Splintered Heart (33 page)

He immediately became the Doctor — put on the glasses, sat on the edge of his desk and folded his arms across his chest. "I'm listening, honey."

"I thought you could advise me. It's my brother. My family decided against surgery." She summarized the facts, recommendations of the specialists. "Without surgery my brother's going to be..." Her voice trailed off.

"A vegetable? Is that the word you don't want to say?"

"I can't bear the idea of Ralph that way. But you see, I know that even my father would have agreed with the family."

"Honey, it's clear that the decision you want to make is different from the decision your pop would have made. Is that what you came here to talk to me about?"

...Why did I come here…
 
Marian asked herself.

"How's your Mom — she's in a nursing home? Did you tell me that or did Lane?"

"Lane?"

"Your friend in the Pavilion."

"Her name is Elena," said Marian in an icy calm tone, then, unexpectedly, she found herself making a funny noise. She thought she was laughing but there were tears coming out of her eyes and she couldn't control them.

Stephen handed Marian a box of tissues.

"Honey, sometimes when people start to tell me their troubles, between the words the other troubles crop up. Probably it would be easier for both of us if I wasn't your friend. Just try and tell me what's really troubling you honey. Don't try to be so logical, so organized."

"Damn her!" Marian wiped her eyes but the tears kept coming. "I never want to see her again!"

"That's good, let it out." Stephen put an arm around her heaving shoulders. "I thought Lane was a bosom buddy. You gave me that impression."

"She pretended to be my friend, but all the time it's been my husband she's wanted, and probably my job too! Well, she can have them both for all I care..."

"You poor girl — "

"I'm not a girl, dammit, I'm a forty-four-year-old woman!"

Stephen took Marian's hands, pried open the fingers which were clamped around the tissue, took the soggy wad from her, tossed it like a basketball into the wastebasket on the other side of the room. "Bull's eye!"

He looked so proud of his accomplishment, Marian was laughing despite the tears.

"You should see me play baseball with my kids!" Stephen gave Marian a fresh tissue. "Honey, you're a girl,
 
and
 
a woman. It's O.K. to be both. You've had all this bottled up in you for a long time, haven't you?"

Marian started to tell him the story in chronological order, the way she'd told it to Jeanna, but she couldn't keep it in order — phone calls, T.S. Eliot, the telephone "war" … Stephen's hand was gently patting hers, making it harder, not easier. "Stephen, I thought I'd adjusted to his affair with Andrea. I was going along fine, but then I found out that Elena and Ferris — " She choked on Ferris' name.

"They slept together? Hell, that shouldn't be such a surprise. She worships you. She's told me more than once that you're her ideal, so of course she wants to go to bed with your husband!"

"Elena told you about her affair with Ferris?"

"No. She's been name-dropping some Senator, talks about some guy named Alex."

Marian laughed ruefully. "He's Alexis — a lady Shrink."

"That's interesting. Lane mentioned Victor and — "

"And Dennis — her virile, passionate husband-to-be?"

"Fantasies, hmm? Had a feeling our friend had a very highly developed imagination. Maybe her thing with your husband is one of her fantasies too?"

"No. I found letters, love letters Elena wrote my husband, referring to places and times. He wouldn't have kept the letters if there hadn't been a love affair. And there were other letters too, Stephen. My husband has been unfaithful to me all these years... He loves me, but there were probably always other women, Elena's just one of the group — Kikki, Georgianna — oh God, I couldn't read them. I don't want any more names and visions." It was as if the things she was telling him were emptying out the worry-space in the front of her mind so that black thoughts in the back of her mind were pushing to the surface.

"I picked up this crazy boy..." The more she tried to explain, the more confused and lost she became. "I hate the telephone. Ernie said he was going to phone me, Andrea keeps phoning me, sometimes two or three times a day — all hours of the night. I feel so haunted. I don't care about losing my ring because I've been unfaithful too, but — "

"Wait a minute, slow down. You've been playing around too?"

"Yes, but what I did... It was nothing — "

"What do you mean, 'nothing'?"

"Stephen, really, it has very little bearing on what I was trying to explain about the telephone calls, and my ring — "

"But you also have had affairs?"

"No!" Marian was emphatic. "Not 'affairs', one affair, it just happened the other night, but it had no meaning to me, Stephen."

"It has no meaning?"

"Of course not. He was so mechanical, so... For heaven's sake, what am I supposed to do, give you a play by play description?"

"You're not supposed to do anything, not if you don't want to."

"Well I don't want to! You cannot compare what I did with — "

"Why can't you compare it?"

"Because it wasn't the same thing!" She raised her voice, she couldn't help it. "Courtney was just happenstance, a silly one-night-stand. Ferris has had
 
real
 
relationships with his women,
 
real
 
love affairs, but I haven't. I haven't been really unfaithful. I have physically, but not...dammit, you're getting me so damn mixed up." The thoughts were turmoiling, tumbling one on top of the other as if in the clothes dryer. Saying one thing, she was already seeing where it wasn't logical. Everything was getting tangled up — what was true, what was real, what was right, what was wrong, fair, unfair, and the word "faithful" kept getting mixed into the middle of all the things she was tying to make neat and sensible. She wasn't even aware that she'd stopped talking out loud.

"What's upsetting you, Marian? That he was unfaithful, so you've been a little 'unfaithful' — you want to break up your marriage because you've both been unfaithful?"

The question hung there. The word kept echoing.

