“Do you think she’s mean because of the dancing and fingers?”
“Shut up.” She takes a bite of spring roll. “And no. She was a bitch before that.”
“What do you do? I’m trying to figure it out, but you say you work with young and old, so the old threw me a little.”
“I’m an athletic trainer, but now I work in a clinic and see regular people.”
“Regular? As opposed to…?”
“As opposed to a single team. I used to be employed by a football club, but eventually, it was time to go. Put too many twenty-something-year-old guys in one place, add a single female AT, and you tend to end up with too many embarrassing fiascos.”
“Is that so?” I chug my wine and try my fucking hardest to not imagine Dee and a football team.
“Yeah. Some dudes think they’re the shit, and if a girl is working on his quads and she’s not wearing a wedding ring, they tend to think she’s gonna work on his dick next.”
“You didn’t?”
“No!” She snags a second spring roll and takes a bite. “I don’t sleep with my clients, and I sure as shit don’t sleep with a whole team of them. There are some chicks who would, and hey, more power to her. That’s hard work, and if that’s how she chooses to hustle, then who am I to hate on her entrepreneurial spirit? But no, that’s not me. I just wanted to do my job, and after six years of dodging dicks and smacking a guy when he slapped my ass without invitation, I resigned and moved to the clinic I’m with now.”
“But you don’t like it?”
She shrugs. “I like my work, I love my clients, I just can’t stand Mia. But she’s the one who rents the space to me, and she controls the books. If I leave her, I’ll lose my clients.” Pausing, she sips her wine and smiles. “There’s this one guy, Tim; he’s in his seventies and fought in Vietnam. He lost his foot and about four inches of his leg after stepping on a homemade boomer. He showed me pictures; it was like shredded cheese.”
Andi speaks of shredded legs with a smile, but the idea of a man’s leg mangled like that makes me sick to my stomach. She chomps into her spring roll without a care in the world, meanwhile I chug my wine and try to push images of blood and cheese from my mind.
“They cut it off and sent him on his way,” she continues. “I guess they expected him to fashion a peg leg from a broom stick or something. He was sent home and nearly died from infections. They kept having to cut more and more of his leg off to catch the infection, until eventually, he was an above the knee amputee and had given up on life. It’s been a long road for him, but now he has a prosthetic, and he’s walking again.”
“What was he like when he first came to see you?”
“Grumpy,” she laughs. “He came in a wheelchair and refused to get up. His wife wheeled him in and smacked him every time he swore at me – and he swore.” Her eyes light up. “A lot. Those military boys sure know how to string a sentence of fucks so it almost sounds poetic. I was just a young floozy, what could I possibly know? He didn’t want my help, he was set in his ways and determined to die an old grouch, but I laid on some of my patented Andi charm and got him on his feet.”
Sliding my hand beneath the blanket and forgetting the movie we were supposed to watch, I dig my thumbs into her calves and massage. “Andi charm? I think that’s an oxymoron.”
“You’re an oxymoron.” Her lips twitch. “Okay, fine. I strung together my own sentences, showed him I’m not a little flower that would slink off just because he said mean words. According to him, I hadgumption– whatever the hell that means. I impressed him, so he started to try, at least a little. He’s old, and he was sedentary for too long, so it wasn’t as fast or impressive as my seventeen-year-old client who was in my office three days after achilles surgery and asking me out, but it was just right for Timmy. He was fitted for a temporary leg last year, and now he’s walking around with barely even a hitch to his stride. He uses a cane, but I think it’s more of a weapon than an aid. He told me at our last session that he’s being fitted for a hydraulic knee.”
“Hydraulic… that’s kinda fancy.”
She smiles conspiratorially. “He’s going to be my very own bionic man, then he’ll be unstoppable. He’s seventy, and some might say that’s getting on, but he has a lot left to give. Way too much to just go to bed and die of bedsores. Which is why his wife booted him into my office and demanded he stop sulking.” She grins. “Sheila has gumption, too. It would seem Tim has atype.”
I bring my almost empty wine to my lips and nod. “You’re an athletic trainer… I guess that’s not what I expected.”
“What did you expect? Bottom bitch? Trap queen?”
I choke on my wine and laugh. “No! Why are you obsessed with being a whore?” When she only shrugs and sips, I shake my head. “I don’t know what I expected. I never gave it much thought. I suppose, if I had to guess, I would’ve said clerical. Maybe professional shopper. Assistant. Something like that.”
“Because I’m not smart enough to do anything except answer phones?”
“No.” I squeeze her leg. “And don’t start picking fights. You asked, so I answered. I imagined cute skirt suits and high heels.”
“I wear sneakers every day.”
“I expected fancy hair and makeup.”
She snorts. “They’re lucky I even wear a bra most days.”
“Lucky?” I look at her chest and grin. “I see no bra right now, Dee; I call that lucky.” Placing my empty glass on the table, I reach across and pull her closer.
Because I fuckin’ can, that’s why.