The Doctor Dispenses Drugs from His Office
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~
(This short story has been published in The Literary Hatchet with a different title.)
Patsy Ruth Quilley moved to a new town, far away from the old one. At age thirty-four, she was looking for a new start in life. Her marriage had failed, her career was on the ash heap, and she had two small children to raise on her own. Summoning all her courage, she loaded all her possessions into her old car and drove the hundred and fifty miles to the new town, barely knowing where she was going or what she would do when she got there.
After spending three nights in an unsavory motel (along with children Cullen and Corinne), she found a small, four-room house to rent close to some railroad tracks on the edge of town. The rent was reasonable and the house seemed clean and decent enough. The previous tenant, she was told, was an old man who had occupied the house for years until the grim reaper came and took him away.
After the move and after paying the rent for the first month on the house, she had only a few dollars left. She was fortunate to find a new job in less than two weeks.
His name was Dr. Boren. He was an older doctor with a booming practice on Main Street. Everybody went to him and he never turned anybody away. He needed an office assistant, somebody to manage appointments, answer the phone, and do anything else that needed to be done. He hired Patsy Ruth after talking to her only a few minutes. He had a good feeling about her, he said, and he was never wrong about those things.
Dr. Boren was the type of doctor who didn’t write prescriptions. He kept a well-supplied drug closet in his office and distributed whatever drugs his patients needed, whenever they needed them. The drug closet contained at least three-quarters of million dollars in drugs of all different kinds, Dr. Boren said.
In her third week in the office, Dr. Boren gave Patsy Ruth the key to the drug closet and told her how important it was to keep it from ever falling into the wrong hands. She must guard it with her life and never let it out of her sight. Patsy Ruth smiled solemnly and crossed her heart. Nobody would ever get the key away from her. She’d die before she’d ever let that happen.
She didn’t like the job at first—she felt she was being pulled in a hundred different directions every minute of the day and she was sure Dr. Boren would fire her for the mistakes she was making—but after a few weeks she settled into the routine of the place and found the job more to her liking. She didn’t have to struggle so much to stay on top of things, and she was able to do everything that needed to be done before closing time and was even able to take a lunch break every day of an hour or more.
Finally she was getting her life back in order. Cullen and Corinne were doing well in their new school and making new friends. Every morning they willingly got out of bed and got themselves ready to meet the bus down the street. Patsy Ruth gave Cullen the key to the house, since he was the older one, and told him what to do if he and Corinne got home first. He was to lock himself and Corinne inside and never open the door to anybody, no matter how hard they knocked. He had the number to the police, the fire department and the ambulance. He could call Patsy Ruth at the office if he ever needed to just hear her voice.
Patsy Ruth was resigned now to being a single mother. She told herself she was finished with men, after years of being locked in a miserable marriage. She would always put her children first now and forget about herself. She had given up on the idea of men in all their forms.
Then she met Gale McIlhenny.
He came into the office to see Dr. Boren. He was in town for only a few days, he said; he was away from home and from the doctor he would ordinarily see. He didn’t have an appointment, but he hoped the doctor would somehow work him in. He had picked up a bug on the airplane and felt terrible. He had a cough and a sore throat and he was sure he was running a fever. He hoped the doctor would give him something to keep it from turning into the flu.
She took his name and told him the doctor would see him, but he would have to wait until the doctor was free.
“I don’t mind waiting!” he said with a disarming smile.
He took a seat in the waiting room and she went on with her work. Without looking directly at him, she knew he was stealing little glances at her and smiling.
The next day when she was on her way to lunch at the café up the street, she met him coming toward her on the sidewalk. He smiled as if he knew her.
“Hi, there!” he said, taking off his hat.
“Oh, hello!” she said. “You’re the man in the office yesterday!”
“That’s right!”
“I didn’t expect to see you again!”
“Just doing a little window shopping.”
“Is your cold better?”
“My cold?”
“Yes, you wanted to see the doctor for your cold?”
“Oh, yeah! I feel some better today.”
“I was just on my way up the street to get some lunch.”
“Lunch? Yes, it is lunchtime, isn’t it? How about if you let me buy you lunch?”
“Well, if you have nothing better to do, I guess there’s no law against it.”
She blushed right down to the roots of her hair.
It wasn’t really a date, she told herself. Nothing to get excited about. He was just a nice man and he didn’t know anybody in town. He was undoubtedly lonely. He was just a little too good to be true, though: handsome, well-dressed, obviously educated and cultured. He was about thirty-five, dark-haired, blue-eyed and angel-faced. The kind of man you might go your entire life and never meet.
When lunch was over, he walked her back to Dr. Boren’s office and shook her hand like a business associate.
