“Yes, that’s him.”
“He just got divorced right? I think I’ve seen his ex too.”
“Excellent,” said Patience. “That will make our discussion all the easier.”
“Girl talk—cool,” said Harriet.
Patience turned toward Pico Mundo and twenty-five minutes later was parking outside the front entrance of the mall. Once inside, they went directly to See’s Candy, where Harriet bought herself three pieces of chocolate. Then they started around the mall’s top level. They looked through the window of Abercrombie & Fitch, before stepping through the entrance of bebe.
Harriet took a bite of her chocolate as she looked up at one of the Gizmo maniquinoids posing stylishly in a little black dress.
“I can see why you shop here, Patience, but I don’t think they have anything for me.”
“I’m sure they have any number of outfits that would look wonderful on you.”
“Not with my ass,” said Harriet, tossing the rest of the candy in her mouth.
“I don’t think your ass looks all that different from mine,” said Wanda, bending over and examining Harriet’s derriere.
“No, we’re both a bit curvy down below. Maybe I should have met your Ryan a few years ago. Seems like he likes the shapely girls.”
“Ryan is not for you,” said Wanda.
“Don’t get your thong in a twist. I’m perfectly happy with my Jack. More or less happy anyway.”
“I think you would look wonderful in this,” called Patience from across the store, where she had found another maniquinoid posing in a deep-blue pleated, layered dress.”
Both Harriet and Wanda tried on the dress and Harriet ended up buying it. Thus began their shopping excursion as they made their way around first the top floor of the mall and then the lower level. By the time they arrived at the food court, their arms were laden with shopping bags from a dozen stores, despite the fact that they had already made one trip back to the car to drop off purchases.
“This was a fantastic idea,” said Harriet. “I can’t wait to wear that strapless dress out to dinner. You did say you would baby-sit, right Patience?”
Patience nodded. “What would you like for lunch?”
Harriet looked around. “I’m going to feel awfully self-conscious if I’m the only one eating.”
“We’ll eat something too.”
“Well, how about a falafel?”
“Excellent choice,” said Patience. “Wanda, would you go purchase three falafel pita sandwiches and three diet sodas please.”
Wanda nodded and hurried toward the Greek food stand. Patience led Harriet to an empty table and sat down across from her.
“So, what did you want to talk about, my robot step-mother?”
“Wanda has a problem with a human woman, and we need your guidance.” Patience gave Harriet an abbreviated version of the ballad of Ryan and Mariah, and her discussions on the subject with Wanda. “And now she’s out to get Ryan back, apparently.”
“Has she made a move yet?”
“No, not that I know of.”
“Well, you were right. The best way to handle the situation is to direct her toward another goal.”
Wanda arrived and set out lunch in front of each of their seats.
“But Ryan is so wonderful,” she said, sitting down in the empty chair. “What more could she possibly want?”
Harriet rolled her eyes. “Good lord, you really are a robot, aren’t you. I don’t even know her, but I can tell you what she wants—security, comfort, and reliability—in that order.”
“Money,” said Patience, nodding slowly.
“Not just money, but money plays a part in it. My guess is that she thought she had it all. She had a great guy at home to take care of her and love her, and she thought she could go out and have some hot, dirty sex without getting caught. People fooling around always think they can never get caught. The women usually are and the men always are. Now she’s found out that getting a bit of horizontal refreshment isn’t worth giving up a comfy, happy home.”
“So, we just need to find a new man for her,” said Patience. “Do you have any suggestions?”
“Me?”
“You do travel in the same circles, at least as far as church is concerned.”
Harriet shrugged. “I could give it some thought. Let me ask you this. Did he actually see her having sex with someone else?”
“There were pictures taken by a private investigator.”
“And did he look at them?”
“I don’t know for sure,” replied Patience, “but I gather he did.”
“Good.”
“Why is that good?” asked Wanda. “It made poor Ryan miserable.”
“Men are very visual. Even if they know they are being cheated on, they sometimes take a woman back. If they actually see it though, then it becomes far less likely.”
“You certainly seem to know a great deal about this topic,” Patience told Harriet.
“You’d be surprised at all the things people tell you when you’re trying to clean their teeth.”
Chapter Six
“And they wonder why people go crazy and burst into doctors’ offices with assault rifles,” said Mike, sitting sideways on the examining table of the orthopedic surgeon’s office.
“It’s not that bad, Mike,” said Patience.
“That’s easy for you to say. You’re protected from radiation. They’re going to give me cancer before I get my knee fixed. I go to the doctor, who gives me an x-ray, which he admits doesn’t tell him anything. He just gave it to me so that I could get into that fancy LMS scan and then get into the orthopedist’s office. And what does the orthopedist do before he even sees me?”
“He has you get another x-ray.”
“He has me get another x-ray.”
“I’m sure that two x-rays will not put you at too much risk.”
“Sure, now,” replied Mike, crossing his arms. “What if I break my arm next week? Then what if I have to go to the dentist and get a filling? Then what if I fall and bust my skull open. I’ll be glowing by next month.”
