The Immaculate Deception (25 page)

“
You are still freaking me out.”

“
Concentrate on good times and before you know it, we’ll be able to complete our heavenly journey.”

“
Promise?” I pleaded.

“
I promise, sweetheart.” He kissed my forehead and smiled.

“
Oh. Good. But really, right now I need to PIF.”

“
There’s a toilet down the hall.” Mr. Jones grabbed my hand and led me.

I laughed. “No, that’s not what I meant. I’ve got loads of work to do in the real world.”

We stopped in front of a nurses’ station. Nurses’ station?

“
Hey, are we in a hospital again?”

“
Good Samaritan in Los Angeles 1962. What do you mean you have work to do in the real world? Don’t you want to be with me anymore? I thought we were getting on well. I’m your mate, don’t you remember? Or have you found someone else you prefer?”

“
Mr. Jones, there has never been and never will be another man like you. I want to be with you. And there isn’t anyone for me in the real world.”

We searched each other’s eyes. God, were his gorgeous. Deep brown pools of wonder. I wanted to swoon again. But Daddy passed by me. So of course, we tailed him. Doctor Payne and a nurse walked through the dreary, pale green, rubbing alcohol- scented corridors. Screams emanated from a room as we passed by and then we heard the awesome sound of a new life crying. The doctor and nurse both smiled. So did we. They made a right turn and proceeded to the end of the wing, stopping outside of
Miss Pippin’s
room. That was the name on the door card. The same name as on the note inside the Tupperware container, the one Uncle Howie had snatched from Daddy’s deep freezer. I shuddered, remembering the pink-ish gray lump. At least I’d finally get some answers now.

Daddy said, “Thank you, Miss Livingston,” to the nurse.

The nurse said, “She’s in a lot of pain and passing large clots this evening. And she’s in a bad way emotionally too, poor girl… I’ll be waiting at the nurses’ station.”

I started rolling that name through my mind. Miss Livingston… Nurse Livingston… “Hey, that’s my namesake! Momma’s friend, Orpha Livingston. She was Momma’s housemate in Washington. They were also in the Secret Service together.”

Dream boy smiled. “Yes, but she also trained as an Army Air Corps nurse together with your mother.”

“
Yeah, I know, Momma told me,” I said.

Doctor Payne watched Orpha Livingston’s shapely legs, clad in white stockings, until she rounded a corner. He stuck his hand in his right pants pocket for a moment, then took it back out and firmly rapped on the patient’s door.

A small sweet voice said, “Come in.” He did and so did we. Since we were invisible.

I whispered, “Why are we invisible again?”

He pulled the hair back from my neck and his lips brushed against my ear. “Because this is one of your father’s secrets. He wouldn’t have wanted you to know.”

I tingled all the way down to my toes. I just melted at his touch.

Daddy disappeared behind a white curtain. We couldn’t see the patient.

“
Hello, I’m Doctor Payne.”

Via the silhouette, we observed them shaking hands. “How’d ya do?”

“
I’m good, thanks. How are you?”

“
Oh doctor, I don’t know what’s worse. The pain and the heavy bleeding or the thought of havin’ the operation. You know, I really wanna have a baby.”

Her silhouette was as unmistakable as her kitten voice. Miss Pippin was not this woman’s real name. I knew it was Daddy’s idol, screen goddess Marilyn Monroe.
Oh my God! Miss Pippin! He had her left ovary in the deep freezer! Marilyn Monroe’s ovary! No wonder Uncle Howie flew all the way from Sacramento to snatch it.

Doctor Payne pressed the call button and waited patiently for Nurse Livingston. She came in and went about her duties preparing for the examination. Doctor Payne slipped his hands into gloves that Nurse Livingston had just powdered. She yanked the stirrups up. They telescoped from the foot of the hospital bed. She helped the patient move into position.

Once the examination was under way, Doctor Payne appeared to keep his gaze locked on the agony tormenting
Miss Pippin’s
beautiful face.

