© ยต 2022, 1,499 words
Dr. Jo Collins drives past pine trees, and the occasional house with gravel driveway and ragged lawn. It's late afternoon, late winter, in the Sierra foothills. She's making a house call. Her phone goes bright and says "My Husband."
She's relieved; if Majid is feeling sociable then he's not pacing the house like a caged animal, despairing of finishing the thesis from hell.
"You will tell her diagnosis?" he asks, no preliminaries.
"Which diagnosis, 'rotting boomer'?" Their private joke.
"Malignant year eighteen months."
Jo does dread that conversation. Not because sad, not for Suzanne. "Because fear," she blurts.
"Loud thinking," Majid observes, knowing her well.
She crosses the Frontiera city limits. Some of the homes are trailers, the lawns fade to grease puddles on dead weeds. Suzanne and Curtis's place looms, motorcycles outside being repaired or scavenged for parts. "Arrived, tell you all after your class. Kiss you soon dearest."
……… ……… ……… ……… ………
Curtis waves a wrench hello. Their pit bull Dolly lunges at Jo, then recoils at the end of her leash; the steel pole tethering the dog quivers. Curtis holds Dolly by the collar so Jo can get by, then follows her through the front door.
She slides a folder onto the Formica tabletop. Curtis yells "Suze, Dr. Collins!"
She knows Suzanne dislikes her, but why? After all, the couples are matched sets: Curtis and Majid are two reasons why Frontiera is only 95% white.
And there the similarity ends. Majid is a despised physics teacher at the community college; half his students drop before the final. Curtis is a hero to the Bay Area transplants, a Black conservative validating their move to the sticks as a quest for family values, for property values. It wasn't white flight, perish the thought.
Bed springs creak, but no Suzanne.
There's a shelf above the table covered with small tools, lubricants, adhesives, and the complete works of Larry Elder. One book lies open on its spine, a helmet serving as bookmark. A TV, which Jo has never observed in its off state, shows Ukraine news.
A man standing inside a doorway has a lopsided, welcoming grin. Close up, his "smile" is a second degree burn stretching from below an ear to mid-upper lip. He'll need reconstructive surgery. The camera pans back to show the scorched, crumpled facade of his apartment building.
Suzanne emerges, adjusting her MAGA cap. "Oh, I loooove a good war! Don't you hon?" she says.
Curtis, who has a 101 Airborne tattoo, says quietly "there's a downside."
"I know! Just funning her." She appraises Jo. "Trump-Russia, Trump-Russia, now you'll get him!"
"Suze," Curtis says.
"Isn't Doc Jo so nice, house calls and all! Came up here with her husband to help a 'medically underserved community.' To educate us!"
"Majid's just trying teaching while he finishes his thesis," Jo says, setting the record straight.
"His thesis! You gonna be an MD married to a PhD. Little Miss Perfect." She distills her venom. "Little Ms. Perfect."
"Suze!" Curtis says.
Suzanne is a slender, sultry sixty-two. She lights a cigarette and exhales smoke languorously. Fuck cancer. Fuck you. She nods at the folder, and Jo hands her the top sheet. "Thanks, getting chilly," Suzanne says, flicking her lighter and torching the fateful paper.
Mental health break time. "Got paged," Jo says, bolting out toward her car.
Curtis races after her, too late or just in time, depending on your perspective. Dolly bites Jo on the hand and wrist, but a kick from Curtis stops the mauling there.
……… ……… ……… ……… ………
There's a good reason for taking opiates. Pain. The label on the codeine Curtis has been hoarding prescribes "1 every 4 hours", but Jo gladly accepts three, screw professional decorum. Curtis, doubtless aware of his legal jeopardy, leans against a sink in the tiny bathroom and assures Jo that Dolly had her shots. Jo sits on the toilet lid, and as the agony subsides, explains how to clean and dress her wounds. By the time her right forearm is encased in bandages, she's high.
Curtis offers a lift to Emergency. Jo says Majid will take her, just bring her to the college. Suzanne crowds into the bathroom. "You scared her," she says reproachfully. Jo laughs at her.
"Hon, did I ever tell you, Dr. Jo and I got something in common," Suzanne says. Curtis is silent. "Did …"
"Many times," Curtis says.
