The Secret Ingredient

by Kilby Blades

  “I appreciate that you’re trying to help me, but that just won’t do,” Max said. “Can I get a call back from Dr. Khan to discuss it?”

  “Dr. Khan doesn’t do callbacks. You’ll have to see him in the clinic.”

  “Does he reserve some of his schedule for same-day appointments?”

  “He can sometimes accommodate walk-ins, but there are no guarantees. Most people who come in on a walk-in basis he’s not able to see.”

  This is madness, Max thought, but he pressed on, working different angles. One very frustrating minute later, Max had made no headway.

  “Uh-oh…” Cella said, as he came back into the room and threw his phone down on the counter. “Trouble at work?”

  “No.” Max put his hands on his hips and looked out his window. “It’s the new doctor.”

  “The one no one wants to see?”

  Max had filled Cella in a little bit one night at dinner.

  “I need a travel vaccination for my next job. He can’t get me in for another four weeks.”

  “That’s crazy. Can’t a nurse do it or something?”

  “That’s what I said. But he’s the gatekeeper.”

  “Can’t you just get it yourself?” she asked, frowning. “You’re a doctor.”

  He sighed. “That’s not the way it works.”

  Max’s body vibrated with frustration. He didn’t want to leave Cella in the middle of their cooking, but with every passing moment, he became resolute. He had to go to the clinic to see for himself what was going on.

  “Can you manage on your own for the rest of the afternoon? I think I need to go down there. I’ve heard too many bad things this week. If people aren’t getting care, I need to know.”

  “A spy mission,” Cella concluded, and Max supposed that it was. A strange look came over her face, like she was working something out in her head.

  “Take me with you.”

  He blinked in surprise, not daring to say anything that might deter her. It seemed that dinner the other night had done her good. She’d remarked her surprise, in the truck, that no one had made her feel uncomfortable. She’d become less shy of running into his friends during the times they walked Cujo, and she’d even started going to the market at busier hours. Reaching behind himself, he drew out the string that held his apron on, setting the pressed white garment on his kitchen table.

  “Come on. Let’s go.”

  Ed’s office was close to the center of town, a block or so off of the main drag. What that meant for a Thursday afternoon during the summer was that parking would be impossible. Apart from the parking itself, there was the problem of traffic, which seemed to get worse each year. Locals and tourists alike had taken to using bicycles to get around.

  “When was the last time you rode a bike?”

  Cella took the proffered helmet and turned it in her hand. “I used to ride all the time,” she said confidently, though she looked puzzled as she tried to work out whether the sharp-looking end was front or back.

  “That long, huh?” Max chuckled, which earned him a brief glare. Now she was ignoring him as she shook her hair back and slid it on.

  Max, for his part, had already clipped on a dark gray helmet, opened the garage door and slid on his sunglasses. When Cella continued to fidget with the straps even after he’d gotten both bikes out onto the driveway, he stepped into her space for an assist. As he removed her hands so he could adjust the tiny fastenings, he realized that this may have been the first time that he had seen her out of her depth.

  “Don’t worry…” he reassured. “You never forget. And if you fall off, I’m a doctor.”

  Even with high-season crowds, Max didn’t mind navigating the afternoon bustle on the seat of his Diamondback. If it was sturdy enough for the difficult trails he and Jake ran whenever they managed to make it out to go mountain biking, it was a trusty companion in town. Cella was on his hybrid, his usual go-to for more practical adventures. She’d donned her familiar black sunglasses and white visor just before they’d set off on the boardwalk.

  In place of a clean, linear shoreline and straight rows of houses, Longport had inlets and coves. Among the homes and businesses on the water, not all of them faced the open ocean. The center of town, and the place where most of the tourists congregated, was in Downer’s Cove. Max’s house was on a separate inlet with a mouth wide enough for stunning views but with some protection from storms. A complex system of private boardwalks and inland trails led residents to the public boardwalk, which would let them descend to the street at Ocean Avenue, and go right to the center of town.

