“Yeah, you set off the alarm.”
“I’m just saying: We could both use a friend right now.”
“We’re friends, Fiona, I just—”
“Well let’s be best friends. Don’t laugh, I don’t mean like ten-year-olds! I mean like family. Let’s just say we’re family now. Let’s say we call each other when we’re sad. And I’ll get you a birthday present, and everything.”
“Okay.” He couldn’t say no to her. “But we were talking about college.”
“Oh God, Yale. I really don’t see myself enjoying the frat party scene. I’m going to, what, sit there in class with eighteen-year-olds?”
The distance between eighteen and twenty-one seemed laughably small, but he didn’t say so. Besides, Fiona’s twenty-one might as well have been two hundred.
“You could take classes here in the city. It wouldn’t be going off to college, with dorms and, like, drunk guys playing guitar at you. Just think of it as the classes, the degree. You don’t want to be a nanny forever, do you?”
He regretted the words once they were out. But only half his brain was in the conversation. He was wondering, at the same time, if he would let Dr. Cheng talk him into doing something today. He didn’t want that. He wasn’t ready.
He said, “Would your parents pay?”
“They would, but I’m not taking a fucking penny from those people. Whatever they leave me when they die, I’m giving it straight to AIDS research.”
She’d have taken money from Nora, though, Yale imagined. She’d have accepted a sketch. At least it was only a matter of pride; the money was there for her, it sounded like, if she ever truly needed it. But Fiona was stubborn. She’d never crawl back asking favors.
“I’m supposed to call up my old high school teachers and ask for recommendations? I hardly even went to class.”
“I’m sure they remember you. I’m sure it happens all the time.” The nurse stood, but it was only to reach something from a high shelf, and then she sat back down. “I’ll write a letter myself. An extra one. I do work at a university, technically. I mean, I oversee students.”
Fiona busted up laughing at that, which is what he’d hoped for.
And then the nurse was calling him back.
Dr. Cheng had a framed photo of Mount Kilimanjaro on his wall, and the room smelled more like soup than rubbing alcohol. He looked right at you when he talked, paused deliberately every three sentences as if some superior had taught him in med school to do so. He went over Yale’s medical history, did a short physical exam. No paper gown, at least, but still, it felt like too much, like the start of something official. The thought came to Yale, as Dr. Cheng listened to his lungs, that this could be the man presiding over his final days. That in walking through this door, he’d potentially chosen a partnership more permanent than any other in his life. Till death do us part.
“I understand you have some concerns,” Dr. Cheng said.
Yale spat everything out so fast that he worried the doctor would think he was lying.
Dr. Cheng slowly repeated the story, wrote things down, made sure he had the dates right. He said, “You’re concerned that you were infected back in December.”
“Or sooner.”
“December or sooner. In early January, did you experience any fatigue, fever, loss of appetite?”
Yale shook his head.
“Any rash, sore throat, headache, muscle ache? A cold?”
“No.”
“Have you noticed swollen lymph nodes?”
“I wasn’t checking. But not now.”
“I want to hear your questions and concerns about the test,” Dr. Cheng said and folded his hands across his knees.
Yale said, “I’m not sure I want it today. I don’t want results that mean nothing.” He picked the cat hair off his sweater, piece by piece.
“You know, if you contracted this a month ago or more, I’d say your results would be pretty solid. Would I want you to get retested three months from now? Absolutely. Do I need you to promise me you’ll avoid behaviors that would put yourself or others at risk? Yes.”
He stopped and leaned forward, waiting until Yale started to talk.
“I don’t know why I’m more scared this time. The first time, last year, it was like we’d gone back and forth between assuming we had it and thinking we were safe. But most of the time, deep down, I thought I did, you know? I’d check my tongue every morning for thrush. When we went in, it was—maybe it was a relief. It doesn’t feel that way now.”
“It’s harder alone.”
“Sure.” Yale managed to keep his voice steady.
Dr. Cheng scooted closer. “Listen: You were exposed, yes. That’s not as definitive as it might feel. I’ve treated guys I slept with, Yale. And that was before the test. I assumed I had it too. And I don’t. Let’s not fall apart over something that hasn’t happened yet. We’ll get you the test today. You’ll feel better, I think, in the meantime. And we’ll make an appointment for the results”—he wheeled himself over to his desk calendar—“two weeks from today, the seventeenth.”
“Doesn’t the first test only take a few days? I want you to tell me if that’s positive. I want to know.”
Dr. Cheng shook his head. “I can’t do that. Any positive would be preliminary. A positive ELISA gets repeated, then sent out for the Western blot. Lots of reasons you could have a false positive on the ELISA. Syphilis, for one. Drug use. Multiple pregnancies.”
It wouldn’t have been funny if Dr. Cheng’s delivery weren’t so deadpan, but Yale found himself looking up, smiling. He could deal with this guy at his sickbed.
“A negative ELISA is pretty damn negative, but I can’t tell you I’ll call you with that, because then if you don’t get the call—right? You understand.”
“You think I’d jump off a bridge.”
Dr. Cheng asked if Yale would like to talk to a counselor—no, not yet—and told him they’d give him a slip of paper with a number on it. A corresponding number would go into the chart. “I don’t even write down that we’re running the test,” he said. “I put a special symbol. If my records were seized, all they’d see is some funny shapes. This isn’t a shame thing, I want you to understand. Sometimes we associate secrecy with shame. This is simply about protecting you. Do you have questions about confidentiality?”
Yale didn’t need the shame lecture, but it was a nice delay. He tried to think of a question that would take some time, but he couldn’t.