Private Practices (3 page)

Naomi went rigid with fury. “Why didn't you warn me? Prepare me?”

Sidney said, “Would it have made any difference? You came in asking for something. You got it.”

“But still,” she said.

“Lie still,” he said.

And then Sidney passed Ben, striding, and was out the door. He was often brusque with patients, but he had been particularly short with Naomi. It was
his
fault, Ben blamed himself. He should have known better than to ask Sidney for a favor. But for a moment he considered catching up with his brother and making him turn to see the alarm still lodged in Naomi's dark eyes.

Then he let Sidney go. After all, Sidney's attitude was probably correct. He'd done all that had been asked of him. Besides, he often said that it was Ben's elaborate coddling of his women that had kept him delivering babies. Instead of delivering research.

Moving toward Naomi, who had straightened out her legs and adjusted the sheet, he decided, as he always did, that most likely Sidney knew best. Yet as he offered Naomi his hand in getting down off the table, he felt melancholy once again, and it was all he could do to stop brooding and speak to her. “How are you feeling now?” he asked in a voice so low he almost couldn't hear it himself.

“Better,” she said ruefully. “No thanks to your brother.”

He felt sorry for her. Forcing himself to raise his voice, he said, “My brother doesn't bother with the bedside manner, but he's right, in a way. After all, it's an inessential ingredient.”

Naomi stared at him. “To you,” she said. “Not to me.” She waited for him to make some reply and when he didn't, went on, “Sidney's just as arrogant as I remember him.”

It was hopeless to expect a stranger to grasp that Sidney couldn't be judged by ordinary rules. That he was a brilliant man, perhaps even a genius. Leading Naomi to the pink-striped cubicle where she had left her clothes, he merely held out his hand and said abruptly, “Well, come see me sometime if you ever change your mind and want a baby.”

She was hurt and turned away from him, ignoring his hand. When he went back to his own office he knew that once again, as so often, he had said something foolish, inappropriate. Although the two hours he had sworn to wait before taking one of his pills had not yet elapsed, he drew the container from his pocket and, hurrying, poured himself water. Then he pried open the lid of the vial, extracted a pill, and put it on his tongue. He drank it down with a gulp that was more a bite than a swallow.

Claudia Zauber was dressing. She had rushed home from the photography museum where she worked in the afternoons, made the hors d'oeuvres for the dinner, and started the stock for the fish casserole. Mulenberg was coming. And Ben. She had to hurry. She'd asked Sidney to be sure to tell Ben to come early so that she could tell him their news privately.

He was entitled to getting it that way, she thought, toweling herself dry after her quick shower. Of course, Sidney should have been the one to tell him. But it was typical of him to leave such personal concerns to her. He was always too busy. Too bored, really, by the demands of tact. When she had first mentioned to him that they ought to break the news to Ben privately, and gently, Sidney had asked, “Why?” and only this morning he had told her that he had forgotten
why
they were having Ben to dinner tonight.

“To tell him about the baby,” she had reminded him. “Otherwise he might guess it. My breasts are getting bigger already.”

Sidney had groaned, “I'm too tired for company tonight. Can't we call it off?”

Concerned, she had said, “He's bound to feel jealous, depressed. We've got to tell him about it in a way that won't make him feel left out. You're all he's got, Sid.” More than the brothers themselves, Claudia understood Ben's dependency on Sidney.

She felt it too. There was about Sidney, for all his gruffness, his temper tantrums and self-absorption, an excitement that made life lived near him vivid and life lived away from him bland. Even after five years of marriage, Claudia felt an excited anticipation about his coming home and wondered whether they would make love tonight, after their guests had gone.

Eager, she dabbed Givenchy on her throat and between her breasts, and then held the blow-dryer to her blond, glistening hair. She would have to pay special attention to her appearance now that she was pregnant, she thought. It was terrible the way some expectant mothers just let themselves go.

