they sat for almost an hour, Betty flipping through magazines, sighing, and Olive just sitting quietly with her hands in her lap. Finally, the nurse called Olive in. Olive put the paper gown on and sat down on the examining table, and the nurse came back in and stuck things on her chest and did an EKG, then took the metal things off her and left Olive alone. Olive sat up. A mirror across from her caused her to look at herself and she was aghast. She thought she looked like a man in drag. The lipstick was so bright on her pale face! How had she not noticed this at home? She looked around for a tissue, urgent to get the foolish lipstick off, when Dr. Rabolinski walked in and closed the door behind him. “Hello, Olive,” he said. “How are you?”
“Hellish,” she said.
“Oh dear.” The man sat on a stool and wheeled it toward her. He sat gazing at her through his thick glasses. “Your EKG was just fine. Tell me why you feel hellish,” he said.
And Olive felt then that she was in the first grade, only she had become Squirrelly Sawyer, the boy who sat in front of her in that grade. Squirrelly Sawyer, that she would remember him now. He came from a very poor family and he never understood what the teacher wanted from him, and his state of confusion—and his constant silence—now came back to Olive with a rush of force. She herself could not speak as the doctor waited for her reply.
After a moment the doctor took his stethoscope and deftly slipped it through the opening of her gown to listen to Olive’s heart. Then he put the stethoscope on her back and told her to take deep breaths. “Again,” he said, and she breathed in deeply. “Again.” He sat back on the stool and said, “I like everything I hear.” He held her wrist and she realized he was taking her pulse, and she did not look at him. “Good,” he said, and wrote something down. He put the band of Velcro around her arm and pumped it up for her blood pressure and said “Good” again, and wrote that down as well. Then he sat on the stool once more, and she could tell he was looking at her and he said, “Now try and tell me why you feel hellish.”
And tears—tears, dear God!—slipped down her face and over her lips with that foolish lipstick; she felt them tremble. She could not speak, and she would not look at him. He handed her a tissue and she took it and wiped her eyes and her mouth, watching the streak of color come off on the tissue. He said, “Don’t worry, Olive. It’s natural. Don’t forget what I told you—after a heart attack it is common to feel depressed. You are going to feel better, I promise you that.”
Still, she wouldn’t look at him.
“Okay?” he said, and she nodded. “Come back and see me in a week,” he said.
He got up and left the room. And then she wept and wept, and finally cleaned off the lipstick and wiped her eyes and got dressed, and when she went out Betty looked up at her with some surprise, and Olive flapped a hand at her to indicate she should shut up. They drove home in silence.
When they were inside the house, Betty said, “Now just tell me, are you okay?”
Olive sat down in the chair that used to be Jack’s. “I’m fine,” she said. “Just damn sick of it all.”
“You’re doing really well, though,” Betty said, heaving herself down in the chair across from the one Olive sat in. “Believe me, I’ve had patients who couldn’t take a shower for weeks by themselves, and the first day you got home, you went right in and washed your hair and came right out.” Betty pointed at her and said, “You’re doin’ excellent!”
Olive looked at her. “They couldn’t take a shower? After a heart attack?”
“Sure,” Betty said.
“So what did you do?”
“I helped them,” Betty said. “But I haven’t had to help you a bit. I haven’t even taken your arm, for criminy’s sake.”
Olive considered this. “Well, I’m still sick of it,” she finally said.
* * *
When Halima Butterfly showed up, Betty said with exaggeration, “Hello there!” Olive could have killed her.
“She’s an idiot,” Olive said to Halima once Betty had gone. Halima looked at Olive and said, “You mean her bumper