Doc in the Box Read Online Free PDF Page B

difference,” the receptionist said in a snippy voice.
    “Easy for you to say,” I said. She shrugged in an irritating manner. I fixed her with a patented South Side glare and intoned: “I am a witch, and I curse you and your curse is that you will be treated the same way you treat these cancer patients.”
    “You’re nuts,” the receptionist said.
    “Let’s get out of here and get the paperwork,” Georgia said.
    “I can’t believe you gave that woman the evil eye,” Georgia said, as we walked to Dr. Partland’s office. “Where’d you get that, from one of your weird South Side relatives?”
    “The spirit just moved me.”
    “How did you do that stuff with your eyes? You looked like something in a horror movie.”
    “That’s definitely from my weird South Side relatives,” I said. “It’s the South Side glare, the most powerful force known to woman. I think I scared that receptionist.”
    “You sure as hell scared me,” she said.
    Dr. Partland’s office was next door in the Wellhaven Medical Arts Building, a yellow brick cube so filled with doctors’ offices it was nicknamed Doc in the Box. Georgia picked up her paperwork at Dr. Partland’s office, and a kindly receptionist called and rescheduled her radiation treatment for eleven-fifty the next day. I said I’d drive her to radiation oncology tomorrow and promised not to fight with the receptionist. I also promised not to fight with anyone at work, while I was making promises.
    I was a model columnist the next day. I sat quietly at my desk and worked on the Leo D. Nardo story. I’d forgotten to ask him how he’d gotten into the business, a fairly crucial question. And I didn’t ask where he went to high school. No St. Louis interview was complete without this revelation. The answers looked so harmless, but they revealed everything about you: your religion, your social position, and how much money your family had. My old high school, St. Philomena’s, for instance, let everyone in St. Louis know I was South Side, blue-collar, and Catholic. I needed answers to those questions, and I knew Leo often had a lunch-hour performance. It was eleven now, so maybe I could catch him. I called the Heart’s Desire.
    “Leo’s not here,” Steve, the manager, said. “I can’tfind him. I’m frantic. He didn’t turn up yesterday. If he doesn’t show again today, I’ll have to put on a substitute again. I have Officer Friendly and his Arrested for Love routine, but the women don’t like him as well as Leo D. Nardo. This isn’t like him.”
    “Maybe he’s taking off for a few days,” I said, and realized what a horrible pun that was, considering Leo’s line of work.
    “Not without telling me,” the manager said. “He’s always so reliable.”
    Reliable was never a word I’d associate with Leo. He was a stripper, not a brain surgeon. He probably was with an enthusiastic admirer. He’d turn up soon.
    I said I’d call again tomorrow. It was time to take Georgia to radiation oncology. This time, she had the right paperwork, and she was shown straight into a special interior waiting room. I waited outside in the “caregivers area,” the depressing, down-at-heels, pink waiting room, and listened to the receptionist abusing other patients. She ignored a frail seventyish woman wearing a white turban that I knew was not a fashion statement. She’d temporarily lost her hair in the cancer wars. When Mrs. Turban asked for a cab, the receptionist snapped, “There’s a pay phone down the hall. It’s not my job to call cabs.”
    “But they always call one for me up in chemotherapy,” Mrs. Turban said.
    The receptionist shrugged. “Well, I’m too busy,” she said. I doubted that. I’d seen the open paperback romance on her desk.
    Next, a dignified old man with a four-legged cane hobbled up to her desk. He wore a white shirt and an old narrow-lapelled suit that was too big for him. “I’mhere for my prescription from the doctor. He’s supposed