“Yeah, it’s a little late for that,” she says.
“You already took your first dose,” I say.
She shrugs. “I’m impatient. What of it?”
“Let’s try to get you in as soon as possible,” I tell her.
; She sighs and says, “Fine.” Her expression changes into that familiar smirk. “So, that’s your old lady, huh?”
“That’s my girlfriend,” I answer, “yes.”
“She’s pretty,” Grace says. “Not a lot in the ass department, but those tits have got to feel pretty good wrapped around your-”
“Grace!” I interrupt.
Yuri, who had been gathering her things and getting ready to leave, looks up at me. Then, with a smile, she turns to Grace and says, “They’re fake. I’m sure too much pressure and those things would pop like water balloons.”
Grace apparently finds this utterly hilarious.
“Yuri,” I breathe.
“Yeah, boss?” she asks, joining in Grace’s merriment.
“Go home, please.”
“Right away, boss,” she says, and finishes gathering her things.
“So, you’re a boob man, huh?” Grace asks. “I’ve never really given it much thought, myself,” she says, “but I think if I were to go the other way, I’d probably be more about the ass.”
“Me, too,” Yuri announces. “Isn’t that the weirdest thing?”
“It’s uncanny,” I answer, deadpan. “Goodnight, Yuri.”
“Goodnight, boss,” my loyal assistant of almost two years, the woman who has never, not once, smiled in my presence says, and as the door’s closing behind her, I can hear her laughing her brains out.
“You’re a bad influence,” I tell Grace.
“I know,” she agrees. “Question is, how long is it going to be before I rub one off on you?”
“I’m sorry, did you just say-”
“I’ll see you in the morning,” she says, and walks out of the office ahead of me.
I wait a minute so as to avoid what would certainly be an awkward elevator ride with Grace, and when enough time has passed that I’m sure she’s out of the hospital, I head out.
In the parking lot, I find Melissa’s car easily enough.
She’s sitting behind the wheel, working another crossword puzzle, and she doesn’t notice when I walk up to the driver’s side door, so I knock.
Melissa rolls down her window and says, “Get in.”
“What about my car?”
“We’ll get it later,” she says. “I really just want to get the hell out of here. You know how I feel about hospitals.”
She’s been saying that for so long. The problem is, if she ever did explain exactly how she feels about hospitals, I must have missed it, and too much time has passed for me to ask about it now.