Jack

“Julia, look, dammit I’m sorry. I just, god. Look, Brady has scabies in the natal cleft region and I have to take care of him. Julia? Julie, you’re there, aren’t you? Please, I—-” There was a sudden, abrupt click from the other line, pausing me, followed by a brief hesitation. I waited.

Finally, a very serious, very stern and angry Julia answered. “Brady doesn’t have scabies.”

“Why, yes, I’d love to come over.”

There was a stir from the other end before she continued, keeping her tone level. I cleared my throat, sitting in my car, which wasn’t going anywhere. To my dismay, Julia had dismissed my hinting. “Brady either doesn’t have scabies or he wandered elsewhere——”

“But, he—-”

“—-with your father.” She finished the sentence, stunning me into silence. She was right. Dad lived off by the coast, and you got scabies from the brush or the woods. Most of our patients, a very few, that came in and were diagnosed with scabies were hikers. Brady preferred the tiny, enclosed walls of buildings. Dad, on the other hand…

“Idiot.” I muttered under my breath, my hands wrenching into fists in my lap.

“Are you in your garage again?”

Before I could admit to that, I shot her another question. “Where are you?”

“At Kallie’s. She’s going out with Shawn, so I’m going to babysit my niece and nephews. We’re going to this carnival ran by a gypsy troupe. They only come around every so often. Michael wants to get his fortune told.” Kallie was Julia’s sister and had a total of three children, but still not bad looking. She had been trying to make passes at me for ages.

“Fortune telling,” I grunted, aggravated. Sarcastically, I added, “Hey, Julia, did you know my father could do that, too? I bet we could call him and I could get you a——”

“Oh, shut up. Hey...you should come. It’d be a nice break.”

“It’s a hoax.”

“It’s a break.”

“I’m not going.”

Julia pretended to sound hurt. “You don’t like me.”

I rolled my eyes, digging my heels into the bottom of the car floor beneath me. “I can’t go because Sarge is sleeping. He tried to sniff a Spaniel’s butt today and was rudely rejected. He suffered a leg injury from the stimulated mortar attack.”

Julia let out a small chuckle. “He’s tough. I’m sure he’ll accept my offer if you just ask him nicely.”

“Sarge doesn’t negotiate with terrorists.”

Another chorus of laughter sounded from my friend, accompanied by a small voice from a young kid that I chose to ignore.

“Want to know something?” She asked, taking a breath.

“What?”

“You’re smiling.”

It wasn’t until then I noticed that my face was broken up into a loose grin, as wide as my lips would split. “Impossible not to when you laugh.”

“Yeah, except you’re not laughing anymore.” There was a long pause in the conversation and I let my face muscles relax back into their usual formation.

“How far away is this carnival?”

“In the next time zone over.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me! I can’t—-”

“We’ll get some one to cover for us. C’mon...we can get Brady to go with us too. You need a vacation.”

I let the back of my head whack against the back of the car’s seat. “There’s no way.”

“I already called Dr.Griffin.”

“The answer is no. I have an apartment to take care of, Brady still has scabies, I still have to find out where he went, I have to e-mail my father about this crap, Dr.Griffin expected me to do clinic hours tomorrow, I have bills to pay, girls to pick up, diseases to cure...”

I could almost feel Julia’s smile. There was no way in hell I was going to do this. “See you in a half hour, Jack.”