The Scenic Route (18 page)

“Is that why you talk so much?”

Dallas didn't mind people being blunt. In fact, she preferred it. “Yes,” she said, laughing. “I think so.”

Mandy smiled. Well, that was something.

“This is your chance to start over,” Dallas said. “There must be something you want to do. Something you dreamed of doing since you were a kid.”

“I dreamed of being Dian Fossey.”

“Who?”

“Dian Fossey. The woman who rescued gorillas in Africa.”

“You're so fucking weird,” Dallas said, laughing again.

“Coming from you, that's a compliment,” Mandy shot back.

“It is,” Dallas assured her, and for a moment she believed there was a connection between them. Or something close enough to a connection for her to decide that one blunt question deserved another. “Who's Naomi Bloom?” she asked.

Mandy seemed to hesitate before answering. “She's someone I went to school with in California.”

“Did Austin go out with her?”

This time Mandy's hesitation was unmistakable. “No,” she said.

“Are you sure?”

“Well, it's not like he tells me about every date he's ever gone on,” Mandy said. “We don't have that kind of incestuous relationship.”

“Don't even get me started on your relationship. I'm sorry. I'm being invasive again.”

“No,” Mandy said, “just offensive.”

Dallas could see where she deserved that. “I think Austin's having an affair,” she said.

“He's not.” This time Mandy responded swiftly.

“How do you know? You just said he doesn't discuss these things with you.”

“I know my brother, and I know he would never have an affair.”

“You can't know someone,” Dallas said, slumping into a chair. “You know things about someone. Things they choose to let you know or accidentally let you know while you're videotaping them going through your underwear drawer. But it's all peripheral. Who a person is deep inside and what they're capable of is something only they know, and sometimes they don't even know themselves.” Sometimes her
thoughts wandered so far afield, she needed GPS to locate them. It was foolish for her to have said anything to Mandy. Nothing good could come of it. When would she learn to keep her mouth shut?

“Austin isn't cheating on you,” Mandy said with what seemed like genuine affection. “If you think something is wrong, then ask him.”

“You never ask a question you don't want to hear the answer to,” Dallas said. “And I don't want to lose him.” As she said the words, she realized how true they were. She didn't want to lose Austin.

“I think he'll surprise you.”

“Guys often surprise me, but they're rarely happy surprises.”

“Just talk to him,” Mandy said, suddenly the voice of reason on human interaction. “He's a guy. If you make things simple and direct, he can do that.”

“Y
ou're going to have to get set up on EMR. And have you done a SWOT analysis?” Austin had no idea what Hope Cassidy was talking about.

“What is an EMR?” he asked.

“Am I losing you?”

He was lost before she arrived. Len had made it sound like Optimum Health was going to buy their practice as is. That turned out to be wildly optimistic.

“An EMR is an electronic medical record,” Hope said. She was an attractive woman with chestnut hair in her late thirties. She talked fast, but that was probably a New York thing. She was warm in person. Warmer than on the phone. She was one of those people who seemed to be always juggling a dozen plates while also trying to drink a cup of hot coffee. She was actually always drinking coffee. She was already on her third cup since she'd arrived. Maybe that was why she talked fast. “All records at Optimum are electronic. Paper is very twentieth century,” she said glancing at the framed antique eye chart on his wall.

“I don't use that chart with patients,” Austin felt obligated to point out.

“That's a relief,” she said. It wasn't until she smiled that he was sure she was joking.

“There are several different EMR systems on the market with different price points and different features. Unfortunately, they're not all compatible with Optimum's system, so you'll have to consult with tech support. Once you pick an EMR, make sure to include that in your SWOT analysis.”

“Is that another newfangled electronic thing?” Austin asked. “I'm suddenly feeling very old.”

“No,” Hope said with a smile. “SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. It's a strategy tool. Something you use, well,
we
use to evaluate if you're a good business fit.”

