“What’s that?” I asked.
“That blood pressure medicine. I’m not taking another one ever again.”
I shot Ruth a worried look. “Alice, I don’t think that’s a good idea. You need to talk to your doctor before you go and do that.”
Alice pushed her Coke-bottle lensed glasses up her nose. “What, do you think there’s a list like a blackball sort of thing that doctors have?” She sounded very worried when she added, “Do they tell one another when they have an ornery patient? Will that keep me from ever seeing another doctor again?”
“Let’s just calm down, Alice,” Ruth said. “There’s no such thing as a patient blacklist.”
Alice pointed to her. “You just named it, so there must be one. I’ve always thought that if two people have the same thought, then it must be true.”
I rolled my eyes. “So the flat-earthers must be right?”
Alice blinked. “I don’t know about flat-earthers, but I know about a patient blacklist.”
“I will say it one more time—there is no such thing as a patient blacklist,” Ruth reiterated. “Now, if you want me to go with you to the doctor, I will. We can talk to him about your blood pressure, and then he’ll write you a new prescription or tell you to take half of the ones you’ve been taking. Or maybe you have a different problem altogether.”
Alice’s eyes widened at that. “What could I have?”
Ruth, seeing her mistake, deflected. “Now, now, I was only using that as an example. I’m not saying that youdohave anything else.”
Alice felt her arms and chest. “I don’t feel bad. I don’t feel like I have anything else. What if I have some hidden disease like distemper?”
I stifled a laugh. “You definitely don’t have distemper. That’s what dogs get.”
“There might be a human version that no one’s discovered yet.”
Ruth rubbed her face. “Alice, I’m pretty sure if there was a human version of distemper, someone would have found it by now.”
“You don’t know that. It could be a wily disease, very sneaky.”
I really didn’t know where this was going, and as much fun as it was to listen to Alice discuss human distemper, whatever that was, it was time to step in.
“Alice, if you need someone to go to the doctor with you, I’ll do it.”
Alice took my hands. “You will? That would be wonderful.”
“I offered first,” Ruth said sourly.
“But you’re not mean and scary like Blissful.”
“Sorry?” I said.
Alice swatted me playfully. “You know what I mean.”
“That I’m scary?”
“Yes. You’re very scary, Blissful. The first time I met you, I was afraid of you. Thought you might bite my head off for looking at you wrong.” She tapped her chin in thought. “Or maybe that was the second time we met. I can’t remember. But if anyone’s going to end up on the patient blacklist, it will be you and not me—if you come with me, that is.”
“This is why you want me to go,” I said sourly. “So that you can distract him and make me the bad guy?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that I’d use you as a distraction,” she argued.
“More like she’d point you out,” Ruth added.
Alice waddled over to her chair and dropped her purse on it. “Well, I might. One has to look after herself, you know.”
“Great. I see how this is going,” I murmured.
