Fire & Water (6 page)

Jake’s face was an invitation. “Tell me about today.”

The restaurant had nearly cleared, but for a few lingering students sharing a pitcher of beer at the bar.

“An ambulance brought in an unconscious woman, probably a prostitute, found tossed out of a car alongside the 101 freeway. SF General was overloaded, so they brought her to us. She’d been stabbed, her face and throat slashed. We’re not a trauma unit, but the EMTs didn’t think she’d make it to General. Everyone worked hard on her, but she arrested and we couldn’t save her.”

Jake’s hand rose to his throat and his forehead creased. He seemed to feel the slashes in his own flesh as I spoke.

“Look,” I said. “Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this. ER is pretty grisly stuff. I’m around doctors all day. They’re thick-skinned and—”

He shook his head. “No, no. Tell me about her. Give me the whole picture. I’m trying to see her.”

I hesitated, but his expression compelled me to say more. “She came in with a blood pressure of—”

“No,” he whispered. “Not her
medical
picture. Tell me about
her
. Tell me about what you felt trying to help her. I’m trying to imagine doing what you do.”

Looking into his open face, telling Jake about this patient felt natural. I’d seen many deaths since starting med school. I kept thinking I’d get used to it. Everyone else seemed to. “She was tiny. Maybe a hundred pounds. Looked about eighteen. She came in as a Jane Doe, so I don’t even know her name. I just hope—”

“That she didn’t know what had been done to her?”

How had he done it? Finished a sentence I’d barely begun—a thought I’d barely let myself think. My throat tightened.

Jake pulled details from me: the mocha color and buttery texture of her skin; the graceful curve of her shoulder; her lavender nail polish and silver angel ankle bracelet; the Hello Kitty necklace that was covered in her blood.

My medical cohorts had offered their obligatory words of comfort for losing a patient—
best you could do, must’ve been her time, can’t save ’em all
. They’d mouthed sympathies, then quickly changed the topic.

Jake wore the loss of my Jane Doe; it was etched on his face. “Her pain is over now,” he said. “It will stay with you a while, I know. Now you’re the keeper of the last memory of her.”

This simple statement caused me to tear up. Silence lingered between us, not uncomfortably, but like a pleasant fragrance. Unlike my colleagues, Jake cracked no joke to break the tension, didn’t change the subject or offer saccharine words of comfort. He simply grieved with me.

I wiped my eyes with my greasy napkin. “Not exactly sanitary.”

He smiled kindly and I felt exposed for changing the mood so abruptly.

The waiter brought a tray with three different desserts. “Don’t tell me you made these too,” I said, grateful for the break.

“’Fraid not. Brought these from Lucca’s. This would be cheesecake, chocolate torte with hazelnuts, and tiramisu. I’m guessing the chocolate is your pleasure.” Though I said nothing, he smiled. “Chocolate it is.”

It made no difference which I’d chosen because we both sank our forks, at will, into all three of the treats.

“So, you’re finishing your internship soon. What’s next?” he asked, taking a bite of creamy tiramisu.

“Yup, two more days. I’m taking a few weeks off for the first time in my life, and then I begin residency.”

Jake froze with instant, unedited pain on his face. “You’re not moving away to the Amazon or the Mayo Clinic or something? I don’t think I could stand it if you broke my heart so soon.”

Coming from anybody else, this intensity would have scared me off. But when I looked into Jake’s eyes—or rather his eye—an electric surge coursed through my body. The surge passed between us and hummed distractingly between my legs. I gathered the remnants of my voice. “I’ll be staying put at UCSF, pediatric surgical residency for the next five years of my life.”

The creases between his brows smoothed, and he wore the face of one who’d just unraveled a mystery. “Right here up the hill from your dad’s tavern?”

“Corny, huh? I guess I always pictured myself here.”

Jake quieted my explanation with the touch of his hand on mine. “Pediatric surgery?” He fingered his eye patch. “I’ve been told by more than one person that I needed to grow up. And I needed a surgeon. I guess I lucked into the perfect doc, huh?”

