1
Iwouldn’t be surprised if I died any day now.
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if I died right this instant, standing in the middle of aisle five of Martell’s Family-Owned Pharmacy.
I’m holding a bottle of aspirin in one hand, and a bottle of pepto-bismol in the other, for I have both a killer headache and nasty stomach cramps. Surely, these simultaneous ailments must be a sign of the end.
The enema kits to my right and incontinence pads to my left look more harrowing than usual in the flickering fluorescent light. Although my head spins, I move past them to the pharmacy counter, where Craig, the owner-pharmacist, my knight in shining white lab coat armor, is perpetually stationed.
In the past, I would have been ashamed to leave the house like this. But now, my brain is only set on one thing, and one thing only: making it through the pharmacy line without having a coronary embolism. Or a heart attack. Or an aneurysm, like my husband, Andy, did.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the sunglasses display case. I look both decrepit and childish, in my oversized graphic t-shirtthat peeks out from my unzipped black puffer coat. My legs are practically vibrating into another plane of existence.
Except it’s a different man in a white coat than usual.
It’s not Craig. Craig is often my sole comfort in this vast, unending section of space. He always answers my incessant questions about aneurysms, heart attacks and ulcers with unending patience—and is nowhere to be seen. I feel a sharp pain creeping up into my shoulder. I try to shake it off, but it returns just as quickly as it arrived. A surefire sign of a heart attack.
“Oh my god,” I say aloud. This again. This is the end. “I’m having a heart attack,” I tell the new man behind the counter, pain radiating through my shoulder, my chest growing tighter and tighter. In an instant, like a flicker of a lightbulb, a flash of a memory, I can’t breathe. My head spins faster, and I lean onto the counter for balance, both hands flat on the surface. Where is Craig?
Oh, crap. Now I have to wash my hands.
The man behind the counter is someone totally new. His dark hair is styled in one swoop across his forehead. He wears small, square glasses. He’s got a green sweater underneath his white coat, and if my head weren’t spinning, and I weren’t literally dying, I’d think he was good-looking.
There’s a ringing in my ears, and I can’t hear what the new pharmacist is saying, but he’s waving his hands at me from over the counter. The lights flooding the space are jarring and too bright, and my vision is fading in and out with black splotches around every corner. I’m a tight, wound up gamma ray, shot into space.
“I’m having a heart attack,” I say, feeling like I might tip over, completely disoriented. The pharmacist is still stationed at the counter, his eyes tracking me, watching me carefully as I sway like a building in an earthquake in front of the counter.He grimaces as soon as I open my mouth. “Can you call an ambulance?”
“No.” He replies flatly. “You didn’t have a heart attack.” His name tag readsDean.
“What?” I ask.
“You didn’t have a heart attack,” He says, not looking up from his computer screen. “Healthy twenty-five year olds don’t get heart attacks.”
“What?” I ask again, my head pounding, shoulder aching. “I’m not twenty-five.” I turned twenty-eight last week.
“You probably just had a panic attack,” He explains.
“Oh…”Yeah.My therapist said it’s normal to get those. That I should expect them, even.
Oh, god, it’s just like last time.
A blush creeps up my cheeks. A panic attack. You have these all the time, Madeline, you idiot. It’s okay. I’m calming down now, my vision has returned and I can breathe like a normal person instead of a distressed French Bulldog.
But what if it wasn’tjusta panic attack?
“But—” I start.
“Madeline, just go home.”
I’m caught off guard. “How do you know my name?”
“Craig told me about you. There’s a little post-it note warning the entire staff you come in between 2 and 2:30 every day right here.” He plucks the note from the cash register in front of him and shows it to me.
“Will you walk me home?” I’m genuinely convinced I need an escort or I might fall over and get hit by a car in the middle of the street on the way home and die for real this time. “Craig would walk me home.” And he has walked me home. Several times.
“No. I can’t leave the pharmacy unattended.” Dean shakes his headnope, no wayand turns around.
“There’s the other cashier,” I offer. “Where is Craig?”