"Walnut Creek!" Suzanne says to him triumphantly. That city symbolizing suburbia to Northern Californians. "Course I grew up before the change. The only one who looked like you shined shoes on Broadway Plaza. And now, DIversiTY! Not enough for Black Lives Matter, you know they broke Nordstrom's windows? Weren't you embarrassed?"
Curtis looks miserable; Jo's job is to rescue people. She holds out her left hand and Curtis helps her up. The pill bottle that had been on her lap falls to the floor, and Suzanne pockets it.
……… ……… ……… ……… ………
Curtis starts his car and turns on his music. "Your wife won't need your codeine," Jo says, "since …", she clears her throat, "… she'll have stronger drugs soon. Look after her, like you do her home."
Curtis turns the sound down. "At first she was just another prisoner I wrote to. Then came visits, then I said let's try it, live with me when you get out. She said 'Ok, but no weed, no booze, nothing.' Gonna catch hell tonight."
Oh. Curtis asks where she met Majid.
"Physics class. I was a chem major. There's weird stuff science still doesn't understand, like why tiny particles are nowhere in particular until you look at them. According to 'many worlds,' there are infinite realities, with more created every moment something could be somewhere or somewhere else. One day after class Majid told me he didn't like many worlds, he believed there were hidden variables connecting things that seem different. But why? Einstein believed in hidden variables too, and they laughed at him. Doesn't that tell you something?"
"So it's our first date and we're walking along, not quite holding hands, and this car misfires. Majid dives to the pavement. Then he flashes this sheepish smile and says 'In my country, many sides every question. All sides have guns.' Then I understood."
"PTSD," Curtis says. He turns his music back up.
……… ……… ……… ……… ………
The note on the door says class is canceled. Majid suddenly sick, without even texting? Very sick indeed. "Perfect" — in a moment of brutal clarity, Jo realizes her day is careening downward toward big loss. Which room will she find him in?
They drive to Newbie, a Frontiera neighborhood transitioning from backwoods to suburbia. The split-level houses on Jo's cul-de-sac would look respectable in Walnut Creek. She lives at the end, with a stream burbling through a huge backyard.
"Let me out here," she says when they reach her street, "here!" Startled Curtis obeys. He drives off, then she walks home.
The house is dark except for a feeble light coming from the study. In all possible worlds, you don't get long to confront a dead body. She fumbles unlocking the door one-handed, but gets inside.
……… ……… ……… ……… ………
Majid notices Jo is standing in the shadows watching him. "Crying?" he asks, squinting. She dabs her eyes, and shakes her head no.
There's a single notebook page on his desk, and an overflowing wastebasket beside it. Majid points to the desk. "Genius pile." Then to the wastebasket. "Idiot pile." He tosses the page. "One pile."
He notices the time. "Forgot. Angry?" Again, no.
"Couldn't class, imposter too." Jo recognizes that term. It refers to students who invent sad excuses for missing exams. Or to himself, meaning how dare he dream of completing a thesis. Evidently there's a quantum limit to the size of an imposter cluster.
Majid turns up a radio. A learned pundit discourses on refugee attitudes: seems the Mid-Easterners have a special sympathy for the Ukrainians, and a new appreciation for America. "Now, empathy for Muslims!" he says, happily confusing subjects with objects.
She thinks "fat chance" quietly, puts on an encouraging smile, and steps into the light.
He notes her bandages. He's appalled. "Make sense, doctor come help, attack doctor!"
Her pandemic story exactly. "Got a ride back," she says, breaking her silence. Majid rolls his eyes. "She burned it."
"Loud thinking?"
"Her diagnosis." Weird thought, maybe Suzanne was modeling warmth mattering more than truth?
"Want to walk by the stream?" she says. They'll do that sometimes when he's dead-ended. He'll tell her of equations, and she'll ask smart, outsider questions, and he'll calm down, and they'll feel close.
"Not." He dons his coat and pats for his keys. "Hospital. Please." He strokes her face softly, ordinarily his invitation to engage in one of their favorite activities. Now it means 'lean on me and let's go where you need to go.' And she does, and they do, awkward at first but they persist. And his newly reliable, deeply married touch is the perfect … really hits the spot, under the circumstances.
