Read Online The Smart One and the Pretty One by Claire LaZebnik - Free Book Online Page A

humor?”
    “Just trying to keep myself amused.” She opened the mini-refrigerator and took out a bottle of water. “I’m bored out of my mind.”
    “I noticed.” He tossed the two packets of cookies back in a big tray of assorted snacks. “I saw you staring when I was talking to Nurse Ratched over there. Hope our argument kept you entertained.”
    “It was kind of hard not to stare,” Lauren said, unscrewing the bottle cap. “You were talking pretty loudly.”
    “They drive me nuts here,” he said. “Every time we come, they fuck something up. The nurses are morons.” A nurse passing by the area shot him a dirty look over the top of the partition. He returned the favor and she went on with an audible snort of disgust. “The part that drives me nuts is that one will make a promise and then the others will act like
I’m
the irrational one for believing it. Bad enough we have to keep coming here, but to be treated like we’re idiots—” He shook his head.
    “How many times have you been here?” Lauren asked.
    “You mean specifically for chemo? Or in general?”
    “Chemo, I guess.”
    “This is our fifth time,” he said. “You?”
    “First.”
    “Who’s the patient?”
    “My mom. She has breast cancer. It’s not too serious, though. You’re here with your mother, too, right?”
    “Yeah,” he said and rooted aimlessly through a basket filled with bags of chips.
    Lauren said, “She looked pretty wiped out.”
    “She is.” He picked up a juice box. “I should get this to her. She was thirsty.” Lauren waited, an eyebrow raised skeptically, and he sighed. “Or maybe she wasn’t. She knows I hate watching them put the IV in. Ever since this one time . . . The nurse couldn’t get it in right. She just kept digging and digging in there with the needle and my mother actually fainted from the pain.” He smiled humorlessly. “That nurse no longer works here.”
    “You got her fired?”
    “I don’t know. They may have just moved her to a different part of the hospital. All I know is she isn’t anywhere in sight when we come. But if she ever again walks into a room where my mother’s being treated, I’ll—” He stopped.
    “What?” Lauren said. “What will you do? Now I’m curious.”
    He considered her. “You’re still looking to be entertained, aren’t you?”
    “Desperately.”
    “I have an idea.” He opened up a drawer and pulled something out: a deck of cards. “I found this the other day.”
    “Terrific,” Lauren said. “Let’s play.”
    He wanted to be within sight of his mother, so they went back to the chemo area and found some chairs across the hallway from where their mothers were reclining. There weren’t any real tables, but Lauren pulled up a stool to play on while the guy took his mother the juice and made sure she was comfortable.
    “Okay,” he said once he had rejoined her and they’d both sat down. “What’ll it be? Lady’s choice. Five-card stud, Texas hold’em, Omaha?” He riffled the cards expectantly.
    “Texas hold’em,” she said.
    He made a face. “Should have guessed.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “Everyone plays that now,” he said. “Every socialite and soccer mom. It’s hip and adorable to play Texas hold’em. Which goes against the whole idea of poker. It should be grimy, dirty, low-class, played only by the lowest form of what’s barely humanity—”
    “I could spit tobacco all over the cards, if you like,” Lauren said.
    “It would be a start.” He stacked the cards and evened out the edges with his fingers. He had long, slender fingers. Lauren wondered, idly, if he played the piano.
    “So how’d you end up with mom duty today?” she asked. He didn’t strike her as the caregiver type.
    “I do it every day.”
    “Why you?”
    “Short answer is there’s no one else.”
    “Are your parents divorced?”
    “No. My father’s dead.”
    Lauren winced. “Sorry.”
    He shrugged. “It was a long time