Read Online The Dog Year by Ann Wertz Garvin - Free Book Online Page B

sweetie. And I can see why you’d want to wait, but I’ve read that a date within the first year as a widow is directly associated with successful bereavement and subsequent marriage. I Googled it.”
    â€œSuccessful bereavement?” Grabbing the door handle, Lucy said, “This is my floor.”
    â€œUrology?”
    Lucy read the plaque: SIXTH FLOOR . Urology. She nodded. “I haven’t had a good pee since my husband died. Maybe I should clear this up before I meet your guy. They think polyps or a despondent bladder. Something to do with grief, I guess.”
    Charise pulled her arm free and said, “Polyps?”
    â€œYeah. Viral polyps.”
    Watching Charise evacuate the stairwell as if Lucy had threatened to wipe a bladder polyp on her immaculate silk shirt almost made the whole exchange palatable. Hoping the last four flights, which would take her to mental health, would be less like an obstacle course, Lucy slipped her coat off and counted the stairs. The offices on that floor weren’t much different from the plastic surgery suites. Maybe a few more plants. Definitely a lot more brochures: OCD, anxiety disorder, depression; one-stop shopping. The bathroom Lucy visited in order to wipe her sweaty hands featured signs with contact numbers for abuse hotlines. DO YOU FEEL SAFE AT HOME? one read.
    In the waiting room, she took a seat in the comfortable, calming, plum-and-gold upholstered chairs. A coffee machine perked in the corner next to several current magazines offering ways to get “Your Best Self.” One article featured a kitchen renovation that would allegedly bring a family together, reunite loved ones, and heal all hurts. Another hawked the ten-pound solution to all troubles, including a slow economy: “Eat less—Spend less
.
Lose it and Live Again.” Lucy considered the energy it would take to rifle through each magazine, find the right article, and read up on the various keys to happiness, and decided, quite possibly, that doing so was just too grueling. Besides, in her experience, once you lost it, it was hard to live again.
    The door to the clinic’s offices opened and a strikingly beautiful girl walked in. Lucy examined her with the unabashed scrutiny that was the province of women who don’t think they are pretty. This girl’s blond hair was thick and blown flat as a paint stirrer, her makeup flawlessly applied. As Lucy stared, she realized the girl was actually a woman, considerably older than Lucy had first thought.
    The woman took a seat. She had an almost perfectly symmetrical face with cheekbones that could part hair. The lip gloss and mascara she wore ran interference, distracting onlookers from her clearly sagging spirit. She was dressed in a soft, loose sweater and jeans that made her look like a casual starlet waiting for the paparazzi to snap her photo. Lucy caught sight of a wrist, more bone than flesh. Aware of Lucy’s eyes on her, the woman tugged her sleeve down, inadvertently exposing a collarbone that jutted out like a fracture. She was a gorgeous bag of angles covered with luminous pale skin and fine, downy hair.
    Lucy had certainly seen her kind before. Plastic surgeons, even the ones who dealt with reconstruction, as she did, saw their share of eating disorders. When starving, purging, and exercise didn’t get rid of the inevitable consequences of life, whether due to aging or the birth of a baby, they would come to her, unwilling to live with any evidence of entropy, weakness, lack of control, or imperfection.
    Lucy caught the woman’s eye and smiled. A soft breath escaped from her lips. Then she leaned over and said, low-voiced, “I steal stuff I don’t need.”
    Something sparked between the women. They were team captains of their respective pathologies. Without a smile the woman said, “I won’t eat what I
do
need.”
    The assistant at the check-in desk signaled for Lucy to enter the