No Hope for Gomez! by Graham Parke

lab assistants, which was a much better look for him. Far more relaxed and in control. Before I knew it, though, I’d been staring at him a little too long. He glared at me. I was about to diffuse the situation with an innocent remark when, sadly, nothing came to mind. Not so much as a comment on the weather. My mind was a blank canvas. Meanwhile, I was still staring, because I’d thought I’d come up with something soon.
    My predecessor stopped in his tracks, disbelief mounting in his eyes – What the hell’s this guy staring at? Apparently he was too shocked to say anything, so he just glared at me.
    I wanted to look away but it was too late for that. That ship had sailed minutes ago. I had to say something and the longer I waited, the better the comment had to be to explain my increasingly long stare.
     
    Blog entry: The situation continued for what seemed like forever. Time itself had come to a standstill. There was no way out.
    His glare intensified, my brain thrashed around for something to say. The harder I pressed it for a comment, the more it clammed up. Meanwhile, I prayed for some kind of distraction, like a blaring car horn, a passing coffee cart, or, failing all else, the end of the world.
    Eventually, Dr. Hargrove opened her office door and stuck her head out. She spotted me and pointed at her watch. “Gomez, come in please! I’ve been waiting for twenty minutes!”
    I shrugged at my predecessor as if to say: Women!
    He shrugged as if to say: Tell me about it!
    And with that we could finally break eye contact safely. I breathed an inaudible sigh of relief and followed Dr. Hargrove into her office.
     
    Blog entry: Right away I noticed Dr. Hargrove was still off her game. She sat down without asking me how I’d been and frowned as she went over my questionnaire. Several questions had already been answered and she didn’t look up as she fired off the remaining ones.
    Part of her demeanor was caused, no doubt, by my inability to wait in a near empty room without getting into trouble, but there was more. There were traces of the same distracted sadness in her expression that had been there last time.
    I waited for her to pause and look over the questionnaire, then made an appropriate little joke.
    Dr. Hargrove looked up and I immediately regretted making light of a situation I didn’t fully understand. For all I knew, her entire family had been slaughtered the week before. And here I was, making appropriate little jokes. Then she started to laugh and I forgave myself instantly. It was wonderful to see her face do that, to have her eyes rest on me while her brain sent all those happy signals around. Especially when it was in response to something I’d said. But then the laugh turned into a smile, and the smile faded too quickly. The serious Dr. Hargrove was back.
    “What’s wrong?” I asked.
    “Nothing,” she said. “Everything’s fine, really.” She forced a smile as proof. “Don’t worry about it.”
    “Come on,” I said, “you’ve got to talk to someone. Sometimes talking to a perfect stranger is the easiest. I may not be perfect, but I’m certainly strange.”
    She rolled her eyes at me, then smiled anyway. “I’m sorry, Gomez,” she said, “I just don’t know what to do…”
    “I’ll know what to do,” I said. “I promise. Just tell me what the problem is and I’ll fix it.”
     
    Blog entry: Surprisingly, Dr. Hargrove relented. She opened up and told me about this growing feeling of discomfort she’d been experiencing.
    “I think someone’s following me around,” she said. “I feel watched when I go home, I feel watched when I go to work, I even feel watched when I’m alone in my apartment with the blinds closed.” She shot me a quick glance, then tried to compose herself. “That’s stupid, right?” She shook her head. “I don’t know what I’m thinking. It’s probably nothing.”
    “No, no,” I said. “You can’t be too careful with those kinds of things.