Lovesick

by Alex Wellen

  She escorts Lara and me to Glassware and I test the gun on some crystal.

  I shoot. “These things should come with a safety” I tell Ms. Johnson. “You know, to avoid impulse purchases.”

  “Aren’t you the clever one!” she chirps.

  “Oh, come on. Andrew’s just being his regular jackass self,” Lara cries.

  “Do we need to go back to couples’ therapy?” I ask Lara.

  Ms. Johnson abruptly leaves to file a police report for domestic violence or get the paperwork for a divorce registry.

  “Great, Einstein, so what happens when my sister shows up next week?”

  “I bet Macy’s still allows people to spend money on us,” I say.

  Lara pulls a Post-it-note-infested store catalog from one of Paige’s bags. We’ve already wandered into the Bath department, so we start there.

  “Okay, we’re looking for The Charter Club Hotel Collection,” Lara says all business-like. She scrutinizes the sale signs. “Paige says you need wash towels and hand towels. She’s narrowed the colors to buttercream, sagebrush, or sable.”

  “What’s sagebrush?”

  “Muted green,” Lara answers.

  “What’s sable?”

  “Grayish brown.”

  “What’s the difference between a wash towel and hand towel?”

  “A wash towel is tiny. A hand towel is somewhere in the middle.”

  Lara graciously holds up a few examples. The overhead speakers play the Muzak version of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”

  I place the barrel of the UPC gun in my mouth and pull the trigger.

  “Oh, that’s sanitary,” Lara says.

  It takes us forty-five minutes to nail down the towels. Operating the gun is trickier than first thought: when I’m not shooting the wrong brand, I’m pulling the trigger one too many times. In both cases, I need Ms. Johnson’s help canceling the requests. Lara thinks I’m an imbecile until she tries. Ms. Johnson assures us that we can correct everything at the end.

  We’ll be lucky to get through Bedding before Macy’s closes. Dining, Cookware, Kitchen Appliances, Home Decor, Luggage, it will all simply have to wait until our next visit. As a reward for getting this far, I add two white terrycloth bathrobes to the registry. Maybe Paige won’t notice.

  “So that pesky woman from Blue Cross called again,” Lara tells me as she scrunches a pillow like she’s playing an accordion.

  “Brianna? She’s just doing her job,” I say, cradling a pillow with both hands before violently head-butting it repeatedly.

  “You clearly have a thing for her.”

  “And you love Tyler Rich, nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah.”

  “Don’t be juvenile.”

  “Am not. Infinity.”

  “You know, just because you’re getting married, it doesn’t mean you stop being attracted to other women,” Lara explains. “Brianna is very pretty.”

  I’m not falling for this.

  Lara hands me a pillow. I reject it immediately as too firm.

  “Why don’t you try drooling on a few,” she suggests.

  It’s not such a bad idea.

  “Can we just give Blue Cross the records they need and be done with it?” Lara asks. “This insurance business is hanging over any sale we make of the pharmacy.”

  “So Paige is fine with us selling?” I confirm.

  I wrap a large down pillow around my head.

  “If she wants this elaborate wedding, something’s got to give,” Lara insists.

  I carry some samples over to the Calvin Klein display and toss them on the bed. Then I lie down at an angle so my shoes hang off the edge.

  “We’re not going that overboard,” I say, rolling my head side to side.

  I place another pillow over my face.

  “Yeah, right. I know all about your fancy-delancy wedding hall. And now this $2,500 wedding gown.”

  “What!” I scream into the pillow and jump out of bed.

  “I promised her I wouldn’t say anything,” Lara says.

  “I thought she was making her own dress.”

  “Yeah, and she’s churning the butter for the dinner rolls, too,” Lara quips.

  “This is bad,” I say.

  “Andrew, my sister was dressing up Barbie dolls in wedding dresses before Barbie was ready to get married. She wants this showy wedding. The money’s got to come from somewhere.”

  I study Lara. “I can think of one place,” I suggest.

  Lara’s listening.

  “Actually one person, and one amount: $20,386 and 23 cents to be exact.”

  The color drains from Lara’s face.

  “I knew you were a waste of time,” she says, snapping up her bags and booking down the aisle toward the exit. “I am so out of here.”

