Going Overboard

by Sarah Smiley

  “Well, actually,” I stuttered, “actually, it was really my friend’s cat. I’m watching it while she’s overseas meeting her husband in France.”

  “Your friend’s cat,” he said doubtfully.

  “Yes, really, it was. I only said it was a stray before because I was afraid you’d report it and the cat would be taken away.”

  The doctor frowned at me again and scratched his head. “So a friend’s cat did this?”

  “Yep.”

  “And she’s out of the country?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He studied the chart, then pointed at me with his pen. “You have twenty-four hours to get that cat’s shot record. And if you can’t, we’ll start the rabies series. Your tetanus shot is already up-to-date.”

  He turned to leave, calling over his shoulder, “A nurse will be in to clean up the wound.”

  That night I racked my brain, trying to remember any snippet of information Courtney might have given me about her travel plans. I tried calling her cell phone, but the call wouldn’t go through.

  I felt frantic. The doctor’s words—“rabies” and “tetanus”—were swirling in my mind and making me dizzy. At midnight, my jaw began to feel tight, and after a quick search on the Internet, I confirmed that “lockjaw” is another word for “tetanus.”

  I called my parents, and once again, Mom screamed and handed the phone to Dad.

  “Sarah, you don’t have lockjaw,” he said. “The doctor told you your vaccination is up-to-date.”

  “But my jaw feels really tight, Dad.” I was rubbing my ear and shifting my bottom jaw left and right. “Seriously, Dad! It’s aching, it’s so tight.”

  He sighed. “You’re probably clenching your teeth. You need to relax. The doctor wouldn’t let you leave the hospital if he thought anything was wrong with you.”

  “But, Dad, he actually said the word “rabies”! Why would he say that?”

  “He’s a doctor, Sarah! That’s why.”

  “Let me talk to Mom again,” I said. Clearly I needed to speak to someone a little less collected.

  He passed the phone to Mom. Mom’s voice was surprisingly patient and soothing this time. But she couldn’t fool me. It was all a choreographed facade to make me calm down.

  “Sarah, honey, try not to worry,” she said. “Remember what I always tell you: ‘When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.’ Just keep telling yourself that.”

  I rolled my eyes, annoyed at her little game of pretending to be cool. “What does that mean anyway, Mom?”

  “Remember your last month of pregnancy with Ford?” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “And remember how you ate three one-pound bags of Tootsie Rolls in those last few weeks?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “And remember how later you had that pain in your jaw and you went to ENT after ENT asking to have your tonsils removed? You were convinced you had tonsillar cancer. Remember that?”

  “Yes, Mom. But it really did hurt! Anyone else would have been scared, too.”

  Mom chuckled. “Sarah, you were thinking of ‘zebras’—or cancer—when clearly it was ‘horses’—a pulled muscle in your jaw from all those Tootsie Rolls!”

  She had a point, and put that way, it did make my tonsil scare seem rather silly.

  “Anyway,” Mom said, “I’m sure the cat has had all its shots. You’re going to be fine.”

  At two o’clock in the morning, I did a search online of French hotels. A few in the Cannes area rang a bell and I wrote down the numbers. It was already daytime in France, so I went down the list and called each one. The language barrier was difficult, but one of the concierges recognized Courtney’s last name and said, “Oui, oui.”

  “So you know who I’m talking about?” I said.

  “Oui, madame. Oui.”

  “I have a very important message I need you to get to my friend.”

  “Oui?”

  “Her cat . . . er, her feline . . . um, I don’t know the word in French. . . .”

  “Le chat?”

  “Chat?” I said. “I guess so. . . . Um, let’s see. . . . It’s a big . . .”

  “Grand?”

  “Yes! Grand! A grand cat—only, just between you and me, this cat isn’t that grand—”

  “Oui?”

  “It bit me. I mean . . . um . . . its teeth . . . eat? How do I say—”

  “Manges?”

  “Yes, that! . . . I think. Anyway, I need to get the cat’s shot record.”

  The concierge gasped. “Flingue? Flingue! C’est terrible!”

