The Carlton Club (39 page)

The ambulance arrived five minutes later. The drivers waved at Leslie and the triage nurse as they wheeled the stretcher carrying the pregnant woman toward the elevator.

Ten minutes later the automatic sliding glass doors to the emergency room opened again. Leslie looked up when she heard the noise.

“James!” she gasped.

“Leslie,” he breathed.

“What’s going on?”

“Lynne is about to deliver. She should have just arrived.”

“She did. She should be up in labor and delivery by now. I’ll show you how to get there,” Leslie said, looking at him, her heart racing, her physician’s mind wondering what Lynne was doing at University Hospital. It was a referral hospital for complicated pregnancies.

Her worry increased as she looked carefully at James. There was fear in the fearless green eyes.

“What’s wrong, James?” she asked as they walked toward the bank of elevators.

“They aren’t sure. She was fine until tonight. She suddenly had severe, tearing pain and bleeding. They think part of the placenta has torn away. They’re transferring her here so they can monitor the baby. They think they’ll have to do a Caesarean section.”

Leslie nodded. Lynne probably had had an abruption of the placenta. Perhaps it was related to the uterine scarring that James had said would prevent them from ever having children.

James. Lynne. Lynne pregnant with James’s child. James almost frantic with worry.

Leslie walked with him to the elevator that would take him to labor and delivery.

“I’ll be here all night, James,” she said.
If you need me
.

When James returned to the emergency room two hours later Leslie had just completed the meticulous notes she wrote on each patient’s medical record. Another time, eight months ago, she might have shown him the picture she had drawn of the hand on the record of E. R. Lansdale, and James would have laughed at the sketch with its stubby fingers and poor proportions.

But tonight was a different time, Leslie thought, looking at his exhausted, worried face. At least the fear in his eyes was a little less.

“How is she?”

“Sleeping. They have her sedated and they’ve given her medications to stop labor. The baby is being monitored. They say she seems fine.”

“She?”

“Or he. We just have assumed she will be a she,” James said. Despite his fatigue and worry there was a trace of excitement and pride in his voice.

“What are the plans?” Leslie asked carefully. She knew that if Lynne had a partial abruption it was simply a matter of time before more placenta tore away. When it did, if they couldn’t intervene quickly enough, the baby could die from lack of oxygenated blood, and Lynne could die from uncontrollable blood loss. What were they waiting for?

“To keep her stable overnight and do a Caesarean section first thing in the morning. If there’s a problem, they’ll do it sooner, as an emergency.”

She’s stable now, Leslie thought. Why wait until it becomes an emergency? She knew the obstetricians at University Hospital. They didn’t wait to do necessary surgery for luxuries such as daylight or a newly rested team. They operated when it was necessary, whenever it was necessary. When they were tired, adrenaline and pure skill got them through.

A piece was missing. Something James didn’t know.

“You should get some rest,” Leslie said, almost reaching to touch his face, to move the black lock of hair that fell into his troubled eyes.

“I’m going to. I just wanted to tell you what was happening. There’s a waiting room upstairs full of expectant fathers.”

“There’s an empty apartment five minutes from here,” Leslie said removing her apartment key from her key chain. “Lynne’s sleeping, gathering strength. You should do the same thing. Give the L and D nurses my number; they won’t recognize it.”

“When will you be home?” he asked, taking the key. He wondered what she had done with his key.

“Eight-fifteen. You’ll have to let me in.”

“I will,” he said, smiling weakly, resisting the urge to touch her flushed cheek. “Thank you.”

After James left, Leslie called the labor and delivery nursing station.

“Hi, this is Leslie Adams. What resident is taking care of Lynne Stevenson?” she asked. I shouldn’t be doing this, she thought as she waited.

“Michael Leary.”

Leslie hesitated. Michael Leary. One of the best residents in the Ob-Gyn program. And a fine man. He was the first man Leslie dated after James left, a man who might have meant a great deal to Leslie at another time. But then, in December and January, all that Leslie knew was that Michael Leary was not James. It had ended awkwardly with Michael. Leslie never really explained to him what happened.

“Is he around?” she asked finally.

“Right here. Michael. Leslie Adams is on line two.”

“Leslie?” Michael answered.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“Michael, I don’t want you to give me any specific information since I don’t have her permission.” She had no business knowing anything about Lynne’s condition. James could tell her but Michael couldn’t because Leslie wasn’t medically involved with the case.

“What is it, Leslie?”

