First Sight (11 page)

She was reading an English magazine a nurse had found for her, and although she didn’t mention it to Jean-Charles, she had just spoken to Zack. He had been predictably unsympathetic about her surgery, and teased her about it instead, as though it were a prank she had played. Nurturing was not his strong suit, and he treated even problems like a joke. He said, in a laughing tone, that that it served her right for not taking him on the trip, which seemed like pushing it to her. It never even occurred to him that she was upset or had been scared. It was inconceivable to him that someone as strong as Timmie would be afraid of anything, even what he considered minor surgery. She sounded fine to him, and she didn’t say otherwise. She played it down for him. And she felt better now anyway.

She had heard from Jade and David several times that day too. Their meetings in New York had gone well, and they were managing fine without her. Jade had offered to fly back to Paris, and both of them were worried about her, but she insisted she was fine. There was nothing they could do for her anyway. All she had to do was rest, stay on the antibiotics, and regain her strength. She had walked up and down the halls, although slowly and cautiously and slightly bent over, several times that day. Only Jean-Charles knew how shaken she had been. To the others, she presented her usual show of composure and strength. She didn’t like appearing vulnerable to anyone. It made her feel too exposed.

When Jean-Charles poked his head through the door, Timmie looked up and smiled. He looked dashing, slightly mischievous, and almost boyish as he strode into the room. He noticed that her color was better than it had been that afternoon, and she told him about her walks in the hall.

“What are you doing here at this hour?” she asked, as she would have of a friend, rather than her doctor. But doctors didn’t usually visit patients at eleven o’clock at night. They had developed a special bond and enjoyed each other’s company. They exchanged a warm smile as he sat down near her bed.

“I was on my way home, and decided to check on you,” he said comfortably. “You’re a very important person, after all.” He was teasing her, and she laughed. She didn’t mind it from him now.

“I’m a very bored person,” Timmie said, putting the magazine down, pleased to see him. “I must be getting better,” she continued, smiling at him. “I’m beginning to feel like I’m in jail. When are you going to let me out?”

“Let’s see how you feel tomorrow. I suppose I could send you back to the hotel with a nurse,” he said, looking pensive. He was going to miss his afternoon conversations with her once she left. While she was in the hospital he could drop in on her anytime.

He had rarely enjoyed as much interaction with a patient, and he liked hearing her thoughts on a variety of subjects about which she was knowledgeable and well informed. They had discovered that they both had a passion for art, and shared a great fondness for Chagall. She had one at the house in Bel Air. And he had begun to confide some of the details of his own history with her. He had told her the day before that he had gone into medicine due to the death of his sister from a brain hemorrhage when he was sixteen and she was twenty-one. Her sudden death had been a turning point in his life.

“I don’t need a nurse,” Timmie complained as he sat down in the chair next to her bed and she silently admired his suit, and wondered whose it was. It was beautifully tailored, and had clean, masculine, elegant lines. It suddenly made her wonder if he’d be offended if she sent him one of hers. He was always impeccably dressed. She liked the way he looked when he was casually dressed too. He had shown up that morning wearing khaki pants, a striped pale blue shirt and blazer, and brown suede loafers. He looked well in his clothes, and his style of dress was more British than French. Everything looked great on him since he was tall and lean.

“You do need a nurse,” he assured her. “I have a strong suspicion that if you don’t have one, you’ll start running around, or going out.” He had already told her that he wanted her on bed rest for a full week, which was beginning to seem like cruel and unusual punishment to her. She was feeling well enough to get up and move around.

“I wasn’t exactly running down the hall this evening after dinner,” she assured him, and he returned her smile. She had washed her hair that morning, and her curly copper mane was cascading past the shoulders of her hospital gown. He noticed that the Plaza Athénée had sent her a huge bouquet of flowers. David and Jade had sent her another enormous bouquet that they had ordered by phone from New York. The room smelled like a garden. “What was the dinner party like?” she asked him, looking like a child who had been left home with a baby-sitter, and wanted to hear all about it.

