Just as we finally cross the intersection, I shriek and flail at my pocket.
“Crap! What did I hit? Tell me it’s not a kid.”
“No, you’re fine.” I extract my buzzing phone. “Sorry. I forgot I put it on vibrate. I didn’t want to miss it if Aubrey calls.” I check the number, see that it’s not Aubrey, and try to figure out which of my patients or students might be calling. My best guess is the dad from the young couple with preemie twins. Their case is complicated and I’m not certain I can remember all the details. I pull up a mental file on the twins. Chase and Jason? Charles and Jeremy? Chance and Jared! Six weeks premature. Nurse started them on formula at the hospital. Nipple confusion. They’re losing weight. Pediatrician is pushing for formula. Mom is understandably frantic. Dad is clueless and thinks life with twins would be a breeze if his wife would just give in and do formula. He’s always the one who calls, since Mom, literally, has her hands full. I put on my professional voice—calm, competent, warm—and answer.
“Hello?” I repeat when the dad doesn’t respond. A scrambled fragment of his urgent answer bleeps in, then cuts out. I hold my phone aloft to try to amplify the signal, then twist around until another bar appears and yell, “I can’t hear you!”
A disjointed Morse code of garbled words machine-guns my ear, then right before the connection is decisively dropped, a name jumps out of the gibberish.
Dori glances over at me. “Who was that?”
I don’t answer.
Dori glances over, sees my expression. “Cam, are you all right? Talk to me. What’s wrong?”
I watch Dori move her mouth, but I can’t hear her anymore. We move forward along the road, but the houses, the vet clinic on the corner, the convenience store, they all pass by in silent slow motion.
“Cam!” Dori explodes. The volume comes back on and the world starts running at the correct speed again. “Who was that?”
“Martin.” I let my hand holding the phone drop into my lap. “That was Martin.”
6:13 P.M. OCTOBER 13, 2009
=How was school today?
=Fine, aside from the fact that it took place at Parkhaven High School.
=Any good Psycho Saunders stories from physics?
=Yeah, Matt McClune, whose big brother had Saunders last year and told him where all the crazy buttons are, said something about how many Asians have won Nobel prizes in science, and Saunders just WENT OFF! He had all these statistics about what percentage of all the engineers and chemists graduating are from Asian countries and how America can just kiss its ass good-bye in science.
=Angry white male? Get him talking about how the founding fathers meant for us all to carry AK-47s and never pay taxes.
=That’s good. I’ll remember that one.
=But beware, he sounds like the kind of guy who has given the same final for the past thirty years. So, one way or another, you’ve still got to cover the material. Here’s what I find works with crazy people: Don’t engage. If they—a teacher, a boss, whoever—control the board, just play their game until you’re free.
=Is this the kind of stuff people pay you to tell them?
=Ha! Not impressed?
=I didn’t say that. Is it?
=Not exactly. Next has its own set of rules. Sometimes they work in the real world. Mostly you have to leave the real world to make them work.
=So does that mean you don’t believe them?
=More and more, no. The one rule I’m certain I don’t believe anymore is the one about cutting anyone out of your life who doesn’t believe.
=Aubrey? You still there?
=Yeah. Just thinking.
=About what?
=To be continued. Pretzels needs to go out. TTFN.
OCTOBER 20, 2009
There is mayo on my turkey wrap when I specifically asked for no mayo. Plus the “wrap” is a cold, stale tortilla. Makes me wonder why I skipped my usual box of animal crackers eaten in the library and went off campus with Wren and Amelia to have lunch at this new place they love, Rap It Up. It has a theme going, playing loud rap music as if decibels can make up for crap food. Parkhaven could use some better lunch options. I mean, seriously? How hard can it be to put out a decent sandwich?
I can barely pull my attention away from creating the perfect lunch menu to listen to Wren and Amelia sitting across the small orange plastic table filling me in on all the band news I’ve missed since