New Friends in Old Places
Grace
“No,” she says, “you’ve got to pull the carton almost all the way out of the water.”
Yuri’s helping me get rid of my remaining stash of buds and is attempting to instruct me on the proper use of a gravity bong. The process is pretty interesting, but I’m having a bit of trouble with the finer points.
“Here,” she says, “I’ll get it prepped again, but this time, you’re taking the hit.”
We’ve been at this a while.
Yuri’s apartment was a little…I guess the polite way to say it is that it’s cluttered. The not-so-polite way to say it is that that place is a fucking hellhole.
Needless to say, we’re back at my place.
It’s been a couple of days since I’ve seen Jace, but he called me yesterday to give me an update on what’s going on with him and the town skank...I forget her name.
He sounded a lot more confident than I’ve ever known him to be, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s whipped like a little bitch. I think it’s my duty as a kind, caring human being full of empathy and puppy farts to do what I can to extricate him from his royal blunder.
For now, though, Yuri’s got the bottomless milk jug full of smoke and she’s unscrewing the bowl.
“Put your mouth over it, but not before you exhale everything from your lungs,” she instructs. “You’re going to need every bit of space in there to take all of this.”
“I love it when you talk dirty to me,” I tell her.
Toward the end of my conversation with Jace, he was kind enough to remember that he’s my doctor and I still haven’t had that scan he seemed to believe was so important, so he’s got me scheduled for a few hours from now.
Let’s just say that my tolerance is starting to grow.
“Are you going to be good to drive me?” I ask.
“Quick,” she scolds, “before the smoke gets out.”
I put my mouth over the opening at the top, and once I’ve got a good seal, Yuri starts pushing the jug down into the water, forcing what amounts to a metric fuck ton of smoke into me.
Somehow, I manage to get it all in, and I lift my head, holding my breath.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
I can’t really answer right now.
“You don’t need to hold your breath,” she says. “Word has it that something like 95 percent of the THC gets absorbed into your lungs in the first few seconds. You can blow it out.”
I’m not sure where she’s getting her information, but she seems to be an old hand at all this, so I let the air out of my lungs with a surprisingly large, seemingly neverending plume of smoke.
“That’s the way to do it, girl!” she says, holding her hand up and just staring at me until I give her a high five.
“Holy shit,” I tell her. “I feel like I just breathed out a pine forest fire.”
“I know, right?” she says. “Now, load me up one more. I like to be good and baked before I get in to work.”
“Do you really think that’s wise?” I ask. “I mean, you’re working in a doctor’s office.”
“A reticulated giraffe could do my job,” she says. “Hell, it could do my job after smoking more than I do.”
“Yeah, but you’ve got to figure in body weight,” I explain, feeling very proud of myself for being able to contribute so wonderfully to Yuri’s hyperbole.
“Oh, and I’m not driving,” she says, replacing the screw-on bowl, formerly the lid, onto the milk jug, loading the bowl faster than seems possible, and flicking her lighter, the flame just above the cap.
“I really have to do this scan,” I tell her. “I’ve been having these headaches and my vision goes weird sometimes.”
“I’ll get you there,” she assures as the container fills with thick, silvery smoke. “We’re just going to have to take a cab.”
“Shouldn’t you be there?” I ask. “I mean, I’m going to the doctor’s office where you work to have a procedure done.”
“A test,” she says, unscrewing the cap. “Not a procedure, a test. But that couldn’t possibly make the slightest difference.”
She sets the cap on the side of my tub and takes what really seems too large to call “her hit.”
When she comes back up, smoke is coming out of her nose in little ringlets, and I’m really not expecting it when she grabs the back of my head, presses her lips against mine and breathes the smoke into me.
It happens so fast and I’m already pretty baked, so by the time I really process what just happened, she’s already back on her feet, checking her hair in the mirror.
“You’re the only patient today,” she says. “It’s Sunday. Besides, I called Dr. Churchill, and he knows we’re hanging out.”
“What just happened?”
“It’s called shotgunning,” Yuri answers. “Oh shit, I didn’t even bother asking you if you were cool like that. I promise, I wasn’t trying to get fresh with you. I just noticed that your eyes were still pretty clear, and I don’t know about you, but MRI machines freak me right the fuck out, and I figured you could use a little extra to get you through the procedure.”