Her own mother had done it, growing overweight while carrying her. Keeping the extra weight afterward. Thickening. Turning matronly. Not edging into motherhood but retreating into it and ceasing to show interest in her husband. Studying her pale-skinned body in the mirror, Claudia promised herself that no matter how child care preoccupied her, she would never let Sidney slip away from her sexually. She had seen the results of her mother's avoidance of her father, his alcoholism, his mistresses, his need, in the end, to degrade both mother and daughter. A shiver ran through her body despite the heated air the dryer was expelling, and she reached for her Japanese kimono, wrapping it tightly around her still-slender waist before beginning to apply her makeup.

She tinted her cheeks and lips a pale pink but eschewed any eye makeup, preferring a natural look. Then she got dressed. But Sidney was late and so was Ben. Restless, she began applying a clear polish to her already shiny nails. When the doorman rang her to announce Dr. Mulenberg, she realized that Sidney must have forgotten to tell Ben to come early.

Ben, his head on his arms and his arms on his desk, awakened slowly, dreamily, and felt content, but a moment later he saw his watch and anxiety flooded his mind. Why hadn't Sidney awakened him? It was seven-thirty. What time were they supposed to go to dinner? He couldn't recall, but surely they were late by now. Pushing into his examining room, he splashed his face with water at the sink. His limbs felt bloodless and numb. He moved heavily down the corridor to Sidney's office. But it was already locked. Sidney must have gone to the hospital. He'd best get himself uptown on his own. Quickly. But his legs still felt weak. He went back to his own office and wrestled his way into his overcoat.

Outside, on the street, he waved listlessly at several cabs. They sped past him despite the fact that their lights indicated they were available, and he grew increasingly nervous. Sidney would be annoyed at his lateness. He'd made a point of saying he wanted an early night. He moved off the sidewalk, out into the gutter, and waved his arm more strenuously. At last a cab stopped for him. Lethargically, through the window, he gave Sidney's address, his words slurred, and sank motionless into the back seat.

“Fifth and where?” the driver asked irritably.

“Ninety-fifth,” he managed a little more clearly, realizing he was not yet in full control of his speech. He sat forward and tried to concentrate on gaining the control, flexing his fingers and murmuring to himself. Then he practiced smiling and frowning. By the time he was in the elevator that opened directly into Sidney and Claudia's foyer, he had mastered his lethargy. He stepped briskly out onto their Bokhara carpet, as alert and agile as he ever was.

“Hi, love.” Claudia, wearing a sleeveless silvery dress was coming down the hallway to help him off with his coat. Behind her, in the living room, he could see Harry Mulenberg—ensconced in his wheelchair in front of the fireplace. There was no sign of Sidney. “Sid's on the phone,” Claudia announced. “And Harry's growing restless. It'll be better now that you're here.” Giving him a cool familial kiss on the cheek, she added, “I was hoping you'd get here early. I have some news for you.”

“Sidney said you did. What is it?” he asked, his mind abruptly turning to unhappy possibilities. Were she and Sidney going off to Europe as they had done last winter? Were they moving? Were they buying the sprawling suburban house that Sidney had long dreamed of owning? He tried not to chide himself for always anticipating, whenever people told him they had news for him, reports of distance and separation.

“I can't tell you now,” Claudia sighed. “It's for your ears alone.” She glanced toward the living room. “Can you stay late?”

Could she be pregnant, he wondered as he indicated his availability with a nod. But no, as far as he knew, Sidney didn't want children, not at this busy stage of his career.

“Harry and Marilyn have separated,” Claudia said, interrupting his thoughts. She took his coat and hung it in the spacious closet.

“I heard. Poor Marilyn.”

Claudia shrugged. “She'll get over it. They should have done it years ago.” Then, “Be nice to Harry,” she whispered conspiratorially and brushed her fingers against his hand, her touch so light that for a moment he thought he had imagined it.

In the living room Mulenberg greeted him and Ben sat down near him, trying to do Claudia's bidding—though it wasn't
his
behavior Claudia was worried about, he knew. It was Sidney's. The old man was the only person in their circle who persisted in treating Sidney as if he were still just a fledgling doctor. Not the eminent researcher he had become. And it made Sidney furious. But Claudia was a meticulously hospitable person. And because Harry Mulenberg had been her gynecologist before she had met Sidney, and had been Sidney's mentor back in the days when the brothers had first come to the hospital, she always insisted that for old times' sake, they ought to entertain him. “Didn't you tell me they told you to go easy on alcohol?” she asked Mulenberg as he held up his empty wine glass. “Haven't you drunk enough for one lifetime?” She looked at his drawn face with concern.