“If?” Austin was confused. “But you're here.” Though it had taken so many months to coordinate the meeting, which he now realized he should have probably taken as a bad sign. “I thought Optimum was already committed.”

“I'm here because we're committed to pursuing this opportunity. But the final decision is going to be made after a lot of number crunching about things like ROI and long-term growth rates. Of course, your market position will also be taken into consideration.”

“You don't sound like a doctor,” Austin said, his brain swimming.

“I didn't used to sound like this,” she said with a rueful expression. She took a gulp of coffee. “I spent a decade as an ER physician at St. Vincent's in New York. But St. Vincent's went belly-up, and in the end the quality work taking place there meant a lot less than the value of the real estate, which is why a hundred-and-fifty-year-old hospital is soon to be the site of luxury condos. Medicine is a business these days, like any other. It's a brave new world.”

As Austin recalled, things didn't end well in that book.

“You have to stop thinking of yourself as just a doctor. You're a service provider. You're an entrepreneur.”

“But if I join Optimum, won't I just be an employee?”

“In this economy, being employed is no small thing,” Hope said, gathering her short black trench coat and briefcase. “Well, I don't have to tell you that. Look what city you live in. Austin, once you get used to the new vernacular and protocols, you may end up liking them. Hell, I started using SWOT analysis on potential dates.”

“How's that working for you?” he asked.

She paused on her way out the door, and her green eyes softened. “It's teaching me to be more aware of potential opportunities.”

Austin spent his theoretical lunch hour trying to do a SWOT analysis of the practice. He divided a paper into four rectangles, as was done in the literature Hope left him. He labeled one square “Strengths,” the next “Weaknesses,” then “Opportunities” and “Threats.” And that's about as far as he could get. The only rectangle he didn't have a problem filling was “Threats.”

When Dallas knocked on his open door, he was going bleary-eyed trying to come up with reasons why anyone would invest in Farmington Eyes. He looked up, surprised and worried. She rarely came by the office.

“Is something wrong with Coal?” he asked.

“No,” she assured him. “He's fine. He wants a dragon as a pet, like the boy in the movie he saw last week. I explained that dragons weren't real. So then he asked for a dinosaur. And when I told him that also wasn't possible, he asked if dinosaurs were real. And I thought maybe I should just tell him they're not, since that's what half the people in the Tea Party think, and it would be a lot easier than explaining evolution.”

Dallas was babbling, which he knew from experience meant that she was upset about something. If she was upset with him, he was hoping it was for something like forgetting to put the toilet seat down as opposed to forgetting her birthday. He was pretty sure he hadn't
forgotten her birthday. But all of a sudden his mind was a blank, and he couldn't remember her birthday.

“I just had something I wanted to talk to you about,” she said, “and I thought it would be better to do it in person.”

September. Her birthday was in September. He sighed with relief. “Is it possible we can discuss whatever it is tonight?” he asked. “I spent most of my morning with the Optimum rep, and I've got back-to-back patients all afternoon.”

“We can't discuss it tonight because I won't be home tonight.” That sounded odd. “I mean, I won't be at your home tonight. Our home. No, your home. I'm not doing this well.”

“Doing what?” Now Austin was really worried. “What are you talking about?”

“I packed up my stuff. And Coal's stuff.”

“What? When? Why?” Austin was sputtering.

“I'm moving out.” She must have seen the befuddled expression on his face. “I started seeing someone.”

Austin couldn't believe what he was hearing. It was only a few months back that she had been accusing
him
of having an affair. “Why would you do that?” It made no sense. “Why would you do that to me? Why would you do that to Coal?”

“It's Coal's dad.”

“And that makes it better?”

“A little.”

“No, Dallas, it doesn't. Not at all.”

“Don't get upset.”

“What the fuck am I supposed to do?”

“Don't yell at me!” She was crying. He should have been the one crying. “It's your fault!” she screamed at him.

“My fault!”

“You and Naomi.”

“I told you nothing happened between us.” They had been through all of this. He had told her everything. Or almost everything.

