Free Better Than None by Olivia Jake Page A

his face turned cold. “Does this have
something to do with the conversation about Dave?”
    I took a deep breath. “Marty, you’re a great boss, you’re beyond
caring, but I just, I just can’t blur the lines.”
    “You think I blur the lines?”
    I was treading on thin ice.
    “I think you’re wonderful, and comfortable being all of our boss as
well as our friend. But I need this to just be my job.”
    “And when I ask you how you’re doing or how your mom is, that makes you
uncomfortable? Because that’s the last thing I want, Steph. I want to be here
for you, not push you away.” 
    “Why?”
    He paused and took a deep breath before he answered. I’d never witnessed
Marty be anything but truthful, so whatever he was about to say, he was
obviously worried as to how I’d take it.
    “Because you seem so fragile. Like you’re holding everything together
with a tiny piece of tape and one strong wind will blow everything that you’ve
been trying so hard to keep together, that one gust will blow it all apart.”
    Once again, the tears welled up. I wish they hadn’t, but I was so
emotionally raw from everything over the last month that he wasn’t wrong. It
was like this was the wind he was talking about. I couldn’t blink back the
tears, they just started rolling down my cheeks as I stared at him and silently
started crying. In front of my boss. Great. Fucking great.
     He just stood there as my shoulders shook and I cried. For the second
time in as many weeks, I had a man pitying me. First, Dr. Rosenberg and now
Marty. Two men who couldn’t have been more different. But obviously there was
something about me that was a pity magnate. Wonderful.
    When I finally stopped crying I blew my nose and wiped my eyes, sure
that I looked as bad as I felt. I looked up at him with what I’m sure were
bloodshot eyes and blotchy skin and spoke as simply as I could.
    “I have a lot of work to get done before I pick my mom up from the
hospital, Marty. So, if it’s all the same to you…”
    He just nodded and walked out leaving me to wonder how I could screw
things up any worse.

CHAPTER 8
     
    When we stepped off the elevator for Barb’s second round of chemo, I
was shaken again at the sheer number of people. Different day, different batch
of people, same fucking disease. And the same combination of sadness,
compassion, pain and misery. I wondered how anyone could work here when every
day they were surrounded by impending death, and reminded of that when some
patients eventually stopped coming. By the looks of things, their places were
likely filled all too quickly.
    As we waited, Barb picked up a copy of People magazine, one of their
“Where are they now?” issues. She absent-mindedly flipped through until
something caught her eye and she chuckled. “Steph, honey, isn’t this…”
    It was over 20 years later, and I still got a twinge of nausea at
seeing the photo of the guy I lost my virginity to. Gunnar Rockford, identical
twin of Garth, son of folk legend Roy, grandson of 50s TV icons Walter and
Ruth, and, for anyone who was a teenage girl during the late 80s, they’d
probably know him as one half of the boy band, Rockford . I guess it was
fitting that I’d happen upon that picture with my mom.
    It’s hard to believe that one singular event decades prior that was
only minutes long could change and form one’s entire life. But when I think
back to being 16 and losing my virginity, it was such a defining moment in so
many ways for me and for my relationship with Barb.
    It wasn’t that the actual experience was so memorable, though
ironically I did remember so many little details. In fact, while I couldn’t
really recall the act at all, everything else was still crystal clear. From Boston that was playing on record player, (this was in the 80s, back when people still
had vinyl records, before they were retro) to what I was wearing: grey cotton
Esprit pants tucked into short white boots and a white cotton