“Intensely boring,” he said with a grin. “It was very stuffy, the food was bad, and someone said the wine was awful. I couldn’t wait to leave.” She didn’t want to ask him, but wondered why he hadn’t gone home with his wife. She had gotten the impression once or twice that he wasn’t happily married, but he had never commented openly about it. He preferred to talk about his children. He had two daughters, Julianne and Sophie, who were respectively seventeen and fifteen, and a son, Xavier, who was in his first year of medical school and wanted to become a surgeon, which obviously made his father very proud. He had mentioned them to her several times, with undeniable pride. The girls were almost the same age her son would have been, and he had wondered more than once if it upset her when he talked about them. But as she inquired about them, he allowed himself to mention them when the subject came up.

“I’m not very good about dinner parties either,” Timmie admitted to him, comfortably tucked into her bed as they chatted. It was fun having a visit at that hour, especially now that she was feeling better. She didn’t even feel the IV in her arm. “I’d rather spend time at my beach house, or in some little bistro with friends. Going to parties is usually too much work.” She worked too hard at the office to have much time to devote to her social life, although she sometimes got cornered into going to major Hollywood events. Particularly since her company frequently provided clothes for movies and dressed a number of Hollywood stars.

“Where is your beach house?” he asked with interest, enjoying the conversation. She was much more fun to talk to than any of the people he had dined with that night.

“In Malibu,” she said easily, as she told him about it, and the long walks she loved to take on the beach. She didn’t mention that she spent time with Zack there. He didn’t seem worth mentioning, and she had refrained from talking about him. He wasn’t important enough in her life to discuss with Jean-Charles. He was one of the compromises she made.

“I have always wanted to see Malibu,” Jean-Charles said, looking pensive. “The photographs of it are beautiful. Is your house in the Colony?” he inquired, showing his knowledge of the area, and she smiled as she nodded.

“Yes, it is,” she said quietly. “You’ll have to come out and see it sometime.” After she said it, they both fell silent for a minute, while both of them wondered if they’d actually ever see each other again. There was really no reason to, unless she came back to Paris and fell ill again. Or maybe after the exchanges they had had since she’d been there, perhaps they would actually become friends.

“I haven’t been to Los Angeles in many years. I went to a very interesting conference and lectured at the medical school at UCLA,” Jean-Charles said as he stood up again. It was getting late, and she was his patient after all, and needed her sleep. He said as much to her and she nodded. She was tired, but she enjoyed talking to him. “I’ll come and see you tomorrow,” he promised, “and we’ll decide together when you can go back to the hotel. Perhaps Sunday, if you promise to behave.”

“When do you think I can go back to L.A.?” She had been gone for weeks.

“We will see. Maybe at the end of next week, or before, if you’re doing well.” Jade had offered to come back to fly home with her, and Timmie had insisted it wasn’t necessary, although even carrying her oversize travel bag right now would seem like heavy work. But she was determined to go back to L.A. alone, and let Jade fly back with David from New York. It made more sense. “Sleep well, Timmie,” he said, as he stopped for a last moment at the door, and she smiled at him from the bed.

“Thank you for the visit, doctor,” she teased him, as he smiled at her, and then left.

She fell asleep, thinking about him, and wondering what his wife was like, if she was as sophisticated and elegant as he was, and at the same time as candid and open. He was an interesting mix of alternately formal and warm. He had shown her photographs of his very handsome children, and it seemed a foregone conclusion to Timmie that his wife must have been beautiful as well, since he and his children were. Timmie couldn’t imagine him with anyone who wasn’t, although she had noticed that he said very little about her, other than that she had studied law when she was younger, but never practiced, and that they had been married for nearly thirty years. It seemed a long time to Timmie, and sounded impressive, but it was hard to determine from the little he shared about his marriage if he was happily married to her or not.

Given the length of their marriage, Timmie assumed he was, but he was noticeably reticent about it, and made neither positive nor negative comments about his wife. He seemed very neutral about it, whenever the subject came up. That in itself made Timmie wonder about the status of his marriage, if he was happy or not. There was a noticeable absence of anecdotes about his wife. He either spoke of his children, or himself, but almost never his spouse.