  I chase after her. “Seriously. Six months ago, Gregory gives you twenty grand and this never comes up in any of our financial conversations?”

  Lara isn’t speaking to me.

  “Does Paige know about the money? Seriously, Lara, does she?”

  “You have some nerve,” she hisses.

  I block Lara just as she gets to the escalator.

  “Why did you just say I was a waste of time?”

  “I said this was a waste of time,” Lara insists, gesturing toward the showroom.

  “No, you said I was a waste of time.”

  Lara can’t decide whether to say what she’s obviously going to say.

  “Look, I’m sorry that I have to be the one to tell you, but it’s just not going to work out with you two.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Ask Paige.”

  “Enough with the drama, Lara. Speak!” I command, allowing a few anxious patrons access to the escalator.

  “She’s been seeing someone else.”

  “You’re talking about your environmentally unfriendly pal Tyler Rich. I know all about the houseboat. Paige told me everything. Nothing happened.”

  “So then you know about Thursday?”

  “Now you’re just making shit up to be mean.”

  “Last Thursday, when Tyler came by the pharmacy to pick me up, he and I weren’t having dinner. Paige and Tyler were. I was her alibi.”

  “Puh-leeze.”

  “I’m sorry, Andy,” she says as I let her go. “It is what it is.”

  Lara slowly descends to the second floor. When she hits the landing and turns the corner, I slowly bring the UPC gun to my temple and pull the trigger.

  CHAPTER 24

  Drug Deals

  THERE is Zoloft in the wheel well of my trunk. Stashes of Celebrex underneath the seat cushions of our couch. Remicade in my right pocket. Lanicor in my left. The tiny plastic drawers above Gregory’s workbench no longer store odds and ends but heartburn medicine and blood pressure tablets. For the privileged few still in the Day Co-Pay program, the pharmacy is always open for business.

  The late-night phone calls and customer drive-bys occasionally raise suspicions at home, but Lara is too consumed with our finances, and Paige is too consumed with our wedding to pay much attention.

  Collecting from our deadbeats has been slow going. Sid was right: when you cross-check Lara’s Most Wanted against Gregory’s bloodsuckers, there aren’t many people left who can pay. At the pharmacy Lara’s become more adept at recognizing the freeloaders on her hit list, mostly because she’s created a cheat sheet with pictures. (When Lucille Braggs finally won BINGO in December 1997 and got her cheery photo in the Crockett Quarterly, I doubt she ever dreamed Lara Day would one day use that head-shot as part of a criminal watch list.)

  “You’re Mickey ‘Bulldog’ Bratton, aren’t you?” Lara asked the former lightweight boxing champ just the other day.

  “I am,” he said, embarrassed to be recognized. “Your father was a standup guy. You can’t put a value on what he did for this community.”

  “I can,” Lara said, sucker punching him. “Thirteen hundred dollars. That’s the total on your tab. Please settle u
p with Belinda at the front desk.”

  All Bulldog wanted was some toothpaste and a can of shaving cream, but that visit cost him a fortune. The check bounced, but I still give Lara credit.

  All in all, Manny’s been the biggest help. He calls our new collecting system “full proof.” I call it the Home Court Disadvantage. We stumbled across the idea a few days ago trying to collect from seventy-something Conrad Callahan. There I was on Conrad’s steps, struggling to figure out a diplomatic way to tell him that he owed us $2,000 in shampoo or Doritos or something, when Manny got an urgent call informing him that he missed another FedEx pickup. Without any warning, Manny screeched off, leaving me stranded on Conrad Callahan’s stoop.

  “I guess you’d be wanting to use my telephone,” Conrad said, scratching his bald head with a cereal spoon.

  Once inside, Conrad was done for. First I cruised his family portraits. Then I complimented the hell out of his velvet Jesus paintings and ceramic elephant collection. I told him our sob story. I asked him to imagine what it might be like if his beautiful grandchildren inherited our problems instead of all these priceless possessions. It took a good half hour, but eventually he caved, coughing up only a third of what he owed, but a decent chunk nonetheless.

  Empathy can be a wonderful thing. Manny abandons me all the time now.

