Read Online Wishful Thinking by Kamy Wicoff - Free Book Online Page A

of sick children’s parents, who were by far her most difficult patients.
    “Hey, you,” Vinita said when she picked up. “It’s a total nightmare here; pneumonia’s going around, some Charles Dickens type of shit. Can I call you tonight?”
    “Something
really
weird happened to me, Vee,” Jennifer said. She was still shaking a little from being sick on thesubway. “The weirdest thing that has ever happened to me in my life. Can I come by the office?”
    “Where are you?” Vinita asked, switching crisply to what they both referred to as her “doctor voice.” Jennifer must have sounded worse than she knew.
    “Christopher Street. I’m afraid to go home. I need you to check me out. Physically. Just to see if I’m okay.”
    “What do you mean?” Vinita asked. “Are you hurt?”
    “I don’t think so,” Jennifer said, turning in the direction of Vinita’s office. “I promise I’ll tell you everything when I get there, okay?”
    “Melissa’s with the boys?” Vinita asked.
Melissa!
Jennifer thought, her heart sinking. Melissa had reminded her yesterday that she needed to leave right at six for school tonight. But Jennifer couldn’t go home yet.
    “She can stay a little bit late,” Jennifer lied again, hating herself for it.
    “Okay,” Vinita said, “come now. I’ll make it work.”
    Heading toward Vinita’s office, Jennifer breathed a sigh of relief. Just the sound of Vinita’s voice reassured her. From the day they had first met, as freshman roommates at Amherst, Vinita had been the reassurer in Jennifer’s life. Vinita was the smartest, most competent, and most no-nonsense person Jennifer had ever known, a perfect foil to Jennifer’s often impulsive, sometimes forgetful, and passionate personality. Vinita had known what to do (or at least whom to ask) when you were nineteen and got vaginal warts. Vinita would know what to do now.
    A few minutes later, Jennifer walked into Vinita’s cheerful, pale-yellow waiting room. It was the usual chaotic scene, crammed with coughing kids, stoic nannies, distracted parents, and a lot of beat-up books and plastic toys. Choosing a seat as far removed from everyone as possible, Jennifer tuckedherself in behind a plastic toy refrigerator she knew well. It had been one of Jennifer’s contributions to Vinita’s waiting room—her mother had given it to Julien years ago. Her mother had always insisted on giving both her boys what she called “gender neutral” toys, though generally they were “gender statements” for boys, from Barbies to baby strollers. Julien had never warmed to most of them, but Jack still sometimes pushed his baby doll around in its plastic pram. The refrigerator had been a hit with both boys, but it was too big for her apartment.
    Jennifer was about to push a familiar button on the refrigerator, when she thought,
Pneumonia
and pulled back her hand. She took out her phone and texted Melissa.
Running a little bit late at the office
, she wrote guiltily.
Will get there as soon as I can and put you in a cab!
    Just then Vinita appeared, and, as always, Jennifer couldn’t help marveling at the sight of her. Even with a pneumonia strain ripping through her clientele, Vee looked more like a star of
Grey’s Anatomy
than a harried pediatrician, her shiny black high-heeled boots accenting her white lab coat, her dark hair swept back into a neat French twist, her plum-colored lipstick complementing her light brown skin. (Vinita was Indian, by way of New Jersey, where her parents had immigrated in the sixties from New Delhi.) Vinita would have looked put-together in a Civil War tent, Jennifer thought. Suddenly she wondered what a sight she must be. She had just puked on a subway platform, after all.
    “You look like shit,” Vinita said, after closing the door to the exam room behind them. This time Jennifer didn’t laugh. Instead her face—her whole body—crumpled into a sob.
    “Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry!” Vinita said, hugging her, then