“I’m good,” I tell him. “I could use something to take my mind off of it, though.”
“I can come over,” he says.
I sigh.
“Or not,” he says hesitantly. “I don’t want to crowd you. I’m just trying to help.”
“I appreciate that,” I answer, deadpan.
“Are you backing out of the trial?”
“I have no idea,” I tell him. “I’d rather not talk about it right now.”
“Well, if you need anything, just let me know,” he says.
“Hold on.”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t know,” I tell him. “Could we maybe just talk for a little bit?”
“Sure,” he says. “I know that it’s hard being there when something like-”
“Yeah,” I interrupt, “still not wanting to talk about that.”
“Okay, what do you want to talk about?”
“What are you wearing?” I ask.
Yeah, it’s stupid, and right now I couldn’t be any less interested in getting laid, but it’s about the furthest thing from that other conversation I can think of at the moment.
“You know what I’m wearing,” he answers idiotically. “You just saw me a few hours ago.”
“You’re really bad at this,” I tell him.
“Oh,” he says. “Geez, uh…”
“Really bad.”
“I’m sorry. I’ve never really done this before.”
“Oh, so you’re a phone sex virgin, huh?”
“I guess you could say that,” he answers. “Maybe you cou
ld teach me a few things.”
“I’m really not in the mood to be a tutor right now,” I tell him. “If you can think of something for us to do that has no connection whatever to doctors or patients or cancer or tumors, you go ahead and give me a call back, though.”
He’s quiet.
“All right, then,” I say. “I’ll talk to you later.”
I hang up the phone and flip on the television.
There’s nothing on that’s of the slightest interest to me right now, but I keep flipping through the channels anyway. I lie down on the couch and settle on an old movie with David Bowie as a prisoner of war, and I set the remote on the coffee table.
It’s not long before my eyes close and I’m drifting off into sleep.