  “Show-off.”

  Swinging his eyes from where they’d been glued—on the horizon to try to figure out the weather—Max was seconds away from reaching into his pocket and plucking out his phone. Instead, he regarded Cella, who seemed to be looking accusingly toward the seat of his bike with a joking-not-joking kind of look on her face.

  “It’s been, like, five minutes straight. How the hell are you steering without hands?”

  “Do you have any idea how much time a kid who stays the summer in a town like this spends on a bike?”

  Whatever she thought next was conveyed with a shaking head and a low mumble. Max hid his smirk when he heard something about abs of steel. He thought of the other bikes then—his blue and white Huffy when he was younger and a pretty badass Schwinn he’d saved up for when he was fourteen. He remembered racing home from playing video games at Jake’s, and barely making it home for curfew.

  “When I was a kid,” Cella began, her voice a bit winded, “…I liked this boy a few blocks over. He was, like…this musician-type. He had a band and he and his friends were always practicing in his garage.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Brett Shelton.” He liked her wistful smile. “He had this crazy haircut…all shaven in the back and long in the front. His hair was black, but he streaked it platinum blonde.”

  “Kind of like a skunk?” Max ribbed.

  “When you’re twelve, that kind of thing is hot…” She shook her head when he laughed. “Anyway…” she continued with emphasis, “…I liked him, so I kept wanting to ride past his house, but I didn’t have contacts and my glasses were pretty geeky, so…”

  Max laughed again. “So it seemed like a great idea to get behind the handlebars of a bike.”

  “Add that to me being distracted by trying to look at him as I rode by, and you can imagine how the story ends.”

  “Well, it looks like you’re doing alright now.”

  “You live, you learn.”

  Max was still hands-free, barely looking at the path as he took in the way the sun lit her hair.

  “I told you, now you tell me…who was your teenage crush?”

  “It’s scandalous. I shouldn’t.”

  “Now you have to.”

  “It was somebody totally forbidden.”

  “Your best friend’s girlfriend?”

  He shook his head.

  “A teacher?”

  He looked straight ahead, and shrugged.

  “For real? What was her name?”

  “Mrs. Jaye.”

  “What’d she teach?”

  He looked at her. “She was the librarian.”

  “Look at you, crushing on an older woman.”

  He didn’t care that his smile was blatantly flirtatious.

  “What can I say? I like a woman with glasses.”

  The public boardwalk was busy—so busy that Cella fell back behind him when it became clear they’d no longer be able to ride side-by-side. The last time Max had ridden this stretch, it had been winter—the beaches empty save for the occasional runner or neighbors walking with partners and dogs. Now, well-built teenagers sat in wooden lifeguard towers, colorful tents and umbrellas were scattered across the sand and hordes of sun-worshippers preened in skimpy suits. No longer shuttered for the winter, stores that had been there for as long as Max could remember were teeming with people. Even at two-thirty, ev
ery table at The Sand Dollar looked full and there was a line out the door of the ice cream shop.

  The crowds on the street were sufficient to force them to slow to a snail’s pace. After having to stop twice to endure a small traffic jam and a street parking fiasco, they gave up and walked their bikes the last two blocks on the sidewalk. Max noticed her fasten her hair into a loose bun and pull the same visor she liked to wear to the market out of her bag as he was locking up their bikes. Dr. Fletcher’s office was a one-story building on the quiet corner of a cross-street three blocks back from Ocean Avenue.

  The first thing Max noticed was that he had never seen the parking lot so full—that, despite them being a few blocks from the busier downtown, even street parking was barely available. Musings over whether it would be too forward to invite Cella to drop in on one of his favorite places on their way back to his house were erased when he opened the door and took in the scene in the waiting room. His stomach dropped at the sight.