“The test,” I correct, and we both start laughing.
Yeah, I think I’ll be nice and calm when it comes time to have my brain bombarded by the magnetic field.
“Shit,” she says, looking at her phone.
“Wh-” I start, but before I can get the “at” out, Yuri’s grabbing my hand and pulling me to my feet.
“We’re running late,” she says, “and I don’t know when the next open slot with the MRI is going to be.”
I don’t have time to respond, as she’s now dragging me out of the apartment. It’s all I can do to grab my purse and keys on the way. Yuri doesn’t bother stopping, so it’s quite the feat.
When we get outside, she sprays us both with about half her spritz bottle, and I’m coughing when the cab pulls up.
Yuri does the talking, which is just as well because that last hit is really starting to get on top of me.
We show up at the hospital either three hours or fourteen seconds later — I can’t be completely sure which — and as soon as Yuri pays the driver, she opens her door, and just like she had back at my apartment, she grabs my wrist and is pulling me out of the cab.
I’m jogging, trying to keep up with her, but we somehow manage to get into Dr. Churchill’s office when the big hand is touching the 12.
The doc is in his office proper, but he sees us come in. He’s on his way out to greet us, but he’s not even to the door to the waiting room when he stops and plugs his nose.
“Yuri, for fuck’s sake,” he says. “How many times have I told you to go easy on the perfume?”
“It’s not perfume,” she corrects, still gripping my wrist, “it’s spritz.”
“Whatever,” he says. “Seriously, is there anything you can do about that?”
“They don’t let me into the doctor’s locker rooms anymore, so it’s not like I can just jump in the shower,” she says, then turns to me. “Long story,” she mutters and releases her grip, seemingly for no other reason than to give me a “get going” pat on the rear.
I’m seriously starting to get some mixed signals from her, but what’s even more on my mind is the fact that we didn’t bother with eye drops, and I can feel the dryness of my eyes.
“Are you ready to go?” he asks.
“Why is it that you always like to be there during tests?” I ask.
“Call it a control thing,” he says. “If I’m there, I can tell the radiologist to take thinner or thicker cuts as needed. I swear, they have no instinct for it at all.”
I’m not sure if I respond or not, but we’re walking down what I’m sure at one point was a familiar hallway, though I don’t remember it being so eventful.
About 30 feet ahead of us is an older woman trying to corral six children into one of the rooms, while just a little farther down the way is a teenager endlessly combing his fingers through his hair.
That gravity bong stuff is bananas.
After an indeterminate amount of time, I’m in a small room, changing into a hospital gown.
When I come back out, Jace directs me to the MRI and I lie down.
I’ve never been claustrophobic, but I think Yuri must have gotten into my head, because I’m closing my eyes, not quite ready to be scanned.
“All right,” Jace’s voice comes tinny through the intercom, “just stay still and we should have you out of there in no time.”
“All right,” I answer, and the MRI springs to life.
The only real difficulty I’m having once the test starts is trying not to laugh. I guess I wasn’t having secondhand claustrophobia, after all.
When the test is over and I’m slid back out, I just lie there, waiting for Jace to tell me what to do next.
Before long, I’m back in that little room, changing back into my spritz-drenched clothes.
Jace tells me to head back up to his office, so I start on my way, though I have to make a quick call to Yuri to get back to more familiar territory. Once I get near the elevators, it all starts coming back to me.
When I get to the office, I’m smacked in the face with the smell of Yuri’s spritz. Apparently, she decided to “freshen up” a bit more while I was gone.
“What do you think?” she asks after I sit down in my customary spot.
“About what?”
“About Dr. Churchill?” she asks.
“He seems like a good doctor,” I tell her.
“That’s not what I meant, but I think you know that. I think he likes you.”
“He’s in a relationship with what’s-her-skank,” I answer.
She smiles politely at my attempt at cleverness, but shakes her head. “One of these days, he’s finally going to grow a pair of balls and he’s going to leave her,” she says. “I think you two would make a cute couple.”
Suddenly, I’m very self-conscious.
“Yeah, but he’s my doctor, and that’s kind of weird for me,” I tell her.