  Gregory’s doctor, Brandon Mills, never did pay. He did, however, send us a bill (that, thankfully, I intercepted before triggering a magnitude 7.0 with Lara). Despite crediting us $3,000 for “T.P.B.S,” Mills is under the impression that we still owe him $2,000 in unpaid doctor visits covering the last five years. But toilet paper isn’t the only thing that’s bullshit about Mills’s bill. He won’t be paying ours and we won’t be paying his. I welcome him to get in line behind the rest of our creditors. The queue is around the block.

  The remaining doctors wrapped up in Gregory’s lurid swap meets were far more cooperative. That ear, nose, and throat physician, Cynthia Hardy, was in here once a week, stockpiling spring water, makeup, and snacks. Dr. Richard Platt quit smoking thanks in large part to a continuous free supply of nicotine patches. When I laid out the facts—along with all the potential federal crimes in question—both doctors quickly settled for $1,500 apiece.

  So far, all told, Manny, Lara, and I have managed to rake in about $12,000—a ninth of what people owe Gregory, and a sixth of what we need to cover the back mortgage payments and Gregory’s credit card debt in order to keep the house.

  WHEN I’m not illegally dispensing drugs or shaking down seniors for security deposits, I’m conducting patent research online. We’ve be gun vetting Gregory’s composition notebook. Sid’s taken 1958 through 1972. I’ve got 1973 on.

  Recipes aren’t patentable, but chemical compositions, methods, and devices are. Between all of Gregory’s capsules, candies, and compounding contraptions (yes, contraptions), Sid and I are hoping we find something PMP-worthy but nothing so far. Paging through his notebook, there is no shortage of “protectable” ideas—problem is, Gregory never bothered protecting them while others did. With so many of his inventions now on the market, you have to wonder whether plants posing as patrons spent the last fifty years infiltrating Day’s Pharmacy.

  Gregory’s notebook has come in handy around the pharmacy. I’ve been experimenting with some of his recipes. The other day I replaced Gregory’s porcelain mortar and pestle with a vintage set that Sid found on eBay. Last week I made my first suppository, though Belinda and Lara greeted the achievement with deafening silence. Today I attempted to turn cough syrup into gummy candy and got gook. Tomorrow I’ll try my hand at lozenges. It’s occurred to me that mastering even a handful of Gregory’s most basic compounding formulas could make a big difference in people’s lives.

  Even if nothing more comes of Gregory’s notebook, that Euraka Productions letterhead has still come in handy. Sid and I have plenty of our own Poor Man’s Patents, and every day, Sid’s sending out query letters to potential manufacturers and licensees. We’ll see. Let’s hope.

  BUSINESS today is slow. It has been all week. With Gregory gone, our peculiar hours, and that busted, boarded-up front door, I think most Crockett folks think Day’s Pharmacy went out of business. Either that or they’re avoiding us because they know we’re looking to settle some debts. On Saturday, I broke down and had the door replaced. Principal Martin suggested I send the $400 bill to the Contra Costa Sheriff’s Department care of Dudley Fielding, which I did.

  Mildred is here shopping with Beatrice. She spent the last twenty minutes snaking through the aisles with her walker, occasionally tossing toiletries over her shoulder into Beatrice’s red plastic basket.

  Ruth Mulrooney is quietly browsing, too. She’s not her flamboyant self. I can barely make out her face with that massive white kerchief smartly fashioned around her head, and the big black Jackie Onassis sunglasses.

  I’m filling scripts at the counter when Ruth walks right up to me.

  “It feels impossible that Gregory is gone,” she whispers.

  “I know. I miss him more than you know.”

  “He was right there,” Ruth says, pointing to where I’m standing. “Alive and well, and now he’s gone. Everyone keeps dying.”

  It’s not Day’s Pharmacy without Gregory, and yet it’s hard to know where to go from here. It feels wrong to keep this place open, or close it down, or sell it to someone else. This pharmacy is sacred ground: Paige and Lara were nearly born here; Gregory died here. In my dreams, our children dart up and down these aisles.

