by Alex Wellen
“Don’t flatter yourself,” she kids.
“How does that feel?”
“Cold. I don’t care about my foot.” Paige wipes away a tear. “The shoes are a beautiful gift, Andy. I’m upset because I’m old, be cause I feel ugly, and because I don’t know what I’m doing with my life.”
“A regular spinster,” I agree.
“You watch: I’m going to wind up being the Crazy Old Cat Woman of Nob Hill.”
“You don’t even like cats,” I remind her. “I thought you said thirty was the new twenty.”
“That’s a load. Twenty is the new twenty.”
I move the ice pack. Paige lets out a slight moan. I am on bended knee. It would be so easy to fix everything right now and propose.
“I haven’t given you your real gift yet,” I decide.
Igor Petrov’s ring may be stowed away in the floorboards of my apartment, but right now, it’s burning a hole through my pocket like kryptonite. I can’t wait two more weeks. I can’t wait two more seconds. I think back to Mac Daddy’s ILY chart and his recommendation on the perfect day of the week to spring the surprise.
“How is your availability this Wednesday?” I ask her.
“Uh, not great. I work. Day-side, I think.”
“I’m picking you up afterward and we’re going on a romantic escapade.”
“I dunno.”
“It’s too late. I’ve already made the reservation at an expensive B and B and it’s nonrefundable.” All lies. “We both have Thursday off. We’ll go up, sleep over Wednesday, and take our time coming home.”
She studies me thoughtfully.
“I guess,” she relents softly.
“Yippee. ‘You guess!’ That’s what I was shooting for.”
I’ve done it—I’ve initiated an irreversible launch sequence.
CHAPTER 8
Medicine Men
IF ONLY people still called them “apothecaries” or “chemists,” maybe I would have stuck it out in pharmacy school. Even “druggist” has a certain retro flare to it, though Gregory despises the moniker—says it feels too much like “drug dealer.”
Pharmacists generally get a bad rap. Doctors think we’re illiterate if we can’t read their writing. Patrons think we’re gouging them if we say insurance won’t pay. It really is appalling how people treat the world’s second-oldest profession. I’ll admit, for the better half of my life, I didn’t have a lot of respect for pharmacists, either. Count, pour, lick, and stick. Does it really take a rocket scientist to slap a label on a prepackaged tube of ointment?
But then I met Paige.
Back in high school, Paige compared her father’s work to that of a saint. She described a time, not so long ago, before the greedy insurance companies and parsimonious Medicare, before the insatiable pharmaceutical companies with their superprofits, when your small-town pharmacist was the local hero, and patrons were treated like family. That’s when folks only went to the doctor for one of the three B’s—bleeding, babies, and the big stuff—and the rest was reserved for someone like Gregory, the Mayor of Pomona Street, who happily dispensed medical advice from behind his mighty pharmacy bench.
Maybe it was my recollection of how Paige lovingly described Gregory’s work, or perhaps the job just reminded me of Paige, but the more I searched for the right career, the more I kept coming back to pharmacology. After a couple of moderately successful years of community college, I finally managed to gain admission to the UC-San Francisco pharmacy program. When it came time to find an internship, second semester, second year, I immediately thought of Day’s Pharmacy. When I heard Paige had returned to Crockett, I made landing a job there my mission.
This was my chance to reunite with Paige plus see a real pharmacist in action, crushing pills daily mortar-and-pestle-style. I learned that Big Pharma produced the drugs and doctors prescribed them, but it took a gifted pharmacist to figure out how to deliver them to a patient’s bloodstream. Someone like Gregory—a devotee of a dying breed of medicine men known as compounding pharmacists.
The compounding pharmacist is a practitioner of a lost art, one dating back to medieval times when medicine was made from scratch. When Gregory entered the profession decades ago, he was still responsible for physically shaping most of the pills, filling the capsules, preparing the salves, and mixing the suspensions. Compounding isn’t even taught in pharmacy school or tested on the Boards anymore. Nowadays, most drugs come in standard forms, strengths, and dosages. When you go to chains like CVS, Rite Aid, or Walgreens, you’re basically stuck with whatever flavor the commercial drug maker is currently mass-producing.
