Fine things (30 page)

Chapter 37

Bernie's mind was occupied with other things when his secretary came in the following week and told him that there was a lady there to see him.

“A lady?” He looked surprised, and couldn't imagine who it was. “What lady?”

“I don't know.” His secretary looked as surprised as he did. Women did not generally come to see him, unless they were members of the press or wanted to plan fashion shows for the Junior League, or flew out from New York sent by Paul Berman. But in all of those instances, they had appointments, and this woman didn't. She was attractive in any case. His secretary had noticed that, but she didn't seem to fit into any of those categories. She didn't have the stereotyped look of the Junior League, with blond streaks in her hair, gold shrimp earrings she'd had for ten years, and shoes with little gold chains running across them. Nor did she have the look of the dowdy matron planning the charity event, or the sharklike air of the buyers from New York, or the press. She looked wholesome and clean, and yet well put together somehow, even though her clothes were neither exciting nor overly stylish. She was wearing a navy blue suit and a beige silk blouse, pearl earrings and high-heeled navy blue shoes. And she had very good legs, although she was tall. Almost as tall as Bernie.

He sat staring at his secretary then, unable to understand why she could not provide more information. “Did you ask her who she was?” The woman was generally not stupid, but she looked flustered this time.

“She just said she came to buy bread. … I told her this was the wrong department, Mr. Fine, that these were the executive offices, but she insisted that you told her …” And then suddenly, with a crack of laughter he was out of his chair, and walked to the door himself as the secretary watched him. He pulled it open, and there she was. Megan Jones, looking very chic, and not at all like a doctor. The white coat and jeans had disappeared, and she was smiling at him mischievously as he grinned at her from the doorway.

“You scared my secretary to death,” he said in a soft voice. “What are you doing here? … I know … I know …buying bread.” His secretary disappeared quietly through the other door, and he invited Megan into his office. She followed him in and looked around. He had all the accoutrements of an important man, and she looked suitably impressed as she sat on one of the large leather chairs and smiled at him, sitting on the corner of his desk. He looked very pleased to see her. “What brings you here, Doctor? …Other than bread, of course.”

“An old friend from med school. She dropped out to get married and have babies. At the time I thought it was shocking …now I'm not so sure. She just had number five, and I promised to come and see her. I also figured I'd better buy myself some new clothes. I'm going home for the holidays, and my mother will cry if I show up in my Napa wardrobe. I have to remind myself that people don't look like that in Boston.” She smiled sheepishly at him. “I have to start out looking proper at least. By the end of the third day, I've usually degenerated to jeans. But this time I thought I'd make an effort.” She glanced down at her blue suit and then back at her friend. “I was practicing today. How do I look?” She looked momentarily unsure of herself and it touched him, coming from someone as capable as she was.

“You look lovely, very chic and very pretty.”

“I feel naked without my blue jeans.”

“And the white coat…somehow my mental image of you is either in the white coat, or your slicker.” She smiled. She thought of herself that way too. And she always remembered him in the open blue shirt and the white pants he'd worn to the Labor Day party. He had looked so handsome, but he did in his business suit too. It was almost awesome …but not quite, because she knew him. “Do you want me to show you around the store?” She could see from the mountains of papers on his desk that he was busy, and she didn't want to interrupt him, but it had been nice to see him for a few minutes anyway.

“I can manage on my own. I just wanted to say hello.”

“I'm glad you did.” But he didn't want to let her go yet. “What time are you seeing your friend with the new baby?”

“I told her I'd come by around four, if I finish shopping by then.”

“How about a drink after that?” He looked hopeful, and there were times when he felt like a small boy with her. He wanted to be her friend …and yet he wanted more …but he didn't…. He didn't know what he wanted from her, other than her friendship. But he didn't have to worry about it yet. They seemed to enjoy just being friends, and she wanted nothing more from him. She looked pleased at the invitation.

“I'd love that. I don't have to be back in Napa till eleven. Patrick is covering for me till then.”

“And then you go back on duty?” Bernie looked horrified. “When do you sleep?”

