“Yes. You just tell me if you want to proceed and arrange for your departure accordingly, and then I need to contact your doctors. We have to start that whole transfer procedure. Yourtreating physicians must give their permission for you and your records to be moved. In which case the three-week opening could be too tight.”
Spencer frowned at that. “I don’t know if they’ll go for it,” he noted, “but I would like to try.”
“Good enough,” she said. “Leave it in my hands, and I’ll get back to you, when I find out a date that we’re good to go.” And, with that, she hung up.
When Spencer just asked Timothy about the status of his application, he moaned. “Man, you know how I feel about filling out this application. I got started, and I didn’t get any further.”
“Right, but maybe you want to now,” Spencer added, “since I already got in.”
Timothy looked at him, stunned. “What? What do you mean?” he cried out in dismay. “I only told you about it a few days ago.”
“She just called me,” he said, motioning at the phone. “She’ll get the process started. She had a cancellation, and I can get in three weeks from now. Apparently it’ll take that long to get everything together.”
In shock, his friend collapsed onto his bed beside Spencer’s.
“Get your application in,” Spencer urged. “You never know. We could go at the same time.”
And that was finally enough for Timothy to jump on board. “I’d better,” he snapped. “I can’t believe you got in before me.”
“You took too long,” Spencer stated bluntly. “You can’t talk about these places and their queues. You have to make a decision and jump.”
“Since when did you ever jump?” he muttered.
“Hey, you might be surprised.” Spencer laughed. “Sometimes I don’t need to be persuaded. I can see a good thing in front of me.”
“Says you,” he protested. “I’m still in shock.”
“Well, deal with it,” Spencer murmured, “because I’m going. Anything to get out of here will be better than where we are.”
“Exactly.” Timothy looked up and asked, “If I don’t get in right away, you’ll let me know what it’s like, right?”
“Absolutely.” Spencer smiled at his friend. “And you may want to pass it around that there’s another option too. We’ve got a lot of friends here who could use a chance to get out and to get something better.”
“I know,” he murmured. “I’ll do that. I’ll start drumming up some more interest in the Hathaway place—but not until I get my spot secured,” he declared. “No way will anybody else jump that line on me.”
At that, Spencer shook his head. “Then jump in again. You were too slow to fill out the application. I just did what you said.”
“Wow, I won’t be slow anymore,” Timothy muttered. And right then and there he finished it and submitted the form. “Done now,” he announced. “and hopefully I can get in too.”