“Sure,” he says. “I left my jacket on the bathroom mat. I’m afraid I dipped the cuff in a puddle of olive oil.” He pats her shoulder with the reflexive fondness he must have bestowed on Binky, the still-mourned spaniel who shared his childhood bed and could tap his paws, so Sam claimed, up to the number ten. “That dog was my best friend,” Sam would say, then add, sheepishly, “Next to you.” Though they discussed adopting a puppy from the ASPCA after they’d given up on babies, they agreed it was too soon and too sad a stopgap.
But now …? What a good prospect for … well … after. To keep him company when … Get a dog is a suggestion she must add to the manual.
On the way out, she spots Ralphie Michaud, who is third in line. Thumbs jabbing, he’s playing a game on his cell phone and doesn’t notice her. “Hi, Ralphie,” she says.
He looks up. He grins at her; a dimple punctuates his left cheek. Even nearing forty, he’s still cute, with a snaggletooth that only enhances his bad-boy looks. At least he’s removed the piercing he used to flaunt senior year, though she notices a tattooed wing—part of an eagle? an angel?—peeking out from his collar underneath a crosshatch of black hair. Too bad Annie was such a prude back in high school, too timid to smoke pot with him in the hummock of pine trees behind the school.
“How’s it going, Annie?” he asks now.
“Okay,” she says. “You?”
“Hanging in there. Did you catch the Bruins last night?”
“Afraid not.” She stares at his dimple.
“They won four to two.”
“Great.”
“Dad says you stopped by the store the other day.”
“Yeah.”
“Hear you started smoking again.”
Would a purchase of tampons get reported too? “Not really,” she protests.
“Trying to keep healthy?”
“You could say that.”
He shrugs. From his back jeans pocket, he pulls out his own pack of Marlboros. “Anyhow, too bad I missed you.”
“Oh, well …”
“Next time …”
“We’ll do that.” She points to her wristwatch. “Errands …”
“See ya,” he says.
* * *
She drives to Dr. Buckley’s office without calling ahead. She’d just as soon bide her time in the waiting room than schedule an appointment far enough in advance to allow her the leeway to cancel it. Also, she doesn’t want to give Carolyn the satisfaction.
She gives Carolyn the satisfaction. The minute Annie arrives, she can see the receptionist gloat. “I knew I’d talk you into it.”
Lucky for Annie, there are only two people in the waiting room, neither of whom she knows. She opens Down East and reads about road repair, vanity license plates, the latest lobster shack, and a Manhattan hedge fund manager’s three-million-dollar log cabin renovation at Hancock Point. She turns to the column on tourism. Phew. The Paul Bunyan is still listed as Passamaquoddy’s number-one culinary attraction, ahead of Moody’s meat loaf, Osborn & Daughters’ fried clams, and Geraldine Pritchard’s homemade saltwater taffy. She must remember to order the saltwater taffy for the shop; they could branch out, enlarge the menu, add Maine staples like blueberry pie and strawberry shortcake and maple syrup brownies. Thanks to her mother-in-law, she makes a mean blueberry pie, a sellout at school fairs and bake sales.
Maybe they should also consider a real espresso machine despite the old-timers’ inevitable complaints and resistance to change. Maybe not. Don’t mess with perfection, Sam would say. She sighs. It’s amazing the way life goes on, the way one continues to make plans. It’s mind-boggling how a person can sit in a doctor’s waiting room expecting a death sentence and still clip recipes, ponder menus, and obsess over the choice between the lobster license plate and Robert Indiana’s LOVE.
Dr. Buckley opens his office door and steps into the hall, clipboard in hand, stethoscope dangling over his red necktie patterned with blue caducei. He looks up. “Annie?” he says.
“Excuse me.” A woman seated across from her struggles to rise out of her chair. She has wispy gray hair and Ben Franklin spectacles and is leaning on a no-frills aluminum cane. “I believe I’m next.”
“So sorry, Florence,” Dr. Buckley says, “but we have a bit of an emergency here. I promise to be quick.”
Annie follows him into the examining room. Dr. Buckley’s “emergency” sounds so much more loaded than those same syllables enunciated by the bored voice of Dr. O’Brien’s nurse. Annie is embarrassed that she, thirty-seven, with a quick stride and a mass of young-person’s hair, is considered an emergency to be triaged ahead of an impaired senior citizen so clearly accustomed to measuring out her days in places like this.
“Well, Annie, we’ve been trying to contact you.”
“So I gather.”
Dr. Buckley clears his throat. He picks up his letter opener, a talisman that, Annie concludes, must serve as his Linus blanket in times of stress. She does not envy his job. She does not envy his command of the medical facts he’s about to lay out for her. “For the record, I don’t approve of your plan not to persevere in telling Sam.”
“I didn’t expect you to.”
His forehead wrinkles in dismay. “You’re as stubborn as your mother,” he says, “though I could always convince her …”
“I am no way like my mother,” Annie huffs.
“Hmmm,” he replies. He opens a folder on the desk in front of him. “I’m so glad you called the oncologist. The thoracic surgeon’s reports suggest you may need a biopsy.”
“It all seems so hopeless. Why subject myself to … when it’s so clear that …?”
He sighs. In agreement? In frustration? He goes on. “Nothing is clear. You’re young. There are new treatments all the time. Targeted procedures …”
Annie is having a hard time paying attention; what did Dr. Buckley try to convince her mother of? she wonders. She focuses on the caducei. If she gave Sam a tie printed with sandwiches, would he wear it? She lowers her gaze. Now she can read the whole inscription on the letter opener: in grateful appreciation of saving my life. Just as she thought. She filled in the blank correctly the last time she was here. Does she earn an A plus? While she’s not sure whose life Dr. Buckley saved, she is sure he won’t be saving hers.
Annie points to a drooping schefflera on the windowsill. “That needs watering.”
Ignoring her horticultural advice, he continues. “I’m sure Dr. O’Brien will have a lot of tricks up her sleeve …”
“Like a magic wand? Tricks that might mean a cure?” she asks.
“Alas, medicine doesn’t work like that. But it is always wise to choose the optimistic path.”
“Even if …”
“The optimistic path,” he repeats. “We’ll follow you with scans until your appointment.”
“And the side effects of these tricks?” she persists.
“Nothing we can’t manage. Though—in all honesty—you will likely lose your hair.” He runs his fingers through his own silver locks. His eyes are so sad that she feels terrible for being the cause of his pain.