  It’s been three days since the Macy’s Day blowup with Lara and she hasn’t been back to the pharmacy since. I have yet to confront Paige about any of Lara’s allegations. I keep trying to put Tyler Rich and that excessive wedding dress out of my mind. Stay focused on the good. There are so many signs you’re still on track to be married. Take today, for example: Paige and I have a food tasting with Belinda’s mother. I’ve starved myself because I know Marylyn’s spent all day preparing delicious finger food, appetizers, and potential entrées for the reception.

  With Lara away, I can freely dispense freebies. I hand Beatrice her osteoporosis and heartburn pills. Mildred needs a couple of asthma inhalers and medication for type 1 diabetes. Seeing as Doctors Hardy and Platt have settled, I’ve forbidden Mildred and Beatrice from hitting up either of them for any more free samples. This, I pray, is our first stop on the long road to legitimacy.

  I walk Mildred to the front, arm in arm. Ruth stops paying at the register long enough to give me a jealous look; she then peels off two twenties from a wad of bills. These days I’m always surprised to see anyone pay in cash. The last person to pay cash was probably … Ruth. I want to nominate Ruth to be President of the Day “Can-Pay” Club.

  Neither Beatrice nor Mildred has a red cent.

  “Add these prescriptions to their tabs,” I instruct Belinda.

  “Lara’s not going to like that,” Belinda says, making a notation.

  “Well, Lara can go …,” I stop midsentence, noticing Brianna McDonnell standing on the sidewalk just outside the pharmacy.

  With a friendly smile, she waves hello.

  I’m not entirely surprised to see Brianna, but I was hoping she’d give me a few more days to pull together the insurance records.

  Brianna is as stunning as ever in blue jeans that accentuate her long legs and a simple, snug, long-sleeved T-shirt.

  “You must think I’m a little obsessed,” she says, tucking both her hands in the back pockets of her jeans.

  “With who? Me?” I ask nervously.

  “No,” Brianna laughs, reaching out and touching my arm, gently.

  My heart is racing.

  “With getting this paperwork. It’s my day off and here I am harassing you about an audit,” she says, adjusting her stance to find a comfortable equilibrium.

  This is the first time she’s used the dreaded a-word.

  She arches her back and a shooting pain flashes across her face.

 
“Did you ever see that orthopedist that Mills recommended in Vallejo?”

  “You’re so sweet to ask. Never did,” she says to the ground, “but my doctor says I need back surgery.”

  “Oh man.”

  “I know!” she moans.

  “Maybe you should get a second opinion.”

  “I think job stress is aggravating my condition…. These records are probably the last thing on your mind,” she says, her voice cracking slightly. “But I’m getting a lot of pressure from my boss, and I can’t screw this up right now. I really need my health benefits.”

  I nod, biting the inside of my cheek.

  “Can you just give me something, anything?” she pleads.

  Ruth, Mildred, and Beatrice exit the pharmacy one after another. They can’t miss Brianna. All three immediately shoot me disapproving looks. Then Mildred reaches over and plants a long, juicy kiss on my cheek.

  “Hi, Paige!” Beatrice blurts.

  Beatrice is either confused or thinks she’s being clever.

  “No,” I delicately explain. “This is Brianna McDonnell.”

  “I’m sure she is, but that’s Paige Day,” Beatrice says, pointing to my fiancée approaching ten yards away.

  Paige waves.

  “Ladies!” Paige greets them, sounding more like her father than ever.

  Mildred hugs Paige. Beatrice hugs Paige and Mildred. I hug all three of them while Ruth and Brianna watch. It’s weird. From inside this huddled mass, Paige dislodges a hand and introduces herself to Brianna. Everyone finally lets go.

  “It’s so nice to finally meet you,” Brianna says.

  “I’m sorry, and who are you?” Paige asks.

  “Brianna is the insurance lady,” I explain quickly. “Woman.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Paige says unassumingly.

  The six of us congregate on the sidewalk in awkward silence.

  “Everyone stay right here,” I demand, excusing myself.

  I race inside the pharmacy to Lara’s workstation. It doesn’t take me long to find exactly what Brianna needs: Lara’s black ledger—unlocked and available, it details every prescription we’ve filled over the last two years. Lara’s even gone ahead and highlighted the transactions subject to the Blue Cross audit.