“Lynne Stevenson’s husband is an old friend. He’s pretty worried, but I don’t know if he really understands how serious it could be. Maybe it isn’t that serious. I’m just guessing based on what he’s told me. Anyway, Michael, if anything happens to her, if James needs someone, will you call me?”

“Sure. Thank you for letting me know.” Michael hesitated a moment, took a deep breath, and said, “As long as I have you on the line, let me tell you about a patient we have up here. I want you to know about her, in case we get in trouble. I may need your help.”

“OK,” Leslie agreed.

As Michael spoke, as he told her about his patient, Leslie realized that he was telling her about Lynne, involving her medically so that she would know how serious it was. So that she could help James. Or Lynne.

“She’s a time bomb,” Michael said, “but I can’t operate on her until I have blood for her. She’s already anemic. The blood bank is having trouble cross matching her. The bank is low on blood anyway. They haven’t recovered from Memorial Day weekend. Nobody’s donating because of AIDS.”

“Not donating because of AIDS? That doesn’t make sense.”

“I know. But people are afraid they might get AIDS by giving blood as well as receiving it. I’m not transfusing anybody these days who doesn’t need it. The patient I’m telling you about may not need it, but I can’t begin the operation without blood available because if she starts to bleed we may not be able to stop her. On top of everything, she has a minor bleeding disorder. The hematologists are in now trying to figure out what it is.”

So Leslie had her answer. They were waiting because they had to. They were waiting until they had blood in case they needed it and until they could figure out a way to make her stop bleeding if she started again.

“How’s the baby?” Leslie asked.

“Baby’s fine. But that could change quickly, too.”

“Let me know if you need my help.”

“Thanks, Leslie, I will.”

By eight-fifteen, when Leslie arrived at her apartment, James had showered and dressed. Leslie could tell that he hadn’t slept much.

“The hospital just called,” he said. “They are going to operate at nine-thirty. Apparently they were waiting to get blood for her and to run some sophisticated coagulation tests.”

Good, Leslie thought, Michael is telling him more. That was good. James could handle it. He needed to be a little prepared.

“They said I can be with her from nine to nine-thirty. But,” James said, his voice heavy with worry, “they won’t let me be in the operating room. We had planned that I would be there for the delivery. I thought they usually let fathers in the delivery room even if it was a Caesarean.”

They probably do, James, Leslie thought grimly. But not in this case. Not when it may be a blood bath. They don’t want you to watch your wife and baby die. Oh James!

“They said they may need to do a hysterectomy,” he continued distractedly. “They said that the scar tissue may bleed so much that they may have to remove Lynne’s uterus.”

“That doesn’t matter, does it?” Leslie asked gently. If the only casualty of the operation was Lynne’s uterus, they would be very lucky.

“No. I guess not. I don’t know. I just want it to be over. For Lynne and the baby to be safe,” James said emotionally.

He knows, Leslie thought, wanting to hold him. He knows.

“I’d better go,” James said.

“Do you,” Leslie began, then stopped. Want me to go with you? she had almost asked. “Will you call me? Let me know?”

“Yes.”

After James left, Leslie took a shower and got into bed. The bed where James had slept. The bed where she and James had slept. She fell asleep, thinking about him, praying for him and Lynne and their baby.

At first the loud noise was part of the dream, an ambulance’s siren, an ambulance rushing the dying mother and her infant to the hospital. But gradually the noise pulled Leslie out of her nightmare, ringing relentlessly, rhythmically.

Not a siren at all. A telephone. Ringing.

Leslie glanced at her bedside clock. Twelve-thirty. It was light out. Half past noon. She had been asleep for three hours. In five and a half hours she had to be back to work. Who could be calling? Why hadn’t she disconnected the phone as she usually did?

The fog of her deep, troubled sleep suddenly cleared as she remembered.

James.

“Hello?”

“Leslie?” It was James, his voice faint, full of emotion.

Oh no, James.

“Yes,” she said softly.

A long silence.

“They’re OK,” he said finally. The emotion was joy not grief, but it still left him speechless.

“They’re OK?” Leslie asked, her own voice weak with emotion.

“Yes,” he repeated, his voice a little stronger. “They are both fine.”

“Oh, James. Thank God,” Leslie breathed, her eyes brimming with tears. “Lynne’s fine?”

“Yes. They did remove her uterus to stop the bleeding. They didn’t give her any blood, though,” James said thoughtfully. He knew a little about AIDS. He and Leslie had talked about it, about Mark’s refusal to accept blood transfusions. James was glad that they hadn’t had to transfuse Lynne. “She’ll be anemic for a while, but I just saw her. She looks fine.”