  Every seat was taken, and every inch of wall was, too. Children sat in their mothers’ laps in order to free up chairs needed by fully-grown adults. Some wall spots were taken up not by leaners, but by people who had given up entirely and sat on the floor. A television that Max had never seen had been mounted on an awkward area of the wall and done so haphazardly. A corner of the room he remembered as once having been filled with children’s toys now held mismatched, folding chairs.

  But worse than the jammed waiting room was the smell—the air was stuffy and held the stench of sickness that Max knew all too well. At least two people in seats held puke buckets—empty, but waiting. An elderly woman looked not-at-all well. A boy who couldn’t be older than four sat lethargically, tears running down his face as he sat cradled in the arms of a mother who looked like she was ready to cry, too.

  “This can’t be happening.”

  He said it to no one. He didn’t miss Cella’s subtle gasp of alarm. Still surveying the scene, his eyes fell upon the receptionist, who didn’t look up from whatever she was doing on her phone to greet the newest patient who had arrived. His assessing look hardened to a glare.

  “Max. Is that you?”

  His nostrils flared as he looked away from the woman who would hear what he thought of all of this in just a minute. Shifting his eyes to the source of the voice who had spoken his name, he saw Tina Flores, the younger sister of his friend Edgar.

  “Hey, Tina,” he managed. But he couldn’t bring himself to exchange pleasantries. There was no place for light conversation in the midst of all of this. “How long have you been waiting?”

  “Two and a half hours.” She looked indignant. “My appointment was at noon.”

  “I’ve been here since ten-thirty,” another voice piped up—this one with abject frustration.

  “I’ve been here since ten,” a familiar one said. This time when his eyes shifted, Jon Bender had stood from where he was sitting in a chair off to the side. On closer look, he saw that Jon’s teenage daughter had a cast on. When the older man approached, Max remembered himself just in time to not miss a beat in shaking his hand.

  “I heard you were back in town. You here to do something about this?”

  Max glared back toward the receptionist. “Yes.”

  Placing his hand on the small of Cella’s back, he walked them toward the receptionist’s desk.

  “I’m Dr. Max Piccarelli. I called earlier with a request for a callback. I need urgently to see Dr. Khan.”

  With her eyes still glued to her phone, the receptionist barely looked up as she pushed a clipboard on the counter in Max’s general direction. “Write your name down here. Then you can take a seat.”

  “No. I cannot take a seat.” Cella jumped a little as Max picked the clipboard up a few inches from the counter and slammed it down, loudly. “Every seat in the waiting room is taken.”

  Rattled, the receptionist put down her phone. Max could be downright scary when you got him mad. And right then, he was furious.

  “I am doctor,” he said with emphasis. “Max Piccarelli. This practice is owned by my friend and colleague, Dr. Fletcher who has authorized me to visit his practice and ask any questions I want. You have two choices right now.”

  Max reached into his back pocket, pulling a board certification card out of his wallet. He tossed his driver’s license on top of where he’d placed it on the desk.

  “You can go get Dr. Khan in front of me in thirty seconds or less or you can find your license numbers, which you are in violation for not having on display, and have me call that—and a number of other ethical violations—in to the medical board.”

  The receptionist blinked. Cella took off her sunglasses, causing Max to turn.

  “If I were you, I’d go.”

  The receptionist’s eyes became even wider, practically bugging out the moment she recognized Cella.

  “Clock’s ticking,” Cella clucked, looking at her watch.

  That was all it took. The woman practically flew from her seat, disappearing down one of the two halls. Turning to Cella, Max raised an eyebrow. She had begun to shrug a little when the waiting room broke out in applause.

  13 The Assistant

  “I’m sorry.”

  Max looked tired and his body dragged a little when he returned to the small office he had commandeered on Cella’s behalf four hours before. It was Dr. Fletcher’s office, which now belonged, in theory, to Dr. Khan. Max had coldly informed the young doctor, who did, indeed, appear to be a pompous, wet-behind-the ears hotshot that, for the rest of the day, Dr. Khan could cede the space to Cella. Dr. Khan had glared over at her for a split second, whatever protest he’d been ready to wage dying on his lips the minute he recognized who she was.

