Sisterhood (2 page)

It was willingness David thought had died for him eight years before in screams and glass and twisted metal.

Realizing that Lauren had said all she was going to on the subject of their physical relationship, David flipped over once again. The back rub continued. Maybe you’re finally ready, he thought. Maybe it’s time. But for God’s sake, Shelton, don’t rush it. Don’t push her away, but try not to smother her either. As he played the feelings through in his mind, the apprehension surrounding them faded.

“You know,” he said after a while, “of all the bets and guesses I’ve ever made with myself, you’ve been the most striking loss.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, I think it’s safe to tell you now. On our first date I bet myself a jumbo Luigi’s special-with-everything-except-anchovies pizza that we would run out of things to say in a week.”

“David!”

“I just couldn’t imagine what an unsophisticated,
stripes-with-plaids surgeon was going to find to talk about with a chic, jet-set newspaper reporter, that’s all.”

“And now you know, right?”

“What I know is that my body turned you on so much you couldn’t resist trying to play ’enry ’iggins with the rest of me.” He laughed, spinning around to give her a bear hug, a maneuver that usually led to an out-and-out wrestling match. When Lauren showed no inclination to join in, he released her and leaned back on his hands.

“Something the matter?” he asked.

“David, you started crying out in your sleep last night. Was it another nightmare?”

“I … I guess so.” David answered uncertainly, testing the muscles in his jaw. Only then did he realize they were aching. “My face hurts, and that usually means I spent most of the night with my teeth clenched.”

“Can you remember what it was this time?”

“One I’ve had before, I think. Fuzzier than other nights, but the same one. It doesn’t happen so often anymore.”

“Which one?”

David felt the concern in her voice, but her expression held something more. Impatience? Irritation? He looked away. “The highway,” he said softly. “It was the highway.” The tone and cadence of his words took on an eerie, detached quality as he drifted back into the nightmare. “All I see for a while is the windshield … the wipers are thrashing back and forth … faster and faster, fighting to keep pace with the rain. The center line keeps trying to snake under the car. I keep forcing it back with the wheel. Ginny’s face is there for a moment … and Becky’s, too … both asleep … both so peaceful.… ” David’s eyes had closed. His words stopped, but the memory of the dream was unrelenting. Out of the darkness and the rain, the headlights began coming. Two at a time. Heading straight
for him, then splitting apart and flashing past, one on either side. Wave after blurry wave. Then, above the lights, he saw the face. The crazy drunken face, twisted and red with fire, eyes glowing golden in the flames. His hands locked as he prayed the oncoming lights would split apart like all the others. But he knew they wouldn’t. They never did. Then he heard the brakes screeching. He saw Ginny’s eyes open and widen in terror. Finally, he heard the scream. Hers? His? He could never tell.

“David?”

Lauren’s voice cut the scream short. He shuddered, then turned to her. Droplets of sweat had appeared on his forehead. His hands were shaking. He took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled. The shaking stopped. “Guess I got lost there for a moment, huh?” He smiled sheepishly.

“David, have you seen your doctor lately? Maybe you should get in touch with him,” Lauren said.

“Ol’ Brinker the Shrinker? He tapped me dry—head
and
pocketbook—about three months ago and told me I had graduated. What are you worried about? It’s only a nightmare. Brinker told me they’re normal in situations like mine.”

“I’m worried, that’s all.”

“Lauren Nichols, you’re frightened that I might come apart in the middle of the Art Society banquet and get your life membership canceled!”

Lauren’s laugh lacked conviction. After a few seconds, she stopped trying to pay homage to his sense of humor. “David, is there anything at all that you take seriously? In just one sentence you manage to poke fun at me for being concerned about your health and for caring enough about art to be active in the Society. What is with you?”

David started to apologize, but swallowed the words. The look in her eyes told him that some very basic
issues were suddenly on the griddle. Something more than a simple “I’m sorry” was needed. For several interminably silent seconds their eyes locked.

Finally, he shrugged and said, “There I go again, huh? An ounce of flippancy is worth a pound of facing up to real feelings. I know I do it, but sometimes even knowing isn’t enough. Look, Lauren, what I said wasn’t meant maliciously. Truly it wasn’t. The nightmares still scare me. It’s hard for me to face that. Okay?”