  “What? What was that?” I said. “I can’t understand. Something terrible?”

  “A personne is shot?” he said.

  “Oh, gosh, no,” I said. “Not at all. Although it did feel a lot like a shot. But I just need the cat’s shot . . . I mean . . . let’s see . . . vaccination? . . . vaccination record.”

  “Oui,” he said, audibly relieved. “Vaccination.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I mean, Oui.”

  But I had forgotten what my point was. Why was I even calling this person? Then I said real loud and slow, “Can you . . . leave a message . . . for . . . my friend Courtney to . . . call me?”

  “Oui, madame,” he said, and “Au revoir” and hung up.

  The next morning, Courtney called me in a panic. “Has someone been shot? Is the cat OK?”

  I laughed. “Yes, everything’s OK. I had a little trouble talking to the concierge. See, this is why I don’t travel!”

  “So what’s going on?” she said.

  I didn’t want to worry her about what had happened, and I definitely didn’t want to sound like a sore loser who was taking away their fun. Then again, I wasn’t willing to get a rabies shot to spare them either.

  “Well, Courtney, your cat kind of bit me. No, actually, she attacked me. I had to go to the emergency room.”

  “Oh, dear!” she said. “I can’t believe this! That’s terrible!” Then she paused and said more softly, “But I guess I should have warned you. She gets a little vicious after being left alone.”

  “Yes, Courtney, that would have been helpful. Then I might have worn pants. But anyway, I just need to get into your house and find the shot records or else the hospital will be forced to give me rabies shots.”

  Courtney was silent. Then she said, “Oh, dear,” again.

  “What?”

  “There’s a little problem,” she said. “We’ve . . . um . . . I don’t know how to say this to you, but, um, we’ve never had the cat vaccinated.”

  I froze. “You’re kidding me, right?”

  “No, I’m not, Sarah.”

  “Isn’t there something in that Miss Manners book of yours about getting your pets vaccinated before asking a friend to go feed them?” I was beginning to feel angry.

  “But she’s an indoor cat,” Courtney said. “So the chances of her having rabies are very slim.”

  I broke into a cold sweat.

  “Sarah? Sarah, are you there?” Courtney said.

  I threw down the phone, gathered up the boys, and drove back to the emergency room.

  “No shot record, huh?” a new shorter and plumper doctor said when he came behind the curtain.

  “Apparently not,” I said. “And you have to understand, I’m, like, the world’s biggest hypochondriac! This just doesn’t sit well with me.”

  “Having rabies wouldn’t sit well with anyone,” he said and laughed. When he showed his teeth, they were as wide and square as piano keys.

  “No, don’t say that,” I cried. “Do you really think I have it?”

  He smiled and shook his head. “The chances are very slim. Was the cat foaming at the mouth? Is this kind of behavior unusual for it?”

  “I don’t think she was foaming,” I said, “but still, what if?” My heart was beating so fast, I felt dizzy.

  “I tell you what,” he said. “Don’t go over to your friends’ house again for ten days. Will they be
back before then?”

  “No.”

  “OK,” he said. “We’re going to keep the cat ‘semiquarantined.’ You’ll need to find someone to go in and feed it—I don’t recommend your going in there again. If the cat shows any sign of illness during that time, we’ll collect it and start your rabies series.”

  Just hearing those words again made me sick. “Why ten days?” I said. “How can we be certain?”

  “Rabid animals don’t live longer than about ten days,” he said. “Your friend’s cat will be deader than a doornail in a few days if it has rabies.”

  So, for ten days, I took Brent with me to Courtney’s house and made him climb on a ladder to look inside the windows before sending him in to tend to the cat’s food and water. I found it incredibly difficult to relax or go to sleep unless Brent made those daily checks. If Devil Cat showed up dead, I didn’t want to waste any time getting my shots, and I knew I was going to need moral support.

  Brent sort of enjoyed the task. It made him feel like the Crocodile Hunter or something like that. He did a lot of teasing—coming down from the ladder and pretending the cat was dead—but mostly he thought I and everyone else were overreacting.