“Well, I didn't believe you.”

“So it's my fault you didn't believe me?”

“I didn't believe you because it wasn't true.”

“I swear to God—”

“I don't know what happened or what didn't happen. But I know what I felt. I know how you touched me. I know how you didn't touch me. I hooked up with Jarrod because I wanted to get back at you. Because I thought it would make us even. Because I thought since he was an ex, it was kind of a freebie. It wasn't like I hadn't been with him before.”

She was talking. Words kept coming out of her mouth. But it was like they were in a foreign language. Austin couldn't comprehend them. He couldn't fathom their meaning. He was tumbling. He was falling down a flight of stairs. No, he had opened a door where he thought there was a flight of stairs and there was just a sheer drop. And darkness.

“I thought it would be just a one-night thing. I didn't plan this.”

“Then why on earth are you doing it?”

“I know where I stand with Jarrod. I've always known where I stood. But with you, I feel like there's a big question mark about who I am to you and where the relationship is going.”

“What's the question mark? We've been picking a date to get married.”

“And we haven't found one.”

“We haven't found the
right
one.”

“Because there
isn't
a right one. When I'm with you, I feel like there's all this gray smoke in the air between us, making it hard to breathe. Making it hard to see you and see myself. It makes me want to smoke again, so I can be blowing smoke out rather than breathing it in.”

“That's not what you told me in the past. You told me I made you feel safe. I made you feel protected. That's what you told me. And you
tell me everything. For God's sake, Dallas, you vomit out every thought in your head, and you never told me any of this.”

“Beware of people who tell you everything about themselves. They're the ones that hide the most.”

Austin didn't know what to do with that. He didn't know how to process it. He wasn't even sure what it meant.

“What about Coal?” he asked. “I'm a father to him.”

“Jarrod is his father,” Dallas said, looking away from him. “Coal will be fine.”

What about me?
Austin wanted to ask.
Why aren't you concerned about me?
How could she just rip herself out of his life? And how could she take his son from him? Yes, after two years, Coal felt like his son. There were a half dozen pictures of Coal on his desk. Austin wanted to reach out and touch him. But he couldn't. And she was saying he would never be able to again. It was impossible. She was being impossible. No, she was just being scared. That's what Dallas did; she got scared about things. He understood getting scared. He understood the impulse to run like his mom did. Like Mandy did. But it wasn't something he did. It was his job to be strong. It always had been. If he could just get Dallas to calm down and see what a mistake she was making, they could work through it. They could somehow find a way to work through it. He reached for her hand, but she pulled away.

“Dallas, you don't have to do this. Or you don't have to do this today.”

“You have no idea how hard this is for me. You have no idea.”

“I do,” he said. “I understand. Come back to the house.”

“I can't.”

“I'll get you a hotel room. At the Embassy Suites. You and Coal can stay there tonight. We'll talk tomorrow.”

“There's nothing to talk about,” she said. But she was wavering. He could tell.

“There's everything to talk about,” he said. “You are everything to me. You and Coal.”

“I'm everything to you?” she asked; she was crying again. He was getting through to her. Everything was going to be okay. “Do you love me more than anyone else in the world?”

If he hesitated, it was only for a millisecond. “Of course,” he said to her. “Of course I do.”

“Oh, Austin,” she said. “You're such a fucking liar.”

He didn't know what to say. There was nothing he could say. It was over. He had lost her.

“We don't fit together,” she said, “and we never did. There are red-light people, and there are green-light people—”

“Don't you dare start in with your red-light, green-light crap.” She had cheated on him. She was leaving him. He sure as hell didn't have to listen to her bullshit anymore.

“You can call it crap, but it's still true. There are people whose first impulse is no, and people whose first impulse is yes. Red light and green light.”

“So I'm red and you're green.” There was something superficial and simplistic about her and her advice. Mandy had been right all along. “Is that what you're saying?”

“No,” she said sadly. “You're yellow.”