Lauren was not yet placated. “You haven’t answered my question, David. Is anything significant enough to keep you from joking about it?”

“As a matter of fact,” he said, “most things are significant to me. Shit, you should know that by now.”

“But only you know for sure which is which, right?”

“Dammit, Lauren, I’m a doctor—a surgeon—and a damn good one. Of course things are important to me. Of course I care. I care about people and pain, about suffering, about life. My world is full of injury and disease and no-win decisions. The day I lose my ability to laugh is the day I lose my ability to cope.” He fought back the impulse to continue, sensing he was already guilty of attacking their morning spat with a sledgehammer.

“I’m going to take a shower,” Lauren said after a few moments. She was already out of bed, pulling on a blue velour dressing gown.

“Want company?”

“I think it’s the right time for a little space and some hot, soapy water. Go make some breakfast. I’ll get myself squeaky clean and we’ll give this day a fresh start over a cup of coffee.”

David sat staring out at the glittering new day until he heard the sound of water against tile. The day, possibly the most important one for him in years, was not starting out the way he had planned. By now he was to have told Lauren about the exciting turn of
events at the hospital. Events that might well mark the beginning of the end to so much of the frustration and disappointment that had colored his life. By now he was to have reaffirmed his desire to have her move in with him, and she was to have at last agreed that it was time.

“Just calm down, Shelton, and let things happen,” he said, clenching his hands, then consciously relaxing them. “Everything is finally coming together. Nothing, no one, can mess them up again except you.”

He selected a frayed, green surgical scrub suit from the half-dozen stuffed in a bureau drawer, dressed, and walked to the window. Four stories below, a few early risers were crossing the still-shaded islands of Commonwealth Avenue. He wondered how many of them were feeling the same sense of anticipation he was—the excitement of facing a new beginning. Beginnings. The thought brought a wistful smile. How many times had he, himself, felt that way? High school, college, medical school. Ginny, Becky. So many beginnings. Beginnings as promising as this one. David sighed. Was the morning the start of a page, of a chapter, or perhaps of a whole new story? Whatever it was to be, he felt ready. For of all the bright beginnings in his life since the accident and the nightmare year that had followed the deaths of his wife and daughter, this was the first one he completely trusted.

The apartment, though small, gave the illusion of roominess, born largely of tall windows and ten-foot ceilings—trademarks of many dwellings in the Back Bay section of the city. A long, narrow corridor connected the bedroom to a living room cluttered with near-antique furniture, a dining alcove, and a tiny kitchen that faced an alleyway at the rear of the building. The front and bathroom doors faced one another midway down the hall.

Humming an off-key rendition of the Haydn symphony, David shuffled to the kitchen. Usually, he would
exercise and run before eating, but this morning, he decided, could be an exception. He was a muscular man, with broad shoulders and powerful arms that made him appear heavier than his 175 pounds. There were slivers of gray throughout his black, bushy hair. His wide, youthful eyes ran the spectrum from bright blue to pale green, depending on the light. Fine creases, once transient and now indelible, traversed his forehead and the bridge of his nose.

He stood in the center of the kitchen rubbing his hands together with mock professionalism. “Zo, ve crrreate ze brrreakfast.” He swung open the refrigerator door. “Ze choices, zey are many, yes?” His voice echoed back from near-empty shelves.

Once, after hopelessly blackening two steaks, he had announced to Lauren, “I think I’ll write a culinary arts book for the single man. I’m going to call it
Cooking for None
.”

Selecting breakfast fare was not difficult. “Let us zee … ve could haf tomato juice or … tomato juice. Ze English muffin, eet looks nice, non? … And zee five ecks, zey beg to be scrrrambled, yes?”

Lauren breezed into the dining alcove as he was setting their meal on the table. “Nicely done,” she said, surveying his work. “You’ll make a wonderful wife for someone someday.” A few strands of glistening hair fell from beneath the towel she had wrapped around her head. Her smile announced that, as advertised, she was starting the morning over again.

