Gian’s style.
Lining up her facts, her observations, her data, and tying it all into an FDA regulation was her only chance of helping Ed.
The problem was that he was more stubborn than she was. It had to be a hand of fate reaching down into her life and choking her, to make her boss as obstinate—no, rather more obstinate than she was. Once he got an idea in his head, especially one that was credible and backed up with facts and figures and data, there was little chance of changing his mind.
Gian’s office was very much like hers, an eight-by-eight cell with fluorescent lights, a small counter, a desk, a chair or two, and reams and reams of unfiled paper. Most of what they did was crunched by the computer these days. Actual paperwork was typically stupid administrative crap from inside the research facility, regulatory nonsense that no one should have had to fill out.
“Hey, Gian?”
“What’s up, Josie?” He pinched the bridge of his nose and smiled, a wan, weak attempt at friendliness.
“I just finished with some interviews and I’m noticing a pattern.”
His face clamped down, as if an iron gate had been slammed shut. “A pattern? We don’t like patterns in double blinds.”
She had to tread carefully. “We do if they’re positive.”
He snorted. “How often does that happen?”
He had a point.
“There are some patients who are showing marked decline. Others are maintaining remarkably. It’s pretty unmistakeable, and I—”
“You know how to report it.” Gian could shut a person down faster than a prostitute who learns her trick is flat broke.
“I did report it. Last month. This month I’m seeing it too, especially with one patient.”
“A sample size of one is not ‘data.’”
“No, it’s not. It’s a human being.” They’d been through this argument a thousand times before. Time to hit him with #1001.
He sighed. “I’ll look into it.”
“Thanks. If we have to break the trial—”
He reached for a Costco-sized jar of antacids. “Don’t do this to me, Josie.”
“I’m not doing it, Gian. The data is doing it.” Walk away and keep your mouth shut. Point made, Josie. This might be the first of many difficult conversations that could lead to improvement for Ed and some other patients, so she needed to take it slow. Be diplomatic. Careful. Constrained.
Maybe she needed to buy her own jar of antacids bigger than her head. She might need it to make it through this maze.
Following that inner voice, she stepped away, holding her breath. She’d pass out, though, before he’d make any changes.
Easy part over, she went back to her desk and worried a koosh ball to death with her left hand, sucking down her fourth coffee of the day. Was it worth calling Laura? Three sets of messages and texts had gone unanswered. This was getting ridiculous. She was ready to hop in the car and drive out to Mike’s cabin, if for no other reason than to make sure her best friend was still alive and not being devoured by her cats.
Then again, Laura had Dylan, Mike, and the baby. If Josie needed to worry about anyone dying alone and becoming cat food, it was herself. Even Crackhead would come out of hiding for a piece of Josie’s thigh.
Ever the optimist (not really), she grabbed her phone and punched Laura’s number.
Miracle of miracles, her friend answered. “Hello?”
“It’s aliiiiiiiiiiiiiive!”
The baby screamed right into the phone.
“I didn’t need that kind of proof!” Josie said, her ear ringing. She held the phone a few inches from her head. “Laura? You there?”
“Yeah. Colic. Jillian’s been a horrible mess for days.” A pang of guilt shot through Josie. Whoops. That explained the silence.
“I’m just glad to reach you,” Josie admitted. “I’m sorry you’re having a tough time with the baby.”
Burp! A belch worthy of a trucker came through the phone. “Oh, thank God,” Laura exclaimed.
“Was that you or the baby?”
“Ha ha. Now she’s happy and on my shoulder. Whew.”
“You measure your life in burps?”
“Yes. And milk letdown and naps and puke-covered shoulders and what color comes out of me today as the bleeding fades.” Three weeks post-birth and she still bled? Josie made a pained face but said nothing.
“Nothing but glamor for you and your two billionaires.”
Laura snorted. “I see nothing’s changed with you, Josie. Or has it? How’s Dr. Perfect?”
“Doctor who?”
“No. That’s a television series.”
Silence.
