Page 34 of The Do-Over
“Pretty obnoxious,” he grumbled. “I don’t need this.”
“I know you don’t,” she said. “But wouldn’t it make it easier to do the grocery shopping, for instance?”
“It would make it harder. I lean on the cart when I shop. This doesn’t have a basket. Where would I put my groceries?”
“Well, all right. But what about those evening walks we agreed you were going to start taking?”
He made a face.
“You need exercise, George,” Thea scolded him. “You can’t just sit in the house all day every day.”
“Walking makes my back hurt.”
“Well, that’s what the walker is for!” she said. “Come on, stand up and give it a try.”
George grumbled, but he got to his feet. “These things are for old men who can’t get around on their own,” he said. “Are you calling me an old man?”
She suppressed her smile. George was well into his eighties. “Not at all,” she assured him. “Walkers are for anyone who could use a little assistance. There are teenagers who use this model.”
“Teenagers! What do they need walkers for.”
“All kinds of things,” she said. “Try the seat.”
He sat down reluctantly, but the tension in his face eased a bit.
“Comfortable?” she asked.
“It is pretty nice,” he admitted grudgingly. “I could see myself sitting by the pond and watching the ducks.”
“There you go!” She grinned. “You’ll have to let me know how it works on your walks this week.”
“All right, all right,” he said. “So did you hear the big news?”
“What big news?”
“Rob Honeycutt’s coming back to town. They’re going to give him some prize.”
Thea groaned inwardly. “I did hear something about that.”
“You would have been old enough to remember his winning basketball season, right?”
She managed to suppress a smile at that. It was sweet, sometimes, the way some of her patients had no concept of how old she was. “We were in school together,” she said. “I know him.”
“That must be exciting,” he said. “Like knowing a celebrity.”
The desire to smile faded.
So the hero worship is already starting.
She wasn’t going to argue with George, of course. He was just voicing the same opinion that almost everyone in town shared. Thea knew that she was the odd one out here. She was the only one who didn’t think of Rob as some kind of hero.
“Do you think the town will put on a parade?” George asked. “With my new walker, I could go. I’d be able to sit here and watch.”
The truth was, honoring Rob with a parade was exactly the kind of thing the town of Deer Ridge would do. Thea hoped to God it wouldn’t happen—how annoying that would be!
But she managed a smile for George. “That would be a great way to get out of the house,” she told him.
She wasn’t going to let anything crack her professional veneer. Not even Rob Honeycutt.