“I enjoyed lunch tremendously,” he said.
“Me too!” she said. “Thank you so much!”
“I’ll be in town for a week or more. Would you like to have dinner one evening?”
“Yes, of course, I would!”
“All right, then. I’ll call you in a day or two.”
She watched him walk away, expecting never to see him again.
He called her the next day, though, and asked her to have dinner with him the next night at a new French restaurant in town. She readily agreed.
“Tell me where I can pick you up,” he said.
She wasn’t quite ready to divulge to him that she was a divorcee with two growing children. She would save that information for another time. She didn’t want to scare him off before they even got to the starting gate.
“Pick me up at Dr. Boren’s office,” she said.
“Around Six o’clock?”
“Fine.”
The day after the dinner at the French restaurant, she knew she was in love. Gale was everything she wanted in a man, and so much more. She never expected in a thousand years to find anybody like him. He was a gentleman—so unlike Mike, her former husband, and unlike any other man of her acquaintance. He was funny and charming, intelligent and a good conversationalist. She could easily see herself marrying him and spending every minute with him until she died. And when she died, it would be in his arms!
But, wait a minute! She really didn’t know anything about him. In the four hours they spent together at the restaurant, he didn’t reveal anything about himself. He didn’t wear a wedding ring, but that doesn’t always mean anything. A lot of married men don’t wear a ring. She wanted to ask him about his personal life, but she didn’t want him to think her presumptuous. If he wanted her to know, he’d tell her. Those things could wait until they knew each other better.
The next time they saw each other, she told herself, she would tell him about Corinne and Cullen. How could she keep them hidden? Most people in their thirties have children. Why would he be surprised? If she told him the unvarnished truth about her past, maybe he would do the same about his.
On Friday afternoon, right before closing time, he called her at Dr. Boren’s office. He was going to be in town longer than he thought, at least for one more week, and maybe two. He had a comfortable room at the motor lodge. He wouldn’t be able to see her on the weekend—he was going to be tied up with work—but he’d be sure and catch up with her early next week.
She was happy, of course, that he was going to be in town longer than expected, but a little hurt that he didn’t want to see her on Saturday or Sunday. Not even a shout-out or a phone call.
She spent the weekend at home with Cullen and Corinne, trying not to think about Gale, about where he was and what he was doing. Really, why should she care? He was so noncommittal, so mysterious, and he had said nothing to indicate that he was interested in marriage, or in even getting to know her better. She was acting like a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl with a crush on her English teacher. After all she had seen and been through in her life, she ought to know better.
On Monday she went to work at Dr. Boren’s office in a better frame of mind. She had undertaken a large dose of reality over the weekend and considered Gale nothing more than a chance acquaintance. Just another man out of the many men she’d meet in her life. There was no deeper meaning in anything he said or did. When he went back to wherever he came from, she would forget him in a few days.
He called her on Monday morning at ten o’clock and asked her to meet him for lunch. When they met, he was all smiles and charm. She was happy to see him, of course, but much less the gushing adolescent than she had been. She answered his questions politely, but didn’t have much to say otherwise.
“You seem kind of quiet today,” he said.
“Well, you know, it’s Monday morning. Blue Monday.”
“No, it’s something more than that. Something’s bothering you. I want you to tell me what it is.”
“It’s nothing. You should try the pea soup here. It’s really good.”
“I was going to ask you if you wanted to take a little trip with me, but now I don’t think I will.”
“A trip where?”
“Too late now.”
When he walked her back to Dr. Boren’s office, he again shook her hand.
“Call you in a day or two,” he said.
The next afternoon she received a bouquet of roses with a note that read: Hope Tuesday Better Than Monday. Kindest Regards, Gale McIlhenny.”
Kindest Regards? She wondered if he was real or if she had just imagined him.
She didn’t hear from him again until Thursday morning. He called and asked how she was feeling.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“Did you get my roses?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“Did they cheer you up?”
“Yes.”
“Would you like to have dinner with me this evening? I have a little matter I want to discuss with you.”
“Well, I suppose I do, if I can arrange a sitter.”
“Sitter? You didn’t tell me you have kids.”
“I have two. A boy and a girl.”
“Well, no matter! Can I pick you up at the office about six-thirty?”
“If the sitter isn’t available, I’ll have to bring them with me.”
“Bring who?”
“My son and daughter.”
“Oh, that’s not so good! I wanted to be alone with you tonight.”
“Just kidding. I’ll be alone.”
“Fine. See you then.”
He was a little late, but she wasn’t overly concerned. If he didn’t show up, it would be a chance for her to end the odd little relationship and never see him again. If he were to call her again, she wouldn’t take any more calls from him.
