Sourdough

The door to the bus opens and I clamber on with my scooter. At this point I’ve developed a pretty good technique for boarding without having the ramp lowered. First I haul the front wheels up, then hoist the rear wheels on, then ease my knee up onto the seat and hop on. If I’m paying attention, I can do all this in one smooth motion.

“If you’re wondering why I’m eight minutes late, it’s because of micromanaging,” the driver says, a manic look in his eyes. I take a seat, propping my cast on my scooter. “They didn’t like me being four minutes early. I guess they think it’s better that I’m eight minutes late,” he yells, I guess to me. 

We drive across the river and I pull the cord at my stop. As I’m getting out, he stares at me with an angry grin and says, “I don’t want you to think I did this on purpose. I didn’t try to be eight minutes late. It’s all the micromanaging.” I tell him it’s fine and he speeds off. As I cross the street I almost get hit by a car zipping through the red light.

I sit in the waiting area for a long time, just like I did last Monday. I close my eyes and try to nap, and just as I start to drift off I am roused by Sjon’s voice telling me to come on in.

“I need you to decipher some texts for me!” KC yells the moment I’ve settled in. Everyone in the office laughs.

“Leave the poor guy alone,” says Sjon, sounding irritated. KC runs off.

“It’s okay, it’s part of my treatment,” I say. I can hear what sounds like the entire staff talking at once and laughing. I can’t understand a word.

“I hate that Aaron’s off Mondays,” grumbles Sjon. “Being the only guy here is pretty brutal.” I think about when I worked in subscriptions at the newspaper back in Allentown. The only other men in our department were Jerry, who was gay, and Jose, who didn’t speak much English. The job was awful but I loved being surrounded by all those women. 

I was worried that the fact that the cast seemed to be too loose would have made my foot slide around, exacerbating the wound. I don’t tell him but I also walked around more than usual this weekend. Despite all this, he says things look really good. “It looks smaller. And this is probably the only place a dude likes to hear that.” As he leaves through the curtain, he says, “You’re healing,” he says this last with what sounds like real kindness, and I momentarily stop disliking him.

Taggert comes in to have a look and she agrees that it looks good. She lingers and we talk a while, just the two of us, which is unusual. She speculates for a while about why my cast didn’t fit. “Did you lose weight?” she asks. 

“Not overnight,” I say, not sure if she’s joking.

“Did you eat a lot of salt the day before? Maybe a nice big salty slice of pizza? You might have been swollen up. These casts really help with swelling.” I tell her I didn’t have any pizza. 

Unable to wait any longer, KC scampers in with her phone while SJon prepares my cast. Leaning affectionately against me in her burgundy scrubs, she reads what seems like a completely ordinary series of friendly texts.

“So?” she asks.

“So what?” I ask. 

“It just ends like that, with us talking about where to go to dinner. We had narrowed it down to two options, and he never responded.”

“Um, okay. When did you last hear from him?” I ask.

“Yesterday,” she says. I give her a look. “Okay, okay, so I’m impatient. I can’t wait to start bending him to my will!” She laughs evilly.

“Be patient,” I say.

I ask to see a photo of the guy. He looks like every large, bearded man in Portland, but she’s positively aglow so I tell her he looks cute, except that I don’t like beards.

“Oh I don’t either,” she says. “Except I really like his. So… I guess I do now?” 

I decide to tell her about asking Hannah out, and how I also wish she would respond to my texts a little sooner. I leave out the part that she was my home care nurse, in case she thinks that’s weird, which it probably is. 

“Huh,” is all she says. 

Taggert returns to swaddle my foot in Fiberglas. She makes sure to wrap it extra tight. KC says her new guy used to be a cook. “He makes sourdough,” she says. 

“Big deal,” I say. “Since the pandemic, everyone makes fucking sourdough.” It comes out a little meaner than I expected.

“I bake sourdough for my daughter and husband because it helps with their Ciliac,” Taggert interjects. “I hear it’s not too bad for diabetics as well though don’t quote me on that.” Sjon has been oddly silent this whole time, which is nice. 

“Now if you have any issues, I want you to call us right away,” Taggert says, as usual. “Don’t hesitate, though I know you’ll be back Thursday. Oh, you’ll be here on Halloween!” I ask if they all dress up. “We sure do! I was Cruella last year, with a black and white wig. I even made a black and white mask.”  She dashes off and comes back with a photo of her dressed as a minion.

“Oh right, Cruella was two years ago. This was last year. I used pipe cleaners for the hair.” I wonder what KC will dress up as, before I remember that she’s off Thursdays.

On the bus ride home, a couple struggle on with a pile of huge bags and pieces of rolling luggage. The woman asks a girl sitting nearby if she wants a new Coach bag to replace the one they have. “Brand new. I can give you a good price. Okay, your loss.” Then she points at my decorated scooter.

 “Are those flowers just for you to brighten up your home, or are they for a lady friend?” the woman shouts, even though she’s sitting just a few feet away. “A beautiful bouquet of fall flowers. Though now I see they’re leaves. And there’s some grapes in there too, aren’t there. And pumpkins, or maybe they’re apples. Oh wait, are you dating someone with a fruit fetish? I’m not judging, it’s all good, there’s all kinds of fish in the… oh shit, is your lady friend a manikin? Aw, look at him blush! It’s good thing I don’t turn red like that, I’d never be able to hide my feelings. No poker face. God look at how red you are!” She cackles. The whole bus is staring at me. “Of course us Natives don’t blush, do we?” she elbows her friend. He stares straight ahead as we cross the darkening river and doesn’t say a word.