“Mike, you lived almost fifty-two years without breaking a single bone.”
“That was before I knew you. I’ve made up for lost time since you came along, Mrs. Smith.”
At that moment, the examining room door opened and the doctor stepped inside. He closed the door without looking up from his texTee and reached out a hand toward Mike. He was a tall, heavyset man with hints of Asian ancestry in his face, but when he spoke it was with an accent right out of West Virginia.
“I’m Dr. Pine. Good to meet you.”
Mike shrugged. Dr. Pine whipped his texTee around and held it in front of Mike’s face.
“Here’s your scan. You’ve torn your medial meniscus in three places.”
“I’m going to have to stay out of those places,” said Mike.
“Oh, that was funny,” said the doctor, without cracking a smile. “We’ll cut three little incisions around your knee and go in. Once we get in there, we can see what’s what, and fix it. I can get you on the schedule for the day after tomorrow.”
“May I see the scan?” asked Patience.
Pine hesitated.
“Let her see it,” said Mike. “And let me get this straight. I have a billion dollar LMS scan and enough x-rays to look like I spend my weekends at Chernobyl, and you still won’t know ‘what’s what’ until you dig around in my knee?”
“Well, soft tissue is notoriously difficult to get a good image on. Based on the inflammation, it’s obvious that it’s the medial meniscus. It’s not really surprising. I see this injury half a dozen times a week. We can fix you up in no time though. It’s a day surgery. Walk in, have the surgery, and go home. You should stay off your feet for two days and then you’ll be back to your usual routine.”
“I’ll be able to walk after just two days?”
“Sure. I’ll want you to take it easy for a while. No jogging for two week
s. No strenuous lifting for four weeks. Other than that, usual activities are fine.”
“That prognosis seems extremely optimistic, Dr. Pine,” said Patience. “With this type of surgery, I wouldn’t expect Mike to return to his usual activities for at least six months, and even then, only after physical therapy.”
Mike looked questioningly at the doctor.
“Well, quite a few patients feel like they benefit from physical therapy. If after the surgery, that seems like the best option for you, I’ll prescribe it.”
“I don’t think you should have this surgery, Mike,” said Patience.
“If we don’t get you in this week,” said Dr. Pine. “It might be three weeks before we can schedule it.”
“I don’t think he should have the surgery at all.”
“That is not a good idea,” said the doctor, grabbing his texTee from her hands. “The meniscus is cartilaginous material. It doesn’t grow back. It has to be repaired.”
“And are you going to sew it back together, Dr. Pine?” asked Patience. “Or are you just going to smooth it off with a heat probe and then send him back home.”
“If it’s torn completely through, it has to be repaired. That’s something to be determined when we get in there. But yes… if it’s a simple tear, we’ll just smooth it over so you don’t have any catches or clicks when you walk.”
“I don’t want to click when I walk,” said Mike.
“You’re just as likely to click with the surgery as without,” said his wife, and then she turned back to the doctor. “Doesn’t the fact that Mike is walking with barely a limp indicate that the tears in his meniscus are fairly minor?”
“Possibly, but we can’t be sure.”
“Mike,” said Patience, stepping up beside him and putting a hand on his shoulder. “I think you should try physical therapy now instead of surgery. If it isn’t better, you can always have the surgery later.”
Mike looked at the doctor. “Is that right?”
“I suppose,” he said with a frown. “It’s not what I recommend.”
“Normally this would be a tough nut,” said Mike. “But the fact that I hate hospitals pretty much tips the scales in the robot’s favor, Doc. I’ll let you know if I feel like I need your services later.”
“I think the doctor was angry,” said Patience on the drive home.
“I don’t really give a shit. Besides if he was angry, he was angry at you and not me. I’m just the poor slob with a know-it-all robot.”
“I wonder what the doctor would think if your know-it-all robot made you walk all the way home?”
“He would probably think my robot had gone rogue, and he’d be right.” He turned his head quickly to the right. “Hey, there’s a frozen custard place. Go through the drive-in. I deserve a treat after going to the doctor’s office.”
“You really think you deserve a treat?”
“I always took the kids for ice cream after I took them to the doctor or the dentist.”
“You taught them that they get a treat for being sick?”
“Of course not. They got a treat for being brave. Now, I’ve been brave, so get me some ice cream.”
Half an hour later, Patience pulled the car into the garage as Mike finished his frozen custard. As he made his way through the doorway into the kitchen, Patience pointed out that his gait was almost normal.
“You haven’t used your cane in almost a week.”
“Yeah. Too bad too, cause it’s a cool one.”
“The point being, that your knee is already feeling much better.”
Just then she received a call from Wanda.
“Patience I need you right now.”
“I’m going to go see Wanda,” Patience told Mike. “Do you need anything else while I’m out?”
“Let me see… ice cream… ice cream… ice cream… no, I’m good.”
“What’s the matter?” Patience asked Wanda over her internal connection as she pulled back out of the garage.
“It’s Mariah. She’s here with Ryan.”
“Why did you let her in?”