“Never.” She grinned. “I was up till five this morning, with a five-month-old baby with croup. You get used to it eventually.”

He groaned. “I wouldn't have. That's why I work for Wolffs, and I'm not a doctor, the way my mother would have wanted. You now”—he grinned at Megan—“you're every Jewish mother's dream. If only you were my sister, my mother would be happy forever.”

She laughed. “And my mother begged me not to go to med school. She kept telling me to be a nurse or a teacher, or even a secretary. Some nice job where I'd meet a man and get married.”

Bernie smiled at the description. “I'll bet she's proud as hell of you now, isn't she?”

Megan shrugged modestly. “Sometimes. And at least she has grandchildren thanks to my brother, or she really would drive me crazy.” She glanced at her watch then, and then smiled up at Bernie. “I'd better get going. Where should I meet you for drinks?”

“L'Etoile at six?” He said it without thinking, and then wondered if he should have. She was the first woman he had taken there since Liz, other than his mother, but he decided what the hell. It was a great place to have drinks, and she deserved the best. She had an element of quality about her that intrigued him. This was no ordinary girl he had met, and he knew it. She was a bright woman, a good friend, and a great doctor.

“I'll see you there.” She smiled at him from his office doorway, and his day seemed better after she had been there. He left the office at five-thirty, and took his time getting to L'Etoile. He was in a good mood and he brought her a loaf of French bread, and a bottle of her favorite perfume, and she was startled when he handed them to her across the table.

“Good heavens, what's all this?” She looked delighted, and he could see in her eyes that it hadn't been a great day for her.

“Something wrong?” he asked her eventually, as they both sipped their kir. They discovered that they both loved it, and she had spent her junior year in Provence and spoke flawless French, which impressed him.

“I don't know …” She sighed and sat back in her chair. She was always honest with him, and he listened easily to her confession. “Something happened today when I looked at that baby.” He waited to hear what she was going to tell him. “It was the first time I felt that terrible ache women talk about …that ache which makes you wonder if you've done the right thing with your life.” She took a sip of the drink and then looked at him almost sadly. “It would be terrible never to have children, wouldn't it? And I've never felt that before. Maybe I'm just tired after last night with that sick baby.”

“I don't think it's that. Having children has been the best thing that's ever happened to me. And you're smart enough to know that. You know what you're missing, most women don't.”

“So now what? I run out and kidnap a baby … or get pregnant by my butcher at the market in Napa?” She smiled, but it was obvious that she was also troubled, and he smiled back, only partially sympathetic.

“I suspect there must be better volunteers than that.” It was impossible to believe that there weren't, and she blushed faintly in the dim light of the room, as the piano played softly behind them.

“There might be, but I'm not anxious to have a child to raise without a father. I'm not even sure I'm anxious to have any child. But tonight”—her voice grew dreamy, and her eyes had a distant look—“when I held that baby …what a miracle children are.” She looked up at him then, and shrugged. “It's stupid to wax poetic about it, isn't it? I have a good life like this.”

He spoke for himself as well as her. “Maybe it could be better.”

“Maybe.” But she wasn't anxious to pursue it. Conversations like that always made her think of Mark, and that still hurt, even after all these years. There had never been anyone like him. “Anyway, think of the diapers I don't have to change. I can just run around waving my stethoscope, loving everyone else's babies.” It sounded lonely to him. He couldn't imagine his life without Jane or Alexander, and he decided to tell her that.

“I was thirty-seven when Alex was born, and he's the best thing that's ever happened to me.”

She smiled at him, touched by the confession. “And how old was your wife?”

“Almost twenty-nine. But I think she would have had him even if she'd been ten years older than that. She really wanted more children.” It was a shame they hadn't had them. A shame she hadn't lived. A shame Mark hadn't either. But they hadn't. That was the reality of it. And Bernie and Megan had survived them.

“I see older mothers in my practice all the time. I think they're very brave. The good thing is they've done what they wanted to do, had their flings and freedom and established their careers, if that's what they want. Sometimes I think it makes them better parents.”

