The old woman is like a parasite, clinging to my brain no matter what else I try to think about. As I deliver a group of five people to a hotel—five people who’ve squeezed in even though I tried to tell them to take the van behind me—I check my watch. Two hours since Callie’s appointment. She hasn’t called me to come get her.
Is she okay?
Disgusted with myself for worrying about her, I turn and head back to the hospital. I pull up in the drive-through area and leave my car running again while I retrace my steps to the waiting area and look around for the old woman.
There she sits, exactly where I left her. Her chin has dropped to her chest, and she’s sound asleep. “You gotta be kidding me.” I storm toward the disinterested receptionist and step in front of the person she’s disinterested in now.
“Excuse me. Has Callie Beecher seen the doctor yet?”
She looks just past me. “Sir, please get in line.”
“No,” I say, almost yelling. “Come on, just look. She’s a hundred and fifty years old and she’s been sitting there for two hours. Did Callie Beecher see the doctor or not?”
Too bored for words, the woman types Callie’s name into the computer. Her lids lower, and she looks back at me. “It says she wasn’t here when they called her.”
“What do you mean she wasn’t here? Since two o’clock she’s been right there where I parked her! I told you they had to go to her, that she might be asleep or hard of hearing.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but it’s not our job to—”
“To what? Take care of sick people?”
She purses her lips and shoots me a piercing look.
“So you’re telling me that she hasn’t seen him? Then take her back now. I’ll wait.”
“It doesn’t work that way, sir. I’m helping this gentleman right now. Please get in line.”
I slap both hands on the counter. “Take her back now, or I’m going to make the rest of your day a living nightmare!”
The woman rises to her feet as someone else—a manager?—comes around the wall. “What’s going on here?”
The receptionist turns away from me and whispers something to the manager, and they both look back at me like I’m a security risk. “Okay,” the manager says to me. “Bring her on in.”
“Oh no,” I say quickly. “I’m not bringing her in. I’m not a family member. I don’t want to see the doctor with her. I’m just her ride.” I point to her. “You have to go over there and get her. She can’t be the first old person in a wheelchair who’s ever come here. What are you people?”
The manager looks frazzled and goes toward Callie, roughly slaps her footrests up, and unlocks the chair. The nurse with the thighs comes to the door to call someone else, but the manager shoves Callie toward her. Callie’s head bobs.
“She needs to see Dr. Patrick right away,” the manager tells the nurse. “Otherwise this gentleman here who isn’t a family member and won’t lift a finger is going to pitch a holy fit, and we’ll have to call security.”
“I’m the cab driver,” I grit out.
Callie comes awake as the nurse rolls her through the door, and I hear her saying, “Where are my manners?”
Blowing out an irritated breath, I drop into a chair and pick up a women’s magazine that lies on the seat next to me. I flip to the back where they usually keep recipes. I pause at a picture of beef bourguignon and read over the ingredients. Red onions? Who puts red onions in beef bourguignon? Everyone knows you make it with pearl onions.
Amateurs.
I flip through the other recipes and conclude that no one on the magazine staff has tested any of these dishes, otherwise they’d know better.
My culinary teacher would have gotten a good laugh out of this.
I fling the magazine into a chair a couple of seats away and cross my arms. My leg jitters as thoughts flit through my mind about what a fool I was to come back here and sign up for this. I could have just waited and let her genius family—wherever they are—look for her and realize that sending her to the doctor on her own was a bad idea. It’s not my job to watch over her.
There’s a TV on in the upper corner of the room and I try to watch it, but it’s a soap opera, and anyway the sound is off. I think of asking if they can change the channel to a sports network and crank up the sound a little, but the receptionist still glares at me every time our eyes meet.
Incompetent.
Callie probably won’t be back here for a while, so I go to move my still-running cab to a parking space. While I’m in the car, I radio LuAnn. “Listen, this two-hundred-year-old woman you sent me to drive this morning? I’m having to wait for her at the hospital because she isn’t in her right mind and probably can’t call me to save her life.”
“But I was about to give you another fare.”
“Can’t do it. It’s a long story. Listen, did she call this in herself, or did someone else book the cab?”
“I think somebody else did. A woman, I think.”
“Did she leave her name or phone number?”
“No. Why?”
“I’m just thinking she needs to understand that this lady can’t do this alone. I don’t know what anyone is thinking to send her off with a cab driver when she can’t hold a thought for more than two seconds.”
“Sounds bad. You’re a good man, Finn.”
“Shut up,” I say and click off the phone. Sometimes I hate LuAnn.
I lock my cab and go back in. She still hasn’t reemerged. I sit down, shaking my head at my own stupidity in waiting for her. I’m losing money by the minute.