“So,” David said deliberately, “what are your plans for this day?” He was pleased at having fought back the impulse to blurt out his good news. He would disclose it casually, in the same matter-of-fact way Lauren so often told him about the luncheon she had been to at the White House or the assignment she had won to cover thus-or-so senator’s campaign.

“David, do you have something you want to tell me? she said.

“Pardon?” He stretched for one last bit of insouciance.

Lauren smiled. “My college roommate once had a surprise party for me. Just before everyone jumped out and yelled, she had the same expression on her face as you do now.”

“Well, I guess I do have a little good news,” he said, his nonchalance now a parody. “Dr. Wallace Huttner—
the
Dr. Wallace Huttner—is leaving town tomorrow for a few days.”

“And?”

“And … he’s asked me to make rounds with him this evening and to take over his patients until he gets back.”

“Oh, David, that’s wonderful,” Lauren said. “Wallace Huttner! I’m impressed. The most widely acclaimed pair of hands to come out of Boston since Arthur Fiedler.”

“Well, now we know that he’s smart enough to recognize true surgical talent when he sees it. I’m covering his practice until he gets back from a three-day conference on the Cape.”

“And there you sit, trying to impress me with how blasé you can act about the whole thing. What a funny duck you are, David.”

The scrambled eggs, none too appetizing to begin with, remained on her plate as Lauren fired one question after another at him.

“Huttner was written up in
Time
, do you know that?”

“So he’s operated on a few sheiks and prime ministers. He still puts his scrub suit on one leg at a time, just like the rest of us.”

“Be serious for once, will you? Could this mean more money for you?”

David’s eyes narrowed. He studied her face for a few seconds, looking for more than superficial interest behind her question. Although his lack of a typical surgeon’s
salary came up infrequently, a battle of some sort was sure to follow whenever it did. Lauren seemed unable or unwilling to accept the fickle economic realities of a medical specialty that was dependent on referrals from other physicians, especially in a city like Boston with its surfeit of doctors.

Even after two years at Boston Doctors Hospital he realized that many of his colleagues still had reservations about him. Word had filtered back. “Shelton? Oh, yes, I suppose I could refer this woman to him. But she’s not the easiest person to deal with and, frankly, I’m just not sure he could handle her. I mean that trouble he got into, going to pieces after his wife and kid died. I’d like to help him out, I really would. But what would
I
look like to my patient if I send her to a surgeon and he up and comes unglued?”

It wasn’t easy. He had never expected it would be. Lauren’s concern over his financial situation was understandable, albeit somewhat discouraging. It would take time, he tried to explain. That’s all—just some time.

Her expression appeared nonjudgmental. Still, David tiptoed around the issue. “Well, Huttner is chief of the department. It should mean more acceptance from the doctors who refer patients to surgeons.” Any acceptance from most of them would be an improvement, he reflected ruefully. He still appeared in the operating room so infrequently that the nurses sometimes stood around after he entered, waiting for the surgeon to arrive.

“Is he grooming you to be his partner?”

“Lauren, the man hardly knows me! He just saw the chance to throw a few crumbs in the direction of a doc who’s struggling some, that’s all.”

“Well, Mr. Ice Water,” she said, smiling, “you can act any way you want to. I’ll stay excited enough for both of us. What time do you take over for him?”

“I’m meeting him at the hospital at six. We should be
done by eight or nine and … God, that reminds me. The Rosettis invited us for dinner, either tonight or tomorrow. I told them we’d—”

“I can’t make it,” Lauren said. “I mean I have to work. ”

“You don’t like them, do you?”

“David, please, we’ve been over this before. I think the Rosettis are very nice people.” Her words were hollow. David’s unsuccessful attempts to draw her into his long-standing friendship with the tavern owner and his wife remained a source of tension.

“Okay, I’ll phone Joey and get a raincheck,” David said, relieved that he was able to put the matter to rest without a major confrontation.

“That would be fine. Really.” It was Lauren’s way of thanking him for his restraint. “I do have to work. In fact, I’m flying to Washington this morning. The President’s going to announce details of his latest economic program and the service wants me to cover it from the personal, human side. I’ll probably be there for a couple of days.”