But not at Day’s Pharmacy. And not with Gregory.
Gregory is old school. His customers are not beholden to any pharmacy chain or pharmaceutical company. The folks who come here keep coming in large part because they know that Gregory can tailor-make medication to their specific needs. Like a magician, he can extract dangerous dyes, remove unnecessary preservatives, and steer clear of additives that may cause allergic reactions. The man is an artist, always nurturing his craft. You can see it on his face: Gregory is most fulfilled in his work when he’s compounding.
Many of our elderly customers, about two-thirds of them women, have trouble with pills. For example, the Widow Riggs can’t take her arthritis tablets without her ulcer acting up, so Gregory pulverizes the pills and transforms them into a trans dermal gel that she can apply topically to her wrists and ankles. Former lightweight boxing champ Mickey “Bulldog” Bratton doesn’t have the strength to swallow his cholesterol capsules, so Gregory mashes them up, mixing in syrup, and converts the whole suspension into a sweet cocktail. When the Rally sisters, Rhonda and Fay, kissed the same infectious man in a two-week span, Gregory concocted an antibiotic lip balm. Gregory compounded a nasal spray for Sally C’s bronchitis. Conrad Callahan, who used to play catcher on Gregory and Sid’s old softball team, insists on taking his pain medication in lozenge form. And Lucille Braggs, that spitfire, prefers a suppository to pills.
At the other end of the evolutionary continuum are the children. Thanks to a generous free supply of C & H sugar, Gregory is a regular candyman, routinely turning out lollipops, sugary drinks, and gummy cures.
“QUIET around here today,” Gregory says with a mix of relief and anxiety.
Gregory is unusually upbeat today. I think he’s still riding Monday’s high as grand marshal of the Memorial Day Parade. Crockett is about the only town left in the East Bay that still goes gangbusters for the holiday. The afternoon kicks off with an air show; people build elaborate floats; every generation from every arm of the military and every conflict since World War II marches; and bands from all over Contra Costa County perform their little hearts out.
This week is notoriously slow for business, Gregory reminds me again.
“All those lamebrains are freezing their asses off at the beach right now,” I say.
Gregory manages a grin. In the last two hours we’ve had six customers. I think Belinda is on her tenth magazine.
“By the way, I stuffed a half-dozen candy rings under the register. Extras. Feel free to distribute them to worthy recipients,” he says generously.
Alas, I already know about the rings and I’ve already found at least one worthy recipient: Gregory had chili at Langley’s for lunch and I had two Red Rockets.
“These need to cool,” Gregory warns me as he carefully sets down a tin of confection masterpieces.
Today’s special is penicillin-infused dark chocolate. The recipient of these mouthwatering candy bars is Adrian Mackowski, the most miserable six-year-old this side of Marin County. Two months ago I singed all the hair on my left arm when Gregory forgot to turn off the propane Bunsen burner he uses to melt the chocolate. The near-work-related accident provided some leverage. Gregory took my advice and replaced the open flame with a cheap portable electric range. Since then Gregory’s candy bars have started looking a lot less like blobs, and a lot more like slabs. Today’s batch loo
ks particularly delectable.
“Yummy,” I say, rubbing my belly. “Can I?”
“If you do, you’ll want to refrain from operating any heavy machinery. And stay out of the sun,” he says. “Penicillin can cause blotchiness.”
“Maybe a Three Musketeers Bar instead,” I say, walking out from behind the counter, grabbing one, and wiggling it in Belinda’s direction.
Belinda nods, mentally adding it to my nonexistent tab.
“You could make these,” Gregory assures me, squatting down at eye level to inspect the candy bars for lumps.
“You think so? I learned from the best.” I am such a miserable suck-up.
I haven’t so much learned from the best as I’ve learned nearby the best, picking up tips and tricks as best one can. Before I dropped out of pharmacy school, before I befriended his best friend, and be fore I fell in love with his daughter, Gregory showed signs that he might take me under his wing. One time, he even sat me down for a compounding lesson.