One of the many things Timmie admired about him was that despite their many and often philosophical conversations, with many points of view in common, she never had the feeling that he was flirting with her. He was always careful, interested, and respectful, and never crossed any lines. His lack of overt flirtatiousness with her made her suspect that he was still in love with his wife, even if he said little about her, which seemed admirable to her. He was an easy man to admire, for his skill, his dedication, his knowledge, his fine mind, his culture, his sense of humor, and his concern about his patients. She had never been as well cared for by any doctor, and she had already decided to buy him a gift before she left. But she couldn’t do anything about it until he let her out of the hospital and she got back to the hotel.

And when he came back to see her in the morning, in casual weekend clothes, corduroy slacks, and a gray cashmere sweater, she broached the subject of her leaving the hospital again.

“All right, all right,” he teased her. “I can see you’re going to harass me until I send you back to the Plaza.” She had been on the IV antibiotics for long enough, and he said he was going to give her the rest of what she had to take in the form of pills. He was very cautious medically, she had discovered, and extremely responsible. “I’ll send you back to the hotel tomorrow,” he conceded, “as long as you promise you won’t do anything and you’ll continue to rest. I suppose it’s more comfortable for you there.” It was, but she had no complaints about the service or her accommodations during her four-day stay at the hospital, and he had continued to stop in to see her several times a day. He was attentive, and he practiced medicine with care, and attention to every meticulous detail.

He told her before he left that he was leaving for the night with his children. His associate would be covering for him, and he reminded her that she had his cell phone number, and if any problem arose, she wasn’t to hesitate to call him. It reminded her of when she had called him on Tuesday night in excruciating pain. It seemed aeons ago now, after days of talking and getting to know each other. He was no longer a stranger, he was a friend.

“I’ll come by to see you at the Plaza Athénée tomorrow when I get back,” he assured her, and she knew he would. He always did exactly as he said. He was a man you could rely on. Everything about him exuded reliability and strength. “I’ll be in Périgord tonight, at my brother’s house. My children and I love it there.”

After he left, Timmie realized that he hadn’t mentioned his wife, which seemed strange to her. Maybe she didn’t like Périgord as much as they did, or didn’t get along with his brother. Anything was possible after long years of marriage. People developed habits and concessions, or drew lines in the sand about friends or in-laws they disliked. Jean-Charles had offered no explanation as to why he hadn’t mentioned her. And Timmie somehow didn’t feel it appropriate to ask, although they had shared deeply personal views about many things, from politics to art to abortion and the raising of children, a subject about which she knew little, since her experience at mothering had been all too brief. When she thought about it, she realized she envied him the weekend with his kids. She thought they were lucky to have a father like him.

It was quiet that night without him, and Timmie watched CNN on the television in her room. There were no shocking news events. And the reports from Jade and David in New York were good. They had two more days of meetings scheduled after the weekend, and were planning to be back in L.A. on Tuesday night. Timmie was hoping to be back with them by the end of the next week, and she was dreading the backlog of work that would have piled up on her desk in her absence, particularly while she was sick. She hoped she would feel equal to it by the time she got back. She was still tired after her ruptured appendix, and when she dressed to leave the hospital on Sunday, she found that she was exhausted by the effort, and almost sorry she hadn’t agreed with Jean-Charles’s suggestion to take a nurse with her. She had insisted that she would get all the care she needed from the hotel staff. Gilles had come to pick her up and take her back to the hotel. He said he was enormously relieved to see her looking so well, and he had brought her a huge bouquet of red roses wrapped in cellophane. She felt like a movie star or an opera diva as she left the hospital, on still slightly shaky legs with the flowers in her arms. And once there, she was surprised how nice it was to get back to the Plaza Athénée. It felt like a homecoming to her, as she walked into the luxury of her familiar room, and one of the maids helped her settle in.