  At the end of ten days, Devil Cat was as healthy and “normal” as ever. I never had to get the shots, but I did receive instructions to “follow up with my regular doctor,” and that meant going to see Dr. Ashley. Which might have been the only good thing to come out of my run-in with Devil Cat. Just the thought of Dr. Ashley touching my leg made me tingle.

  13

  SOMETHING HAS HAPPENED

  When the other wives returned from France, showing off their photographs and stories, I felt like the only kid at school who wasn’t invited to someone’s birthday party. Except, I was invited to this party, and I chose not to go. I only had myself to blame. And there’s nothing worse than that.

  Courtney brought me some porcelain blue dish towels she bought in Cannes as a thank-you gift—or was it an “I’m sorry” gift?—for watching her cat, and Jody had pictures of Dustin to show me. He looked thinner, and somehow older, not like I remembered. It was becoming more and more difficult to remember our lives together, to remember what a “normal marriage” is like. Some nights I woke in a panic, wondering if I remembered the smell of Dustin’s hair, the sound of his voice, or the mole next to his lip. On the nights I couldn’t, that’s when I cried. Would we even know each other at the end of this?

  Jody watched the boys while I went to the hospital for my follow-up appointment with Dr. Ashley. I had asked Courtney to do the favor—after all, her cat did attack me!—but she refused, saying she would no longer take part in my “disreputable behavior,” or something like that.

  Initially, Dr. Ashley’s nurse said he didn’t even have any appointments available, but later, Dr. Ashley called and said he’d fit me in on his lunch break. I liked thinking I got some kind of special treatment from Dr. Ashley.

  Dressing for the appointment was difficult. I knew he would need to see my leg and, more specifically, my calf, but the temperature outside had suddenly turned cool after a stretch of unseasonably warm weather. If I wore pants I knew I’d have to take them off and get into a gown for the exam, and that might make me too nervous. So I opted for a skirt and black sweater, and ended up feeling—once again—a bit overdressed for the hospital.

  Was I beginning to look obvious?

  When I got to the family practice wing, a corpsman dressed in camouflage behind the reception desk didn’t believe I had an appointment.

  “I’m here to see Dr. Ashley,” I said, and the corpsman looked up from his paperwork and scowled. “Dr. Ashley is on his lunch break,” he said.

  I smiled apologetically (or did I just look guilty?). “Yes, I know, but he’s fitting me in because he didn’t have any other appointments.”

  The corpsman stared at me through squinted eyes, sizing me up, then went around the corner to verify my story. Military hospitals usually don’t have fancy intercom systems; they rely on Post-it notes and the feet of corpsman to deliver messages. It’s a slow process.

  I sat in a chair beneath the FALLOUT SHELTER sign (because I’m most at home there), and stared up at a television hanging from the ceiling across the room. I could see it was set to the news, but I was too far away to hear anything. A group of nurses and doctors with stethoscopes draped around their necks was standing beneath the boxy television with faux-wood trim. They had their arms crossed and their heads tipped back to see. It seemed a little strange to take a break from work and stare at the news in silence, but when the corpsman came back and escorted me to the exam room, I didn’t give it another thought.

  After I had waited only a few moments in the cold, bright room, Dr. Ashley came in with a smile and that familiar rush of electric air. He flopped down on a chair and sighed, “What a day, I tell you!” Then he straightened himself and opened my chart. I chewed my nail and watched as he read notes from my emergency room visit. “Hmm,” he said as he read, rubbing a hand along his short, Navy-regulation sideburns. Then the corners of his mouth crept upward. “So what’s this about a cat biting you?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I didn’t end up going to France to meet the ship—”

  “Really? Why not?” He sounded genuinely surprised. Maybe even curious.

  “I just couldn’t get on the plane. But anyway, I can’t think about that right now.” I waved my hand to dispel the topic, which was too uncomfortable to get into with him. Then I said, “So I ended up taking care of my friend’s cat, and it bit me the first time I went to feed her. Got me right in the calf.” I twisted my leg so he could see. The pinholes were by now covered with tiny scabs, but the skin surrounding them was purple and black.