“Claudia, dear,” the old man said. “You remind me of the gynecologist whose patient, an aged lady, told him she couldn't urinate. ‘Ich kennit pischen,' she says. So he asks her her age and when she tells him, ‘Ochten-seis'—eighty-six—he says, ‘You've pissed enough.'”

Ben glanced at Claudia's face and saw her lips curved into a smile. He doubted she would have laughed at Mulenberg's vulgarity if Sidney had been in the room. Sidney, something of a puritan, despised Mulenberg's coarse humor. Was Claudia genuinely fond of the old man, he wondered. Or was she just being political, manipulating him for Sidney's sake because despite his age and recent stroke he still had important friends at the hospital? He could never quite figure out his elusive, well-bred sister-in-law.

“Harry, you're incorrigible,” she said liltingly now. “You may be seventy-two, but inside you're still a nasty-minded nine-year-old. At ninety-two, you'll still be trying to make women blush.”

Mulenberg said, “I only hope,” and waited while Claudia rose and opened a new bottle of wine. She filled his glass only halfway and then her eyes clouded over. “Excuse me, I've got to put the fish in now or we'll never eat,” she said abruptly and left the room.

Mulenberg muttered, “It looks like Sidney plans to spend the whole night on the phone.”

Ben tried to distract him. “He'll be along soon, I'm sure. Tell me, Harry. What do you think of all this snow we've been having. Do you think spring'll ever come?”

Mulenberg made a fretful sound. “First of February tomorrow. Spring'll come. It always does.”

Ben realized that the old man was bored with him. He considered him a good doctor. He often recommended patients to him. But he was always restless and somehow disapproving in his presence. He decided to talk about work instead of the weather. “Thanks for sending me Mrs. Harper,” he began, but Mulenberg interrupted him. “I'm starving. Why don't you go see if you can get Sidney off the phone. Maybe he doesn't realize we're all waiting.”

Ben doubted that but he stood up. “Sure. I'll see what I can do.”

Sidney was standing next to the bed talking into a salmon-colored princess phone. Across the center of it he had long ago, on the eve of a party, placed a strip of adhesive tape, obliterating his number. Ben had questioned him about it and Sidney had explained, “Just because I invite someone to a party at my house doesn't mean I want them to know my home phone number.” Now he was cupping his hand around the mouthpiece as if Ben too had invaded his privacy. Ben backed away, hearing Sidney in an angry tone saying, “No, I don't believe it! No, it's not possible!” but Sidney gestured to him to wait and, resuming his conversation in a lower voice, finally said, “Okay, okay, I'll look into it. I'll send someone down.”

“Anything wrong?” Ben asked when Sidney hung up. “You were in here so long.”

“It's nothing,” Sidney said, but he sounded singularly on edge. “Just one of my researchers kicking up his heels. A real jerk.”

“Speaking of kicking, Mulenberg's out there claiming you're starving him to death.”

Sidney made a face. “Remember when he used to keep us waiting?”

“Yes, but he's different these days. I feel sorry for him.”

“Are you saying I don't?” Sidney asked in a sharp staccato voice.

“Of course not,” Ben said, startled. He felt like leaving the room and slamming the door with a thud.

Over dinner, Mulenberg wanted to know about Sidney's new birth control pill. “I understand it eliminates menstruation altogether,” he said, chewing.

“That's true,” Sidney nodded, but Ben could see that he was still unusually tense.

“Do you actually think women would tolerate that?”

“I wouldn't mind,” Claudia said. “Think of the mess. The bother.”

“You don't count,” Mulenberg said. “You'd go for whatever Sidney tried.”

“That's not so.”

“Yes, it is, my dear. You and Ben both. But tell me, Sid, what kinds of side effects are you getting?”

Sidney answered slowly, sipping wine. “Mild nausea. Edema in some women.”

“I understood,” Mulenberg said between bites, “that the animal tests weren't altogether successful.”