“I’m impressed,” he marveled that day, as I popped the pristine handmade pills out of the mold. It was beginner’s luck. We both knew it.
But then I started dating Paige, and he lost complete interest in my career, and I lost complete interest in him. When I ultimately bailed on pharmacy school halfway through my second semester, Gregory didn’t say a peep. It was just as well. The coursework was only going to get tougher, the student loans higher, and what I really came for was within reach. The only thing standing in my way now: Gregory.
I’ve had all day to do this. I’ve had weeks to do this. I’ve put this off for far too long. Paige and I leave for wine country in less than an hour.
I step right up to Gregory and tap him lightly on the shoulder.
CHAPTER 9
His Blessing in Disguise
“GREGORY, can we talk?”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing?”
“No, I mean privately,” I whisper.
“But there’s no one here.”
Belinda cups her ears to give us space.
“Andrew, how about we talk-and-work? We’ve got, like, two dozen scripts that still need filling.”
“Talk-and-work, sure thing,” I say. Deep breath. “You know we’re headed out of town this evening.”
“We who?”
“Me and Paige.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
“It’s part of my birthday gift to Paige.”
Gregory starts reliving last night. “You’re not going to make her wear those ridiculous shoes, are you? She nearly broke her neck.”
“No,” I say, offended. “I’m not going to make her wear the shoes.”
“Good.”
The bell on the front door jingles.
In walks a petite blonde in a tight-fitting, above-the-knee blue pinstriped suit. She’s dragging a big black leather briefcase on wheels. Brianna McDonnell is hardly the typical insurance collector. Silky golden locks cropped just above the shoulder, Ivory-girl skin, angelic features, and a bright, energetic smile, she might as well have just walked off a movie set. So splendid a specimen, one is inclined to stare, and that’s when you notice something slightly off. Leaning this way and that, Brianna hides it well, but at equilibrium, she can’t manage to stand up straight. Brianna has chronic back problems.
“If it isn’t my favorite deadbeat druggist,” she calls out to Gregory.
“Go away,” he tells her, kindly.
She walks right up to me at the counter. “It’s Andy, right?” she says leaning in, making direct eye contact. That citrusy scent is intoxicating.
“Andy I am,” I say. Whenever I get nervous I somehow turn into Dr. Seuss.
“Is he always this grumpy?” she asks.
“Always.”
I assume she can see my heart pounding through my button-down. Brianna delicately bends down to retrieve something from her briefcase, but her body won’t cooperate. A pinched nerve, a herniated disc, a pulled muscle, whatever it is, it’s killing her. As she grabs her paperwork, there is a shooting pain and she moans in agony.
Gregory is concerned.
“I thought we had an agreement,” he demands.
“I have a chiropractor.”
“No, you need a doctor-doctor. No acupuncture. No physical therapy. No stretching. None of this holistic crap. It’s enough already.”
“Humph,” she says.
Brianna starts flipping through a stack of papers.
Manny Milken arrives. He holds the door open for Dr. Bran don Mills, a general practitioner in his early sixties who works around the block. Milken and Mills give each other mixed messages, prompting them to enter the pharmacy at precisely the same moment. Their shoulders collide in the doorway knocking Mills’s brown leather medical bag out onto the sidewalk and Manny’s packages down two different pharmacy aisles.
I expect as much from Manny—the type of guy you’re amazed still has all ten fingers—but there’s nothing quite as satisfying as seeing that balding, smug, pretentious Dr. Mills look like such a stooge.
“Doctor Mills!” Gregory says, genuinely thrilled to see his friend and primary physician.
“Doctor Day, always a pleasure,” Mills replies politely, clip-clopping across the tile floor in golf cleats.
It kills me that Gregory lets Mills call him “doctor.”
“Brandon, I need you to recommend a good back doctor for Ms. McDonnell here. She’s twenty-six and falling apart.”
Dr. Mills gives Gregory’s request some serious consideration.
“Tess Mayor. She’s an orthopedist in Vallejo.”
Brianna playfully snaps the pen I’m using from out of my hand, flips over her stack of papers, and starts writing. Mills spells out the doctor’s name for her.
