[PART THREE] OVERFLOW POST
THE SOCIAL NETWORK PART THREE OVERFLOW POST
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PART THREE
PLEASE REPOST PROMPT AND IN A REPLY, A LINK TO PREVIOUS PARTS AND THEN CONTINUE ON. thank you.
ASK THE MODS * FAQ * DISCUSSION * FILL LIST
PART THREE
PLEASE REPOST PROMPT AND IN A REPLY, A LINK TO PREVIOUS PARTS AND THEN CONTINUE ON. thank you.
Mark listens to Led Zeppelin in the parking lot for a while, and when she’s done that for long enough, she drives back to work.
*****
Dr. Richardson has hipster glasses and a degree from Harvard Med. She’s older than Mark, but only by about ten years, and if Mark’s going to pay anyone to look at her twat, it might as well be somebody competent who isn’t super-old or a dude or an asshole. Still, it’s weird.
Mark signs in and one of the PAs shows her to an exam room like usual; on the table, there's a gown lying folded and sealed in plastic, and the PA says, “You can go ahead and get changed into that, Miss Zuckerberg,” then closes the door. Mark stares at the gown for a second, then takes off her hoodie and T-shirt, puts on the gown, and wraps the hoodie back around herself. She keeps her jeans and shoes off. Dr. Richardson is probably going to want to ask her stuff and there’s no reason that Mark needs to be bare-assed for that. She’ll take off everything else when she has to.
The hoodie is actually Eduardo’s fleece. He must have left it at the house when he came over last night. He’s leaving tomorrow-she’ll give it back to him before he goes. She zips it up and then answers some work emails on her phone while she waits for the doctor.
There’s a knock, and Dr. Richardson opens the door when Mark says, “Come in.” Her blond hair is up in two buns on either side of her head. She looks like the girls who edited the literary magazine when Mark was in high school, only grown-up and wearing a lab coat.
She and Mark shake hands, and then Dr. Richardson sits down and looks at her. “I got your chart from Stanford Hospital,” Dr. Richardson says. She’s polite but direct, kind of the same way Chris is. “I’m so sorry, Mark.”
“Thanks,” Mark says, and picks at one of the threads coming loose from the worn spot in her jeans over her right knee.
“Did anyone come with you today? It’s fine if you’d like someone here during the exam. It won’t be as invasive as what they did at the hospital, but it’s still a gynecological exam.”
Mark rolls her eyes. “I’ve been going to the gynecologist since I was seventeen. I don’t need my mom to tell me how to put my feet in stirrups.”
“Mark-” Dr. Richardson starts; then she stops. “This isn’t… I don’t think I have to tell you that this isn’t a typical checkup. If you want to reschedule for a time when someone can come with you, I can make time next week.”
“It’s fine,” Mark says. “Let’s just get it over with.”
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“You know that I can sue you if you tell anybody anything I tell you or that’s in my records, right?” Mark says.
Dr. Richardson turns to look at her again. “It would be illegal on several levels, as well as unethical. I could lose my medical license and face criminal prosecution if I disclosed confidential medical information.”
“I didn’t- My health insurance would have covered everything at the hospital, but I just had them send me a bill. All it takes is one asshole with a grudge and a blog. At Blue Cross Blue Shield, but also at the hospital and in your office.”
“Anything you tell me-and anything in your records-is confidential,” Dr. Richardson says. “You have my word on that, as well as it being my legal and professional duty. That was true when you became my patient five years ago, and it’s true now.”
Mark thinks of all the other people who see medical records: her dad has a medical office and her mom runs it for him, and Mark has a decent sense of how these things work. “Your staff too,” Mark says. “I will sue you for everything you have if anything about this gets out.”
“You don’t have to threaten me to make me live up to my professional obligations,” Dr. Richardson says. “Your information-your secret-is safe with me.”
True to Dr. Richardson’s word, the exam is definitely not as intrusive as the one at the hospital; it’s also a lot shorter, if the number of declensions Mark gets through this time around is any indication. Dr. Richardson assures her that everything looks normal down there-she uses more precise language than that, of course, but that’s the general idea-and she orders another round of HIV, syphilis, and hepatitis B tests. There’s another pregnancy test, which comes up negative. It’s early, though.
