"Lockhart." He said astonished what would Abby Lockhart want at 6:00 in the morning? Why was she here? She lives all the way across town what would be
so important that would cause her to come all the way down here?
"Mallucci, um, did I wake you?" She asked which she immediately kicked herself in the head for mentally right afterwards because she remembered Randi told her that
gets up at 5 each morning to run. "That was stupid Abby." She said under her breath.
"What?" He said.
"Oh, nothing."
"Abby, no offense but, um, what are you doing here?"
"Oh, Dave. I'm sorry!" Nice stupid you forgot to explain yourself. "Well, I just really wanted to explain myself and um," he stopped her in mid sentence.
"Jesus, it's freezing out here. Come on in."
"Thanks." Abby replied as she stepped in to Malucci's apartment.
"Wow!" She thought mentally as she took another step in to the apartment. She'd seen homeless shelters that were cleaner that this. She thought as she looked out over the vast, what seemed to be never ending piles of pizza and other sort of take-out boxes, newspapers, medical books, paper work, computer disks and UNDERWEAR! All of a sudden she didn't know where to look.
She'd heard that single guys apartments were bad but either they must have cleaned the places up before their dates or Malucci was a pig.
"Well, welcome to Casa de Malucci. I know it's not the cleanest place in the world but it's a bachelor pad what can you expect?" He said with a smile. She returned it with a halfhearted laugh."Uh huh huh." He wondered what could be making her uncomfortable. It couldn't be him he hadn't made a pass at her since her first day of work at County. He looked around and then he spotted them. His plain white Hanes briefs. He ran over quickly and snatched them up and threw them on to his bed as fast as he could. "Sorry about that." Dave said bashfully. Now this intrigued her. She didn't think guys like Dave got bashful of even near blushes like the one Dave had on his face right now.
"It's Okay." Abby said.
"Anyway, I, uh, interrupted what you were going to say in the hallway. Want something to drink. "Malucci said desperate to get off the subject. "Sit down please."
"Yeah coffee, two sugars please."
"Same way I take mine."
"So, um, what I wanted was to tell you how terribly sorry I was for not calling you in for that consult. Corday was right. I am years away from being able to have that kind of experience and years away from being able to make that kind of judgment call." Abby said somewhat defeated slumping down on the couch as Mallucci went over to join her on the couch with the drinks.
"No Abby. It wasn't only you it was me too. I should have insisted on seeing that woman. You can't place all the blame on yourself." He said putting a supportive arm around her. "But you know what?" he said standing up. "Maybe Corday's speech did some good though. It got me thinking after I got home last night. Maybe I needed that swift kick in the ass to get myself to realize how I was." Dave said.
Abby looked up astonished at him. "Wow, Dave she must've really put you in a choke hold after I left the room."
Dave chuckled. "Yeah, in a manner of speaking. But it really made me realize that I can't always come off so head strong and self centered all the time."
"Just out of curiosity what did she say?"
He took a deep breath in. "She said that after a while people form opinions and that there opinion of me was that I was a 'lazy, sloppy doctor' of which nobody really liked'." He said sitting down next to Abby with a smile on his face.
"Wow, tough love, huh."
"Yeah. Well when it came right to it and I realized even Romano thought I was a jerk I thought 'Well, he must be like king jerk and if he thinks I'm that bad I'd better change." He said smiling again. Abby may not have cared for Malucci that much in the past but she sure loved that smile. "But hey." He said leaning back putting his hands behind his head. "That's what I was raised on in New York."
"Wow. You grew up in New York." Abby's shows an immediate interest in the conversation. Or atleast more so than in the past couple minutes.
"Yeah, you ever been?"
"No. I've always dreamed of going thought. What's it like?" She said shifting her body more towards Dave as he starts to
tell about New York. He's got this glimmer in his eye that she either hadn't noticed or seen before. The kind of glimmer people get when they talk about some place or person or thing they love.
"Well, I don't know that much about New York City, but I grew up in Yonkers and Brooklyn. Man, me and my friends used to drive my parents nuts with some of the stuff we did." He started. As he told of some of the pranks he pulled on his neighbors and friends. Like the time these to kids came to school with the same identical cars so he and some of his friends picked up one car and placed it on top of the other. Or why he claims he's the reason why the school now has speed bumps in it's parking lot.
"Man, there were so many times my dad just about belted me for some off the stuff we used to do. I'm surprised I lived to go through college."
"Where was your Mom?" Abby asked.
Then the mode got more serious. "My Mom." He repeated wanting to pretend that she hadn't asked the question. "Um, my Mom passed away when I was about six. Yeah. She was a doctor to. Maybe that's part of the reason I became a doctor. She had a practice in the lower east side of the Bronx, but we lived in Brooklyn. Not rich but we did okay with her practice and with my dad's butcher shop we did all right. No prep schools though. Only public." He said looking down at his empty cup. "Man. I remember the day she died. She had just taken me out to some medical supply place or something and then we were gonna go out for ice cream
and she went in back in to one of the back rooms to get her coat and she started arguing with some guy who came in the fire escape wanting drugs. She said no and threatened to call the cops if he didn't leave and then just shot her." He said with sorrow in his eyes.
"They caught the guy he was sentenced to five years in prison and a rehabilitation treatment center. He got off in two and a had with no parole."
"Dave that's so sad. I...I had no idea." She was almost speechless and was on the losing end of trying to fight back tears.
"Oh, God Abby I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you cry." He said holding out kleenex.
"Oh, don't feel bad." She said. "I cry at the theme to Ice Castles." She said with a chuckle. "Oh, god it's 8:42. I've been blabbering
on about myself for the past two hours and fourty-two minutes."
"Hey, don't think I'm gonna let you take all the credit. I spent at least a half an hour on the joys of being a divorced med student." She said as they both stood up. "Well, listen. I'm kinda hungry. You wanna go grab a bite to eat, as friends." He said holding his hands up.
"Yeah, that sounds really nice." She said with a smile as they both grabbed there coats and walked out in to the hall together.
" Hey. How'd you get my address anyway."
"I have my resources." She said with a smirk.
"Oh, in other wards, Randi."
"Yeah," she said with a smile on her face.