Everything Changes

until Monday,” Irina tells him, raising her unibrow menacingly. Her desk is festooned with photos and crayon tracings of little hands from grandchildren who are probably scared to death of her.
    “Listen to me carefully,” he says, leaning over the large desk to get in her face. “If you can’t get Dr. Sanderson on the phone in the next five minutes, there will be severe legal ramifications. Do you want to be responsible for that?”
    “Move back from the desk, please,” Irina says, standing up irately.
    Norm looks her right in the eye and lowers his voice. “Your personal space is not what’s important right now. Dr. Sanderson’s weekend is not what’s important right now. You see this man over here?” He points to me, and I nod a sheepish greeting, self-conscious about my role in what is certain to escalate into another Norm-produced freak show. “This man hasn’t slept in a week because he’s waiting for test results, results that he was promised today. If he has to spend one more night than necessary under this severe emotional distress because Dr. Sanderson dropped the ball, we will consider it to be gross negligence on the part of this office. Do you understand where I’m going with this?”
    “This is not for me!” Irina hisses back to him. “I cannot help you.”
    “Then pick up the phone and call someone who can,” Norm says sternly.
    “You must stop making this disturbance!”
    “Sweetheart, this is nothing,” Norm says in grave, confidential tones. “I’m just getting warmed up.”
    “I cannot to reach him,” Irina insists agitatedly.
    In the hallway behind the reception desk, a door opens and Camille, the PA who handled me on my last visit, emerges from one of the examination rooms. She peers out to see the cause of the ruckus and then, seeing Norm and Irina locked in battle, frowns slightly before heading back down the hall. “Hello,” says Jed quietly. “Who’s that?”
    “It’s the PA,” I tell him.
    “She’s a cutie.”
    “Go for it,” I say sarcastically.
    “Do you remember her name?”
    I flash him an incredulous look. “What?” he says defensively.
    “Nothing,” I say. “Camille.”
    “Camille,” he repeats. “Thanks. Now, can you create a diversion?”
    I look pointedly at Norm, who has managed to yank the telephone receiver off Irina’s desk and is holding it out of her reach so that she can’t answer the incoming calls that are ringing on two or three different lines. She’s leaning over the desk, cursing in her native tongue as she grabs desperately for the receiver, but he spins in a lazy circle, holding the phone over his head while entangling himself in the cord as the waiting patients look on in horror at the unfolding drama. “Done,” I say.
    In a flash, Jed disappears down the hall, leaving me to stand alone in the center of the waiting room. “Norm,” I say, stepping in like a referee. “Give her back the phone.”
    “I’ll give it back,” he says, unwilling to break eye contact with the receptionist. “As soon as she tells me she’s going to call the doctor.”
    They stare at each other for a long moment while the phone lines continue to ring, and then Irina collapses back into her chair, breathing heavily. “You are crazy, fat man,” she says, shaking her head in disbelief.
    “I’m just a concerned father,” Norm says proudly.
    A door opens behind her and a tall, bearish man in a white doctor’s coat emerges, looking annoyed. “Irina, why are all the phones ringing?”
    “This crazy man won’t let me answer,” Irina says.
    The doctor fixes us with an angry stare. “What the hell is going on here?” he demands in a booming voice.
    Norm holds his ground. “It’s imperative that we get in touch with Dr. Sanderson immediately.”
    “He’s off today. Irina can leave a message with his service.”
    “I’m afraid that won’t be good enough.”
    “Well, it’s going to have to be,” the doctor says threateningly. He’s an imposing man in a Paul Bunyan sort of way, thick necked and broad shouldered, with ruddy, freckled skin that glows red beneath his beard as his ire is raised.
    “Can we speak privately?” Norm says, switching tacks.
    “Do you have an appointment?”
    “It’s okay, Norm,” I say, embarrassed. “Let’s just leave a message and get out of here.”
    Norm turns around and faces the waiting patients. “My son Zack is supposed to receive the results of his biopsy today,” he announces to