“And the baby?”

“It’s a boy,” James said proudly, incredulously.

“A boy? James, you have a son,” Leslie said softly, curling under the covers of her bed. “What’s his name?”

“I don’t know. We never talked about boy names,” James said slowly, Leslie’s words still echoing in his mind. You have a son. A son. James thought of his father. James’s son would have a different kind of father. “Do you want to see him, Leslie?”

“Yes,” she said.
No. I don’t know
. She wasn’t part of their life. James and Lynne and their baby boy. “If you want me to.”

Leslie met James outside the nursery at five. They stared through the glass at the tiny boy, James’s son, wriggling energetically in his crib. Lynne was asleep—not that Leslie would have met her—but it meant that she and James could go for a cup of coffee in the cafeteria before her shift began.

“He’s beautiful, James,” she said.

“Oh, we have a name. Michael.”

“After Michael Leary?”

“Yes.”

“That’s nice. He’s a nice man. It’s a nice name.” Nice James.

They drank coffee in silence.

“She probably got pregnant the night before your birthday,” he said.

“Oh. That was why she was ill.”

James nodded. “She knew about us from the very beginning.”

“Oh, no,” she said, looking at the pain in James’s eyes.

“She had planned to leave me and never tell me about the baby.”

“How did you find out?” When did you find out? she wondered. Is that why we stopped seeing each other?

James hesitated. He couldn’t tell Leslie how he found out, while he and Lynne were acting out one of Lynne’s sexual fantasies.

“I just did.”

“And now?”

“Now,” James said slowly. “Now we have a perfect little boy. It was a struggle, Leslie, trying to put our marriage back together. But we did. We are very lucky.”

“You just love each other very much,” Leslie said quietly, looking at James, knowing it was true.

They looked at each other for a long moment.

Finally Leslie noticed the time.

“I have to go. Do you want to stay at the apartment tonight?”

“No. Thank you. I’ll go home,” he said gently. Home. Where he belonged.

Eric Lansdale was already in the emergency room when Leslie arrived at five-thirty Wednesday afternoon.

“Hi, Mr. Lansdale. You’re early.”

“So are you.”

“I always am,” Leslie said lightly. She had come in early to say goodbye to James. Lynne and Michael were scheduled to go home in the morning. It had been a quick goodbye. They had said goodbye before. There wasn’t much left to say. “How is your hand?”

Leslie sat on a stool in front of him and carefully removed the bandage. Without speaking, she squeezed the tips of his fingers with her hand, testing their strength and warmth, traced the suture line with her finger and examined his forearm for signs of ascending infection.

“Any pain?” she asked, wondering if he would even tell her.

“None. No pain or fever or drainage. I think it’s healing well.”

“So do I,” she said, still holding his large hand in both of hers, naturally, as she would do with any patient. Then she looked at him and released his hand, suddenly uneasy. Too intimate. Much too intimate.

“Good,” he said, smiling slightly. “When do the stitches come out?”

“In six days.”

“Will you be here?”

Leslie looked at her pocket calendar. “Yes. I’ll be working the day shift that day. From eight in the morning until six at night.”

“I’ll be here at five-forty-five. If that’s all right.”

“That’s fine.”

After he left, one of the nurses said to Leslie, “Who was that?”

“Mr. E.R. Lansdale,” Leslie answered quickly, concretely, still confused about her discomfort at examining his hand.

“He is gorgeous! I wonder what he does for a living. He looks rich.”

He looks
something
, Leslie thought as she picked up the chart of her next patient, a third-year medical student with a sore throat.

It took less than five minutes for Leslie to remove the twenty-seven stitches she had so carefully sewn into Eric Lansdale’s palm. The wound had healed beautifully.

“There,” she said when she was done. “You’re a free man.”

“Are you free?” he asked casually.

“What?”

“Are you free for dinner? Tonight?”

He could tell by looking at her that she was and that she was reluctant and tempted at the same time.

“I made reservations at The Blue Fox, one of my favorites, for eight o’clock,” Eric continued, calmly, insistently, sensing that she was considering it. “I’m already dressed. So why don’t I just go with you to your place? I’ll make myself a drink while you change. All right?”

Leslie did not remember agreeing, but ten minutes later they were on their way to her apartment.

“This certainly is a convenient location for you,” he said as he parked his jade green Jaguar in front of her apartment building two minutes after they left the emergency room patient parking area.

