“I love your husband. He can take me out for lunch anytime.” Yasmine tucks an errant curl behind her ear and sips at her Cobru shake, a cold brew milkshake we discovered freshman year. According to her, it’s one of the only things keeping her upright during long days (and nights) of clinical rotations as a fourth-year medical student.
“You can have him,” I say around a bite of my hot dog, piled with relish. I polish it off with a deep slug from my root beer float. “But back to the point. This is the first time I’ve seen you since the wedding. He could have shipped me off to a foreign country by now, and you’d never know.”
“Okay, point number one, I’d never marry a billionaire. It goes against everything I believe in. Plus, my parents would kill me if I got married before they met him.”
I nod because, true, her parents, while lovely and understanding people, are also devout Catholics who only want the best for their baby girl. Reggie would obviously raise objections. Not to mention her grandmother, Estelle, who we both love more than life itself.
“And point number two, see previously mentioned hectic schedule. Besides, I’ve been texting you every day, and let’s be honest, if he were going to, he would gotten rid of you by now if he was pissed off about your interference.”
“Rebuttal: You’re way too cavalier about this. Maybe he won’t ship me off in retaliation for forcing him to marry me. Maybe he plans to draw it out more than that. Make me go insane.”
“Blame it on my lack of sleep. I don’t have time to express my shock. Besides, we knew there was something wrong with him from the start. At least he doesn’t have a mattress on the floor with no bed frame like the last dude I hooked up with.” She dips a fry in ketchup, and her soulful brown eyes narrow. Scootingin a little closer, she lowers her voice. “Is he being absolutely diabolical? Like the movieGaslight?”
Yasmine is obsessed with period noir films or psychological thrillers from the fifties and sixties, and often insists on watching them instead of newer releases.
I shrug at her because I don’t possess a mental library of movies like she does.
She heaves a sigh. “It’s a psychological thriller where this guy tries to convince his wife she’s going crazy, but really, he’s arranging it so that he can have her institutionalized and steal her dead aunt’s fortune. We’ll have to watch it on my next day off.”
“You mean in a million years?”
“Probably. Before I’m dead, at least.”
Eager to return to a sense of normalcy, I ask, “Honestly, right now I’d even take that over the way my week has been. What else would we watch if we weren’t victims of the desire to obtain advanced degrees?”
Yasmine licks her lips clean of ice cream as she considers. “Psychoobviously feels relevant. MaybeStrangers on a Train, Rebecca.Rear Windowwould be good, too. Maybe we’ll make it a whole-day affair. We could both use it. Popcorn covered in buckets of butter. Obscene amounts of candy.”
“We can do facials and stuff, too. Maybe splurge for a personal massage therapist to come by. Black Amex card, remember?”
“Yes!” she says, pointing a fry at me like a conductor. “Now you’re talking. Can’t have a girls' night without some spa treatments.”
“You’re not kidding.” I sigh and practically inhale more root beer as I finally answer her initial question. “No, O’Connor’s not doing anything that insane. In fact, he’s being totally normal. Honestly, he works more than anything, and I barely see him.”
Her long lashes flutter, and she wrinkles her slightly upturned nose. “Honey, I’m sorry to tell you, but that sounds like the opposite of diabolical.”
“That’s what makes it so genius,” I say morosely. “He’s lulling me into a false sense of security before he pounces.”
“At least he’s feeding you before he does it.”
“His only positive character trait, that’s for sure. His chef, Frances, is to die for. But enough about him.” The guilt at not being entirely truthful with my best friend is eating at me. I have to change the subject before I spontaneously combust. “Tell me about how your day has been so far. I know you don’t have much longer to catch up, and I’m tired of complaining about my problems.”
She studies me in that way she does, where I know she understands more than I’m letting on, but I school my face until she nods. “I know, a two-hour lunch break feels like a dream, and I didn’t ask the attending, Dr. Redmond, twice when he told me to get some fresh air.”
“I don’t know how you do these twenty-four-hour shifts. I would die.”
“Sometimes it feels like I’m dead on my feet, that’s for sure.” She shakes her almost empty cup. “That’s why coffee is my best friend. You’ll have to accept second place.”
“Since coffee is also my best friend, I’m not offended. Please, tell me something that’ll distract me from my life. Did you get any of those patients who have fallen on anything suspicious?” Yasmine often has the best stories. There are only so many times I can explain contract law before she has to fake her conversational orgasms with me. I don’t blame her. Of the two of us, her days are admittedly a lot more interesting.
She chuckles. “No, but a kid came in with a broken crayon up his nose. He was so proud.”
I’m not going to think about O’Connor’s request to “negotiate” children. I won’t. What in the world makes him think I’dwantto procreate with him? Honestly. “How do these ideas even occur to them?”
I can’t even imagine becoming a mother anytime in the future. Not when I’m barely even out of school and still have so many things I want to accomplish. Really. He was deluded to even bring it up.
Yasmine’s laughter is throaty and a tinge tired, drawing me back from my thoughts. “I have no idea, but I’ll tell you what, his mom had to bring him back two hours later because he’d done it again. This time, he had broken crayons in both nostrils.”
“What an utter delight.”
