Read Online Balance of Fragile Things by Olivia Chadha - Free Book Online Page B

present customer her attention. Tom Tingle was sitting on his stool as usual, not filling prescriptions but ready to check Maija’s work after she was through. He smiled impatiently at her and moved the toothpick from corner to corner in his mouth. Today he looked like he drove a big rig.
    â€œCan I help you, sir?”
    The man responded by shoving his scrip forward once more and grunting with his mouth closed. His breath reeked even through his pursed lips. Maija looked at the scrip; it was the anti-seizure medicine Dilantin. She didn’t need her power of insight to know that the dosage was extremely high, even for a man of his size.
    â€œSir, I have to call your doctor. It’ll just be one moment.”
    â€œWhy do you need to call her? I brought the paper like I’m supposed to, right? You think I’m stupid?”
    Maija was tempted to say yes but forced her face into a smile instead. “Not at all; this is only protocol.” She ignored the blinking lights as she dialed the doctor’s number.
    â€œWhat kind of call?” The man yelled this in a voice that bordered on hysterical.
    The other customers were unimpressed by his antics, and they continued to stare impatiently at Maija over his shoulder. Maija heard the phone ring once through the receiver, but then she heard a familiar and unfortunate sound: three multi-tonal beeps followed by I’m sorry, the number has been disconnected or— and she hung up.
    She looked up at the man, then toward the exit door that led to the rear parking lot. For one millisecond she considered the shoes on her swollen feet and wondered if she could make it to the safety of the Cutlass before the man noticed her absence. For one moment she imagined an alternate reality where her ankles had wings and she could tell Tom Tingle that he was an ass as she flitted away. It was the worry she felt for Eleanora that jarred her back into reality once more.
    She went to the man at the counter and said, quietly but clearly, “I’m sorry, I cannot fill it. Your doctor is no longer in service. High dose.”
    The man seemed stupefied by her quick and fearless response, but he held his ground through confused eyes. “Can’t fill it? This is legit, and you are required by law to fill it for me.”
    â€œNo, I’m not.” And she really wasn’t. She had that one and only eject button in her back pocket that allowed her to toss out the crass, the slovenly, and the frighteningly rude. She’d never refused before—but Mr. Halitosis was different. He scared her. She could tell he was a drug user.
    He asked to talk to her boss as he scowled at her. The man’s open mouth allowed Maija to glance at the source of his gutter breath. He suffered from oral dental hyperplasia, a strange and off-putting condition that could have been brought on by his medicine. His gums grew halfway over his teeth, leaving the enamel looking like lumps of pebbles. And his saliva had all but dried up, which created a warm, dry nest where bacteria could grow. Maija sympathized, or tried; he needed better medical treatment because he obviously couldn’t take care of himself.
    â€œBoss, yes, well, I am sure he would be happy to—” Maija turned and saw only an empty stool spinning around. Tom was gone. Shandy was biting her chipped purple fingernails and reading a magazine behind the register. Maija stood alone.
    â€œWhere’s Tom?”
    â€œHuh?” Shandy replied with a digit wedged between her lips.
    â€œTom—where is he?”
    Shandy shrugged and went back to her article. Maija glimpsed the article: “Swine-Child,” about a forty-pound baby born with the head of a pig. She never had seen such articles in Latvia. Here anyone could say anything and make money from it. But, she thought, that is one of the reasons she’d immigrated.
    She told the man that her boss was gone at the moment, but that he was welcome to