She had to tell someone, and as she pulled into her dad’s driveway, she knew who to tell.
Her father was near seventy, but, as they liked to say, 70 is the new 50. He had retired from his position as Dean of Botany at UMass Amherst, and was now living a very comfortable life in what used to be their summer home at the Berkshires. He did the typical Berkshire things; golf, shop, play chess with the men down by the riverwalk. He lived a life of pure leisure.
She would not admit she was jealous, even though her father would say, “You’re all getting this house after I’m dead and you three can squabble over who buys who out.” Her brothers would buy her out, as she barely made enough to keep up the apartment and the cats. At least, hopefully, she’d get a good pension, though that was in jeopardy after the Bernie Maddock scandal. Her 401K plummeted and she was still trying to get the money back.
Paige glanced at the cars in the yard. Mark’s Caravan and Luke’s Lexus were missing. Her father had an F150 pickup, black with enough chrome to light up the night. She was early. Painfully early.
She rang the doorbell and waited. She had packed an overnight bag, anticipating that the drinking afterward would waste her and she wouldn’t be able to drive home. Her father had plenty of guest rooms in this house.
The door opened, and a balding man peered out of the glass door. He broke out into a smile and opened it. “Paige, honey, you’re early.”
“I was up early,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“Uh oh,” he said, letting her step inside. “Did you have breakfast?”
“I had one of those breakfast sandwiches.”
“Ugh. When are you going to eat real food?”
“That is real food, daddy.”
“Processed. And all that salt!”
She sighed. “A coffee would be good.”
“You’re getting decaf and liking it.”
“Yes, daddy,” she said, glad that she got her caffeine fix earlier. She followed her father through the very familiar house to the wide kitchen.
“You’ve never come in this early. What are you excited about?”
“I’m going on a date on Tuesday night.”
He set the coffee in front of her, already prepared to the way she liked it. “Ah, the first blush of a new love.”
“Daddy, I don’t know if I love him.”
“I was being poetic, not serious. Before you love him I have to meet him, is that a deal?”
She giggled. “It’s a deal.”
“Good. So tell me about him.”
“He’s handsome.”
“Brad-Pitt-handsome?”
“I think so. And he’s a pharmacist. He works third shift.”
“You’ll still get together during the day.”
“I think he sleeps during the day.”
“Not all day. In the summer that’s almost sixteen hours.”
She considered. That was probably true. He probably went to bed when he got home and got up eight hours later. Eight to four. But why did he make the date so late?
“What else? What does he look like?”
“He’s taller than you, probably as tall as Lucas, and he’s got black hair and blue eyes.”
“Is he muscle-bound? You know Marcus…”
“Daddy, I just met him! I don’t know how serious we’re going to get.”
Her father sat down across from her as she sipped her coffee. “You’re thinking about it now, which is why we’re having this conversation.”
“He seems nice. He likes history.” She murmured into her cup, “Though maybe not as much as I do.”
“What do you mean?”
“I talked his ear off.”
At that, her father laughed. “So that’s what they do to you, make you talk!”
“It was about history, and NPR, and where I get my information, and on and on…”
“He probably thinks right now you’re a tree-hugging liberal snob.” He pointed to himself. “I’m the tree-hugging liberal snob.”
She frowned. “That’s what I didn’t want.”
“And this happened on the date?”
“No, the date’s on Tuesday.”
“You’re already worried? Who called who?”
“He called me.”
“That’s at least promising.” He leaned back, causing the chair to tilt back on two legs. He kept one hand on the table for balance. “When do I meet him?”
“Daddy, you said it was after I fall in love with him.”
He grinned, still tilted. “I think you already have.”
Now she blushed.
Her father laughed, set himself straight. “Since you’re here so early, you can peel the potatoes for the potato salad.”
——————–
Bruce got back to the house and sat down at the patio. Kyle came out and locked the door behind him. He was dressed for clubbing, while Bruce was dressed for work.
“She’s not answering her phone,” Bruce said with a frown.
“Maybe she’s got something to do. She’s not going to sit by the phone waiting for you.”
“I would.”
Kyle looked heavenward. “Bruce, Bruce, my friend, you’ve been around for how long?”
“That doesn’t matter. Women haven’t changed.”
“They changed in the ‘60’s. Were you around for that whole thing?”
“I am telling you, women haven’t changed. Women want to be treated like queens, or at the very least, equals. I’m treating her like an equal in expecting that she’d be there when I call.”
Kyle patted Bruce’s shoulder. “You’ll be there until you have to work.”
He glanced at his watch. He had told her that if she didn’t hear from him by ten to call him. It was after ten, and he had to head to Middleboro to work. He sighed, getting up. “I guess you’re right.”
“I know I’m right.”
“Which is why you come home with a different girl every night.”
“Variety is the spice of life.”
Bruce gently slapped Kyle’s back. “Go on, bring home a new Ginger.”
“It might be a Mary-Ann this time!” he called, getting into his car.
Bruce drove the fifteen minutes across the city line to Middleboro and parked in the so-called “employee” section of the Walgreens there. There were three other cars. He knew this meant he wasn’t going to have an assistant – again – on a Saturday night, and he was going to play manager. Friday night was busy, but not insane. He was manager for six hours then, too.
