It's Complicated (32 page)

“Have you been to the coffee house?” she asked.

His hand was suspended in midair, shaking just a little. He didn’t have an official diagnosis of Parkinson’s, so she knew it was just the slightest of tremors that come with age. He put his hand back down, pursed his lips, and gave her a disapproving look. “If I’m going to get coffee I’m not going to get it there.”

“Why not?” She had been thinking about gently suggesting that he take that to get out more, and enjoy conversation.

“I can get all of the coffee I want whenever I want. My girlfriend works at a restaurant,” he said, nudging her in the ribs.

“Oh. That’s a nice perk.”

“No, honey, the sex is a nice perk. The coffee is just an extra.”

If she’d been drinking something she would have done a classic spit take. Instead, she just choked, Ed grinning madly at her. “Okay, that’s a little too much information, Ed, but uh… thank you for sharing.”

“My pleasure,” he said. “No pun intended.”

“Okay, Ed, so let’s stick to umm… finding your gift,” she stammered, trying to extract herself from a very uncomfortable conversation. “How about this one?” She pointed to a card for an ice cream shop.

He snatched it up. “Oh, I love Christina’s. Absolutely. I can take my girlfriend there for a cone.”

They walked back out to the waiting room, where Alex jumped up as if burned by their presence. “Josie,” he said.

“Alex,” she said, mocking him.

His mouth flatlined into an embarrassed frown. “How are things going?”

“We were just talking about our sex lives,” Ed answered.

A couple of people sitting in the waiting room tittered.

“Really?” Alex’s eyebrows shot up.

“Yes. Why don’t you share, Alex? There’s that new woman that you kissed recently. You were telling me all about her in the car ride over here.”

Alex froze.

Josie turned slowly and looked at him, imitating what he’d just said a few moments ago, her own eyebrows shooting up to her hairline. “Really?”

“Grandpa, I think you’re remembering that wrong,” Alex said slowly, slipping his hand around the old man’s shoulders. “Why don’t we just get going now? It’s time for—”

Ed interrupted him. “Josie, you done working yet?”

She reflexively looked at her wrist, checking the watch she hadn’t worn for years. “Actually, I can take a break for an hour, or so…an early lunch. You offering, Ed?”

“I don’t know, Josie, I’ve got a girlfriend. I can’t really take you up on…asking me out.” He waved his hand at her, as if saying “pshaw.” “No, I’m just asking”—he glanced pointedly at Alex, and then at her—“if you’d like to go out for coffee and a bite to eat. There’s a sweet thing I really adore over at Jeddy’s.”

Jeddy’s. God, she couldn’t get away from that place, could she? How did a hole-in-the wall diner like Jeddy’s suddenly become the center of her social life? Alex had a look on his face like he was struggling to remain neutral, to seem as if he didn’t care whether she said yes or no. The intensity of his eyes gave away what he was really feeling.

Ed’s expectant look, so friendly and simple, was what broke her. Awkwardness be damned; she wasn’t going to disappoint a very nice old man, who had just failed every part of the test that indicated any sort of progress, or even a holding pattern, in his disintegration through Alzheimer’s. A pang of sadness shot through her—for Ed, for Alex, for his entire family—as she began to suspect that Ed was either on a rapid decline or, more likely, might be in the control group and not in the group that was receiving the experimental medicine.

“Sure, Ed,” she said, reaching out to touch him tenderly on the shoulder, gazing firmly into his eyes, so he had her full attention. “I would love to enjoy a nice, sweet thing at Jeddy’s.”

They took two different cars, despite Ed’s not-so-subtle attempt at getting her into Alex’s old Honda, the kind of car you expected a six-figure-in-debt medical resident to be driving. Her own car was on par, a twelve-year-old Toyota Tercel that she held together with duct tape, gum, and a lot of atheistic praying. Her mechanics these days were Tom and Ray from
Car Talk
, but her car got her through the handful of thousands of miles she drove it every year, relying more on public transportation and her own two feet than on the combustion engine that putt-putted her to and fro in the metro Boston area.

