‘Well, I’ll take a strep culture because you’re here and your throat is irritated, but I’m almost certain that’s not what it is. Honestly, I think it’s just a virus that needs to work its way through your system. I would recommend getting the flu vaccine, so long as you’re here. Take Tylenol as needed, drink plenty of fluids, and rest, and call me if your fever spikes.’
He was talking quickly now, making notes and folding up her file and getting ready to leave. Why were they always in such a rush? She’d waited almost an hour to be seen, and now he was bolting out after four minutes.
‘You don’t want to be tested for any sexually transmitted diseases, do you?’ Dr Palmer asked, not even bothering to look up from his paperwork.
‘Pardon?’ Andy asked. She coughed.
‘Strictly protocol. We ask all unmarried patients, give them the option.’
‘Actually I am married,’ Andy said. ‘As of a week ago.’ She marveled at how strange it still felt to say it. Married.
‘Congratulations! Well, then, if that’s all, I’ll be getting on my way. Good to see you, Andy. I think you’ll be feeling better soon.’
He turned to leave the exam room, and before Andy could think anything through, she blurted, ‘I’d like to be tested for everything, please.’
Dr Palmer turned around.
‘I know it’s probably all in my head, and there’s nothing to worry about, but I did just find out that my husband saw his ex at his bachelor party. I mean, I know it’s his ex-girlfriend and not some prostitute, and of course I don’t actually think anything happened – he swears it didn’t, but … better safe than sorry, I guess?’ She paused for just a moment to take a deep, gasping breath. And then, more calmly, she said, ‘We just got married last weekend.’
Ninety-nine percent of Andy knew she was being completely and utterly ridiculous. She was almost certain Max hadn’t cheated on her with Katherine or anyone else. He’d never been anything but loving and up-front with her, and while he’d made a mistake in not mentioning the run-in, she really did believe him when he claimed nothing happened. And even if by some unlikely chance something had happened, what were the chances he was going to get a sexually transmitted disease from Katherine von Herzog, the virgin princess herself? Von Herzogs didn’t do herpes. Period. All that said, on the teensy, tiny chance her current illness had something to do with Max and Katherine, she should know once and for all.
He nodded. ‘The lab is down this hall to your left. Go there now and they’ll draw your blood. Leave a urine sample in the bathroom. When you return, take everything off. There’s a paper gown by the chair over there, opening in the front. I’ll be back with a nurse momentarily.’
Andy tried to thank him, but he disappeared too quickly. She scooted off the exam table and headed toward the lab, where a large, unsmiling woman quickly and near-painlessly drew her blood without ever making eye contact and then directed Andy to the bathroom. She returned to the exam room and, as directed, changed into the front-opening gown and climbed back up on the table. The ancient copy of Real Simple magazine on the chair caught her eye, and she had managed to stay focused on a ten-step plan for cleaning out your laundry room when the doctor and another man entered.
‘Andy, this is Mr Kevin, our nurse-practitioner,’ Dr Palmer said, motioning toward the Asian man who appeared not a day older than seventeen. ‘I’m sorry we don’t have any women available right now. You don’t mind, right?’
‘Of course not,’ Andy lied.
The exam was blessedly fast. While she couldn’t see what the doctor was doing and he didn’t bother to explain, she felt a tiny bit of pressure and some familiar swabbing, perhaps like a Pap smear. She tried to ignore Mr Kevin staring between her spread legs as though he’d never seen anything like it before. Just as she was starting to feel supremely uncomfortable, Dr Palmer pulled the paper firmly over her lower body and patted her ankle.
‘All done, Andrea. Depending on how backed up the lab is, I’ll have some of these results by today, some by tomorrow. Make sure with the receptionist on your way out that your phone number is up-to-date. If you don’t hear from me by five tomorrow, feel free to call the office.’
‘Uh, okay. Is there anything else I’
‘We’ve got it all covered. Talk to you soon.’ And before she could utter another word, or even ask what tests he’d conducted, the doctor was gone.