The concept, the fact of being faithful or not faithful, seemed so trivial when it was on the lips of a Doctor who had the lives of people in his hands. It seemed so out of place in the room full of achievement awards, patient's thank-you letters, requisitions for much needed supplies, resumes from eager job applicants — it seemed so unimportant next to pictures of growing children, Notre Dame, and Vincent Van Gogh with his tormented face.

Stephen put his hands on Marian's shoulders, turned her to him, kissed her on the mouth. "You know why I did that?" he asked. "Because you look so bewildered and worried."

"I am bewildered and worried."

"No, you're not. You are feeling much better!" He made a Witch Doctor's gesture of voodoo hands as if he were putting a spell on her. "You just don't know it yet. Actually, the reason I kissed you is because you looked like you needed a loving kiss, and I'm
 
not
 
your Doctor. I am your friend, I wanted us both to know that."

Marian looked at him quizzically.

"Let's go see our mutual friend, we need a diversion. She's sitting up today for the first time."

"Do we have to?"

He took Marian by the hand.

Elena's head was still bandaged. The two fingers were still in the splints. The stitches had been removed from her lip leaving an angry red scar which made the smile that came across her face, as they entered, look somewhat like a pathetic grimace.

"It's so good to see you Mari." Elena took Marian's hand and kissed it. "I'm so sorry this had to happen. Did they tell you what happened — those brutes, they made it look as if
 
I
 
were on drugs," Elena frowned, and softly moaned.

"Elena, you don't have to explain."

"I found uppers in Dennis' bathroom — Quaaludes, all kinds of pills, I guess they belonged to Chang, I put them in my purse to get rid of them, then these two truck drivers..." Elena was unable to continue.

Stephen handed Elena the tissues. "Someday you're going to have to write a book about your experiences, I'll bet we don't know the half of it," he said with a straight face, but sent a sidelong flicker in Marian's direction. "Lane has been very cooperative with the staff and the police, Marian, it's quite a story — she's a real survivor!"

Elena smiled weakly, but proudly.

Marian smiled sardonically.

"Mari, don't tell the staff what happened," Elena said. "I wouldn't want the grapevine — "

"I'll just say you've been in an accident, I won't explain anything," Marian said, in a crisp, matter-of-fact tone that put an end to the discussion.

She knew they would probably never really know the true story.

At the elevator, the beeper in Stephen's pocket went off.

"I'm not done talking with you Marian, what's your phone number?"

"It's in the phone directory — "

"Why don't you get an unlisted number? Honey, telephone me at home, I'm in the book too."

"But I can't telephone you at home, Stephen."

"Of course you can, I like to get phone calls from pretty ladies." He was holding the elevator open.

Passengers inside were looking and listening.

"But what would your wife think?"

"Irene doesn't live there." To the delight of the passengers, he grabbed Marian, pulled her in and put a resounding kiss on her lips. "Phone me!" he commanded and as the door closed Stephen called out to her, "Didn't I tell you that we're divorced?"

++++++++++

Chapter 53

"Isn't Henri simply fab!" Charles said, passing Myra his gold lighter.

They were standing under the marquee of the theater with the rest of the smokers, having a cigarette at intermission.

"The choreography stinks," Myra lit her cigarette. "But I've still got goose bumps from Henri — I'm dying to know what he'll be doing when the season is over?"

"Lord knows what any of us are going to be doing when this season is finished, luv."

"What about Japan?"

"Pouf! Out the window. Sometimes it takes me weeks till I catch on, dear heart, but I suspect I'm being shafted."

"Not by Henri, I hope?"

"Oh no, Henri had a 'thing' with that no-talent choreographer, but that's over, thank heaven. No indeed, Henri's not shafting me, luv — in fact I just signed our lease — hideous rent, but we'll have two baths and a fireplace!"

"It's that slime — Ferris! What's he up to — isn't he still out of town?"

"Taking over the Kitchen client like he took over the Florida oranges people."

"Chaz, you
 
are
 
being screwed!"

"Something's up, can't put my finger on it — all these things he implies over the phone. He hasn't told me in so many words, but I suspect Ferris is going to try and buy me out!"

"Oh no, Chaz."

"Oh yes, luv."

"Chaz, I've got a terrific lawyer if you need one."

"I've got a feeling Ferris is working on a private deal with Courtney! It's that manipulative wife of his, I'm sure!"

"Chaz, I'll could tell you things about Ferris and his wife that would make your eyes pop!"

"Goody! I'm ready to pop. I hope it's juicy and rotten!"

"This is strictly confidential but... You remember my girlfriend, Andrea?"

"The suicide lady — don't tell me she's taken pills again?"

Myra snickered. "She's put on at least five pounds!"

"Oh no!"

Myra nodded. "Oh yes! But it's not Aldo's!"

"It's Ferris' bun in the oven?"

Myra nodded. "When you're preggy and Catholic, you've got to marry somebody!"

"Dear heart, you know, don't you that Aldo loves little boys!"

"Oh no!"

"Oh yes! It's all over town, luv!"

"Chaz, when were you born?"

"Day before Christmas, I'm Capricorn."

The lights in the lobby had blinked, intermission was over. The smokers were going back in through the doors.

"Come luv, Henri is going to try a triple tour in the next piece. I don't want to miss it!"

"Saturn is
 
your
 
planet, and
 
my
 
moon is in Saturn! Oh Chaz, we must have dinner together, just the two of us!"

They were both smiling as they pushed and elbowed their way into the lobby and proceeded down the aisle to their center seats.

++++++++++

Chapter 54