Page 70 of Stay Awake
The van’s engine pops and whines as it drives off. It sounds as if the same noise is coming over the phone line. As if Q is on my street. I look out the window, expecting to see a man on the street below. There’s nobody’s around except for a young couple walking a French bulldog on a leash.
When the call with Q is over, a text message comes up on my screen. It’s from Marco.
Something’s come up. I can’t go cycling today. I’ll be in touch.
It’s the sort of brusque message someone might send a business acquaintance, not a girlfriend.
I remember what Amy told me about Marco being a bad apple, and I wonder if she’s right.
Chapter
Forty
Wednesday 4:36P.M.
“Your appointment was for this morning,” says the doctor’s receptionist when I give her my name. Before I can apologize for being late, she adds: “Nevertheless, Dr. Brenner left instructions to squeeze you in no matter when you turned up. He’ll see you as soon as he’s finished with his current patient.”
She tells me to take a seat in the clinic waiting area, where several aqua chairs are pushed in a tight row by a frosted-glass wall. I take a corner seat opposite a wall clock. The slow movement of time lulls me into a semitrance. It’s broken when the receptionist’s phone rings with a loud and sudden peal.
“You can go in,” she tells me.
Dr. Brenner’s eyes are magnified by the lenses of his silver-framed glasses. He asks me how I’m feeling. I shift uneasily on the upholstered chair next to his desk and answer that I’m fine. That’s a lie, but it doesn’t matter, because I look fine on the outside. And that’s what counts.
Isn’t it?
“Ted couldn’t make it today?” he asks. “I’d really hoped he’d join you so we could discuss your treatment plan.” He stares at me without blinking as he patiently waits for me to answer.
“Something came up at work. He sends his apologies,” I lie.
I’m too embarrassed to admit I don’t know anyone named Ted. I only came here because I found the appointment card at that awful basement apartment. I figured that if I went to the appointment with this neurologist then he’d be able to tell me why everything has felt like a fractured dream since I woke on the subway.
Dr. Brenner is talking again. I stare at his mouth, trying to focus.
“Do you have your journal or any of the notes you showed me last time?” he asks.
“I didn’t bring anything with me,” I fib, once again not knowing what he’s talking about.
He’s about to say something else, but obviously thinks better of it because he clears his throat awkwardly and picks up a pen from the ink blotter on his desk.
“Let’s begin. I’d like you to remember the following three things,” he says. “Red flower, blue car, and a tennis ball. Can you remember that?”
“Of course,” I respond. My eyes focus on the glint of the doctor’s wedding ring as I memorize those words.
Dr. Brenner has my patient file open on his computer. I shift in my chair to get a better look, but I’m still too far away to see anything other than a blur of words on the screen.
“I have the results of the MRI,” he says.
He twists his laptop in my direction so that I can see the image of my brain filling the screen. “There’s no indication of any organic brain damage. Certainly nothing that comes up in the scan. That’s good news. Great news, in fact,” he emphasizes.
Dr. Brenner leads me to an examination table. I sit with my legs hanging over the edge as he examines me, running through a battery of tests to check my motor skills and reflexes as well as my muscular strength. When he’s done, he shines a penlight into one eye at a time and asks me to follow the light.
“What’s today’s date?” he asks, turning off the silver penlight with a click.
I tell him the date. I remember it from the newspaper I saw earlier at the newsstand. He asks me to name the five most recent presidents. I do better and go all the way back to Nixon.
“Can you tell me what were those four things I asked you to remember early on?” he asks when I’m back on the chair next to his desk.
“There were three things. Red flower, blue car, and a tennis ball.”