Rick, his manager and boss, was inside, just finishing up a waiter. He was alone.
“Morning,” he called to Bruce.
“Hello,” he badged into the computer, clocking himself in. “Busy?”
“Just a bit. You have Tweedle Dee and Do-Nothing on tonight.”
“Wonderful,” he said disgustedly. Tweedle-Dee was a very overweight college student named Jen who had the hots for Bruce. She had been spoken to by Bruce more than once. Bruce had gone to his manager, who went to her manager, and now the two had a very frosty relationship. She got robbed one night because she refused to call Bruce to help her.
Meanwhile, Do-Nothing lived up to her name. She was given certain things to do on the floor, and she did none of them. She hadn’t been fired because she was one of the manager’s nieces, and she knew it. He could hear her on the phone from the other end of the store.
“Want to check this over?”
Bruce slipped on his lab coat and clipped his badge onto the front pocket. It was Amoxil 875 – he was surprised that it wasn’t the generic Amoxicillin – an oval pink pill. “Is he aware of the DAW penalty?”
“She. It’s Mrs. Cassidy.”
Mrs. Cassidy didn’t come in very often, but he had seen her once or twice. “But this is for a male.” The script had a different last name as well.
“It’s her grandson. Always has to have the best. No generics for him.”
Just then, his phone rang. It was Mozart’s “Nachtmusik”, but it was pretty loud. He took it out and grimaced. “Just a sec, Rick?”
He nodded. Bruce knew he wasn’t always on the phone, and this kind of thing happened rarely. He picked it up and walked to the back of the pharmacy. “Hello, Paige?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t answer your calls. My phone was in my purse and I left it upstairs. I’m so sorry!”
He smiled through the phone. A simple enough explanation, and she was sorry. “I was concerned. Look, I’m at work…can I call you in about an hour when things die down here?”
“I’ll wait up. Lucas is still up, so I’ll stay with him for a little while.”
“All right. Sorry. Thanks. “ He paused swallowing a word that would too soon be uttered, but came instinctively when he said goodbye. “See you.”
He hung up and went back to the front, where Paul was just finishing ringing out Mrs. Cassidy. The woman with her, who did not come to this pharmacy normally, was a wisp of a thing and looked to Bruce like she was recovering from some illicit drug use. She hugged herself in her bright sundress, as if cold and shivering.
“You understand the instructions, dear?” Mrs. Cassidy said as they started to walk out.
“I want to go home,” the girl plaintively whined.
“You need to give these to him if you want him to get better.”
She rounded the corner before Bruce could hear or see any reaction.
He shook his head. All types, all types.
Rick took off his coat and said, “Day shift worked like dogs today, so there isn’t much left for tomorrow.”
“That’s all right.”
“Could you take inventory again? Just the first couple of rows, or whatever you can get done.”
“Be glad to.” He actually was glad to.
“We’ve got some new stuff in this last run. I need the room. See if you can get some space out of those rows.”
“Want me to shelve them?”
“Sure, it’s that red box right there.” He pointed to it. “There’s some A’s through C’s in there, with the shelf tags.”
“Okay.” He liked doing inventory. It meant taking down the shelf-tag National Drug Code – also known as an NDC – number, checking the computer to see when the last time someone used it or to see if the NDC was still in use, and if it was six months since it was last used or the NDC was no longer used, he would put the shelf-tag in the black binder and write the reason next to it. Then hopefully put something in its place.
He also liked seeing the new drugs, just in case something would come across his workbench that he could use against his condition.
“Steve’s coming in to relieve you at four.”
“Hope so, or I will close up.”
“Yeah, I know.” Rick didn’t know Bruce’s condition, but he did know that Bruce needed to get home by 4:30 every morning. Rick had never asked in all the months he’d worked there.
Year. One year next month.
He watched Rick leave, and glanced at the clock on his phone. It was just pushing midnight. He decided to do something mindless before getting to work, and disappeared into one of the rows, carrying a clipboard. He turned on the phone and called Paige.
“Hi, Paige?”
“Yes,” she said, a little breathless.
“You okay?”
“I went outside.” He heard something thunk. “I had to shut the door so they wouldn’t hear.”
He smiled again. “How has your day been?”
“Well, Mark got his cookout and cake, and he’s been teasing Luke and me all night.”
“He must be your older brother.”
“He’s the oldest. Then there’s Luke, then me.”
“So you’re the baby of the family.”
“Yeah, don’t rub it in. What about you?”
“I was the middle child.” The tail end of six children, and he was the second given away; this time to the apothecary in the village along with two sacks of grain for the man’s trouble of taking him in at the age of six.
“What about your parents? Or brothers and sisters.”
“They’re back in France.” He had lost touch with his family’s descendants, knowing there must have been a few. His younger brother had been given to the church; his older sister also given to the church; the three remaining children worked the farm for the lord until their deaths. He tracked the further generations until Napoleon, and then he gave up because there were so many of them. He had never had children. He never would be able to.
“Oh,” she said. He probably had said it too shortly and with a touch of anger to his voice because he was angry at himself for not paying attention.
“I’d rather not talk about them,” he said.
“Okay,” Paige said. “Did you sleep the whole day?”
“I have to.”
“The whole sixteen hours?”
“I’ll explain it all on Tuesday,” he said.