“When was your last period?” Dr. Richardson asks.
“I don’t know; I don’t track it. Maybe a week…before.”
“It’s very unlikely that you’re pregnant,” Dr. Richardson tells her. “The odds of getting pregnant from a rape, particularly when the woman isn’t ovulating, are extremely small, and the emergency contraception that you received at the hospital eliminated most of what slim chance does exist. Still, I’d like you to call me when you get your next period, and if it doesn’t arrive, let’s say, two and a half weeks from now, we need to schedule another appointment immediately.”
Mark nods, and Dr. Richardson asks her if she’s looked into counseling, and they go another round about the fact that Mark doesn’t want to discuss this with a stranger, fuck you very much. (Mark doesn’t actually say, “Fuck you very much.” She knows it’s rude, and she actually does like Dr. Richardson as much as you can like anyone whose job it is to stick pieces of metal in your vagina.)
Mark is done at the doctor’s by two o’clock. She’s not far from work, just on the other side of the Stanford campus from the offices. There’s no good reason not to go back. It’s not like she doesn’t have things to do.
The officers card her at the entrance like they’re supposed to, and Mark goes over to wait for the elevator. “Hey,” says Dustin, who appears like a ghost out of Scooby-Doo or something. “So I was thinking about the server load in East Asia-”
“I’m not even at my fucking desk yet,” Mark says. “Can this wait until I at least sit down, or is there some kind of traffic crisis that you didn’t bother to call me about?”
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Alexa knocks on the partly open door. “Mark, the director of European operations wants to set up a phone call with you. Do you have a preference-”
“Can you not look at my schedule and figure something out, or do I not pay you enough for that?”
Alexa holds up her hands and leaves; Mark ignores the, “Jesus Christ,” that she’s pretty sure Alexa mutters on her way out, and kicks the door shut.
She turns to look back at Dustin, whose eyebrows are raised. “Did somebody run over your dog or did you have words with Sergei Brin at lunch or something? Because it’s been a long time since you made an assistant cry, although luckily Alexa’s got a pretty thick skin.”
“I wasn’t at lunch. Did you have something to say about East Asia or are you just wasting my time for the hell of it?”
“Well, wherever you were, it apparently flipped your ‘asshole’ switch.” A switch seems to flip in Dustin as well, because his face goes serious and he says, “Mark. You weren’t at the police station, were you?”
Mark stands up, pulls her laptop’s power cord out of the wall, and throws the computer into her backpack. “Fuck this. I’m working from home the rest of the day. If anybody has anything actually worthwhile to talk to me about, email me. Otherwise leave me the hell alone.”
*****
Her parents aren’t home when she gets there-they’re up in Marin at Muir Woods. It’s one of the things they like to do when they’re in California, and she told them she’d be working until seven or eight, maybe even nine. Her mom tried to talk her into meeting them for dinner in the city, but Mark said she wouldn’t be able to leave work on time. They don’t know about the appointment today, obviously-her mom would have made Dr. Richardson very happy by insisting on going. So Mark didn’t tell her.
Mark’s house has a back porch with actual patio furniture-Nadia said Mark was wasting a beautiful porch and yard, and dragged Mark out to buy it on one of her visits. It was annoying-Nadia is often annoying-but the porch is a pretty nice place to sit. There are some chairs, and a bizarre thing that Mark an only describe as looking like a hollowed-out onion that’s open in front and has a couch inside. It’s like a daybed, kind of, and despite appearing to be patio furniture from an alien planet, it’s really comfortable, and also good when it rains because of the fabric top and sides. (The porch is covered, but it’s helpful to have an extra layer of protection when electronics are involved.) Mark has a gardener, so the yard looks affirmatively nice-if it were up to Mark to take care of it, she’s sure that the yard would make the house look abandoned or like the Unabomber lived there-and there are covered outlets along the wall so she can plug in her laptop.
Mark settles back against the pillows on the onion-couch and takes a look at the East Asia traffic to determine whether Dustin is actually on to something or just smoking crack again. Maybe it’s time for another server farm in Japan after all.