“Tess is always completely booked, so you’ll need to tell her I sent you.”
Brianna writes this down, too.
Good ole Brandon Mills: always looking for the goddamn referral.
“The last doctor said I needed surgery,” Brianna complains.
“Go see Tess, she’ll make you right as rain,” Mills assures her. “Which reminds me, you’re due for your seventy-five-thousand-mile tune-up,” Mills tells Gregory. “I’ll need you to make an appointment with Diane soon. I’m on vacay part of June and most of July.”
Gregory nods, and then goes back to filling prescriptions.
“Mrs. Mills and I saw that gorgeous daughter of yours on the eleven o’clock news last night,” Mills says. “The camera loves her.”
Gregory raises both eyebrows in agreement.
“Have to make today’s trip quick,” Mills says, as if he’s doing us a favor.
“Whatever you need,” Gregory casually replies and, with a majestic gesture, grants Mills free rein of the pharmacy aisles.
So begins Mills’s biweekly shopping spree. Forgoing the stack of red plastic shopping baskets near the doorway, Mills starts sliding Tylenol, toothpaste, and dental floss directly into his medical bag in apocalyptic fashion.
Only now do I notice that Manny’s spent the last five minutes staring breathlessly at Brianna. He, too, is intoxicated by her pheromones. I bob my head in his eye line, whistle loudly like a parrot, and wave to get his attention.
“Sometimes Manny goes on little vacations without telling any of us,” I inform Brianna. “Idn’t that right, Manny?”
Brianna blushes slightly.
“I’m ignoring you,” Manny tells me, stepping behind the counter.
He introduces himself to Brianna as “Emmanuel.”
“Nice to meet you,” she says, sticking out her hand.
They shake, and Manny doesn’t let go, but Brianna doesn’t seem to mind.
“Emmanuel!” Gregory yells. “Let’s get with the program.”
“This everything?” Manny says, lifting the cardboard carton of brown bags.
“Give me those, you ignoramus,” I demand.
I snatch the delivery from him. Gregory slides a pile of octagonal-sh
aped pills into a wide, burnt-orange cup, twists the cap shut, and hands it to me. I check it over, rubber band instructions around the bottle, drop the goods into a small brown bag, and place the contents with the others.
“Say it,” I command, playing keep-away with the carton.
“Are there special instructions?” Manny mumbles in Gregory’s direction.
Manny is required to ask this question ever since he inadvertently delivered Ms. Rothkin the wrong heart medication. She caught the mistake, and decided not to sue, but it’s the closest Gregory has ever come to firing Manny.
“One note,” I say on Gregory’s behalf, finally relenting the carton. “Roy Crane needs his insulin shots. He has a physical therapy appointment at 3:30, and I promised him that you’d wait until he arrives home.”
Manny knows it’s against California state law to leave medication on a doorstep or in a mailbox. That means he either needs to get a signature, redeliver, or wait, and Manny hates to wait: “That so kills business,” he whines.
Manny places the carton on the counter, slicks back his thick oily black hair with one hand, and pulls out a handheld electronic organizer with the other.
“Check this out,” he brags to Brianna, as if she’s interested. “It tracks all my deliveries irregardless of who sent what. Do you have one of these? Because if you don’t, you can have mine.”
Maybe he doesn’t say that last part.
“I do have one,” she says politely.
“Oh good,” he says, relieved to hear they’re compatible.
Manny uses the organizer to remind himself that he needs to wait for Roy Crane, but as he goes to press a button, the organizer slips out of his left mitt and crashes to the ground.
“Oh my God!” he screams.
He picks it up and tests a few buttons at random.
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Manny reassures us. “I’m still figuring out how this thing works.”
“You’re still figuring how the Clapper works,” I tell him.
Mills laughs from two aisles away.
“I know how the Clapper works,” Manny shoots back.
“Okay, Mr. Day, you and me, we need to talk turkey,” Brianna says, all business. She checks her list. “I’ve been asking for those prescription records for three months now. You don’t want me to lose my job now, do you?”
