Page 47 of A Fabulously Unfabulous Summer for Henry Milch

Megan was back. She snatched up the plates even though I wasn’t exactly finished with my omelet.

“Can I get you anything else?” she asked, though her face said we shouldn’t dare ask.

“No, just the check,” Opal said.

Once Megan walked away, I asked, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Can you ask me a question? What do you think you’ve been doing for the last half hour?”

“This is a personal question.”

“You asked questions about my sex life. Very judgy questions.”

“Could you shut up and let me ask the question?”

“Fine.”

“Megan isreallyawful. Why did you want to come here?”

“She has to wait on me. She hates that. I’m not proud of it, but it does make me happy.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

When the check came, I divided it in half and told Opal her half was twelve twenty-seven plus tip. She laughed.

“You’re buying me lunch.”

“I never said I’d buy you lunch.”

“When you interrogate someone over a meal you should pay for it. It’s only polite.” She took a ten-dollar bill out of her wallet and laid it on the table. “I’ll leave the tip.”

“A tip would be four dollars.”

“Nothing says ‘fuck you’ like a really big tip.”

As soon as she walked away, I took out my wallet, trying to figure out which credit card I could squeeze this onto. They were all pretty worthless. I just made the minimum payment on each of them—well, two of them. I used the money I was supposedly spending on food, which meant one of them should have enough room. But which one?

“Hi Henry, how are you doing?”

I looked up and there was Dr. Stewart. He’d been my doctor when I landed in the emergency room the night I was run off the road. He was tall—so tall—with auburn-hair, peachy skin and blue eyes the color of a Malibu sky. I said, “avahhhmmm,” then cleared my throat and tried again, “I’m good. Thanks.”

“You look a lot better than the last time I saw you.”

“So do you. I mean. You look really good, too.”

“Your ankle’s healing well?”

“Yeah. My foot’s still attached.”

“Your nose looks good.”

“Thanks. But it’s not my best feature.”

“It’ll do.”

Then the conversation died. I didn’t know what to say. Dr. Stewart was one of those beautiful people you occasionally see around and they’re just so perfect they belong in a movie or a magazine, and the idea that they might want to talk to you is just insane so you don’t even attempt to talk to them.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty too. But if I’m honest, I’m mainly young. Dr. Stewart was the kind of man who would be gorgeous at any age.