“A short walk to University Hospital. But I also work at San Francisco General Hospital and the VA. I bet a Jaguar has never been parked on this street before,” she added, suddenly giggling.

“What’s so funny?” he asked, his own eyes laughing.

“Nothing. Everything. This is so strange. I don’t even know you,” she said. But I feel like I’ve known you forever, she thought, and I can either laugh or become mute because you make me feel wonderful and terrified. I have never felt this giddy, anxious, euphoric feeling before. This is so easy and so hard.

“You’re not afraid of me, are you?”

“No!” Leslie said lightly.
Yes. A little. A lot. Afraid of the way you make me feel
.

While Leslie took a shower and got dressed Eric poured himself a bourbon on the rocks, idly admired the framed etching of a meadow signed
James
1971
, and finally sat on the sofa in the small living room. He glanced at the stack of medical journals that lay on the coffee table, but he didn’t reach for any of them. Then he noticed the thick book that lay on the end table beside him.

When Leslie returned to the living room, she found Eric reading
Moby Dick
. She wore a light pink cocktail dress and pearls. As soon as he saw her, Eric stood up.

“And I thought a white coat stuffed with a stethoscope, tongue blades and pens looked fabulous on you,” he said, obviously admiring her surprising softness.

Leslie blushed. “I don’t get a chance to wear civvies very often,” she said, shrugging.

“Too bad,” Eric said. “Can I make you a drink? We don’t need to leave for half an hour.”

“I don’t,” Leslie began then stopped. She had started to say, I don’t usually drink. It was true. Even before last fall, even before James, she drank very little. Alcohol made her sleepy, and since the beginning of her internship, she was always a little behind on sleep anyway. But she kept a supply of liquor so that she could offer drinks to her rare visitors. “Sure, thank you. I’ll have whatever you’re having.”

“Bourbon on the rocks,” he said, pouring her a drink, then handing it to her.

“Thanks. Were you reading
Moby Dick
?”

“I was just looking at it, wondering if I had ever really read it.”

“I know I hadn’t. Not really. Not with any appreciation. It is so powerful, so beautifully written. Like poetry,” Leslie said.

Last summer as she watched Mark’s pleasure—despite the pain of the bullet hole in his chest, his broken ribs and his weakness due to anemia—as he read the classics, Leslie felt a pang of conscience. She had read them all once as required reading in high school and college, but she had read them quickly, dutifully, without enjoyment or appreciation.

Watching Mark, Leslie wondered what she had missed. In the long lonely nights after James left, after she realized that it was useless to date anyone else for a while, Leslie discovered why Mark and her parents jealously guarded the hours they set aside to read the books they loved so much.

“Sometimes I read aloud to myself. Melville writes with such rhythm. It feels like the ebb and flow of the sea,” Leslie said, feeling warm from a too large swallow of bourbon.

“Call me Ishmael,” Eric began, reading the first line of the book.

“Ishmael,” Leslie said softly.

“Eric,” he said, realizing that she had never called him anything but Mr. Lansdale.

“Eric. That’s what the E stands for.”

“You didn’t know my first name?”

“No. All our records have you as E.R. Lansdale.”

“I guess the friend I was with the first night did that,” Eric said absently. Charlie protected Eric’s anonymity. And her own. Not that Leslie had ever heard of Eric Robert Lansdale. Eric doubted that Leslie had the time or interest, between the stack of medical journals and
Moby Dick
, to read the social or financial pages of
The San Francisco Chronicle
.

Eric read aloud the first paragraph of the book. Then the second. Leslie curled into her favorite chair, across from him, listening to his voice, watching his eyes and his mouth, feeling warm and secure. And anxious. She wanted the moment never to end.

“This is wonderful,” Eric said after he read the first two pages to her. He looked at her and made a vow to himself, I am going to read this entire book to you. This book and a hundred others.

I don’t even know you, he thought. But I am so sure.

They learned a little about the facts of each other’s lives that night. They discovered that Eric had graduated from Harvard six years before Leslie entered Radcliffe. Leslie told Eric that she loved being a doctor. Eric told Leslie that he loved building beautiful buildings.

They learned a little about each other, but they learned a lot about how it felt to be falling in love.

They only touched once that night. Eric noticed the scar on her palm and reached for her hand.

“What happened?” he asked, tracing the edges of the large, irregular puckered scar left by Mark’s shattered bone piercing her skin.

Leslie told him, briefly, wondering if he would remember seeing her on the news. If he had seen her, he would remember. He didn’t.

