She could even say to herself that with this organic compound she might be able to stop using. (She would say this quietly to herself, and not even hear herself, but the relief of physical pain is as real and necessary to her as the drugs are for her other kinds of pain. They are smokescreens for each other.) If she could get clear of the neural symptoms she might clear a space to look at the addiction head on. But that's not the point, the point is keeping everything separate: If this guy's claims are accurate, capsaicin would be like cheating on Eddie, with Kevin. Which has always been part of it, too.

He shovels pills into her hands, and she accepts them with the practiced nonchalance of a true user. In the bathroom, she pops a bunch. I hope she doesn't snort them! That seems like it would hurt. A lady comes in as she's getting rid of the packaging for this first dry-run, and she's caught uncharacteristically flat-footed, fussing with the paper towels and stuff like a kid caught with porn. "You believe this? Who knew women could be such pigs?" The lady darkly grunts, "Me," and Jackie leaves. I don't recognize that lady but it seems like such a weird, off moment that maybe there's a level I'm not getting here.

Zoey approaches the station and drops off the cyclist's chart, leaning on the counter and being super-duper weird. "Poor spleen. Minding its own business, then: Bam! Call it a day. Life as you know it is over. Ovah. C'est la vie. Wa-waaah." I can't really relate what's amazing about this moment, but it's a mix of strange accents, repeated rhythms, brain-dead staring, Catskills-esque mugging, and general weirdness. She wanders away with an additional weird noise, and finally Jackie calls her back, advising her that the Zoey Weirdness has reached its all-time. First of all, has had a pregnancy test? No, because she knows, because she knows her body -- "pretty well," she says, in a sort of naively suggestive way -- and particularly her breasts, which are acting weird. Jackie wanders away from the tender breasts, but Gloria sweeps through and grabs her for a meeting, and they leave Zoey cupping herself with strange posture.

Carrying a cardboard standup of the Face of All Saints, Gloria explains the good and bad news. "The good news is our endowment's intact, even though our revenues are down." The bad news is under her arm. "Listen," she barks. "If anyone knows what a crock of shit this is, it's me. But the hospital needs this to work, so get behind it." Jackie points out that advertising inside the hospital makes no sense, but Gloria doesn't care about that, because Gloria is used to assuming other people know what they're doing when they tell her to do stuff, because she is old and broken and has no hope.