  Dr. Ashley wheeled himself forward with the chair and rubbed his finger along the bruises. He was peering out from above his gold-rimmed glasses. “Hmm,” he said. “That cat got you good, huh?”

  I could smell his musky cologne wafting up from the V-neck of his light blue scrubs. I felt guilty, and excited . . . and a little bit nauseous. So I pulled back my leg and smoothed my skirt. “Yes, she got me in the muscle, and you know me, now I’m worried about the whole rabies-infection thing.”

  Dr. Ashley opened my chart again. “Well, the notes here say that the ER gave you some antibiotics and instructed you to monitor the cat. Did you do that?”

  “I did get the medicine, and you’ll be proud to know I actually took it.”

  Dr. Ashley grinned. “And the cat? She’s still alive, right?”

  “Oh, yes,” I said. “She’s as alive and crazy as ever. Damn cat.”

  “Then it looks like everything’s going to be OK,” he said and patted my knee. “You’re good as new.”

  “So you’re positive I don’t have rabies? I mean, I don’t want to stay up at night worrying about this.”

  Dr. Ashley stood up and held my records loosely at his side; his face was relaxed and patient. “You don’t have rabies,” he said. “Trust me. I wouldn’t let you walk out of here if I thought you did. You wouldn’t be nearly as pretty with foam coming out of your mouth.”

  Ha. Ha. Ha.

  Pretty?

  He walked to the sink and washed his hands. Then he turned around, drying them with a paper towel, and said, “By the way, I was thinking about you the other day.”

  “Oh?” I tried to hide my shock, but I know my eyes doubled in size.

  “Yeah, I met this woman and she reminded me so much of you.”

  He sat back down in the chair and put my chart aside.

  Was I dreaming? Did he really just say that? I wanted to pinch myself. Or maybe slap myself.

  “Reminded you of me?” I said, but in my mind I was thinking, What girl? There’s someone else? I’m pretty?

  Dr. Ashley rubbed his chin. “You know, she was just a lot of fun, and real easy to talk to. Just like you.”

  I stared at him, trying in earnest—like masking a yawn—to keep my mouth from gaping open.


  I’m “fun” and “easy to talk to”?

  I could hardly believe my good fortune!

  “But anyway,” he said with a sigh, “at this rate I’ll probably never get married. It’s tough out there, you know? I see people like you and I think, ‘Man, her husband is so lucky. He’s got this wonderful wife and kids . . . everything.’ It doesn’t happen like that for everyone.”

  I was blinking and, of course, trying to memorize every word so I could repeat it point for point to Jody. I would definitely need her help to analyze his message. Did he know I had a crush on him? Was this mention of another woman a way of letting me down gently? Or was it code for how much he really liked me?

  Had I gone totally insane?

  I’m not sure I responded verbally to Dr. Ashley because I was too shocked and overwhelmed, but I think I was nodding.

  “I hope Dustin realizes how lucky he is,” Dr. Ashley said, and I had to try really hard to resist the growing ball of excitement inside me that felt like it might make my stomach burst.

  Then Dr. Ashley seemed to pull himself together. He shook his head, stood up, and said, “Well, anyway, when do I see you again, kiddo?”

  “At Owen’s next checkup, I think.”

  “Great,” he said. “I’ll see you then. And hey, Sarah, don’t worry about the cat bite. Remember, if you need anything—anything at all—just call me. You’ve got my number.”

  I drove straight to Jody’s house and walked in without knocking.

  “Jody, you’re not going to believe this,” I said, coming into the living room. She was sitting on the couch in total darkness. Every blind on the windows was closed.

  I stopped short when I saw her there. “Where are the kids?”

  She pointed toward Michael’s room. She wasn’t smiling.

  I wouldn’t exactly describe Jody’s normal character as “bubbly” or “perky,” so her mood didn’t strike me as overly unusual. Whatever had put her in a funk, it didn’t concern me, I thought.

  “So anyway,” I said, flopping onto the couch, “Dr. Ashley said he met this girl and she—”