Rubbing my jaw, I mentally add the amount in my head. I need that money, since it’s almost the end of the month. It isn’t likely she’s a tipper. I’ll be lucky if she pays me at all, and what am I going to do about that? Wrestle her purse out of her arthritic grip and pull out her wallet?
Yeah, that isn’t going to happen.
The door to the examining room opens, and I see Callie being wheeled out by a more pleasant-looking nurse whose thighs haven’t been maligned. But there could be other slights I don’t know about, because Callie is chatting her up.
I step toward her.
“Sir, the doctor would like to speak to you, if you could come back.”
“No, no way. I’m not her son. I’m her cab driver.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Well, the doctor needs to speak to her family. And she has a prescription that was called into Walgreens.”
I groan. “Walgreens?”
“Yes. The one closest to her address. She needs it. Can you get it for her?”
My temples are so tight I can feel my veins protruding. “I guess so.”
Callie says a heartfelt good-bye to the woman, then looks up at me as I push her out the door. “I’m Finn, the cab driver,” I say before she can ask me. “How are you, ma’am?”
“Have I eaten today?” she asks. “My stomach feels a little queasy.”
Wonderful. Now I’ll have to feed her.
I get her into the cab and hit the drive-through lane at Walgreens. Thankfully, there isn’t much of a wait. There’s no charge for the meds, which must mean her insurance covers it. At least I don’t have to put that on her tab. I keep the meter running, but something tells me it won’t matter. It isn’t like I’m going to be paid.
When we have the prescription—which is covered by her insurance—I reach over the back seat to hand her the bag, but she’s nodded off again. I raise up, lean over the seat, and stuff it into her purse without looking at it. The medication is none of my business.
I drive Callie back to her house and wake her gently, then get her into her wheelchair. She manages to dig out her keys, so I wheel her to the door. As we go in, she looks around like she doesn’t recognize the place.
“Ma’am, can I get you anything before I leave?” I ask.
She looks up at me. “No, thank you.”
“I could . . . I’ll get you something to eat.”
“No, that’s all right,” she says.
“You have to eat. You were there for hours and it’s dinnertime, and I don’t know if you had lunch.”
“You’re a sweet boy,” she says.
A knot forms in my throat as I go into her kitchen and look in the refrigerator. Someone has stocked it with a few dishes of Tupperware. I pull out one and open it, take a whiff. It’s a casserole, and it actually smells recent. I spoon it into a bowl and nuke it.
I set the table, then go get her and roll her chair up to it. She has a pleasant look on her face as I do, as though she enjoys being pampered, even if she doesn’t have a clue who’s doing it. For all she knows I’m an ax murderer warming up her food before I decapitate her. I get the food out and check to see if it’s too hot.
“Do you know who made this?” I ask as I put it in front of her.
“Made what?”
“The casserole. That you’re eating.”
“It’s very tasty,” she says. “Thank you so much.”
Sighing, I go to the TV and turn it on so she can see it. It’s already turned up to bullhorn level.
“Okay, I’ll be going now. If you’d like me to get you your purse, you could just . . . pay me.”
She looks confused. “Pay you?”
“I’m the cab driver,” I repeat for the five thousandth time.
“Of course. Yes. How much do I owe you?”
“Forty-three dollars,” I say weakly. “That includes the trip to the drugstore.”
She’s looking around, so I get her purse and hand it to her. She digs out her checkbook and a pen. She’s going to write me a check? I want to tell her I don’t take checks, but it doesn’t seem worth it. I’ll just take it and get out of here.
As she hands me the check, I point out the bag I’ve stuffed into her purse. “Don’t forget your medication.”
“My what?”
I sigh again and snatch the paper sack out of her purse, pull the bottle out. “It says to take it three times a day with food.” I open it and shake one into my hand, get her some water in a glass, and hand it to her. “Take this.”
She does as she’s told.
“Okay, I’ve got to go now.” I jot a note onto a Post-it pad beside her wall phone, telling whoever cares for her to call the doctor. I add that she’s had one dose of medication. I leave a business card next to it. “Miss Callie, if your family wants to talk to me, they can call me at this number. There is family, isn’t there?”
“Of course,” she says, beaming.
“Okay, I’m putting it right here.” I point to the counter. “Are you going to be okay now?”
“Yes, thank you,” she says. “You’re such a charming young man.”
I almost laugh, but I don’t want to get pulled into banter with her. My mother used to say that about me when I was four. I demonstrated that charm in spades when she was dying and I didn’t even go to visit.
I suddenly have to get out of here. “Thank you, ma’am. I’m going now.”
I try not to look back as I pull her locked door shut behind me and return to my cab.