Her phone buzzes, and Mark thinks this better be something genuinely worth bothering her for, or else she’s going to go back to the office and chop Dustin’s head off with a rusty fork. But it’s not anybody from the office-it’s Eduardo. Dustin said you’re working from home. Want some company?
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Same. Just finished a lunch meeting in the city; was headed back to Dustin’s to do some follow-up but can just as easily do from your house.
Ok. I'm out on the porch, just come thru the gate when u get here.
Eduardo comes through the gate about an hour later, as Mark’s emailing Dustin and telling him to task down a new server site in Japan, preferably near Tokyo. He’s wearing a gray suit with a blue shirt underneath; if she knows Eduardo, he probably had on a tie earlier but took it off in the car. He looks at Mark, looks at the onion-thing, shakes his head, and tells her, “I know I say this every time, but that’s the weirdest piece of furniture I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“Complain to Nadia. She’s the one who picked it out.”
“You were the one who bought it,” Eduardo points out, but he leaves his shoes and socks on the wood, lays his jacket over the arm of one of the chairs, and clambers up to sit next to Mark on the couch, barefoot but still in his vest and dress shirt.
“I didn’t know you were working this trip,” Mark says.
Eduardo shrugs a little and busies himself taking his laptop out of his shoulder back, which is of course elegant black leather that looks like something an adult would own, unlike Mark’s college-era backpack or the bike-messenger monstrosity Dustin carries. “I felt sort of useless sitting around at Dustin’s all day, and there were a few people I’d been meaning to meet with. I didn't bring any work clothes with me, though, so I had to go find something first thing this morning”-he gestures down at himself and presumably at the suit-“which, off the rack, ugh,” and Mark can’t help laughing, because, seriously, who but Eduardo would care about that. “So anyway, I had lunch with a couple of people in biotech, and we’ll see whether it goes anywhere.” He pauses and looks over at Mark. “Did you eat lunch yet?”
“I’m not really hungry,” Mark says.
Of course in his Eduardo-brain this translates to “get up and get Mark a sandwich and something to drink.” The drink turns out to be lemonade. “Did you make this?” she asks.
“No, there was a carton of it in your fridge. Try to eat some of the sandwich? I even put Funyuns in it even though nobody over the age of fourteen should eat Funyuns on their sandwich.”
“Fuck off, Funyuns are awesome,” Mark says, because this is cosmic and holy truth. She eats about half the sandwich, which is roast beef and tastes extra delicious with Funyuns on it, but she really can’t eat any more than that-her stomach starts to raise a protest and vomiting isn’t Mark’s idea of fun. Half a sandwich seems to satisfy Eduardo’s internal mother hen, and he takes the plate from her and puts it down on the porch.
They don’t talk much, and Mark does the rest of her day’s work tucked up against Eduardo’s shoulder and several of the cushions. Whoever designed this thing was likely high at the time, but it really is comfortable.
It starts to rain right as dusk falls. Mark looks up from the email she’s writing-there’s no wind, and they’re protected by both the roof over the porch and the shell of the onion, but it’s still habit to check and make sure all the computers are out of the way-and realizes that Eduardo’s drifted off. His arm is around her shoulders, and he’s settled into the cushions too. It’s gotten a little chilly as the sun has set and it’d be nice if they had a blanket, but Mark doesn’t feel like getting up. She does reach for her phone, though, carefully so as not to disturb Eduardo, and text her parents: Be safe on yr way home, ppl drive stupid here when it rains. Then she gets back to work.
Thanks to L. for previewing a big chunk of this and for conversations on topics ranging from corporate governance to Eduardo's Buddha-nature. Also, the onion-thing really does exist! Behold its weirdness here: http://www.neotericluxury.com/catalog/index.php?album=neoteric-home-and-neoteric-contract-locsin-collection&image=Onion+Chair.jpg. And apologies again, but I may not be able to update for another month or so because of RL time constraints-I will try, but I can't promise anything.
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Oh, and my friend has one of those in her garden. It's really weird but really, really awesome.
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Plus, I'm so glad you included the onion chair link! I might need one of those.
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Poor Mark, though. Her EVERYTHING IS FINE, MOVE RIGHT ALONG façade is starting to crack rather badly. Still, maybe better now than years later.
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