Page 46 of End Game
Laughing, I nod. “I understand.”
“Let’s start with the tongue. Can you stick it out for me?”
Following her instructions, I watch as she stands and gets closer with a little light. “I’m not telling you what I’m looking for because it would be really confusing, but it looks good. You can close your mouth now.”
She jots a few notes on the pad and then comes back to me. “Now your pulse.”
She touches me above the left wrist, then on one of my fingers. Her face is passive and I can’t tell a thing about what she’s feeling. She moves to the right side and does the same series of touches down my arm to my fingers.
Clearing her throat, she sits down again and scratches on the pad. “Okay. I think I have enough here. We can get started today, if you’d like, or we can wait and start next time.”
“I’d like to start today, please,” I insist. “This hurts.”
She smiles. “That’s fine. I will need you to disrobe in a moment and lay flat on the table. I do need to be clear that I cannot do certain methods due to your condition.”
“My what?”
“Your condition. Acupuncture is one hundred percent safe during pregnancy, but to be cautious, I?—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I say, leaping off the table. “Back up. You’ve mixed up my file with someone else’s,” I laugh. “I’m not pregnant.”
She looks at me like I’m crazy.
“I’m really not,” I insist. “I don’t even have a boyfriend.”
“You should have a physician check to be sure, of course, but the pulse is a very strong indicator in Chinese medicine. I’m sorry you didn’t know.”
“I can’t be pregnant, Bai,” I tell her, like I can change her mind and wipe this conversation from ever happening.
I can hear the blood rushing over my ears as I try to calm myself back down.
“If you say so, Ms. Miller. Only you know what can and can’t be true. But until I know, I must err on the side of caution.”
“You know what?” I say, gathering my purse off the floor. “Let’s start this next time. I need to take care of a few things today.”
“Good luck,” she says softly. “Please check out at the front with Ada and she can set up your next appointment.”
“Thank you.”
I fling the door open and nearly stomp down the quiet hall. It takes longer than I care to wait for Ada to give me my insurance card back and hand me a receipt. Declining another appointment, I storm out of the office into the hot afternoon air.
Whipping out my phone, I pound my finger into Poppy’s name. It rings four times before she picks up. I don’t bother letting her greet me.
“That doctor of yours is a quack!”
“What?” she laughs. “What’s going on?”
“She’s a quack. Bai doesn’t know shit about shit.”
I rattle on about how acupuncture is fake medicine and how I will never go there again and I might even do a blog post about the dangers of people that pretend to know how things work when really they don’t know anything at all. I jabber on and on, all the while trying to force out a little niggle in my brain that asks, “What if?”
My stomach drops as I round the corner. “She’s nuts.”
“She’s not nuts,” Poppy whispers. “Hang on.” I hear her heels clicking against the floor and the sound of chimes. “I had to come outside you were talking so damn loud. What the hell is going on?”
“You know what she said?”
“Quack, quack?”