“As long as there are dopes who don’t wear safety goggles, surgeons will have job security.” I wagged my finger at him.

He tucked my scolding finger gently back with its siblings, then brought my hand toward his lips. His kiss was tender. “Something you gotta know about me, Kat, before you and I go any further. I always work without a net, whatever I do.”

I had to look away, afraid my face would say more than I was ready to tell him. I was falling for this guy. Too soon. Too fast. So unlike myself. Something in me sensed that by falling for him, I was opening a part of myself—a tender, vulnerable part that was altogether new.

Impatient busboys, who’d already turned the chairs upside down onto tables, finally shooed us out. Jake slipped money into their hands as we left. We stood in the frigid night air in front of the restaurant at two in the morning. Our foggy breath hung in front of our faces.

Suddenly, Jake appeared agitated. “Damn!” he huffed, looking around in a panic. “I don’t want to go, but—it’s kind of weird, I sort of have something urgent I have to do right now.”

I was glad that darkness hid my face. “Oh, hey. It’s late,” I stammered. “I’ve got work tomorrow—or, today. Thanks for the great food. Hope your eye heals quickly—”

He looked away from me as if his next words were to be found somewhere in the freezing darkness. In the blue light of the winter moon, Jake’s profile was in contrast to the silver clouds of his breath. He searched the edges of my face and his fingers brushed my hair away. He looked at the night sky. “I
really
have to go,” he said. Then, without another word, he bounded away like a deer frightened by a gunshot, leaving me to walk up the hill to get my car.

* * *

The next day I went through my shift in the ER and then to bed that night with an ache in my belly. I woke berating myself. It was just one stupid date—a diversion. I had my residency to look forward to—a coveted surgical residency at one of the country’s leading hospitals. Everything I’d worked toward. Who needed a guy? Who needed some impetuous, flaky guy?

The following day I found myself grasping for the focus that usually came easily. Dad and Alice had both left me messages, and I’d returned their calls. But our conversations had a stiffness that had never been there before. While I knew they’d covered the truth of my mom’s death to protect me, the newfound presence of deceit rankled me. Mary K and I saw little of each other because of our schedules. I found I was grateful for the solitude. What little sleep I got was filled with dreams that toggled between fitful and erotic. Whenever there was a lull in the ER, despite my resolve, thoughts of Jake spun webs around my mind.

With patients, I could concentrate. Crisis provides focus. Adrenaline moments upstage all else in the ER: hunger, pain, exhaustion, even passion. But when I was able to tell the wife of a patient that her husband had not had a heart attack, just a simple bout of indigestion, the look on her face made me want to tell Jake all about her. I made mental note of the crinkles at the corners of her eyes and the smell of bath powder when she hugged me in gratitude. Jake would want details.

The next day, my last as an intern, was set aside just to close out charts and tie up loose ends. I got off in the early afternoon. My coat was weak protection against the biting wind. I could not remember ever feeling that cold in San Francisco. Snow fell to a thousand feet and dusted Mt. Tam and Mt. Diablo.

On the hood of my Bug in the parking garage, blowing on his fingers, sat Jake.

“You look like a woman who could use an adventure,” he said as I approached. The pleasure in his eyes was like a child’s, full of a wonderful secret.

My fatigue vanished. “What? You’re taking me to McDonald’s for filet mignon and Baked Alaska?”

Until that second, I hadn’t noticed his missing eye patch. His eye was still bruised, but his dark brow hid the black stitches I’d sewn. He wore wire-rimmed glasses that gave him a gentle, intellectual look.

Jake brought his fingers to my chin and tilted my face toward his own. He studied me, searching my brow, my hairline, the curve of my jaw, warming each part with his gaze. His forehead pleated, then smoothed. “Your face is even more fascinating in three dimensions.”

My lips pulsed, anticipating the kiss I’d hoped for two nights before but only received in my dreams. He winked again, acknowledging he’d seen my
kiss-me
signal. “How about joining me? I’ve got my own wheels and both of my peepers.”

