Tom Perrotta - Nine Inches

“Olga’s not in,” said the assistant, a young Muslim woman in a headscarf. “She called in sick.”

“I hope it’s nothing serious.”

“Food poisoning.” The assistant smiled wryly. “Olga gets that a lot. Especially after parties.”

By mid-afternoon, Sims had begun to wish he’d taken the day off himself. His head was throbbing and his mouth felt parched, no matter how much water he drank. And there was always one more kid to examine, another tongue to depress, another scrawny arm to jab with a needle. And all the while, the sound of his own droning voice.

How’s fourth grade treating ya? Wearing your seatbelt? Any trouble concentrating? No, that’s perfectly normal. Just a sprain. An ingrown hair. Let me take a look. Try not to scratch that, okay, champ?

He rallied toward the end of the day and was feeling a little better as he exited the building. It was a sunny afternoon in early April; a fresh, blustery wind swept across the parking lot like a promise of better things to come. Sims was tired and a little distracted — he was debating whether to pick up some flowers for Jackie — so it didn’t even occur to him to be alarmed when he saw the stranger waiting by his Audi: a man, probably in his late fifties, balding and thickly built, wearing a rumpled gray suit.

“Are you Sims?” he inquired, the slightest trace of a foreign accent in his voice.

“I’m Dr. Sims. Can I help you?”

The man smiled and extended his hand. Even as he reciprocated, Sims felt the first vague inklings of trouble.

“I’m Yevgeny Kochenko,” the man said, squeezing Sims’s hand with more than the usual pressure. “Olga’s my wife.”

“What?” Sims laughed in spite of himself. He tried to extricate his hand, but Yevgeny’s grip seemed to be tightening. “Olga’s not married.”

“You think it’s okay to fuck my wife?” Yevgeny asked in a weirdly calm voice as he crushed Sims’s hand in his own. “How you like it if I fuck your wife? Maybe I fuck her in the ass? How about that, Dr. Sims?”

Sims flashed back to the night before, trying to remember if Olga had been wearing a ring or had said anything to suggest that she had a husband. He was sure she hadn’t — she’d seemed pretty damn single to him — but even if she had, he would have pictured a much-younger, better-looking man with a full head of hair.

“You sure you’re married to Olga?” he said, but instead of answering the question, Yevgeny punched him in the stomach and then in the face, and that was just the beginning.

LUCKILY FOR Sims, there was a fair amount of activity in the parking lot. Several people witnessed the assault and started screaming; two security guards rushed out of the building and intervened before Yevgeny could inflict any irreparable damage. Sims was taken to the ER at Rosedale General, where he was treated for facial lacerations — twelve stitches under the right eye, seven more on the chin — and diagnosed with a mild concussion. The doctor kept him under observation for a couple of hours before letting him go.

Jackie didn’t say much in the hospital, and she was just as quiet on the way home. She could barely look at him, didn’t seem the least bit concerned about his condition or curious to know why he’d been attacked by a sixty-year-old Russian jewelry-store owner whose much-younger wife worked in the Health Plan Pharmacy. The silence was unnerving, and Sims couldn’t stand it for more than a couple of minutes.

“It wasn’t an affair,” he said, trying to move his puffy lips as little as possible. His whole mouth hurt, even his fucking tongue, which he’d accidentally bitten at some point in the proceedings. “It was just one time. Last night at the retirement party.”

“I don’t care, Rick. I really don’t want to know.”

Sims switched the ice pack from his left cheek to his right. The Percocet was starting to wear off.

“We were drinking and she followed me into the men’s room.”

That got her attention.

“You had sex in the men’s room?”

“No. She just stood there and watched me pee.”

“Is that some kind of turn-on?”

“I don’t know. We were drunk.”

“So where’d you do it?”

“In the parking lot. Up against her car.”

“Congratulations.” She gave him a big thumbs-up. “Did you at least use a condom?”

Sims winced. “There wasn’t a lot of planning.”

“Terrific. Now we can both get herpes.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It was really irresponsible.”

“Or maybe she’ll get pregnant!” Jackie upped the volume on the fake enthusiasm. “Wouldn’t that be cool? One big happy family.”

“That’s not gonna happen. I didn’t—”

“Really?”

“No, I mean…” Sims knew he was talking too much, but he couldn’t seem to stop. Maybe it was the medication, or maybe just the feeling that it didn’t matter anymore, since he’d already been punished for his sins. “In her mouth.”

Jackie made a face. That was one thing she could do without.

“You’re such a stud. I’m glad you enjoyed yourself.”

Sims moved the ice bag to his shoulder. He couldn’t remembering being punched or kicked in the shoulder and had no idea why it hurt so much.

“I swear to God,” he said. “I didn’t know she was married.”

“But she knew you were.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I hope you said nice things about me. Like how I cook your dinner and wash your underwear and take your kids everywhere they need to go.”

“Jackie, please. You have to understand. I was a mess yesterday. This really fucked-up thing happened at the memorial service.”

He told her about Heather Ferguson, the way she’d shoved him and cursed him in front of the coffin, in front of all those people, how he’d been kicked out of the funeral home and forbidden to go to the cemetery.

“Can you believe that? After everything I did for her. All those phone calls and hospital visits, all the time and energy I gave to that poor little girl. To get treated like I was the bad guy…”

Sims fell into a brooding silence. He wondered if he would ever see Heather again, how much time would have to go by before he could call and ask how she was doing. Maybe they could get together for coffee, he thought, maybe talk a little about what had happened, if she was feeling up to it. It would help to know what she’d been thinking, to have some kind of an explanation, if not the apology he deserved.

“I loved her,” he said, surprised not just by the words, but by the fact that he’d blurted them out, and the terrible realization that they were true. “And she broke my heart.”

Jackie didn’t say anything after that, didn’t even look at him. She kept her eyes straight ahead, leaning forward and squinting through the windshield as though she were driving through a blizzard. She seemed okay when they got home: she paid the babysitter, got Sims settled into bed with a fresh ice pack, and gave him another Percocet. Then she kissed him on the forehead with a little more tenderness than he might have expected.

“As soon as you’re feeling a little better,” she told him, “you’re gonna have to find someplace else to live.”

IT WAS harder than Sims anticipated to get a price quote on the SG. Mike’s uncle Ace — he was the famous ex-roadie, friend of Stephen Stills and Boz Scaggs, and lots of other notables — was suffering from early-stage Alzheimer’s, and he wasn’t always sharp enough to talk business. Mike said it was tough to see him like that; he’d always been bigger than life, an ageless, incorrigible hippie who rode a chopper and chased younger women well into his sixties. Now Uncle Ace was fading away at the Golden Orchard Assisted Living Community, surrounded by decrepitude, losing touch with himself and his hard-rocking past. He didn’t care about his guitar collection anymore; half the time he didn’t even recognize his favorite nephew.