Jeddy’s was just a few miles away, and she scored an awesome parking spot, which made this ridiculous bit of Kabuki theater almost worth it. Finding a
good
parking spot was a form of sport in Cambridge and Boston, and she wanted a ribbon for getting one directly in front of the restaurant. A pang of guilt hit her as she watched Alex circling the block repeatedly, finally letting Ed out at the entrance to Jeddy’s and then driving off, leaving her alone with the old man.

His warm, confident brown eyes were a bit clouded now, filled with a tentative fear, a look she had come to know all too well, professionally. He was confused, and in his confusion he reverted to the past. “Meribeth? Meribeth, what are we doing here?” he asked.

She remembered that one of his daughters was Meribeth. She wasn’t sure whether it was Alex’s mom or not, but right now it didn’t matter. A split-second decision made her choose to ground him as much as possible in the truth, reserving the right to shift if needed. “Ed.” She touched him again, making that connection, smiling, exuding as much warmth and familiarity as possible. “Ed, you just came from the medical building where you go every month with Alex. Remember, you came to my office and I asked you some questions? I’m Josie, Josie Mendham.” Maintaining eye contact, and speaking as simply as possible without condescension should do the trick. The fear dissipated, as if her words had marshaled an army that fought it back. Victory, she thought.

“Josie! Of course, I know you! How’s my gal?” he said. This was a technique that some of the sharper patients used. He was covering, and she knew it. He didn’t realize it…or did he?

She took a chance. “Ed, you don’t have to pretend you know me, I want you to really know me. I’m the girl Alex…kissed.”

His eyes shifted instantly, as if someone snapped their fingers, into complete focus. The man whiplashed back into himself, completely in the present. “Hot damn, I knew it! I knew you and Alex were a thing!”

“We’re a
what
?” a deep voice said from behind her.

She closed her eyes and pressed her lips together in agony. This was not how helping Ed to ground himself was supposed to work. “Alex, you’re here!” she said, acknowledging him because it would have been far worse had she shown her humiliation or acknowledged what Ed had just said. Looping her right arm through Ed’s left, she marched him toward the entrance of Jeddy’s, sidestepping, for now, Alex’s expected question about why on earth Ed would have any idea that he and Josie were a thing.

The entrance to Jeddy’s seemed bare without the warlock waitress who wore the pair of balls, but since it had been auctioned off at some autism event, it was probably now sitting in some millionaire’s garage, gathering dust. At least the poor warlock waitress got a chance to retire. Madge, on the other hand, didn’t. She marched right up to the group and then, to Josie’s utter amazement, reached out for Alex, stood on tiptoes, and planted a loud smackeroo on his cheek. The kiss, intimate and friendly, and the kind a grandmother gives her grandson.

“You two know each other?” Josie asked, incredulous.

Ed walked over to Madge and slipped a sly arm around her waist, goosing her hip and laughing when Madge playfully slapped his hand. “You’re the threesome girl, aren’t you?” Madge said, pointing at Josie, narrowing her eyes.

Josie turned into a beet on the spot. A bright red, flaming beet. “What? No, I…what do you…?”

Alex and Ed looked at her with eyebrows practically up to the ceiling. “Threesome girl?” Alex asked, with a half-smile on his face.

“It’s not what you…No, that’s not what I…oh…” she stammered, completely flummoxed by Madge’s comment.

“Yeah, she comes in here all the time,” Madge said, “with this incredibly big, pregnant blonde, and the blonde is pregnant by one of two guys, but not in that Maury Povich kind of way, more in a…Mormon sister wives kind of way, except sister husbands, no…brother husbands.” Madge waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “Bah…now she’s got me stammering trying to explain it. It’s all…this quirky thing involving Thor and his little…model boyfriend.”

“Mike and Dylan,” Alex said.

Madge snapped her neck back in surprise. “You know them?”

“Yeah, I was just at Laura’s birth.”

“You delivered the baby?” Ed asked.

“No, but I assisted in the case.”

“Maybe you’ll get a fighting chance at some of those coconut shrimp now that she shat out the football,” Madge laughed to Josie, a conspirator’s smile on her face.

