Rent a Boyfriend - Gloria Chao Page 0,11
other. I couldn’t look at the partly smushed, twenty-five-cent bow slapped on top because it was too apt a metaphor for how I was feeling: I was grateful she had let me shadow, but it had done more harm than good.
My newfound knowledge that I was terrible at the one future my family wanted for me had made me squirrely this past weekend. At Chow Chow, my parents—scratch that, my mom—had asked me question after question about my study group, who was who, what we worked on, and how much I was loving biology.
One word: exhausting. I’d felt like she was circling all my secrets, trying to sniff them out one by one. Maybe she had noticed my reluctance to meet her eye, or maybe she knew I had gone through two papaya smoothies because I was using a full mouth as a way to avoid questions. Maybe she had smelled the deceit in my sweat, my aura, my vague answers. Maybe I was losing my grip on reality.
Dr. Chang opened the door a crack, stared at the box for a moment, then let me in. She grabbed the tea and inhaled for a full minute. I squirmed, not sure what to do while she sniffed with her eyes closed. I almost felt like I was intruding.
“Thank you for letting me shadow,” I said unnecessarily, just to fill the awkwardness.
She smiled—actually smiled!—and I had to keep myself from doing a double take.
She placed the tea on her desk beside a mountain of butter, the kind you get from restaurants with rolls. When she saw me staring at the pile, I expected her to either blush or give me a normal explanation, but she did neither.
“They’re free with meals, so why not stock up? If I’m paying ten dollars for lunch, then I deserve all the butter I want.”
I imagined her and my mother out to a meal, both sweeping things into their purses. It was like when two of your personal monsters teamed up, the Joker and the Riddler working together to make Batman feel as awkward as possible.
Dr. Chang pointed at my dangly earrings. “They’re pierced. Your parents let you?”
“Yeah. My mom took me in fifth grade.” I mimicked her lecture voice as I recited her favorite mantra. “There are no ugly women, just lazy women.”
Dr. Chang referenced a superstition. “Isn’t she worried all the money will leak out the holes in your ears?”
I tapped my big nose. “Well, I got this baby, so I’m financially set.”
She nodded, completely serious, as if my answer were logical. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the next words out of her mouth were, But you still have to pinch it to make it slimmer. Have you tried a clothespin?
A girl burst into Dr. Chang’s office, startling us. The intruder yelled, “Your treatment didn’t work, and I still have fucking chlamydia. It burns when I pee now, no thanks to you.”
“Uh . . .” Dr. Chang’s eyes darted over to me. Clearly I was violating doctor-patient confidentiality.
I started for the door, my clothes rustling, and the girl turned around.
Oh. My. God. It was Nicolette. Was there chlamydia all over our dorm room? I grabbed the desk to steady myself. So. Many. Things. To. Disinfect. If human combustion were possible . . . poof.
For the record, I didn’t care about her sexual history—more power to her—but chlamydia = bacteria = OMG.
Something flashed across Nicolette’s face, but it was so fast I wasn’t sure if I was hallucinating. Next thing I knew, she was grabbing the arm of Dr. Chang’s office chair and yanking it toward her in a flourish. “I’m not leaving until you fix this.”
Dr. Chang cleared her throat, the softest ahem of all time. “Wait—why don’t we take this to an exam room? Or at least let me put some paper down.”
Nicolette looked at her for a moment, piecing it together, then sat with gusto. “Are you serious right now? Do you think it can travel through my clothes or something? No wonder I’m still not cured; you don’t know anything!” She wriggled her butt side to side. “By your logic, I just had an orgy on the subway. I’m probably crawling with herpes and syphilis now too. Forget the chlamydia.”
Dr. Chang wrung her hands, her eyes straying to Nicolette’s pelvis every few seconds . . . which she must’ve seen . . . magnified.
Nicolette peered at Dr. Chang the way kids used to inspect my dried squid snacks—with curiosity and confusion.