George took in the lovely swell of Pia’s derriere, appreciating that her figure was just as stunning in reality as it had been in his imagination over the far too many months since he’d last seen her. He watched as she quickly pulled on the clothes she’d rescued from the floor. When she plopped down on the sofa, clutching her knees to her chest with her bare feet poised on the coffee table’s edge, she looked across the room at him. It was painfully clear she was less than thrilled about his surprise visit. George’s eyes swept the apartment. It was of generous size, sparsely appointed with what appeared to be new, nondescript furniture. To George it looked as if no one lived there. There were no knickknacks, no photos, just a stack of medical textbooks on an otherwise empty dining-room table.
“Nice place,” George said, wanting to be positive. He was nervous but determined. After months of calling Pia and leaving unreturned voice messages and sending countless pleading emails and texts with barely a reply, George had talked himself into coming out to see Pia, using her birthday as the excuse for a surprise visit.
Since they had last seen each other almost twenty-four months previously in New York, George had tried to change his persona, even dating a couple of attractive and personable women at the UCLA Medical Center, where he was a second-year resident in radiology. George thought he was stronger now, but now that he was in Pia’s company, he realized he was no less in love with her, if that was what it was. Love sounded better than obsession. His attraction for her had become part of his life and would probably remain so, as simple as that. It was as if he were addicted. Ultimately George didn’t totally understand his own behavior, he just accepted it.
George approached the couch, trying to to make eye contact. As usual, Pia looked away. George was able to take that in stride. Over four years of medical school he’d grown accustomed to her inability to make eye contact. George had also done a lot of reading about reactive attachment disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder since he and Pia had graduated and parted ways. Earlier in their relationship, at Pia’s suggestion, George had contacted her former social worker, Sheila Brown, who had hinted without exactly saying that Pia was contending with these disorders. For George, knowledge was power, and the doctor in him wanted to help Pia and cure her, or so he had told himself. Such information was a great source of support for him and allowed him over the years to medicalize her inability to reciprocate his passion. This way he could weather what others might have found challenging, even devastating, to their self-esteem.
Reaching the coffee table, George held out the flowers. Pia sighed, and as her shoulders sank, George’s heart fell with them. He’d hoped for a much more propitious reception.
“Happy birthday…”
“George, you know I don’t care about my birthday,” Pia commented, keeping her arms clasped together around her knees. “And that happens to be the sorriest-looking bouquet I’ve seen in a long time.” Her voice had lost a degree of its hardness.
George glanced at the flowers. She was right. The blossoms were all wilted. He laughed at the flowers and at himself. “They have had a hard journey. I bought them at the L.A. airport on a whim; we had a middle seat on the red-eye to Denver, jammed between two people who must weigh three hundred pounds each. I held them the whole time, unwilling to consign them to the overhead bin. Then we stood all the way from Denver on a bus for ninety minutes before catching a cab here to your apartment.”
“Why didn’t you run the idea of coming here by me first?” Pia asked, shaking her head in disbelief that George would fly all the way from L.A. on a whim, trusting she’d be receptive. It was something she would never do in a million years.
“I couldn’t run the idea by you. You haven’t been answering voice mail, email, or texts. For all I knew, you’d been kidnapped again.”
“Let’s not be overly melodramatic,” Pia said as a chill descended her spine. She recoiled at George’s comment as if he had slapped her. Since the episode of having been kidnapped back in New York as the culmination of a series of tragic events, she had tried to suppress the whole experience, but it still consumed her, as attested to by the nightmare from which George had just rescued her.
“Okay,” Pia said with another sigh, noisily letting air escape from her lungs like a deflating balloon. “I guess you’re right, I have been out of touch, but not deliberately. I mean I haven’t been ignoring you specifically. I’ve been so busy, I’ve been ignoring everyone and everything.”
Pia gathered her thoughts as the shock of seeing George and the anxiety of her nightmare abated. “Listen, I don’t mean to be an ass. I had a hard night. I worked till six this morning, and instead of sleeping when I got back, I went for a run. After that I tried to read. This isn’t a great time for me to have company.” Pia sighed again. The reality of having to deal with George was sinking in.
The more her mind cleared, the more she realized that George’s sudden appearance was probably her fault, and not just because she had been ignoring his persistent attempts to reconnect. The problem really stemmed from what she had said to him, standing in a hospital room in New York two years before, at the very end of the events surrounding her kidnapping. She knew she’d encouraged him more than she should have. She’d talked to him about love, how she didn’t know what love meant and how she wanted to change and be more like George, who she knew loved her, as evidenced by his steadfast personal generosity, which he had showered on her, despite little encouragement from her.
At the time, Pia and George had been speaking in the presence of their fellow medical student, Will McKinley, who was lying in a hospital bed, surrounded by monitors, stuck full of tubes and barely clinging to life. He’d been shot in the head, just like he had in Pia’s nightmare, and left for dead by Pia’s kidnappers, the men who wanted Pia and, secondarily, George to stop investigating the death of Pia’s mentor, Tobias Rothman, a death Pia had eventually proved to be murder. Pia felt another chill creep through her body. Thinking about the whole horrid affair and Will’s shooting was something she doubted she’d ever be able to come to terms with.
“Have you heard anything new about Will?” Pia asked, hoping for some good news since she assumed George was more in contact with their previous classmates than she.
“Last I heard, things were pretty much the same. That was a few weeks ago. Antibiotics still haven’t been able to rid him of infection. Nor have multiple surgical debridements.”
Pia nodded. This much she knew. The persistent osteomyelitis in Will’s skull where the bullet had entered had proved to be resistant to all antibiotics. Of course she knew: Will’s continuing health problems were in large part why she was in Boulder, Colorado.
“I’ll put these in some water,” said George, eager for something to do. “Maybe they’ll perk up.” He found a small kitchen off the living room and started looking for something for the flowers. Like the rest of the apartment, the kitchen looked barely lived in. The fridge was empty other than for some energy drinks and a couple of prepacked sandwiches. He picked one up and saw the “best by” date was more than three weeks in the past.
“How about we go out and get some lunch?” asked George, who had not eaten since the day before and was ravenously hungry. He received no reply as he continued looking into cupboards for something akin to a vase. He found water glasses, but they were far too small. Finally he laid the stems in the sink and looked at them wanly. He himself didn’t feel much better than they looked.
“Listen, George, I’m sorry I didn’t respond to your messages over the last couple of months or so.” Pia had gotten up from the couch and was now standing in the doorway of the cramped kitchen.