As the four of them stood there, ignoring the growing line behind them, Josie realized that suddenly she was something different to Madge. “How do you all…?” She cut off her own question. “Madge is the sweet thing that you like at Jeddy’s, isn’t she, Ed?”

His smile stretched so wide across his face, she thought it might meet at the base of his neck in the back. “Yes, ma’am, me and Madge have been together for a good long time, and she’s my sweet thing.”

“I thought you meant you had a favorite dessert here.”

“I do,” he said, with a lecherous smile.

Alex just shook his head and pretended not to be there.

Josie cackled. “We’re quickly getting into ‘too much information’ territory here, Ed.”

“When you’re my age, you take whatever information you can get,” he said.

“All right, all right.” Madge batted his hand away. “I need to get you guys seated. Come on.” She grabbed three menus, and Ed followed her, giving her a quick goose on the ass, making her giggle. The idea that Madge was capable of giggling threw Josie for a loop. As Madge showed them to their booth, Josie made it a point to sit across from the two men, claiming her space and needing to get as much distance as possible from both of them, to preserve whatever shred of dignity remained.

The first words out of Alex’s mouth, as he sat across from her and locked eyes, were exactly what she expected. “Threesome. Care to explain?”

“You know what she meant,” Josie retorted.

“No, I don’t,” Alex said skeptically. A smile struggled to stay inside as he grilled her, leaning forward, invading her space as much as possible in an effort to unsettle her. She knew it, and he knew it, and damn if he wasn’t succeeding.

“She called me ‘threesome girl’ because I came in here
with
the threesome, not because I’m
part
of a threesome.” She looked down at the menu, knowing exactly what she was going to order, but needing to break eye contact. “I don’t seem to be part of anything these days.”

He frowned, genuine concern pouring into his features. His eyes warm again as he let go of the guardedness. It made her want to let go as well and talk to him openly, rather than play this stupid game that she knew was one-sided, all on her, trying to shut him out.

“You can be part of whatever you want to be part of,” he stressed. His fingers started to tap the tabletop, and she knew that he was purposefully engaging his hands so that he didn’t reach across and try to take hers. The gesture was touching. Every movement and word orchestrated between the two of them as he tried to figure out why she had blown him off, and she tried to pretend that she was still blowing him off, and only here for Ed’s benefit.

That day in the elevator, their heated embrace while Laura was in labor, he had said to her something about games being what people who don’t know what they want engage in. Damn, if he wasn’t right. Playing this game was a reflection of her own internal turmoil, and she really didn’t know what she wanted.

That was the problem. The longer she sat across from him, though, the more she wanted him. He was the real deal. Diving in with Alex would be a mature relationship, one that she knew involved giving it all. This wouldn’t be a 50/50 or a 20/20, which was what she was more accustomed to. This would be a full on, 100% involvement, with each person giving their all. He’d mentioned having a family, and children, and she knew that she couldn’t offer that. That’s what had kept her away, the worry that he really was the whole package and that she just wasn’t. No matter how much Laura tried to convince her that Josie’s insecurities were her biggest obstacle, and that she really had value and was worthy, and could build a life with children and love, and family, and—dare she even think it—Alex, at the core, Josie just couldn’t believe that she could rise above her own fears and take the plunge.

“Coconut shrimp and fried green tomatoes for you,” Madge said to Josie without looking at her as she scribbled something in that little electronic device of hers. “Coconut cream pie and a cup of coffee for Ed…and Alex, I still haven’t quite figured out what it is that you want.”

“I know exactly what I want, Madge,” he said, his eyes boring into Josie. “Unfortunately, it’s not on the menu.”

This was how we were going to play the game
, Josie thought. “I’m changing my order, Madge,” Josie said flatly. “Give me whatever Ed’s having.”

“Don’t you want the same thing Alex wants?” Madge said, those smoker’s lips pursed like the puckered butthole of a cat.

That’s the problem!
her heart cried out, but her mouth, thankfully, didn’t open and say those words. Josie chose this moment to ignore everyone, her wishes already stated, and took the coward’s way out, standing and slipping past Madge to go and use the ladies’ room.