Friends Without Benefits

“Well, she is a girl. She is, what? Thirty?” Rose reached for one of my hands and held it between her own, patting the knuckles. “How are you doing with all of this?”

I tried to subdue my smile. “Well, first of all, she’s forty-three. So, she’s only ten years younger than my father. And, it’s none of my business—”

“Oh, Lizzy, you’re his daughter.”

“—but even if it were my business, I’m really good with it. If she makes him happy, and she seems to, then I’m happy for him.” And I was. My father’s relationship with Jeanette Wiggins—bakery owner in our hometown and all around nice lady—didn’t bother me.

It didn’t bother me because his relationship with Jeanette was irrelevant. I knew my father would only ever truly love my mother. My mom was his first and only love; if he wanted to have some fun then who was I to judge? I was guilty of the same type of behavior.

However, I understood Rose’s apparent dislike of Jeannette. Rose and my mom had been best friends. My mother died when I was nine from breast cancer, and I think she took the loss almost as hard as my father and me.

Also, Jeannette had the audacity to make and sell cannoli at her bakery downtown.

“You’re a saint.” Rose’s smile was sweet. “And you’ve grown up and become a beautiful doctor.” Her hands cupped my cheeks. “A profession any mother could be proud of.”

Nico’s sigh was audible. “Ma. . .”

“It’s nice to see you too, Rose.”

And, surprising myself, I meant it. Just her presence reminded me of home: family dinners at Manganiello’s Italian Restaurant; my mother and father kissing under Rose’s ever present mistletoe in the main dining room.

Her hands dropped from my face and reclaimed my hand. Rose’s smile widened, like a fox.

“And Nico? Is it nice to see Nico too?”

Without meaning to, my eyes—the traitors!—flickered to where he stood and met his gaze for the first time since I’d entered the room.

A sharp stab of pain pierced my chest, passed through my body, jarred my teeth. The uncomfortable heart palpitations that accompany guilt and dread; it felt like a stake to the heart or a branding iron inserted into my aortic valve. I held my breath.

His wide eyes were haunted by a lingering emotion I couldn’t quite place—something like wistful nostalgia or reluctant admiration—as well as a shadow of surprise. He was obviously trying to neutralize his expression, although with little success, and this made him look somehow severe. Mussed black hair and likely twenty-four hours since his last shave added to the harshness of his appearance; but neither, I noted with annoyance, detracted from his good looks.

It was decidedly not the laissez-faire, roguish, cheerful face he wore on his show. Or the unrepentantly flirtatious and unscrupulous face from publicity photos.

He was Nico in person. But he was only The Face on TV.

The last time I saw Nico not in person was on the TV in the doctors’ lounge two weeks ago.

A group of—all male—surgeons were gathered around the TV set. They were watching a busty blonde and a sylphlike redhead Jell-O wrestle with a bare chested Nico on his Comedy Central show Talking with The Face.

He’d been dubbed “The Face” because he used to be a male model in New York before it was discovered that he actually had a brain and personality. Never mind the fact that both his brain and personality were used for evil. For that matter, so was his face. I had firsthand, secondhand, and thirdhand knowledge of how he used his face for evil.

Even though I avoided his show, I’d purposefully purchased and watched his stand-up special and had come face-to-The Face complete with advertisements plastered on billboards and the Internet. Regardless, I wasn’t prepared for an in-person encounter. In person he was real, present in a way that he wasn’t in a still-life picture or a video clip.

The fact that his mother was in the room, openly inspecting us as we reacted to each other, only served to crank up the awkward dial. Though, even if we’d been alone I wouldn’t have known what to say to him.

I could have tried:

“Hi—about deserting you after your best friend died, that was really shitty of me. Also, about disappearing that morning after I handed you my V-card and never returning your calls or reading your emails and letters, that was also shitty of me. In my defense, I’m pretty sure that one time we slept together meant more to me than it did to you as I was a grieving teenager who was frightened by my feelings for you and you’ve always had girls tripping over their panties in pursuit. I’m fairly certain that night for you was mostly pity sex. Furthermore, I’m sure you didn’t even notice my absence—what with all the poontang you must’ve been getting in New York as a male underwear model. Since you basically made my adolescent years hell, let’s just call it even-steven.”

