Bones stared across a cluttered desk at a silent Dr. Chu who’d formed a steeple with his fingers while waiting to hear the reason for Bones’s visit.
“Can I call my mom?” he asked, sliding lower in the fake leather chair.
Dr. Chu didn’t answer. It was like he’d manipulated the second hand on his clock so it wouldn’t move. Even the miniature ivy on his desk was dying under the strain of stopped time.
Finally Dr. Chu picked up the phone and dialed. “Nancy, please bring Mr. Plumb’s breakfast to my office. He’ll be dining with me this morning.”
“But I’ve always been able to call home.” Bones hated the desperate sound of his voice. “Anytime, any place.”
“Sorry, Jack,” he said. “Not from this place.”
There was only one way to make it through this. “Can I…? I mean, is it okay…? Do you have…rubber gloves?”
Dr. Chu frowned over a drawer, pulling out checkers, jacks, cards, and a pair of latex gloves. “You may think I don’t understand, but I do. Just give yourself time. It’ll get easier.”
Bones took the gloves, rolling them onto his fingers, exhausted all over again from the strain of the program. At least the calories from the impending feast wouldn’t be absorbed through his fingers and stomach.
Nancy walked in holding the same type of cafeteria tray used at his high school. “Here you go, Jack.” She smiled at him and left.
Bones stared at a cheap melamine plate with an omelet, fruit bowl, and dry toast.
“Is something wrong?” Dr. Chu asked.
I have the stomach flu, sore throat, tooth abscess, migraine, allergy to gluten…I never eat breakfast on Wednesdays or in closed rooms or during a lunar eclipse, especially in July or when I’m out of deodorant…
“I’m just not hungry.”
“Take your time.”
Bones cut the omelet in half, turned it, cut it in half again, and then once more. He couldn’t breathe, dying the slow death of a bug on a fly strip. Fifty-three minutes and seventy-two bites later nothing was left on the plate except years of scratches.
Back in his room, Bones paced from the window to the door and back. He counted thirty twelve-by-twelve linoleum tiles, slapping the windowsill before turning around, petrified that fifteen minutes of speed walking wouldn’t burn off breakfast.
Lard looked up from a celebrity chef cookbook. “You’re driving me nuts!”
Bones hit the deck. First sit-ups, then he rolled over for push-ups. The tip of his nose grazed the towel he’d thrown on the floor. He blinked salt from his eyes, then felt a heavy weight on his butt, knocking the air out of him. “Get your skinny ass up,” Lard said, releasing his boot. “I need a smoke.”
Bones rolled out from under the boot. He had a really, really bad feeling about this. But he gathered up his sweaty self and draped the towel over his shoulder.
Lard pushed two cookbooks at him. “If anyone asks, you’re helping me in the kitchen. Follow me.”
“Okay.”
Lard and Bones slowed at the dayroom when they saw Eve sitting on the couch sipping from a two-liter bottle of Crystal Light (5 calories per serving).
Where’d she get that?
Morning light filtered in, turning her wavy hair bronze. Her blouse was unbuttoned enough to show off the frilly lace of her bra. She’d kicked off her shoes, revealing perfect toes with cranberry polish.
Normally Bones didn’t notice feet, but Eve was unbelievably hot for someone his aunt’s age. An experienced older woman, he thought. When he felt himself harden under a thick blend of cotton and polyester he mentally did the times tables backward. Unfortunately it only worked part of the time.
Eve caught him staring. “How’s your second day going?”
“You can call me Boner,” he said like an idiot. “I mean Bones.”
Lard snorted.
Eve smiled knowingly.
Bones tagged along behind Lard through the dayroom and down a corridor to a service elevator, trying to will his erection down.
“Nothing’s going on until lunch,” Lard said when the elevator opened. “So don’t look so guilty.”
Bones shrugged and followed him into the elevator.