“
I’m so sorry, my dear, I’m trying to be gentle.”

He completed the exam, removed his gloves and washed his hands with a bar of soap in the basin in the corner of the functional room. Nurse Livingston retracted the stirrups and tried to make the patient comfortable before she left.

Miss Pippin
said, “I have to have the full hysterectomy, don’t I?”

“
I’m very sorry, my dear. Yes.”

“
Well, I asked for the best in the biz and they say he’s you, so that’s that.”

Doctor Payne tugged three tissues out of a box on the bedside table and gave them to her. She wiped her eyes.

She said, “You know, next week I’ll be thirty-six years old. And all alone. No husband and now who would want me?”

He interrupted. “Millions of men want you, my dear. You should know that. That one special man, your soul mate, is out there somewhere. And he won’t care that you can’t have babies. You’ll still be able to be a proper wife, in every other sense of the word. I mean sexually. And there’s always adoption. There are charities in Los Angeles that might have a child you’d be interested in—”

“
No. It’s not the same. I want
my own
baby. My own flesh and blood. God’s punishing me for all the ones I-I had to make go bye-bye.” She drew the starched white sheet up to her chin.

Doctor Payne moved a rolling stool over to her bed. He sat down and embraced her hand. “Shh…we all sin. And He forgives us. Sometimes circumstances force us to act in ways against our hearts. It happens to everybody. No one here on earth is a saint. Not me, not you, not Nurse Livingston, not even the President of the United States.”

She sobbed. “I wanted to have his baby…”

He gave her more tissues and as she blew, he walked over to the window. He cleared his throat and said, “There is something… I might be able to help… It’s really just experimental.”

“
What?”

“
I’ve been doing research into ovary transplants. I’ve had good success so far, with rhesus monkeys. But I haven’t done them on women yet.”

“
Ovary transplants? Whadaya mean? If you have to take out my womb, what good would an extra ovary do me?” She ran her hands through her hair. “No good at all…” She sniffed.

He walked back over and sat on the stool. “Your situation dictates complete removal of your uterus, cervix, fallopian tubes and ovaries. If, and I can’t say until I open you up, but
if
one or both of your ovaries are healthy enough and hopefully the fallopian tubes as well, I can save them by transplanting them into another woman who’s lost hers but has a healthy uterus.”

“
Do it.”

“
Do it? I told you, I’ve never done this before on humans and while the research looks promising, I can’t guarantee I can even find a woman with your same blood type who would agree to it.”

Holding the sheet modestly to cover herself, she sat up and leaned in toward Doctor Payne. “Take my ovaries and put them in a jar or freeze dry ’em or petrify ’em or whatever it is that ya need to do. Find a nice lady to carry my little baby. I don’t care if the whole thing is science-fictiony. If it means I might have my own little baby some day…”

Doctor Payne looked down at his black penny loafers. He tugged on the hairs of his left eyebrow. After a long tense silence, he looked up. “But it’s still… I can’t… I shouldn’t do it. I shouldn’t have even brought it up. I’m sorry for getting your hopes up, my dear.”

In her famous breathy little-girl voice, she begged, “Oh but doc, you just gotta. Please, pretty please?” She let go of the sheet and arched her back, thrusting her much- photographed breasts toward him. They were perfectly pointed inside one of the custom-made brassieres that she only removed for bathing or making love. “I’ll do anything, anything at all. I’ve got loads of money and just tell me what you want and I’ll do it.”

“
You just concentrate on getting well, my dear. And you mustn’t speak of our conversation to anyone, understood?”

“
But why? I mean it could be a miracle
.
I could be like the Virgin Mary and have an immaculate conception. Wow…but oh boy, now I know what you mean! I can’t tell anyone. I mean who’d believe it anyway? I won’t tell a soul, I promise, cross my heart and hope to die. Please, do it for me, huh?”

Doctor Payne pressed the call button. Nurse Livingston returned.

“
Nurse, you can prep our VIP for surgery now.”

