In a postcoital surge of affection he accidentally blurts, "I love you." The phrase hangs in the air, suspended, unanswered. She reaches under the bed and pulls out her earthquake kit.
"What's in it?" he asks.
"At the moment — my joints."
"What else?"
"One hundred one-dollar bills, my makeup — I couldn't bear to be in a shelter without a little makeup, I look like hell in the morning. Bars of chocolate, solar cell-phone battery, water-purification tablets, aspirin. Should I go on?"
"How much pot do you keep in there?"
"Not a lot, maybe ten joints." She lights one and hands it to him.
She brings dinner into bed — ripe cheeses, avocado, olives, tomatoes she's dried herself, caponata she made, pesto she crushed in a bowl she made in a pottery class. He thinks about something Joseph said at the meditation: "There is great comfort in daily ritual, feeding yourself from the garden." As they are eating, she tells him that when she goes hiking she eats things she finds along the way — mushrooms, ferns. She tells him her hair is the color of copper because she uses a dye she makes herself; she tells him that she studied to be a belly dancer, and that she has given names to all of her plants — Margaret, Jonas, Yvette. "All things do better when they have a name," she says. He thinks again of Joseph, talking about the struggle for transcendence played out against the fact that we are "placed" in life in a human body. Something she says cuts through his thoughts: "You've given me great confidence; next time we make love, let's do it in a public place."
IN THE MORNING, it hurts to pee; Richard calls to make an appointment with Dr. Lusardi.
"I have nothing available," the receptionist says.
"When might something open up?"
"Dr. Lusardi is not with this office anymore. I have to put you on hold, one moment please." He waits, wondering what happened to Lusardi. She picks up. "Dr. Anderson suggests that you come in and speak with him."
"Good," he says. "When?"
"Two o'clock."
"WHAT BRINGS YOU IN?" Dr. Anderson asks when he finally comes into the room. Richard has read every back issue of Modern Maturity in the office.
"I've been seeing Dr. Lusardi?"
"Yes?"
"I wanted to follow up — you know, talk to him about some things."
The doctor flips through Richard's file. "How have you been feeling?"
"Pretty good."
"Any more chest pain or nausea?"
"No — just that one day."
"And your prostate — urgency, difficulty?"
"Same as it was, except that…"
"How about I take a listen?" the doctor interrupts, then presses a cold stethoscope to his chest. Dr Anderson makes Richard miss Lusardi all the more — Dr. Anderson is not interested in Richard himself, he is only interested in the mechanics of him.
"I thought I heard a little something — probably just a valve. Do you have mitral-valve disease? Has anyone ever mentioned it?"
"No."
"I'm going to repeat a few tests for my own peace of mind — also an EKG, we don't have a current one."
"Dr. Lusardi did one."
"It's not in your file; he must have taken it with him. Don't worry — I won't charge you." The doctor calls in the nurse.
The image of Lusardi roaming around L.A. with the rhythms of Richard's heart in his pocket is disconcerting. He wants his strip in the file, where it belongs.
"When you went to the ER, what did they do?"
"Not much — a scan to make sure I wasn't having a stroke."
"But not an echocardiogram?"
"I don't think so."
"We'll send you to someone."
Richard is starting to stress. "Relax," the doctor says, "the test won't be any good if you're not relaxed." He hooks him up, talking while watching the tick-tock of Richard's heart. "I myself had a little something earlier in the year, felt something, didn't know what, turned out I broke a string on my heart — at my age they don't even fix it, like an old car they just let run down."
"Did Lusardi really take my EKG?"
"No," the doctor says, "I'm sure it's around here somewhere, probably just misfiled."
"So where is Dr. Lusardi?"
"You tell me."
"What do you mean?"
"He's gone, vanished — turns out he wasn't really a doctor; we were on to him, which is why he ran."
"Not a doctor?"
"He wasn't who he said he was. Yale has no program in psychological internal medicine."
"Well, then, who was he? He wasn't stupid, he wasn't wrong."
"No, but he didn't have a license; he was a philosophy student from the University of Chicago who dropped out."
"He was a good talker, he listened, he understood."
"He was crafty," the doctor says, ripping the EKG tape out of the machine, bringing the tape up close to get a good look.
"What tipped you off?"
"The insurance companies; he wasn't in anyone's system, he claimed it was something about how they were entering his information, that they were reversing a 'u' and a 'z' and that it had happened before. I was feeling good about him, paternal, a young protégé, someone I could leave things to. My wife and I didn't have children. I met him at a medical conference about a year ago. As you know, I've been under a lot of stress — my wife is not well."
"How is she doing?"
"She does best when she doesn't know what's going on. When she comes to the surface, she gets frightened. That's the hardest part — when she looks scared, it's heartbreaking. She bit the dog. Are you sleeping?" the doctor asks Richard.
"Fitfully," Richard says, remembering Lusardi's story about growing up in Chicago, raised by his mom, earning his way through college and medical school surrounded by children of privilege who took everything for granted.
"I didn't worry until now — I'm going over all his records, his patient notes, to make sure he didn't mistreat anyone, reviewing prescriptions, tests. He was a con man, but he didn't really take anything."
"Except my EKG."
"Which was probably just misplaced."
"Will you press charges?"
"I'm only hoping he didn't do any harm."
"Just because he wasn't really a doctor, does that mean what he said was wrong?"
"I'd take it with a grain of salt."
"Is that a prescription?"
"It's my professional advice."
"It hurts when I pee," Richard says. "That's why I came in — I slept with someone and, well…"
"There's a moment when something comes up — your colon, diabetes, heart — and you think, So now I know what it's going to be, where it's going to end. It's always a surprise," the doctor says, lost in his own reverie. "It's not what you think. Even fortune-tellers never give you the bad news — if they can see it. And, knowing, what do you do? Do you make peace with it? Is there such a thing as a good life, a good death? I digress — sorry. So tell me again, you got a little nookie and now you wonder if you got something else along with it?"
Richard nods.
"We can test for all that. Don't worry, drink a lot of cranberry juice, and we'll have the result back in the morning; or, if you want, I can give you a big dose of penicillin now, a shot in the fanny."
"Let's wait for the results."
"Prudent," Dr. Anderson says. "We'll call you."
Richard leaves wanting to track Lusardi, to get the real story. He wants to tell him it's fucked up, but he's no one's dummy.
THE STRANGE DAYS of summer. There is no here, no there, the days are incredibly still, the light is brightly muted — it's hard to know if that's the passing of the season or poor air quality. The town has dried up — everyone who can get away has gone, making tracks for islands off Canada, Europe, Maine. Richard wakes up to hear there was a small earthquake. "A little action in Tumble Town over night. Some of you got an early start — about three-point-six on the Richter — some broken dishes, a little cracked plaster, but not too bad."