I glanced around the lot.

“Come on. I know this is your last day. No excuses.”

I climbed into his Valiant. While it was of similar vintage to my Volkswagen, the Valiant was pristine. Its idle was the soft purr of a kitten, whereas my Bug suffered conniptions seismic enough to remove your fillings.

We drove down Irving Street, toward Ocean Beach, listening to Bach on the radio. Without explanation, Jake pulled his car into a beachfront parking lot. Thick crowds milled around the beach. “I want you to see something,” he said.

He pulled a down parka from his back seat and offered it to me. Stepping out of the car, I found myself following throngs of people who were gathering into crowds along the beach. My eyes watered from the wind and cold.

The first group formed a circle. I eased myself in among them, only to see a winding, ten-foot-round gully in the sand. Deep inside was a sculpted, circular river formed of a delicate web of icicles. Icicles—in San Francisco! Onlookers snapped photographs. They murmured and pointed, wearing wonder on their faces. Jake guided me on.

The next sculpture was a round pit dug deep into the sand. The sand started as pale, dry oatmeal on the surface and darkened to a rich mocha color toward the moist center of the hole. A bed of khaki green seaweed lay in the center, a tower built of icicles reaching ten feet high perched atop it. It appeared that it had somehow evolved naturally where it lay. Nature had complied with the artist. The mushroom-gray sky was a background, matte and unobtrusive. Temperatures and the icy beach wind allowed the frozen foreign elements to linger.

I moved down the beach, taking in each of five massive structures formed of natural elements unnaturally arranged. Thick slabs of ice rested on beds of pale beach rocks. Icicles adhered together at their bases formed giant, frozen, dandelion-like starbursts. Towers fashioned of driftwood and shards of ice were trimmed in white seabird feathers. I could barely breathe for how each piece moved me. They were at once whimsical and profound. Simple and perplexing.

At the far end of the beach, away from the observing crowds, sat a gigantic mound of snow. Kids squealed as they rode plastic saucers in crayon colors, thrilled at their unlikely day of sledding by the breaking surf. I’d been on this beach with my dad a thousand times and had never seen or even imagined ice or snow here.

Soon the sun slid down the sky and cast a ginger glow. Campfires blossomed around the beach, far enough away from the frozen sculptures that their melting wasn’t hastened, but close enough to make the ice sparkle in the firelight.

We sat next to a small fire away from the crowd. Jake poured green tea from a thermos. In the distance the crack of crumbling icicles pierced the twilight and a moan of disappointment rose from the crowd. Jake smiled. Another crack of ice sounded, followed by another murmur. Inexplicably, an ache formed in my throat and my eyes swelled with warm tears. I seldom cried, and now I’d done it twice in front of Jake. “It’s just so sad to see them fade,” I said.

Jake wiped my eyes with the soft pad of his thumb. “Oh, but that’s part of the whole thing. Their disappearance is as important as is their creation.”

Until that instant, I’d assumed Jake had simply brought me to see this incredible exhibit. He had told me he was an artist, but it hadn’t occurred to me that this was his installment. I’d pictured paints and canvases in a sloppy studio. Late rent checks and defaulted student loans. “
You
did these. All of this?”

“Well, it only seemed fair.” Jake fingered the stitches on his brow. “I’ve seen your art. Now you’ve seen mine.”

“Please tell me that you photographed them,” I pleaded. “So that they’re preserved.”

“Oh they were photographed. That’s what my buddy Burt does. He’s a great photographer, and he’ll publish them in a coffee table book or calendar or something. He’s the entrepreneur who helps me to pay the bills. But photographs are only headstones for pieces that will be dead for me long before the film is developed.”

“I’ll never forget them.”

“Ah, then the day was a success. They’ll live forever because they’ve been witnessed and experienced.” He paused. “Like your Jane Doe. That’s the only permanence there is. People die. Stones crumble. Canvases decay. Photographs fade. But
experience
reverberates indefinitely.”