I swallowed memories down, down, down along with all the recriminations that surfaced immediately afterward. I wasn’t at all proud of how I behaved, but it was a very long time ago; I’d just turned sixteen and he’d just turned seventeen. We were kids. He may have been my first, but I most definitely had not been his.

I knew that if he were still upset with me it probably had less to do with my abandoning him after sex and more to do with my abandoning him after Garrett’s death. And, for that, I still felt ashamed.

I commenced with an attempt at a smile and nodded my head in his direction.

“Of course. Hi. Good to. . . see. . . you.”

Full lips flattened. His frown deepened. He visibly swallowed. He didn’t respond.

He just looked at me, and his stare felt like a brand.

“Oh—and this is Angelica, my granddaughter.” Rose led me by my hand to where Nico held the small girl. Pride was evident in Rose’s voice, but so was a trace of sadness.

I used the movement as an excuse to shift my attention away from Nico and smiled at Angelica as I approached. She was dressed in a kid-sized hospital gown, and I knew better than to offer her my hand. Cystic fibrosis would make her extremely susceptible to pulmonary infection even though she was likely already on prophylaxis antibiotics.

Angelica smiled at me briefly then buried her face in Nico’s neck.

“It is nice to meet you, Angelica.” I kept my voice soft. “I’m actually here to talk to you and your-your-your dad about a research study which might help you feel better.”

Curses!

I didn’t know why I stuttered over “your dad,” but I did know I needed to pull my shit together before shit got everywhere and shit got crazy.

“Oh, Lizzybella, Angelica isn’t Nico’s. Nico is her uncle.” Rose leaned forward, and her whisper assumed a wavering, watery quality. “Angelica was my Tina’s.”

I nodded in dejected and horrified understanding. On the tragedy scale this news was an eleven. . . ty thousand; that’s right: eleventy thousand. Not only did sweet Angelica have a chronic life-threatening disease, her mother—Tina—was dead. Tina was Rose’s third daughter. My father told me of Tina and her husband’s death last year via freak car accident.

It was horrible and senseless, and I now felt the sudden need to drink scotch, brood, and read Edgar Allen Poe or the ending to Hamlet. Maybe I would top it all off with some YouTube videos of drowning kittens while listening to Radiohead.

“I see.” Was all I could say.

Again, without meaning to, my gaze sought Nico’s. I found him studying me. I tried not to fiddle with my stethoscope, hoped my eyes conveyed my condolences. Yet, I couldn’t help but feel foolish and inadequate. I wasn’t used to feeling foolish and inadequate, not any more, not since high school.

He made me feel foolish and inadequate.

At last Nico spoke. The sound of his voice—deeper than I remembered, raspy—made my spine stiffen in automatic response.

“We’re in Chicago to see a visiting disease specialist, but then came to the ER because Angelica had a fever this morning. She’s on the inhaled antibiotics since two weeks ago. I’m worried that—” he paused, his soulful eyes shifted from me to his mother then back. “We’re worried that they aren’t as effective and they did a chest X-ray downstairs, but we haven’t heard anything about the results.”

I motioned to the aptly appropriate depressing beige furniture and endeavored to slip into Elizabeth Finney, MD” mode; “Here—let’s sit down and I’ll take a look at Angelica’s chart.”

Rose sat next to Nico on the couch and Angelica moved from his lap to hers. I deposited the consent forms on the table then crossed to the mounted computer station on the wall; Angelica’s electronic medical record had two procedural tabs for April 1. The first was a full blood panel and the second was a chest X-ray. The actual image wasn’t yet available, but the radiologist’s report indicated that her lungs were negative for infection.

“Well, the good news is that the radiology report came back and it looks like Angelica’s lungs are—currently—free of infection. Her labs aren’t in the system yet, but the attending will be able to review them with you before discharge.” Unable to find a reason to loiter any longer with the electronic medical record, I crossed to them and chose the beige chair across from Rose. “The reason I’m here is to talk to you about a research study, which it looks like Angelica may be eligible for.”