Chapter 7: The Phone

Ansel's clinic is a converted dry cleaner on Fourth Street with a pressing counter still bolted to the floor.

He took me there that night, after Gordon's terrace, because he said I should see what I was deciding about.

It had a row of chairs, two exam rooms, one nurse and a line out the door.

"Wash your hands," the nurse told me, and handed me a clipboard.

I washed my hands and handed out forms for two hours.

I am a junior director of a hotel company, and I have never been so useful.

A boy with a cut chin asked if I was the doctor's wife.

"Yes," I said, and was surprised by how little it hurt to say.

When the last patient left, Ansel locked the front door and came back with two cartons of noodles.

He rolled exam paper across the pressing counter like a tablecloth.

We sat on stools and ate with the lights half off.

"This is the best date I've ever had," I said.

"We're married."

"That makes it a rare one."

He smiled at his noodles.

"Gordon didn't invent this place," he said. "I started it in a church basement."

"He found it eight years ago and made it a building," he said.

"And now he owns the lights."

"He owns the lights."

"Not you," I said.

"Not me."

"Not yet."

He looked up.

I had not meant to say that last part out loud, and I had not meant to think it so hard.

"You want to take it from him," he said.

"I want to find out what he's afraid of."

"He isn't afraid of anything."

"Everyone's afraid of something. Mostly it's whoever's holding the check."

Ansel put down his chopsticks.

"I'm going to say something," he said. "You can tell me to stop."

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