Finally Debbie looked at her watch. It was after nine thirty. “This place is getting so damn crowded. And this girl has to get up in the morning.”
Even through the fog of booze, George realized she wanted to leave. “Time to go home?”
“Yes. Where do you live? Close by?”
George gulped. Damn, she was direct. “Uh… yeah. A few blocks…”
“Let’s go back to your place and decompress. All these people… I need a little quiet time.”
George felt a spark of panic. He knew he wasn’t ready to sleep with anyone, and he didn’t want her to see his crummy apartment. Groping for a reply, he said, “Well… my housekeeper canceled today and—”
“Oh, come on. I don’t care about that. And, besides, I don’t want you driving tonight. Is your car here?”
George had to think. “Left it with the valet.” He produced his parking ticket.
Debbie snatched it away. “I’ll get this thing validated and drive you home, then catch a cab from there.”
George realized that she had a point about driving, particularly when he stood up. He could tell he’d drunk way more than he should have. Her concern bumped his regard for her up a couple of notches. “Okay. Good idea. Thanks.”
The ride to George’s apartment wasn’t more than five minutes, and Debbie spent the time quizzing George about his friends outside of the hospital. The relative lack of which was embarrassing to admit, but he did. What he didn’t say was that the friends he had had been Kasey’s.
“A smart, handsome man like you should have loads of friends. I mean, I know about your fiancée, but it is time that you let the past be the past.”
George didn’t want to discuss Kasey, mainly because he himself was trying not to think about her. And then, before he knew what he was doing, he found himself talking about Pia Grazdani and his ridiculous infatuation with her in medical school. He couldn’t stop himself. In that vein, he even launched into what his Pia infatuation did to his relationship with Paula. It was as if all the alcohol had been a kind of truth serum.
To her credit, Debbie seemed both interested and sympathetic. “Don’t give yourself a lot of shit about that. Hell, I’ve experienced the same kind of self-destructive relationship myself.”
“Really?” George asked, but he still wished he had kept his mouth shut.
They arrived at his apartment, and George got out his cell phone with some difficulty. “I’ll call you a cab. Is there some company you prefer?”
“Hold off on the cab. I said I wanted to relax for a few minutes. Let’s go inside.” Before George could respond, she was out of the car, hand on her hip, waiting for George.
George launched into another face-saving apartment-apology campaign as they were about to cross the threshold of his front door. “I’ve been meaning to do something with the place, but a residency is so time-consuming—”
“Sweetie, I don’t mind a bit. Please quit worrying,” Debbie said, pausing to look around after entering. “You’re right. It’s a piece of shit. But whatever, I don’t care.” She spotted George’s iPod dock, fished her own phone out, and put on some music, cranking up the volume. George sat on the couch and watched as she took a joint from the bag.
“Wanna get high?” She didn’t wait for a response and immediately lit up. “I so need this. After all the crazy shit in the ER this week.” She took a hit from the joint and passed it to George. George hesitated. The last time he smoked weed was when he was an undergrad, but he didn’t want to risk putting her off. What the hell, he thought, and took a drag, inhaling deeply. He started coughing immediately.
“You okay, sweetie?”
“Yeah. Wrong pipe.”
A loud thumping boomed through George’s apartment wall. It was the wall common with Joe’s apartment. George realized who it was and burst out laughing. Joe the Actor was pissed at the noise! In light of all the times George had been disturbed by Joe’s wild orgies, it made George’s evening.
“Why are you laughing?” Debbie said, laughing, too. The weed was kicking in for both of them.
“Because,” George giggled, “he keeps me up all the freaking time with an endless stream of hookups.”
They continued laughing until Debbie said she wanted something to drink. Something alcoholic.
“I have some Jack Daniel’s. Will that work?”
“Absolutely.” Debbie reached over and turned up the volume on the iPod speakers while George went into his kitchen to retrieve the liquor and some glasses. “No ice! No ice!” Debbie called after him. “Straight and neat!”
George wasn’t really up for more booze but poured a couple of drinks anyway and brought them back to the living room.
Debbie was dancing to the music. George stopped and gawked. She caught him looking and smiled, putting her hand out for the drink.
Debbie sipped her bourbon. She was suddenly serious despite the pot and the alcohol. “Okay, so what’s the deal with this neighbor of yours who crashed into the ER?”
“He was just a friend.” George didn’t want to discuss Sal any more than he wanted to discuss Kasey.
“Ironic, huh? That he died right next to you and you were friends with him.”
“We were more acquaintances than friends,” George hedged. “The guy was lonely. I felt sorry for him.” George felt guilty distancing himself from Sal.
Debbie kept prodding for details about Sal’s wild ride to the hospital, then began asking questions about what George thought about iDoc and Amalgamated Healthcare. She confided that Clayton advised her to put money into Amalgamated and wondered what George thought.
George’s mind was reeling from the alcohol and pot. With some difficulty he told Debbie that Clayton advised him to do the same, but it didn’t matter, because he didn’t have enough money to invest in anything. George then tried to change the subject, but Debbie was persistent. She kept bringing the conversation back to Sal’s story and what George thought about iDoc.
Suddenly all the alcohol and marijuana caught up to George. The giggles had been replaced by pervading sleepiness. Debbie hardly seemed to notice and switched to what George thought about iDoc’s helping Sal by taking the burden of insulin out of his hands.
George made a huge effort to marshal his thoughts and answer. He made it a point to sit up straight and take a deep breath: “iDoc undoubtedly helped the guy, not only with his diabetes but with all his medical problems. iDoc was someone whom Sal could talk to whenever he wanted, which was pretty damn often because of his Alzheimer’s. Prior to iDoc, Sal used to bombard me with medical questions every time he saw me. That stopped with iDoc.”
“Let me ask you this: Do you think iDoc added to Sal’s problems in any way?”
George thought about that one before answering. “As far as I’m concerned, iDoc was a big plus for Sal.” Despite his best intentions he couldn’t suppress a mighty yawn. “I’m sorry!” he added. And he was.
Debbie could see that George was having trouble keeping his eyes open. Still she continued. “Is there anything about the situation that bothers you?”
“Well, yes!” George said, trying desperately to think. “One is that Sal’s sisters haven’t been told of his death as far as I know, and two is all this talk that Sal crashed into the ER to commit suicide. He liked life, and his car, as silly as that might sound, too much to commit suicide.”
“I heard he had been taking medication for depression.”
George grimaced. “People get prescribed all kinds of things they don’t need. You know that. Anyway, I never saw him act depressed.”