“So?” He smiled, feeling like his own mother. “Go have a baby.”

She laughed openly at that. “I'll tell my parents you said so.”

“Tell them you have my blessing.”

“I shall.” They exchanged a warm smile, and she sat back, listening to the piano.

“What are they like?” He was always curious about her. He wanted to know more about her. He knew she was torn about having children, that she had gone to Radcliffe and Stanford, that her fiance had been killed in Vietnam, that she came from Boston and lived in Napa, but he didn't know much more than that, except that he thought she was a damn fine woman, and he liked her. A lot. Maybe even too much, except that he didn't admit it. He pretended to like her a little. To himself at any rate.

“My parents?” She seemed surprised at his question, and he nodded. “Nice, I guess. My father works too hard, my mother adores him. My brother thinks they're both crazy. He says he wants to make a fortune and not stay up all night delivering babies, that's why he went into psychiatry instead of obstetrics. But I think he's serious about what he does”— she looked pensive and then smiled—“as serious as he ever is. My brother is practically crazy. He's tiny and blond and looks exactly like our mother.” The thought of it amused Bernie.

“And you look like your father?”

“Exactly.” But she didn't seem to regret it. “My brother calls me the giant. I call him the dwarf, and thus began a thousand wars when we were children.” Bernie laughed at the images she created. “We grew up in a nice house that had been my grandfather's in Beacon Hill and some of my mother's relatives are very fancy. I don't think they ever completely approved of my father. I don't think being a doctor was aristocratic enough for them, but he loves what he does, and he's very good at it. I went to a number of deliveries with him while I was in med school, whenever I went home for the holidays, and I saw him save a number of babies who would never have lived otherwise, and one mother I know for certain wouldn't have, if it hadn't been for his skill. I almost went into O.B. because of that, but I'm really happier doing what I'm doing in pediatrics.”

“Why didn't you want to stay in Boston?”

“Honestly?” She sighed with a gentle smile. “Too much pressure from all of them. I didn't want to follow in Dad's footsteps, I didn't want to do O.B., or be a devoted wife like my mother, just taking care of her husband and children. She thought I should let Mark be the doctor, and I should stay home and make life comfortable for him. There's nothing wrong with that, but I wanted something more. And I couldn't have stood all that gentle Episcopalian, puritanical prodding. Somehow, in the end, they would have wanted me to marry someone fancy, and live in a house just like theirs, and give little social teas for friends just like theirs.” She looked frightened just thinking of it. “That wasn't me, Bernie. I needed more space and more freedom, and new people and my blue jeans. That life can be very restrictive.”

“I'm sure it can. It's really not that different from the same pressures I would have hated in Scarsdale. Jewish, Catholic, Episcopalian, it's all the same thing in the end. It's what they are and what they want you to be. And sometimes you can, and sometimes you can't. I couldn't. If I could have, I'd be a Jewish doctor now, married to a nice Jewish girl, having her nails done at this very moment.”

Megan laughed at his description. “My best friend at med school was Jewish, she's a psychiatrist in Los Angeles now, and making an absolute fortune, and I'll bet you she's never had her nails done.”

“Believe me, she's an exception.”

“Was your wife Jewish?” She was curious about her too, but he shook his head, and he didn't look upset at the mention of Liz, as he smiled at Megan.

“No. Her name was Elizabeth O'Reilly.” He laughed suddenly, remembering a scene a thousand years before. “I actually thought I had given my mother a heart attack the first time I told her.”

Megan laughed out loud and he told her the details of the story. “My parents acted that way when my brother introduced his wife to them. She's as wild as he is, and French. My mother was sure that French meant she had been posing for postcards.” They both laughed at that, and continued telling stories of their parents' foibles, until Bernie glanced at his watch and realized it was eight o'clock. And he knew she had to be back in Napa by eleven.

“Do you want to eat here?” He had assumed they would be having dinner, or hoped so anyway, and he didn't care where they ate, just so they were together. “Or do you want Chinese, or something more exotic?”