“Not the kind of sewing job I’m used to,” he said, looking at his own, thin, even scar.

Leslie smiled.

“They didn’t even try to close my wound,” she said. “It would have gotten infected.” If you had come in any later, we might not have been able to close yours either, she thought. Why did you wait so long? she wondered but didn’t ask. Maybe someday she would ask. Maybe someday he would tell her what he was thinking about that night, why he refused the anesthetic.

It was midnight when he walked her to the door of her apartment.

“When can I see you again?” he asked.

“Whenever,” Leslie said effortlessly, meaning it.

“I have a business dinner tomorrow night. How about Thursday?”

“Thursday’s fine.”

“Good,” he said. Then he drew a deep breath and frowned.

“Eric? What’s the matter?”

“I forgot all about a trip I’m taking at the end of the week. I leave Friday morning for Tokyo and Hong Kong,” he said soberly.

“That sounds wonderful,” Leslie said enthusiastically, but wondering, anxiously, how long he would be gone. “Does that mean Thursday night is no good?”

“No. That means I definitely have to see you Thursday night. Do you think it sounds wonderful, really?”

“Yes. Aren’t you looking forward to it?”

“It’s business. I go to those cities at least twice a year,” Eric said. How jaded am I? he wondered. Do I look forward to anything? The pleasures in his life—a successful business transaction, a spectacular new building, making love with Charlie—seemed insignificant now, compared to the importance of being with Leslie. He was looking forward to Thursday night and he was looking forward to returning from his trip. Unless . . . “Could you come with me?”

“To Tokyo and Hong Kong?” Leslie asked, incredulous.

“Yes. It’s a ten day trip. It would be wonderful if you could come.”

“I can’t. Even if I had vacation time left, which I don’t, I couldn’t leave on such short notice.”

“Because they need you?” I need you.

“Because they need warm bodies in all the acute medical units.”

“I’ll be here at seven Thursday night, then,” he said. “Goodnight, Leslie.”

They didn’t kiss. They would kiss next time. Or the time after. All their lives.

“Goodnight, Eric.”

At ten the next morning, the chief medical resident notified Leslie that, because another resident had just been diagnosed with serum hepatitis, she would have to fill in on the inpatient medicine service at San Francisco General Hospital.

“Who’s covering here?” she asked.

“The consult residents will take turns.”

“The new interns start today!” Leslie exclaimed, the magnitude of her new assignment settling in: the toughest ward service, the sickest patients and brand new interns. “Do I get some special compensation for this?”

“Isn’t it enough that you were handpicked because you’re the best?”

“
That
worked last June. Can’t I just ease into being an R-
3
like everybody else?”

“It’s only for nine days.”

Nine days. It would keep her very busy while Eric was away. The time would pass quickly.

“OK.”

“OK?”

“You mean I had a choice?” she teased, laughing. “Really, it’s fine.”

It was fine until she discovered that her first on call night was Thursday. She wouldn’t be able to see Eric before he left.

Leslie found no listing for Eric Lansdale, or E. Lansdale, in the directory, but she found a listing for InterLand. He had said something about a company named InterLand.

Leslie spoke with three secretaries before she was finally connected with Eric’s personal secretary.

“Mr. Lansdale’s office, may I help you?”

“This is Leslie Adams calling for Mr. Lansdale. Is he available?”

“I’m sorry Ms. Adams, he is in a meeting. May I take a message?”

“Let’s see. Tell him that I’ve just been transferred to San Francisco General Hospital and I’m on call Thursday night.”

“All right. And that’s Ms. Adams?”

“Well, it’s Dr., but it doesn’t matter. He’ll know.”

“I apologize Dr. Adams.”

“It’s fine, really.”

“Thank you. Is there anything else I should tell him?”

“No. Yes. Tell him
sayonara
.”

Eric got Leslie’s message at three in the afternoon. It helped him make a decision he had been toying with all day. At five minutes past three he called Robert in Philadelphia, and at four-fifteen he walked down the private corridor that connected his office with Charlie’s.

There was room, in the innermost part of the executive suite, for a third person. Eric had been looking for someone with whom he and Charlie could work creatively and effectively and compatibly. Now Eric had found him. James Stevenson. By mid July the private corridor would provide undisturbed access between his office and Charlie’s and James’s. After the month he was spending with his wife and infant son was over, James would not return to his office at O’Keefe, Tucker and Stevenson on California Street. Instead, he would move to the executive suite on the fortieth floor of the InterLand building in an office with a panoramic view of San Francisco Bay.