Callie’s alarm went off on her phone. She checked her Facebook, then scrolled through Twitter. The majority of her follows were animal-specific, like a New Zealand zoo keeper who was obsessed with Tasmanian devils and an eel historian who’d detailed the American government’s disastrous attempt to transfer East Coast eels to California during the nineteenth century.
The scrolling burned through another fifteen minutes. Callie checked Dr. Jerry’s schedule. He had four more patients this afternoon. She went to the kitchen and made him a sandwich, sprinkling a generous supply of animal crackers on the side.
Callie knocked on Dr. Jerry’s door before entering. He was laid out on the couch, mouth hanging open. His glasses were askew. A book was flattened on his chest. The Complete Sonnets of William Shakespeare. A gift from his late wife.
“Dr. Jerry?” She squeezed his foot.
As always, he was a bit startled and disoriented to find Callie hovering over him. It was like Groundhog Day, except everybody knew that groundhogs were vicious murderers.
He adjusted his glasses so he could see his watch. “That went by fast.”
“I made you lunch.”
“Wonderful.”
He groaned as he got off the couch. Callie gave him a little help when he started to fall back.
She asked, “How was your executive time?”
“Very good, but I had a strange dream about anglerfish. Have you ever met one?”
“Not to my recollection.”
“I’m glad to hear that. They live in the darkest, loneliest places, which is a very good thing because they are not the most attractive specimens.” He cupped his hand to his mouth as if to convey a confidence. “Especially the ladies.”
Callie sat on the edge of his desk. “Tell me.”
“The male spends all his life sniffing out a female. As I said, it’s very dark where they live, so nature gave him olfactory cells that are attracted to the female’s pheromones.” He held up his hand to stop the story. “Did I mention she has a long, illuminated filament on her head that sticks out like a flashlight finger?”
“No.”
“Bioluminescence.” Dr. Jerry looked delighted by the word. “So, once our Romeo finds his Juliet, he bites onto her just below the tail.”
Callie watched as he illustrated with his hands, fingers clomping down on his fist.
“Then, the male releases enzymes that dissolve both his mouth and her skin, which effectively fuses them together. Then—this is the miraculous part—his eyes and internal organs dissolve until he’s just a reproductive sac melded onto her for the rest of his miserable existence.”
Callie laughed. “Damn, Dr. Jerry. That sounds exactly like my first boyfriend.”
He laughed, too. “I don’t know why I thought about that. Funny how the noggin’ works.”
Callie could’ve spent the rest of her life worrying that Dr. Jerry was using the anglerfish as a metaphor for how she treated him, but Dr. Jerry wasn’t a metaphor guy. He just really loved talking about fish.
She helped him slip into his lab coat.
He asked, “Did I ever tell you about the time I got a house call on a baby bull shark in a twenty-gallon aquarium?”
“Oh, no.”
“They’re called pups, by the way, though that doesn’t have the same joie de vivre as baby shark. Naturally, the owner was a dentist. Poor simpleton had no idea what he was dealing with.”
Callie followed him down the hall, listening to him explain the meaning of viviparous. She steered him into the kitchen where she made sure he cleaned his plate. Cracker crumbs speckled the table as he told her another story about another fish, then moved on to marmosets. Callie had realized long ago that Dr. Jerry was using her more as paid companionship. Considering what other men had paid Callie for, she was grateful for the change in scenery.
The four remaining appointments made the rest of the day go by fast. Dr. Jerry loved annual check-ups because there was seldom anything seriously wrong. Callie scheduled follow-up visits, teeth cleanings, and, because Dr. Jerry thought it impolite to bring up a lady’s weight, lectured a rotund dachshund’s owners about food restrictions. At the end of the day, Dr. Jerry tried to pay her, but Callie reminded him that she didn’t get paid again until the end of next week.
She had looked up signs of dementia on her phone. If that was what Dr. Jerry was staring down, then she figured he was still okay to work. He might not know what day it was, but he could calculate fluids with electrolytes and additives like potassium or magnesium without writing down the numbers, which was better than most people could claim.