It wasn’t until she’d counted out her co-pay in cash and shrugged on her coat and swiped her MetroCard for the subway that she realized he hadn’t said anything even remotely reassuring. No ‘I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about,’ or ‘It’s good to be cautious, but I’m sure everything’s fine,’ or even ‘I don’t see anything down here to be concerned about.’ Just a vague ‘all done’ and a speedy exit. Was he merely afraid of another hysterical breakdown, or had he seen something that raised a red flag?
Andy could barely concentrate at work. Barbara, Katherine, Bermuda, and chlamydia on one hand. Miranda on the other. She honestly didn’t know which was scarier. She tried to distract herself with a quick glance through ‘Page Six’ online, but a photo of Miranda’s daughters stared back at her. No longer the little girls who had tormented Andy years ago, the twins looked no less miserable. In the photo, from some gallery opening the previous evening, Caroline was dressed in head-to-toe black and draped across some guy sporting a waxy mustache and acne. Cassidy had attempted – and pulled off, Andy had to admit – the half-shaved-head look. Her skintight, glossy leather pants accentuated her frightening thinness and, combined with her ruby-red lipstick, gave her a goth china-doll appearance. The caption told her both girls were currently freshmen, home for their fall breaks, Caroline from RISD and Cassidy from some French-run university in Dubai. Andy couldn’t help but wonder how Miranda felt about her daughters’ choices, and the thought made her smile for a moment.
Emily knocked on Andy’s office door and walked in without waiting for a response. ‘Hey, you look horrible. Are you still sick? More to the point, did you talk to Max?’
‘Yes on both counts.’ Andy plucked a Hershey’s Kiss from the glass bowl she kept on her desk before pushing the bowl toward Emily.
Emily sighed, unwrapped one, and popped it in her mouth. ‘So, what did he say? I asked Miles, by the way, and he swears there were zero girls hanging out with them. And I believe him. Not that he won’t lie to me, but I can usually tell …’
‘It’s true, Em. Katherine was there. He admitted it.’
Her friend’s head snapped around like a rubber band. Andy stared at the tiny smear of chocolate on Emily’s lower lip and wondered why she felt dead inside.
‘What do you mean he admitted it? Admitted what, exactly?’
Andy’s cell pinged and a text popped up on the screen. Both girls leaned forward to see if it was from Max, which it was, and Emily looked questioningly at Andy.
What did doc say?
The thought of lying on that cold table, having her lady privates swabbed while two men watched, came rushing back, and Andy was filled with an overwhelming desire to murder Max. In all the years since high school that she’d been sexually active – including a number spent dating in the shark tank that was New York City – Andy had never once worried she’d caught some sexually transmitted disease. She was careful, bordering on obsessive, and proud of it. How unfair that now, when she finally felt secure enough to let her guard down, to give herself completely to her husband, for god’s sake, she was being tortured waiting for STD results to come back.
She began typing with her thumbs. Test results later today or tomorrow. Probably just a bug.
‘Andy?’
Andy unwrapped another Kiss and bit the tip off before popping the whole thing in her mouth.
‘Can you lay off the bingeing for a second here and tell me what’s going on?’ Emily snatched the candy bowl from Andy’s reach and put it on the floor. ‘Whatever way this all shakes out, you’re not going to be happy packing on ten pounds
of cheap candy, I promise you that.’
‘There’s really not much to report. I told him I knew what happened in Bermuda, and he broke down and apologized.’
Emily cocked her head to the side. Women the world over would have killed for those reddish-brown waves, and all she could talk about was dying them blond. ‘Okaaay. But you don’t know what happened in Bermuda. You just know that he bumped into his ex-girlfriend.’
Andy held her hand up. ‘Please stop. It’s not even up for debate. I know you’re trying to make me feel better, but Max apologized a thousand times, assured me it wasn’t planned in advance, that Katherine was just there with her sister and they all ran into each other and she hung out with them. He claims he was going to tell me, but in some fucked-up way he thought it was more selfish to do that, so he just kept his mouth shut and hoped it would all go away.’
‘Oh, Andy, I can’t even believe’
‘Well, believe it,’ she snapped, irritated at even the suggestion her best friend would doubt her story. ‘I spent the morning getting tested for STDs.’