“Oh no,” Laura groaned. “What have you done now?”
“I—”
“He was perfect for you!”
“Well…”
“You slept with him and then blew him off, didn’t you? You always do this, Josie. Why?”
“I didn’t call for a lecture.”
“Too bad.”
A rainbow-haired troll stared at Josie from across her crowded desk, its demented grin making it look like it was sneering at her stupidity. “You weren’t exactly around to talk to about it, Laura.”
“Don’t use me as an excuse!” Laura huffed.
“Okay. Fine. I pulled away. He wanted me to meet his mother.”
“Oh.” Laura’s anger drained fast, the syllable more contrite. That was more like it. “I see.”
And this was why she missed Laura so much. Because Laura got it. Instantly. She didn’t have to explain herself in depth, or fumble for the right words, or try to go down some analytical path to get to a conclusion. Shorthand between best friends was such a damn relief.
“Yeah.”
“What’s his mom like?”
“She’s a clinical psychologist.”
A sputtering sound came through the phone, like a spit take. Then laughter. “Oh, Josie, you’ve got to admit that’s some awesome karma.”
“I know, right? Can you imagine the moms meeting? Marlene could show her how to get a guy to buy her a top-shelf martini without having to give him a blowjob, and Alex’s mom could use the DSM-V and a necklace of garlic to keep my mom at bay.”
A sigh came through the phone. “But you know that’s not a good enough reason to throw away what could be the best relationship of your life.”
Yes, it is, she thought. “Yes, it is,” she blurted out.
“When are you going to separate yourself from your mom?”
Slap. “WHAT?”
“You are not your mother.” Laura said the words slowly, with a resigned tone. “She treated you horribly after the accident. She lives with brain damage and has no real conscience. You were her scapegoat for years. That doesn’t mean you get to hide behind all that and use it to keep yourself from real love, Josie.”
“I’m not!”
“Yes, you are.”
“But…no…it’s that Alex just—” Damn. Laura was right.
“Do you like him?”
“Yes.”
“The sex is good?”
Josie made an unintelligible sound of groaning delight.
“Is he kind and respectful?”
“Yes.”
“Does he make you laugh?” Josie could hear the smile in Laura’s voice as the trap began to work. She was caught.
Sigh. “Yes.”
“Has he pursued you even as you try to blow him off?”
“How did you know?”
“I didn’t. But now I like him even more.”
“His grandfather is one of my Alzheimer’s trial patients.”
“No way! So did he know you when he saw you at the hospital at the birth?” Josie felt like someone had hit her between the eyes with a cannonball. Wait—what? Had Alex known who she was before?
“I never asked him that question,” she answered slowly. A dawning insight opened up before her. Alex had brought Ed to his appointment and had known damn well who Josie was—must have known, in fact—the day she brought Laura to the hospital for Jillian’s birth.
What did that mean?
“Maybe your hooking up wasn’t a simple coincidence.”
“I highly doubt he triggered your labor from afar, Laura,” Josie replied dryly.
Laura laughed. “No, not that. Just…maybe you two clicked because Alex already knew who you were and was interested.”
This was why she missed Laura so much. Putting all this together was beyond her ability these days. Laura’s perspective gave her a better grasp of the messy pieces of her emotional chaos.
“I’m meeting him for coffee in the morning, so I’ll ask him then.”
“You’re giving him a break?”
“I’m letting him buy me a latte.”
Laura snorted. “You let me buy you lattes and you don’t sleep with me.”
“You have more than enough bed partners, Laura.”
“Tell me about it. You try fitting four people in a bed.”
“Four? You have a new guy?”
The two laughed, Josie relaxing for the first time in weeks. It felt so good to talk and reconnect. And then—
Waaaa! “Baby’s up. Gotta go,” Laura said over the wailing. “Let’s talk soon!”
“Okay. I’ll—”
Click.
She worried the troll doll’s hair into Pippi Longstocking braids. So Alex may have remembered her from Ed’s appointments.
Hmmmm. Coffee tomorrow morning was suddenly more interesting.