2
THE TELL OF A LIE
Georgia stepped outside into a blast of warm air and an explosion of color. Reminiscent of Charleston’s famous Rainbow Row, the stucco buildings comprising the clinic had all evidently been designed by a passionate admirer of tropical fruit, and they ranged in color from kiwi to papaya to banana. On top of that, someone had gone hog wild in the floral department, lining every walkway with a riotous profusion of ground-cover blooms.
An outgoing swell of hospital workers flooded the sidewalks, most of them striding with spry purpose toward the parking garages, a few trudging more slowly, burdened by exhaustion or a rough day or aching joints or who knew what. For once, Georgia moved alongside the slower crowd, lost in her thoughts of the Fogelmans. And Ryan, the guy she’d been seeing.
Ending things with Ryan was no tragedy—he was hot but dim, an ember of a human being. She’d known, subconsciously and probably consciously, that he offered no promise of long-term companionship, let alone the kind of epic soul-melding she’d witnessed in the Fogelmans. Still, it stung. The closest Georgia had ever come to marriage had been a passionate but dysfunctional engagement to a bartender named Angus, who turned out to be a serial cheater. Suddenly, she found herself craving an escape from the intensity of the day: a drink, some music, maybe something stupid and mindless on Netflix. She wanted to shut down.
She’d almost reached her car when she remembered: Jonah.
She’d just picked up her phone to call him when it rang. “George!” it squawked as she answered. She felt herself relax even as she brightened at hearing Jonah’s voice. “Where are you?” he asked.
“Parking lot,” she huffed, stomping up the final flight of stairs to the seventh level.
“Parking lot?”
“Doctors’ parking garage at the clinic. I’m leaving work.”
“That’s sad. I’ve been done for hours.”
“No, you have not.”
“Fine. I’ve been done for minutes. Meet me out?”
She ignored this suggestion. “What was going on earlier? Why did you say you thought you’d be fired?”
“Momentary panic. It was nothing.”
This was probably a lie—something was going on and he’d decided to ignore it—but there was no distress in his tone, so she let it slide. “Glad to hear it. But I have to get home.”
“You want to go out and party. Got it.”
“I need to be home to pack,” she said. Jonah, endowed with galactic energy, was perfectly capable of working all day and going out half the night without suffering any apparent consequence the next day. Georgia was not.
“I guess you have to save Fun Georgia for Amsterdam,” he said.
“Aw, Jones,” she said. “Don’t say that.”
As a primary care doctor, Jonah made less than some physician assistants. He also staggered around under a hideous trifecta of debt: hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loans, the unbelievably costly expenditure of in-home medical assistance for his beloved grandmother, and a self-inflicted credit card issue stemming from his days as an underfinanced medical student. Georgia knew he couldn’t justify the expense of an international trip without the stipend, and he knew she wasn’t going to cancel because he couldn’t go.
She tried a different tactic: “I’m very tired today.”
“You can be very tired when you’re forty. A single thirty-six-year-old person needs to mingle.” At thirty-two, Jonah relished his status as the younger, hipper one, pointing out her elderly status at every opportunity.
“I don’t—wait,” she said, suspicious. “How did you know I’m single again? As far as you know, I’m still dating Ryan.”
He laughed so loudly she had to hold the phone away from her head.
“Thanks for the sympathy.”
“I’d be oozing sympathy if you needed it, you know that, but look at it this way: at least it wasn’t a slow fade. You dated Surfer Dude for five minutes and it was obvious you weren’t into him. You’re just used to being the one who ends it. This . . . this is a blessing, George. Here, now. Let me see if I can put this in terms your generation would understand—that guy was a doofus.”
“So, everyone knows, huh?”
“Surely you didn’t imagine a story that good would stay confidential? Tout l’hôpital.”
“All of it? You heard all of it?”
He cackled again. “Don’t worry, I hear the natural look is coming back.”
“How would you—never mind.” Suddenly, the conversation inspired her. “Anyway, I need to get home so I can mourn in private.”
She figured Jonah would respect this: eating ice cream in unattractive pajamas, or whatever lame thing people did when they’d been dumped, but he was having none of it. “Nonsense. I’ll see you in an hour and we’ll discuss dating options for you.”
“That’s a hard no for me, Jones. I just want to pack and then crawl in bed. Alone.”
“You gotta get back on the horse, George.”
“It’s been five minutes! No one gets back on the horse the same day they’ve been dumped. I’m in a refractory period.”
A smug chuckle. “My refractory period is literally five minutes.”
“No it isn’t.”
“Fine. You’re the sexpert. I’ll see you in a few.”
“Do people like this? When you pester them nonstop?”
He played his ace. “It’s the last night for karaoke before you leave me.”
“Jonah!”
Both of them loved to sing. Georgia had a good voice, a kind of raspy smoke overlaid with honey, especially suited to bluesy songs. Even speaking instead of singing, her voice garnered plenty of attention from men, who seemed to associate it with a certain wanton quality: red lips blowing a stream of French cigarette smoke, black lace bras, sultry waves of hair, that kind of thing. When they realized it instead belonged to a physics- and machinery-obsessed, seventies-wannabe nerd, they tended to react with disappointment, even before they made the discovery that she was—literally—a ballbuster. You could appreciate why she had romantic problems.
“Dammit.” She folded. “I’ll be there.”
“Excellent!” A clicking sound: the patter of a keyboard. He must have lied about having already left work. “Be ready to wail.”
“I’m staying one hour,” she said. “Max.” She ascended the last flight of stairs, emerging onto the unroofed portion of the garage, which blazed with the heat of a thousand suns. Fanning herself with the edge of her white coat, she headed toward the far end of the deck. “Hey, Jonah?”