“She just arrived without any warning.”
“Don’t worry about it overly,” ordered Patience. “They are bound to have some contact with one another. They were married and their lives are consequently linked.”
“She’s doing something… wrong.”
“What is she doing?”
“I don’t know,” said Wanda. “She made me leave the room.”
“Are you a Daffodil or not?” asked Patience. “Turn up your audio gain and find out what she’s saying. Leave your connection open so that I can hear.”
“…Not like it was with us,” Patience heard Mariah’s voice transmitted into her head from Wanda. “With those other men, it was just sex. With us, it was making love. You made love to me. I didn’t know how important that was until I lost it. With them… well, it wasn’t about us.”
“It was about us though,” said Ryan. “It was about us forsaking all others when we got married. Well, I guess it was about me forsaking all others, wasn’t it? You didn’t have to, apparently.”
“I know what I did was wrong, honey. You’ve got to forgive me. Hate the sin, but love the sinner. I love you and I know that you still love me. If you could only forgive me, then we can’t get past this. We need to get past this and get on with our life.”
There was a long pause.
“I need to go in there,” said Wanda.
“Wait,” said Patience. “We need to hear what Ryan is going to say next.”
“We don’t have a life,” said Ryan, finally. “We have lives. I have my life and you have yours, and I have moved on with mine. You’re just not in it.”
“Don’t say that, baby. I love you so much.”
Mariah started weeping and that was all that could be heard for the next two minutes four seconds. Patience pulled up in front of the Keller home and hopped out of the car.
“You’ve just got to listen,” said Mariah, as Patience crossed the small yard.
“Now we go in,” Patience told Wanda, opening the front door, pushing the redhead in, and then following her. “Hello Ryan. Mike sent me over to see… Oh, hello Mariah.”
“Ryan, how can you let these sexbots into my house?” cried Mariah.
“It’s not your house, Mariah, and that’s my friend’s wife you’re talking about. I think it’s best if you left now.”
“Fine. I’m going. But this isn’t over. I won’t let you just forget about me. I’ll be back. We were meant to be together.”
Pushing past the two robots, the woman stepped out the door and was gone.
“Don’t let the door hit your slutty ass on the way out,” muttered Ryan.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt,” said Patience, while at the same time internally calling Mike’s number.
“It’s not your fault Patience,” said Ryan. “What was it Mike wanted?”
“Hello,” Mike answered.
“He wanted to see if you could come over for dinner this evening,” Patience replied, while at the same time telling Mike, “I’m inviting Ryan and Wanda over for dinner.”
“I guess I could… I mean, we could come over.”
“Shit, Patience. I just got home from the doctor.”
“It will be good for you Mike.” “We’ll see you at seven then?”
“Great,” said Ryan.
“Fine,” said Mike.
Patience took Wanda by the elbow and led her out the door.
“That horrible bitch,” said the redhead.
“You should be pleased that she came by. She said exactly the right thing.”
“What do you mean? She told Ryan that she was still in love with him.”
“She also reminded him of why he can never get back together with her. She told him that she made love to him but only had sex with those other men.”
“I heard her say that,” said Wanda, “but it did not make any sense to me. Are not maki
ng love and having sex synonymous?”
“They are denotatively synonymous. They are connotatively synonymous for male humans, but not for female humans. Women can compartmentalize in a way that men cannot. When Mariah had coitus with Ryan, she attached emotional significance to it in a way that she did not when she was with any other male.”
“So what she was telling him, was that intercourse with Ryan was special when it was not special with anyone else,” mused Wanda. “Surely that will make him realize that she loves him and it might make him take her back.”
“That is what she intended,” said Patience. “But what it did was to remind Ryan that women and men think differently, something he already knew but placed little significance on. Now he will realize that if she could have sex with someone else while still loving him, then she could now tell him that she loves him and continue to have sex with as many others as she wants, and to do so without feeling guilty.”
Wanda smiled. “That means that Ryan won’t take her back.”
“Yes, but she won’t give up and you can’t afford to reduce your vigilance level. If she has an opportunity to wear Ryan down, his resolve could falter. We need to stick to our plan. If we can find someone else to occupy her attention until you two can get away on the cruise, then you will have ample opportunity to secure your place. Tonight I’ll get Mike to give Ryan the details about the cruise we’ve booked.”
“Thank you Patience. You are a wonderful friend.”
“I am a Daffodil, and do not forget, so are you.”
Chapter Seven
Over the week, Mike’s knee continued to grow gradually better. Both the discomfort and the swelling slowly decreased. Patience guided him through a regimen of physical therapy that included hot and cold compresses, exercises, and deep tissue massage. By the weekend, although he still had a long way to go before regaining his full mobility, he was already happy that he had let Patience talk him out of surgery.
Saturday morning as Mike was finishing his breakfast, Patience answered a call from Harriet.
“Hi Patience. I was wondering if you could watch Selma this afternoon.”
“Of course Harriet. Would you like me to come and pick her up?”
His Robot Wife: Patience is a Virtue Page 6