Finally he arrived, thirty-five minutes late.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “I got tied up on the phone.”
She wanted to ask him again what kind of work he did, but instead she said nothing.
“Just down the highway from the motor lodge is a steak place I’ve been wanting to try,” he said. “Do you know about it?”
“I’ve been there once or twice.”
“After we’ve eaten, we can go to my room and talk privately.”
They had a lavish, candlelit dinner in a cozy booth that made them feel like they were alone. He ordered a bottle of red wine and made sure her glass was full at all times.
“Tell me about yourself,” he said. “I hardly know you. Do you like working in a doctor’s office.”
“It’s all right. It’s better than some of the jobs I’ve had.”
“What were they?”
“Better forgotten.”
“As we move along in life,” he said, “we discover that much of what we’ve lived through is better forgotten.”
Emboldened by the three glasses of wine, she asked him if he had children.
“Oh, no!” he said with a little laugh. “I’ve never been married. I leave that to the others.”
“Don’t you like women?”
“Sure, I like women! I like everybody! Right at this moment, I love everybody in the world!”
“Why haven’t you ever kissed me?”
“There’s no reason, I suppose,” he said. “I just haven’t.”
“Don’t you like me?”
“Of course, I like you! Why would I be here if I don’t like you?”
“You tell me!”
After dinner, he took her to his room at the motor lodge. They sat and talked for a while and then he ordered a bottle of champagne. When it was delivered, he poured two glasses to the brim and handed her one. She emptied it and he filled her glass again.
“You said you had something you wanted to talk to me about?” she asked. “Isn’t that why you wanted me to come to your room?”
“There’s plenty of time for that,” he said.
“I’m divorced, you know.”
“You don’t have to talk about that if you don’t want to.”
“I moved to this town to get away from everything I knew and to start over.”
“Most admirable,” he said.
“What about you? Have you ever been divorced?”
“I’ve never been married. Remember I told you that earlier.”
“Oh, yes! You’ll have to forgive me. I’m not used to drinking. It does things to my brain. First wine and now champagne. A lethal combination.”
“Not too lethal, I hope.”
“Oh, no! Hah-hah-hah! I think I’ll live.”
“Would you like to take a nap? You can lie down on the bed if you want to.”
“Oh, no! I have to get home.”
“Why?”
“Two little ones. I told you about them.”
“Oh, yes. Just try to relax. They’ll be fine.”
She went to sleep then, and in a little while she was aware of Gale picking her up and carrying her to the bed. He’ll kiss me now, she thought. He’ll finally kiss me.
She expected him to take off her dress and then and the rest of her clothes, but she blanked out at that moment and the rest of what happened was unknown to her.
It was early morning. The sun was shining through the window beside the bed. The birds were singing in the trees. She gasped for air and sat up, not knowing at first where she was. The first thing she was fully aware of was that she was still wearing her dress and she had been asleep in somebody else’s bed. Whose bed? What happened to that man I was with?
She stood up from the bed on wobbly legs and ran into the bathroom because she was uncontrollably sick, in a way she hadn’t been since she was a small child. When the sickness passed, she wiped her face with a wet washcloth.
The clock told her she still had plenty of time to get to work without being late. It was Friday morning. Dr. Boren was counting on her to be on time. He was a stickler for being on time. She didn’t want to spoil her spotless record.
Her purse was still on the round table near the door. As she approached the purse, she saw a bill sticking out of the top of it: a hundred-dollar bill. Partly underneath the purse was a piece of paper on which a note was written. She picked it up and began reading: I had to leave early this morning before you woke up. I hope you don’t mind. It’s been wonderful knowing you. Maybe we’ll meet again at some time in the not-too-distant future. I’m leaving you money for taxi fare. All the best, Gale McIlhenny.
She arrived at the office fifteen minutes before her starting time. She thought she would have to use her key to get in because the office wasn’t opened yet, but the door was standing open. She went inside, hearing strange voices coming from Dr. Boren’s private office.
When Dr. Boren heard her, her came out of his office with two uniformed police offices. He looked white-faced and shaken.
“Why, what’s the matter?” she asked. “What’s happened?”
“We’ve been robbed!” Dr. Boren said.
“Robbed? No!”
“The thieves emptied out the drug closet. Three-quarters of a million dollars in drugs!”
“Who would do such a thing?”
“Have you checked your keys?” Dr. Boren asked.
“My keys? What about my keys?”
She took her key ring out of her purse with her house keys, car keys and office keys. The keys to the main door of the doctor’s office and the drug closet were the only keys that was missing. All the other keys were there. Nothing else in the purse had been disturbed. Gale was such a careful gentleman.
Copyright © 2024 by Allen Kopp
Literary Fictions 