“I don’t see why,” she says. “As long as all he’s doing is running scans and giving you prescriptions, what’s the harm?”
I’m sure there’s an easy answer to that, but right now, I’m having a little trouble getting past the statement that he likes me.
“He is very attractive,” I concede, “but I really think it would be way too complicated to make any kind of move on him right now.”
“Sorry,” she says. “I get a little nosy sometimes when I’m baked.”
On the word “baked,” the door to the waiting room opens and Jace walks in, saying, “Grace, would you like to step into my office for a moment?”
“Sure,” I answer, and I follow him into his office.
He pulls up his computer and finds my file. For a minute, he’s looking at different shots of the inside of my head.
Finally, he says, “Well, in comparing your scan today with the earlier one, it looks like your oligodendroglioma hasn’t grown. That’s the good news.”
“What’s the bad news?” I ask.
“Well, the fact that you’re having the symptoms you’re having,” he says. “How severe did you say they were?”
“I don’t know that I’d call them severe,” I tell him. “It’s a little freaky when my mind goes blank on me, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.”
He rubs his chin, and I can hear that invigorating sound of his fingers moving over light stubble.
“Well,” he says, “it doesn’t look like you’re in any immediate danger, but I would like to take another scan in a couple of weeks. It’s best to keep an eye on these things. And if you notice your symptoms getting any worse, do let me know.”
“That’s it?” I ask. “After all the nonsense of the last few days, it’s just ‘come back and we’ll see if your tumor’s going to kill you ahead of schedule?’”
“There’s not much else to do,” he says. “How are you doing with your medication?”
“Oh, right now, I’m feeling fucking spectacular,” I tell him.
He smiles, and with a chuckle, he says, “I meant the chemo. You’re almost done with this round, isn’t that correct?”
“Yeah. It’s kind of hit or miss on whether I feel up to getting out of bed, but the other medication does seem to be helping with that.”
“Are you having any nausea, vomiting, diarrhea?”
That line of questioning right there is precisely the reason I don’t think things with Jace would work out so well, even were he to drop his baggage at the gate.
“A little of one and three,” I tell him. “I haven’t puked, though.”
“That’s good,” he says. “What about body aches? How’s your appetite?”
“Depends on how long it’s been since I’ve imbibed,” I tell him.
“You know,” he says, “the word ‘imbibed’ actually means to drink, but that’s neither here nor there. Have you noticed any weight loss?”
“A bit,” I tell him, “but not as much as I was expecting. You see people with cancer, and they always look totally emaciated.”
“Well, I think the fact that the cannabis seems to be helping your appetite is helping with that,” he says. “Do you have any questions for me?”
“Yeah,” I tell him, “I do actually have a couple.”
“Okay,” he says. “What’s on your mind?”
“What kind of nimrod do you have to be to make up with a woman who cheats on you the day that you figure it all out?”
That may not be the kind of question he was referring to.
“Excuse me?”
“It just seems to me like you’re selling yourself short,” I tell him. “I mean, you’re quite the dish, and I’d bet that you’ve even got some money stashed in the mattress. What’s keeping you with someone like that?”
“You know,” he says, “I think that while we’re in the office, it’d probably be for the best that we keep it professional.”
“Ah,” I answer and pull out my phone. I find the number and wait for an answer.
“Marquis Escorts,” the voice answers.
“Yeah, this is Grace Miller. I’ve used your service a few times before, and I was wondering if my usual gentleman would be free this evening, say maybe in an hour or so?” I ask.
Jace makes a noise that’s closer to a growl than anything, but he doesn’t say or do anything while I’m making my second appointment of the day with him.
When I hang up, he finally says, “You do know that you could just ask me if I’ll stop over, and it’d save you a lot of money.”
“Yeah,” I answer, “but if I did that and the wandering saline container called your other office to see what you were up to, you’d get in trouble.”
“They don’t give out that kind of — let’s just talk about it later,” he says. “For now, as your doctor, I’d say just let me know if you notice any new or worsening symptoms, and we’ll go from there. As for now, I don’t think it’s going to be necessary to adjust your medication, but do let me know if things get any worse and we can make a change as needed.”
“All right,” I answer.
I get up and make my way to the door, opening it just in time to hear the sound of his pager echoing through his office and waiting room.