Driving Doctor Mayhem

[38] The End-ish

The only thing that came of our ever-so daring break in was a composite drawing of me on the six o'clock news that was so inaccurate, it was almost flattering. Collodi hadn't gotten a good enough look at me that fateful afternoon, and he hadn't ever paid attention to me before, I guess; we'd only been face to face a couple of times before that.

(Apparently, this lead to the mayor thinking that I looked a little bit like Drew Barrymore.)

Doc said that if the Mayor figured out he was involved as well, the man'd have let the whole thing go, because he knew that Doc knew about his lapses in morality and also had proof of it. A few stolen knickknacks weren't worth ending a political career over.

He waited a week or so before he started to try and pawn the bear, the cello, and the autographed poster on Craigslist. The few weeks that were left of summer went by semi-uneventfully, which was pretty nice. Gideon spent a lot more time at the apartment, and we even repainted.

(Or tried to. It was far harder to paint a light, mellow blue over the stark black that was already there than we originally thought, so we ended up with a sort-of-navy color.)

Soon, the end of August lolled its lazy head, and I clocked out of my last day as Doc's PA.

I skipped towards the door like Dorthy in the Wizard of Oz. "I feel like I should be making a really big scene of quitting," I laughed. "Give you something to remember me by. Maybe organize a flash mob or something, you know."

Doc just rolled his eyes. "Bye for now, Miss Banks. Good luck at..." he trailed off. "God, I think I've forgotten what college you're going to."

"I'm really hurt now." I pretended to wipe an invisible tear from my eye.

"Oh, please."

"Northwestern. I'm going to be a doctor, remember?"

"Right. Good luck with that, then."

"Could you do that without the note of sarcasm?"

"I'm not being sarcastic. This is just my voice."

"Try not to look so relieved, Doc; I know you're glad you're getting rid of me," I quipped, shrugging on my business casual blazer and slinging my bag over my shoulder. "The decent thing is to pretend you'll miss me just a little bit."

"Well, I'm not the best at always doing the decent thing," he grinned, leaning against the kitchen counter. "I will miss you, I suppose, if only because you make me seem so much more brilliant by comparison."

"I'm dying of laughter."

"It's too bad there's no doctor here now."