Emily’s mouth fell open in the most inelegant, non-Emily way. And then she started to laugh. ‘Andy!’ she cackled, her shoulders shaking. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. Max didn’t give you some disease. And I assure you, Katherine didn’t give him one, either.’
Andy shrugged. ‘I don’t know what to tell you. He claims nothing happened. But he was in Bermuda six weeks ago coincidentally with his ex-girlfriend, and now I’m sick with all sorts of weird symptoms and no explanations. What would you think?’
‘That you’re the biggest drama queen on earth. Seriously, Andy. STDs?’
The girls were silent for a minute, listening to their staff begin to trickle in, and then Andy heard Agatha going through the messages from the night before.
‘Can I be a really bad friend for a second? Promise you won’t hate me for asking?’
‘I can’t promise, but I’ll try,’ Andy said.
Emily opened her mouth to say something and then closed it again. ‘No, sorry, forget it, it’s not important.’
‘You want to know about the Elias-Clark call, right? What our next move is?’ It had been four days since the call and Emily had asked Andy what she wanted to do a half dozen times. Meanwhile, Elias-Clark had called again to schedule the conference call and Agatha said they’d get back to them ASAP. ‘I guess we have to return the call.’
Emily nodded but it was obvious she was pleased. ‘Okay, sounds good.’ Emily’s phone buzzed, and she glanced down. ‘That’s Daniel. I’m sure he’s been bugging you too, but he wants to know what we decided with the February cover.’
‘We didn’t decide anything,’ Andy said, knowing she wasn’t being helpful.
‘Well, are you still okay with putting your wedding on the cover? If I were you, I’d do it in a heartbeat.’
Andy sighed. She’d almost forgotten about that. ‘We got the film back and it’s gorgeous, and we blew almost our entire editorial budget on St Germain, and we don’t have anything half as good to sub in. The whole issue is riding on that spread. I get it.’
‘All true.’
Without warning, Andy’s throat tightened. ‘What do I do, Em? It feels like everything’s spinning out of control. I can’t believe his family hates me. And this whole Katherine thing is just unnerving.’
Emily flicked her hand. ‘I’ve seen the way you two look at each other. My god, if Miles and I had half of what you and Max have, we’d be golden. He worships you, and I know him – he’s kicking himself right now, wondering why he was an ass, and he’s terrified he’s going to lose you. But you know what that makes him? A guy. A guy who screwed up by not telling you, but still the same guy you fell in love with, the one who always said he’d never met anyone he wanted to settle down with. Until he met you.’
Andy gave Emily a look. ‘If this is his way of settling down, I’d hate to see what playing the field looked like.’
‘Do you remember him begging you to move in with him six months after you met? He wanted to go ring shopping for your first anniversary! And if that man mentions “starting a family” one more time, Miles is going to kill him. He really does love you, Andy, and you know it.’
‘I do know. I just need to keep telling myself.’ Andy coughed and dabbed her eyes with a tissue. ‘It’s fine to run the wedding in the February issue,’ she said before she could chicken out.
‘Really?’ The look of relief on Emily’s face was almost comical.
‘Really. The pictures really are beautiful. There’s no reason to waste them.’
Emily nodded and then hightailed it out of Andy’s office, probably before either one of them could say something to screw it up.
By the time Andy walked to her block, she was feeling if not calm, then some similar approximation of it. Max played in a basketball league after work once a week, but Andy knew he planned to skip it that night so he could come home and take care of her. If he left work at the usual time, he’d be home in the next thirty minutes. What should she do? Accept her husband completely lied to her about seeing his first love? Wasn’t she old enough to know that where there’s smoke, there’s fire? If he omitted the information that he’d seen Katherine, there had to be more, right? And if there was more, what would she do? Leave him? Wouldn’t Barbara just love that one – Andy up and gone two weeks in. A man in a suit turned around to look at her. Had she said it aloud? Was she losing her mind?