The private duty nurse said, “Yes, doctor.”

He turned and smiled at the patient. She reached for his hand and squeezed it.

Doctor Payne said, “I’m off to scrub up. I’ll look in on you tomorrow morning before I leave for Washington. Doctor Quiambo will take over your post-operative care.”

He left the room. We followed him down the corridor to the doctors’ lounge. After he stepped inside and thought he was alone, Doctor Nathan Lucifer Payne reached into his right pants pocket and removed a tape recorder. He switched it off, kissed it and opened his brown suitcase. He shoved the tape recorder inside a pair of balled-up socks, closed the lid and locked it.

~*~

I heard the darned old “Donna” song. Opening my eyes, I stared into a fluorescent light. I looked around. I was lying in the company clinic. Dr. Goldfarb hovered over me. Daddy’s sports club pal, Farts.

He counted my pulse. “Donna, you gave us quite a fright. You’ve been out for nearly twenty minutes. Did you fall and smack your head?”

“
No. I don’t think so.”

“
Have you been having these spells often?”

“
Huh?” I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the cot. I threw back the sheet.

“
Careful. Not too fast.”

“
I’ve been having some really weird dreams since the accident.”

“
Did they do a CT scan and an MRI on your brain?”

“
In the hospital? Are you kiddin’? Heavenly HMO won’t pay for those unnecessary tests. You know that.”

Dr. Goldfarb huffed. “I’m not the one who writes the contract. I just work here, you know. Donna, I’m going to write you a referral, I want you to go and get an MRI done today. I’m worried you might be suffering from narcolepsy and that is a very dangerous condition.”

“
Yeah yeah yeah. Falling asleep in the middle of a meal and stuff like that. I work at a health insurance company, you know.”

He smiled. “At least you have your caustic comments. That’s the Donna I know. Come on, I’ll drive you over to the hospital.”

I stood up. “No, thanks and all but I’m fine. Really. I’ve got loads of work piled up I really need to get back to.”

“
Absolutely not. You need at least another week off from work. I’ll take care of it. Now come on and let’s get you to the hospital.”

Chapter Eleven

T
he ride from Heavenly HMO in Reston, Virginia, over to Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church took about forty-five minutes. A bird could fly it in five but as the congested Northern Virginia roads knotted, it took us a little longer. Dr. Farts Goldfarb’s antique Chevy pickup ran really sweet. Nice and noisy. He’d had it reupholstered in a black and white vinyl and the inside was operating room sterile. My only complaint was that the door required three tries to close.

Dr. Goldfarb parked outside the emergency room entrance. He creaked as he stumbled out. The semi-retired physician lumbered around to my door and guided me inside. He made a big to-do about getting me signed in and prepped for tests. The cheerful admissions man and triage nurse accommodated Dr. Goldfarb.

“
While I’m here, can I get my sutures removed?” I tugged the collar of my sweater down so they could see the wound. I’d stopped bandaging it since it seemed to be healing and not oozing anymore.

The nurse led us into exam room one. Dr. Goldfarb examined the wound and asked for a double-edged razorblade while he washed his hands and put on gloves.

I looked away as he snipped. It hurt like hell.

The nurse squeezed something onto a long wooden cotton swab and he dabbed it on my wound. As he rubbed an extra large Band-Aid over it, he said, “Keep the Band-Aid on for two days, then you should be fine. There was just some minor bleeding from the suture removal. With your fair skin, you might develop a hypertrophic scar. A thick raised pink and itchy area, sometimes with an occasional pinpricking sensation. It should fade within two years. If not, I can laser it out to bleach the vessels back to white.”

Just great. Why couldn’t a plastic surgeon have sewn me up in the ER? They should pass a law requiring hospitals to staff their emergency rooms with plastic surgeons for their trauma patients.

By late afternoon, I had completed my tests and was plopped in an empty exam room and left to “rest” while Dr. Goldfarb consulted with the radiologist and neurologist on call. Fat lot of rest I got.