  From there, he’d turned on his heel and mumbled something about getting his things out of the office. More likely, he’d gone in to lick his wounds. Whereas this twenty-something year old kid was all hubris and bravado with no remotely good explanation for why twenty people were in his waiting room, Max Piccarelli was all seasoned professionalism and gravitas. The low, powerful voice Max had used to tell Dr. Khan that Max would be dropping in randomly to keep an eye on the practice and helping with patients whenever he damned-well pleased had thoroughly shown him up. Dr. Khan had not protested when Max informed him that said receptionist was fired.

  “What are you sorry for?”

  Max flopped down in a guest chair and picked up the liter bottle of water in front of her on the desk, asking with his eyes whether he could have some, to which she nodded. Cella rubbed tired eyes and let the pencil she’d been writing with slip out of her hand.

  “I lost track of time. I meant to call you a ride. I wasted your whole afternoon.” He gave her a repentant look before tipping the bottle back to take a long gulp of water. He closed his eyes, his face registering relief and his lips turning up in slight satisfaction, seeming not to notice her ogling his Adam’s apple as it bobbed up and down his toned neck. “When I’m working…I kind of get in the zone.” He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and sounded breathless when he spoke.

  That’s an understatement, Cella thought, eyeing the stethoscope around his neck. Max was as splendid in the doctor’s office as he was in the kitchen.

  “You were great today,” she praised. “These people…they think the world of you.”

  “When I walked into that waiting room earlier…” He let out a long, slow breath, his eyes looking pained. “Something in me just…snapped. It was too much like what I see when I’m gone.” He leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands for a minute while he looked down at the floor. Cella had no way of knowing what he was seeing in his mind, but she could tell he felt deeply troubled.

  “Cella,” he said to the floor a second before looking back up. “I can’t abandon these people.”

  She shook her head. “I would never ask you to.”

  “I don’t know how I can do both. I don’t see how I help you with your cookbook and find
the town a new doctor—a real one—all before I leave in three weeks.” He finally took off his stethoscope, placing it on top of the stack of folders he’d been steadily dropping on the desk in-between consults, before motioning to them. “It just took me five hours to clear that waiting room, and that was with Dr. Khan’s help. I still have another two hours of charting to do.”

  She tried to sound nonchalant. “No, you don’t.”

  His eyes narrowed in confusion. “I started answering the phones after the assistant left. Dr. Fletcher called a couple of hours ago to find out how things were going. I told him you were handling the patients but asked whether there was anything I could do to help. He gave me his old assistant’s number—Clara. She’s recovering from surgery. She walked me through how to do the scheduling and the paperwork. It’s actually pretty easy.”

  Realizing she was rambling, she stopped, picking up the file she was currently working on to hand to him. “I used pencil just in case I got any of it wrong, but…is it right?”

  Before inspecting their contents, he fixed her with a long look, which only made her blush. He looked through the file silently, then closed it and looked up, his eyes full of gratitude.

  “Thank you. This is amazing.”

  “Are you just saying that because you don’t want to hurt my feelings?”

  “It’s better than what I would have done,” he said sincerely. “You’ve got better handwriting, too.”

  “Don’t bullshit me,” she warned.

  He smiled. “Have you met yourself? I know better than to bullshit you. You’d smell it a mile away.”

  She was giving him that sometimes-look again. The one that made her feel like he was as sure as she was that the something extra between them was real. His words were joking but there was something intense in the roughness of his voice and the heart-racing glint in his eye.

  “Hire me.” Though it came out more breathlessly than she had intended, it held its needed weight of command. “Let me be your assistant.”

  His eyes widened slightly before something different set over his brow. “You have a cookbook to write.”