CHAPTER 5
As Zack feared, there’s a line in front of Hodad’s when he lets me out. Thankfully, most are employees from nearby offices who have come for to-go orders. The wait for a table turns out to be much shorter than I expected. In fact, it takes Zack longer to find a parking spot. I’ve just finished ordering when he finally walks in. He spots me and heads for the table.
“Have you ordered?”
Service at Hodad’s is quick—the faster you get your food, the faster the table turns over. Before I have a chance to answer, a waitress appears with our drinks, a combo basket of fries and rings, and a beaming smile.
“Can I get you anything else?” she asks, turning up the wattage even further for Zack.
“Just the burgers,” he says.
“Right!”
“Let’s see how these compare to yesterday’s pitiful offering,” Zack says, reaching for an onion ring.
If the expression on Zack’s face is any indication, he’s in nirvana.
“Well?” I pick up a fry and dip it in ketchup.
“We might need more of these.”
Zack continues to work on the onion rings.
I venture a question. “So, when did you live in San Diego?”
Zack doesn’t acknowledge me or the question.
“Zack?” I persist, determined to get an answer out of him. “You never mentioned living in San Diego when we worked together in Charleston.”
He continues dipping onion rings in ketchup as if that stalling tactic is going to work. Persistence is my middle name. I fix him with a laser beam stare. But when he finally looks up, it’s to watch the approaching waitress, who arrives, burgers in hand. Zack’s is so big it’s almost embarrassing to be seen with it. He attacks it with both the zealousness of the true believer and the relief of a condemned man granted a reprieve.
“Oh my God.” Zack’s eyes roll toward the heavens.
I show a little more restraint eating my burger. But I do have to admit, in San Diego, Hodad’s is by far the best burger joint. I decide to let him eat in peace before I launch the attack again. Gives me a chance to enjoy my burger, too.
We finish up and wipe the evidence from our faces. Zack relaxes back on the bench and gives his stomach a satisfied rub. “Now, that was good.”
“How could you tell? You inhaled that burger.”
He laughs. “And you didn’t?”
“Mine was a tiny baby burger compared to your monstrosity.” I stir my Coke with my straw and glance at my watch. “Now that we have a few minutes, you can tell me about your stay in San Diego. How do you know the city so well? And how come you never mentioned living here?”
Zack looks away, across the restaurant, toward the door, down at the table. Everywhere but at me. That same flash of sadness—of regret—that I felt in the elevator yesterday is back again. I fight a completely inappropriate impulse to reach for his hand.
“Seems like a lifetime ago,” he says at last. “One I’d rather not revisit.”
I can relate to that. It’s not the same with me, of course. With me, it has literally been one new life after the other. It isn’t easy to resist the urge to press. I’m crazy with curiosity to know his story. And to learn more about the woman in the parking lot, Sarah. But I know how to be patient, to wait till the time is right.
Zack crushes his napkin, tosses it onto the table. “If we want to catch the good doctor before he starts on his afternoon schedule, we’d better head out.” He catches the eye of a nearby waitress. “Check please?”
I watch Zack take care of the bill, head to the car without looking back to see if I was following him or not.
I’ve obviously touched a nerve.
• • •
Dr. Alexander Barakov, a board-certified plastic surgeon, has his office on the third floor of a recently renovated building overlooking Petco Park downtown. When the ballpark was built, the stadium initiated a wave of regentrification in the neighborhood, but Zack and I still have to step over and around the sleeping bags and carts stored under the parking lot portico awaiting the return of the street people who make this area their home. The day is unusually hot for this time of year, and those who haven’t already headed downtown to panhandle are clustered together in the shade. I feel their eyes on us as we walk past, feel a myriad of emotions in their glances. Sadness, jealousy, hunger, desperation. It casts a pall on my own emotions.
It’s a relief to enter the dim coolness of Barakov’s building. The foyer directory sends us to Suite 301.
The office is luxurious. The waiting area looks more like someone’s living room than a holding tank for patients. There are elegantly upholstered sofas and chairs and glass cases containing fine art pieces, but not one visible patient. A woman is standing behind a desk of polished mahogany. She has a headset in her ear and looks up at us in polite interest as we approach.
“Can I help you?”
Her tone is friendly but professional. It matches the carefully coiffed hair, subtle makeup, and understated jewelry. Her features are even and without flaw, and her outfit seems designed to accentuate her perfectly symmetrical Barbie doll figure—formfitting blouse, pencil skirt. I suspect she’s a walking advertisement for her employer.
There is a nameplate on the desk that reads SILVIA BARTON. Zack flashes his badge. “We’d like a moment of Dr. Barakov’s time, Ms. Barton.”
Barton barely spares the badge or me a glance. Her eyes linger a little longer on Zack before she sits. “Let me check the doctor’s schedule for you, Agent . . .”
“Armstrong. This is Special Agent Monroe.”
She consults a screen on the computer next to her. “He’s in consultation now, but he will have a few moments between appointments. Would you care to wait?”
“Absolutely,” I say.
Before we can take seats, she asks, “Can I get you something to drink? Coffee? Water?”
Zack requests coffee, cream, two sugars.
“A bottle of water would be nice.” From me.
Barton disappears behind a door. She returns in a moment with a tray. On it there’s coffee for Zack in a china cup and water for me—in a glass.
I take the glass, a little surprised. Except in restaurants, almost everyone uses bottled water these days. Or disposable cups. The thought must telegraph itself through my expression, because Barton smiles.
“Dr. Barakov is a committed environmentalist,” she says. “No plastic bottles.”
I’ve lifted the glass to my lips, but my hand stops in midair. “A
Barton doesn’t see the irony. She frowns at me. “No plastic. No unnecessary paper products. In fact, we’re almost completely paperless here.”
“Admirable,” I say, rolling my eyes at Zack over the rim of the glass.
Zack raises his eyebrows at me and takes his coffee over to the windows that span the far wall of the waiting room. There’s a clear view of the baseball field. “It looks like the doctor’s got the best seats in the house. I assume he’s a Padres fan?” Before Barton can answer the question, he turns to her and shoots off another. “Is it my imagination or is the tint on this window changing?”
“They’re called smart windows,” she answers, giving him her full attention. “A firm that specializes in green architecture renovated the building before we moved in two years ago. Special insulation, roofing, and those windows that tint automatically to control the temperature and ensure privacy.”
Like Amy’s shades, I think. Going green has become a mantra in Southern California.
