“Uh, hello Ms. Carlotta. The doctor said I should see you on the way out. I’m the one who was dumped by the front door. The one with the foot wound and no ID.”
She looks up from the paperwork in front of her, wrinkles her forehead and nose at me, and then pulls a clipboard and a thick stack of papers from a file folder on her desk and hands them over to me along with a pen that’s seen better days.
“Fill those out. Bring them back to me when you’re done.”
Nodding, I flip through the stack of forms. Most of it is basic demographic and registration information — my address, my name, contact information, allergies, current medications, etc. — but then there’s a section for my insurance information. And seeing that brings me back to the reality that I’m no longer a loan specialist for a crappy, no-name regional bank; I’m an unemployed loan specialist who used to work at a crappy, no-name regional bank. And I don’t have insurance.
There’s no way I can afford this. And I haven’t even seen the bill. I haven’t worked at Southwest Regional Bank very long, my numbers were terrible because I actually gave a damn about doing what was in my client’s best interest instead of pushing unnecessary loans on them, and I don’t have any insurance.
I swallow, lean a little harder on my crutches to steady myself, and then say, “Ms. Carlotta, do you know how much all this will cost?”
“One moment.”
My heart waits in my throat while her fingers fly across the keyboard. She spends way too much time with her eyes darting across the screen while the keys clack and rack up an insurmountable total. The debt accumulation ends with the wailing cry of a dot matrix printer coming to life. After a minute, she rips the sheet of paper from the printer and hands it to me.
“Here.”
My eyes scan down the page; my mouth drops in surprise; my fingers lose their grip and the paper flutters aimlessly down to the floor.
“This much?” I say.
On this paper is the death knell to my financial future — the Sisyphean medical debt that I’ll be dealing with for the rest of eternity.
“Don’t worry, that’s only what we will send to your insurance. I’m sure your portion will be much less. Just fill it all out and, if you need to complete anything later, that’s fine — just make sure you get that information to me by tomorrow so I can process everything properly. I understand that you were left here without your purse or any ID cards, so it is OK if you need a little more time.”
Somehow, I keep a straight face.
There’s an enormous part of me that wants to fill this form out in full; it’ll be so easy to put down my name, contact info, and even my insurance info — because it sure is easy to write ‘No insurance’ — and then make sure every ‘t’ is crossed and every ‘i’ is dotted. It would be the right thing to do. But, if I do it, I’m dooming myself to a lifetime of debt and financial ruin.
Ms. Carlotta clears her throat. “If you’re having trouble with some of it, I understand. You were in bad shape when they brought you in and I imagine you are still feeling pretty out of it. But, if you could at least put in your contact information, Ms…?”
I hesitate. My name sitting right on the tip of my tongue. Just two little words — Tiffany Santos — and a few scratches of my pen on this paper and it’ll all be over. I’ll be over, too. Unless I want to declare the ultimate financial failure of bankruptcy and give myself the kind of credit score that even Blaze would scoff at.
“Your name?” Ms. Carlotta repeats.
My pen halts on the page, the only evidence of its presence a single blue dot. Signing my name, accepting responsibility, is the thing I should do. But it will break me. And I can’t help Blaze and his mom with their problems if I’m struggling under the burden of my own crippling debt.
“Do you have a phone here that I could use? I need to call a friend to come pick me up.”
“You can use the phone once you fill out the forms, Ms…?”
I smile. My pen starts moving.
“It’s Anna. Anna Ebri.”
Chapter Six
Blaze
My telephone opens my whiskey-heavy eyes. Groaning, I sit up on the couch and snatch my buzzing phone off the coffee table.
“Hello?”
“Blaze, it’s me. Tiffany Santos. I need you to come pick me up at Alameda General Hospital. And if you could be prompt about it, I would really appreciate it.”
Likely sedated, doped up, and dazed, and she still sounds like she’s got a stick up her butt.
“Why the hurry?” I say.
“I just have a pressing need to get out of here as soon as possible. So hurry, please.”
Who is she to order me around?
“And I have a pressing need to finish my whiskey. Open up, Saint Tiffany; tell me what’s got your panties in a knot or else you’ll be waiting a long time for your ride.”
She huffs. I can picture her screwing her face up in distaste. The way her plump lips curl in disgust and how cute her nose looks as she crinkles it, it’s enough to make me smile.
“I might have done something that I shouldn’t have. And it would be preferable for me to get out of here before anyone realizes what I did.”
“Sounds like some very un-saintly behavior.”
“Now is not the time.”
“All I’ve got is time. Time to sit here, drink my whiskey, check the game on my phone, and listen to you tell