She tossed her oversize Louis Vuitton tote bag – one of those behemoth schleppers that claimed it could hold five hundred pounds without snapping a strap – onto the hallway bench and kicked off her shoes. She checked her watch. Twenty-five more minutes. Sourcing and eating a slice of whole wheat slathered in peanut butter and an ice-cold Diet Coke took another eight. How would she start? Max, I love you but I feel like we should take a few days to think about things. It sounded straight out of a movie. Deep breath. When the time came, she would just say whatever was on her mind.
Her screen lit up with a text message.
Home in 10. You need anything?
Fine, thx. See you then.
She thought about calling someone, anyone, to fill the time but didn’t know what she could possibly say. Oh, hi, Lily. Did you have a good time at the wedding? Flight back okay? Terrific! Yes, I’m just waiting for Max to get home so I can tell him I want a day or two to think things through. A week after our wedding, no less! She bit her cuticles and stared at the time on her phone, until it rang and she almost jumped out of her seat. It was a blocked number, but she’d long ago given up on screening them.
‘Hello?’ The sound of her voice shaking surprised her.
‘Andrea Sachs, please.’
‘This is she. May I ask who’s calling?’
‘Oh, hello, Andrea. This is Mr Kevin, from Dr Palmer’s office? I’m calling with some test results. Is now a good time?’
Is it ever? Andy thought. I can combine a confirmation of some vile genital affliction with my ‘I need some space’ request. Now is actually a terrific time.
‘Yes, now is just fine, thank you.’
‘Okay, let’s see here … your strep culture came back negative, but I think we were expecting as much. As for the STD panel, I’ve got good news. Negative for chlamydia, gonorrhea, hepatitis, herpes, HIV, HPV, syphilis, and bacterial vaginosis.’
Andy waited, eager for him to continue, but there was an awkward silence.
‘That is good,’ she said, wondering why he was being so weird. ‘Right? So negative for everything?’
Mr Kevin coughed. ‘Well, not exactly negative for everything …’
Andy racked her mind, trying to remember if anything was missing from the list. He said HIV, right? And herpes? Was there something new, some new cutting-edge disease she hadn’t even heard of yet? Was he scared to tell her because she was going to die? She would take Max with her, she swore to herself …
‘Your HCG levels are actually quite high, Andrea. Congratul
ations! You’re pregnant.’
Somewhere in the back of her brain she’d understood where he was going with his announcement, probably right around the word ‘congratulations,’ but she felt totally incapable of processing it. It was as though someone had reached out and placed a gigantic black sheet over the lens of her life. Just black. She was conscious and breathing but unable to feel or see or hear anything at all. She had questions, so many questions, but more than anything else, she felt a quiet, stunned disbelief. Pregnant? It couldn’t be true. Wasn’t true. It must have been a mistake. No matter that a tiny voice inside her head was saying, You suspected it all along. The nausea, the irregular periods, the aches and heaviness and general misery. You knew, Andy, but you couldn’t deal with it.
Stanley’s barking brought her back to attention. He only barked when the front door opened, which meant Max was home.
‘Andrea? Are you there?’ For a moment, she wasn’t sure if Mr Kevin or Max had asked the question.
‘Yes, yes, I’m here,’ she said into the phone. ‘Thank you for the information.’
‘Do you have an obstetrician or do you need a referral for one? I can’t tell how far along you are without an ultrasound, but judging from your levels, I wouldn’t say this is a brand-new pregnancy. It would probably be best to get in for an appointment as soon as possible.’
‘Andy? Are you home?’ Max called, the front door slamming behind him. Stanley went into a barking frenzy.
‘Thank you, Mr Kevin. I will handle it,’ she lied for what felt like the thousandth time that day. Not a brand-new pregnancy. What did that even mean?
‘Hey,’ Max whispered, coming up behind her and kissing her neck. ‘Who are you on with?’
She clamped her hand over the microphone. ‘No one.’
‘Andrea? Is there anything else I can help you with?’ asked the disembodied voice through her cell phone.
‘Is that why I’m sick?’ she asked.
Mr Kevin cleared his throat. ‘That would certainly explain the nausea and the fatigue. Dr Palmer thinks your other symptoms – the sore throat, the fever, the muscle aches – are unrelated. A virus, stress, perhaps just being run down. You should feel better shortly.’
Lauren Weisberger 5-Book Collection Page 161