I just start laughing.
“Are we going to have to go through the whole you being disbarred or whatever the hell it is they do to doctors again?” I ask.
“Disbarment is what they do to lawyers,” he says. “With doctors, they take away your license, and no, you actually qualify for this one. I won’t have to break any laws or ethical codes to get you in.”
“You’re still nailing your patient, though,” I tell him.
“Yeah, but I hardly think that’s relevant to the trial,” he says. “Besides, if you’ve never bothered to notice, I always fill out your paperwork under the name Zoe Brinkman.”
“Zoe Brinkman?”
“Yeah,” he says. “It was a girl I used to date before I met Melissa. She was totally out of her head, but she was a demon in the sack.”
I think I may have rubbed off on him a little too much over the years.
“How charming,” I tell him. “So, what you’re saying is that you’re going to get me into the trial without lying this time, except when it comes to my name or the fact that we’re married, right?”
“Actually,” he says, “none of that’s going to matter. I called Dr. Marcum and he’s going to recommend your inclusion into the trial so we don’t have to falsify anything.”
“Yeah, except any and all records of me ever being his patient,” I scoff.
“I sent him your file so he could send it to them,” Jace says. “You’re already in if you want to be in.”
“What kind of drug is it?” I ask. “Is it going to be better or worse than the chemo?”
“Part of the fun is finding out,” he says, and I’m now convinced that me rubbing off on him at all is a bad idea.
“All right,” I tell him, “but if it puts me in a bed unable to move, I’m going to have to insist on breast massages at least three times a day.”
“I’ll check with your trial doctors,” he says, and looks back to the paperwork on his desk.
A lot can certainly change in five years, but a lot stays the same, too.
I turned him down that night at the junkyard, but I did eventually relent and allow him to marry me — part of the deal was that he had to say it like that whenever he told anybody.
“You want to head to Mr. Landau’s place with me?” he asks, finishing up signing whatever it is that he’s signing. “There’s lunch in it for you if you do.”
“I’ll tell you what,” I say. “I’ll go with you and you can eat out.”
“That’s what I just said.”
I give him my corniest wink, saying, “Is it?”
“You know,” he says, “I could swear I’m married to a teenage boy.”
“That’s disgusting. You’re way too old to be with a teenager.”
So, this is our life. We work together, we live together, I make juvenile comments, and we laugh about them together.
All in all, it’s not so bad.
The only thing I really miss when I left the city, and this was a surprise to me, was Mags.
Yeah, she was my secretary — excuse me, assistant — and I never really treated her that well, but she was always there in the background making my life run just a little bit smoother.
The good news for her is that she finally landed herself a millionaire, though he’s a lot younger than what she had in mind. Still though, she tells me, with the sheer volume of alcohol he consumes on a daily basis, it can’t be too long until he keels over.
I guess you’ve got to have goals.