Jessica Winter - Break in Case of Emergency

Karina frowned. “Good to know,” she said, drumming her fingers lightly on her keyboard and turning her head toward her computer screen.

“Maybe we could loop Daisy in?” Jen asked. “She would have all the intel on programs we could consider funding in Belize.”

“We’ll certainly keep it in mind,” Karina said to her monitor.

“Well, we can discuss it now if you want?” Jen said. She was still resisting the urge to cushion-laugh, but just then a little puff of conciliatory air escaped.

“Look, Jen,” Karina said to her computer, “if this opportunity just isn’t calling your name — if you just can’t hear it — I understand completely. There’re plenty of other people on the LIFt team who might be able to strike that harmony the moment they hear the tune, so to speak.” Karina clicked her mouse to open an email.

“No, no, I’m really excited to go — I can hear the harmony!” said Jen, finally succumbing again to the lure of the cushion-laugh. “I can’t wait. Apologies for giving off a different impression.”

“Like I said, just open yourself up to the journey,” Karina said to her email.

“Absolutely,” Jen said, rising to go. “Door open or closed?”

“Closed. Also, can you see if Donna is in her office?”

Jen peered next door. “Nope, not at her desk.”

“Can you just take a spin around the building and round her up for me?” Karina asked, her eyes fixed glassily on her screen and her fingers already typing. “Thanks.”

“I just don’t know that I’m up for this,” Jen said. It was her monthly check-in at Dr. Lee’s private office, which was tucked away in a quieter back corridor of the henhouse, perhaps forty paces away from the Garden of Earthly Delights. “Physically or emotionally or financially.”

“Financially is the easiest part,” Dr. Lee said.

“Oh, really?” Jen said with ironic glee.

Dr. Lee squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. “Forgive me, you must understand, our clientele is—”

“It’s okay,” Jen said. “Even with WellnessSolutions not covering the — the procedure, there are still payment plans, installment plans, income-based sliding scales, all that. It’s not as formidable as it is at other clinics. I did the research, and—”

Jen exhaled and looked out the window. Dr. Lee’s office overlooked a Grecian-phallus monument perched in the center of a tiny patch of walled grass in a busy intersection. Jen had been jaywalking past the phallus for more than a year on her trips to the henhouse, and she had never once stopped to read the plaque. She had no idea what the phallus commemorated. For all she knew it honored not past mayors or congressmen or land-grabbers but served instead as a totem of power and fecundity meant to embolden all visitors to the Garden of Earthly Delights.

“Well,” Dr. Lee said, placing her palms on her desk in a pose of adjournment. “Let me know what you decide.”

They stood and shook hands. “I have some work travel coming up, and it’s the holidays soon — I’ll come to a decision after that,” Jen said. “In the New Year.”

She went to open the door, hesitated, and turned back. “I don’t know why I keep saying I. I’m not the only one doing this. It’s Jim and me. It’s you. Your colleagues.”

“It’s still isolating,” Dr. Lee said. “Patients talk about that. You know, the clinic offers a support group—”

“I went to one; I got up and left after ten minutes like a jerk,” Jen said. “It reinforced the feeling that I’m getting at — it’s almost like the more people get involved with this, the more isolated I feel. Whereas if we could have done this alone in a bedroom or a broom closet or the backseat of a car like normal people, I never would have felt isolated at all.”

“Well,” Dr. Lee said again.

That night, Jen dreamed that she received a certified letter from a collection agency, and Jim explained, remorsefully, that he had been using their shared WellnessSolutions health-insurance card as a credit card for the past year under the mistaken impression that their household expenses would be covered by their premium and copay.

“I’m so sorry,” Jim kept saying in the dream. “I tried to guess how it worked, and I guessed wrong.”

MARGARETHE!: Sorry I’m not calling you back; Millie is sick and gross and I just got her down and if she wakes up again I know we’ll be up all night.

jenski1848: Aw, poor little lady.

MARGARETHE!: Oh, man, I just found more barf in my hair, hang on

MARGARETHE!: Back! You’re leaving first thing in the morning, right?

jenski1848: Theoretically, although I can’t find my passport.

MARGARETHE!: I want to hear about the trip, but first — and I wanted to ask you about this in person, but — what happened? With you and Pam?

MARGARETHE!: And full disclosure, I asked Pam this question already, and I didn’t really get anything out of her.

jenski1848: It was my fault.

MARGARETHE!: OK…

MARGARETHE!: I’m not interested in taking sides, I just wish one of you could tell me what happened.

jenski1848: I asked her to do something — pressured her to do something, really — and I shouldn’t have, and she’s angry.

MARGARETHE!: Pam said it was an interview? That’s basically all I got out of her.

MARGARETHE!: Sorry if I’m being pushy! It’s just so sad that you guys aren’t talking.

jenski1848: An interview, yes.

MARGARETHE!: OK, well, so what? It couldn’t have been that bad, and she could have said no.

jenski1848: And what do you say to her about it when I’m not around?

MARGARETHE!: I say, “It couldn’t have been that bad, and you could have said no.” Jesus. I said that to her yesterday, in fact. You can ask her.

jenski1848: No, I can’t, “in fact.”

MARGARETHE!: Don’t be awful. I know I’m pushing too hard on this, and I apologize, and I’ll stop, but don’t be awful.

jenski1848: I’m sorry, too, Meg. I’m really sorry. It will all be OK. We just need to give her some space. I think sometimes I lose sight of all she’s been through. She deserves some slack.

jenski1848: I hope that doesn’t sound like I’m condescending to her.

MARGARETHE!: Ooh, now I get to ask a Jen question: Are you saying all that for my benefit or are you saying that because you think it’s true?

jenski1848:

When Jen finally came to bed, bags packed and passport located, Jim was lying still, but she couldn’t hear him breathing, and because she couldn’t yet make out his familiar rhythm of inhale and exhale, she knew he wasn’t asleep but only lingering on the threshold of sleep, ready to turn back, and insofar as there was space for thought, she thought about why she would ever think about anything else but this, to want such relief so badly and to be filled with it more or less whenever she chose, and afterward as she thought she was fading into sleep, she couldn’t remember the last time they had convened an all-hands meeting without it having been in some sense scheduled in advance or at least without her knowing where it landed in the calendar, and therefore whether or not it might theoretically serve a larger purpose, and above them what sounded like an armoire crashed to the floor, and he gasped and turned again to wrap his arms around his wife, and his wife realized that her husband still wasn’t asleep, and as he pressed against her again his wife pushed her fists hard against her husband’s shoulder blades, hoping to release the ecstatic pressure of desperately wanting what she already had.