He'd tried to argue with Joey about going to the doctor again but then Joey spoke in his firm voice, which he's heard before with Angela. But it was different when it was directed at him, and he swallowed hard and felt uneasy. The sharp look in Joey's eyes unnerved him.
In the waiting room Craig flipped through a People magazine, not caring what the celebrities were doing, not able to concentrate on the simple articles. He ended up just glancing at the shiny pictures of skinny and smiling celebrities, beaches, New York and L.A.
"Craig Manning?" a nurse called in her detached and clinical way, reading his name off the paper she held in her hand. He glanced at Joey and he nodded firmly, so he got up and followed her into the office.
There was the bed/table covered with a paper sheet, a desk against the wall and a computer with its shiny desktop icons, a scale with the weights and metal stick for measuring height. Cabinets lined another wall and he could see some of the shiny doctor tools on it, the scopes for peering into ears and eyes and noses and throats. He'd seen those things enough at his house, in his father's office. He could smell the alcohol and betadine and whatever else it was, and it reminded him too much of his father and how he smelled when he would come home from work. Late at night, hearing the door creak open and he was half asleep, the fear coming into his throat, choking him.
"Take off your shoes and stand on the scale," the nurse said, and he kicked off his sneakers and stepped onto the platform in his socks, feeling the cold of the metal on the bottom of his feet. The nurse was middle aged, round through the middle, gray at the roots, tired looking. She was barely looking at him. He was another increment of work to her.
She moved the weights at the top of the scale, pushing it a little left and then right until it balanced with his weight, and she wrote the number down. He didn't care what it was. He stood still as she measured him, reaching her hand up over her head because he was taller than she was.
"Okay, Craig, come sit over here," she said, gesturing to the chair near the computer. She sat directly in front of the computer, pulling his name up on her screen, typing in his weight and height. He watched her, breathing slow.
She reached her hand out and touched her index finger to the pulse in his wrist, and he watched her watching her watch and counting to herself. He didn't like the feeling of her finger against his skin, didn't like strangers touching him, didn't like that she was monitoring and measuring these things about him. He felt the breach to his privacy.
She wrapped the blood pressure cuff around his upper arm and he watched as she pumped it up, felt it squeeze his arm, he felt lost in the pressure. Closed his eyes. When she had the numbers she wanted she released the pressure and the cuff sizzled down, flat again against his arm. She took it off.
She opened a drawer in the cabinet on the far wall and pulled out a paper gown, pressed into a square. She placed it on the paper sheet that covered the examining table.
"Okay, take everything off, including socks and underwear, and put that on," she pointed to the gown, "and the doctor will be right in,"
She whirled out and Craig breathed in the thick air of the office. He could smell everything in here. Every alcohol swab and rug fiber and paper sheet. This sucked, he knew this sucked but it was just a physical, that's all it was. It would be fine. He closed his eyes but he could still see the light from the room red against his closed lids. He pulled his shirt off over his head and felt the cool air touch his skin.
