Happy Harrison #6

She was better than this. And that was the point. She was better than the coffee she drank or the journals she read, she was better than her practice and the patients she saw there, she was better than America and its silly Americans. That was the point, and ironically it was all because she secretly believed in the much touted "American Dream." An intellectual, an academic, a connoisseur, even a healer; whether she liked it or not, once a month on payday she was also a capitalist. Born in Latvia and educated in The Czech Republic and France, she was better here in New York than she had been anywhere else. That was the point.

The Dream wasn't getting Sofija anywhere at the moment, however. Her service was unable to send a car for at least another 45 minutes, the last dozen cabs to pass had had fares, and the city was getting douched as if a monsoon was hitting the island. She wanted to make it to the office early today, but now there was not even a chance of being less than an hour late. She fumbled to hold her umbrella while she extracted her blackberry from her purse. The office was open and her first session was supposed to start in 30 minutes. And there were already messages. One of the office assistants droning through a pointless morning report: "Hi, it's me. Do you know when Dr. Maguire will be here because Stephanie's not here yet and she didn't finish showing me how to login to that new thingy with the insurance system and your first patient in really really early it's that weird guy Tim who's always early remember and he's here now and it's really creeping me out you know so when do you get here? Oh no, did this thing beep yet? Hi, it's me!"

Sofija was reluctant to miss her session with Tim. If she allowed herself a favorite patient, it would have been him. She didn't necessarily understand him or even like him, but she found him fascinating. Tim was a tiny yet overweight man in his early fifties who reminded her of Milton from Office Space. He was always early, always paced around the outer office, and was always red in the face. He lived with his mother and collected all manner of candy wrappers. By the thousands. The facet of his personality that most intrigued Sofija, though, was that every single time she saw him, for at least a few minutes, they had to talk about the skittle on the bathroom floor where he worked. Most of the time, it was a brief conversation, but it could get pretty lengthy especially when Tim wanted to list the pros and cons of actually breaking down and eating that oh-so-tempting morsel. In ten months he had never succumbed. She wondered how long this would go on.

Suddenly she dropped her purse. It bounced over the curb and into inches and inches of water rushing down the street. Sofija hurriedly scooped it up from the street but it too late. The entire bag and its contents were soaked and now it weighed twice as much. Fuck this. She ran back into her building.

The concierge was beautiful blond woman named Melinda. She likely could have modeled ten years ago if she had any work ethic to speak of. Every time Sofija passed through the lobby, this woman refused to make eye contact. She just gabbed away on her cell phone, looking every which way except at the patrons she was supposed to mind. She even refused to sign for packages when they came. Sofija wondered how Melinda stayed employed and she was positive there was no one on the other end of those phone conversations. She knew the type well. Some of her own patients even admitted to her that they, too, faked phone calls in order to avoid public contact. She doubted any of them were as narcissistic as this useless bitch, though. As she passed back through the lobby this time, she took a good long stare at Melinda and noted with impish glee the crows feet forming and the tiny wrinkles across the bridge of Melinda's nose. You may tell the boys you're 29, Honey, but I'm putting my money on 42.

Right as Sofija was getting off the elevator on her floor, her blackberry chimed with the arrival of another new voicemail message. Sighing, she listened to it. "Hi, it's me again! Listen, Dr. Maguire is here now and that's great but he says he doesn't know anything about any of the computers here and I think he's lying but anyway Stephanie's still not here I hope she doesn't call out sick after I covered for her all those weekends last month but anyway I guess you can show me how to login when you get here when did you say that was again? Yeah, and that Tim guy is being really weird today he keeps telling me that 'he did it, he did it' and he wants to celebrate with you or something is it your birthday today because you really should have told me although I thought we just celebrated that in December ..."

When she got into her aparment, she changed into dry slacks and shoes before grabbing the two-pound bag of skittles she had been saving for this occassion and shoving it into a new dry purse.