He folded his arms across his chest. “I’ve known Michelle her whole life. I delivered her. I’ve watched her grow up. I started seeing her as a patient when she became a teenager. I followed her through college. Then I know that she went to law school, probably to please her father as much as anything. And I think things happen for a reason—maybe not the reason we planned, but a reason nevertheless. I assume that one of the reasons Michelle went to law school, unbeknownst to her at the time, was to meet you. If you’ll permit an old man a moment, I’ll tell you what I think about all of this.”
I nodded.
He placed his hands behind his head and continued. “In my life, I have seen patients from all walks of life. Some had money. Some didn’t. The most precious things to any of them were their children. I had the privilege of helping them bring those children into the world. There are plenty of other doctors who could have performed the service, I know. Most, but not all, deliveries have gone well.
“It has always been interesting to me how, at that critical moment of delivery, most people react in the same way. They are nervous, then they are scared, then they are caught up in the delivery itself, and then they are relieved and happy and full of a wonder that surpasses my understanding, though I have spent a lifetime observing it. It’s like life is reduced for a few moments to a common denominator. I don’t know if there is any other profession like it. Maybe it would be the same kind of thing at the end of life, a physician offering palliative care. Maybe it’s the same for veterinarians. I would image that the poor sheep farmer or small ranch owner is just as happy to see a lamb or colt born as the prize lamb or race horse owner.
“And I’ll tell you something else, Mr. Jessie. If you’re going to make it in a profession for any great length of time, you are going to have to find that moment that, while you may not get to see it every day, you get to see it often enough that it makes the day-to-day drudgery worthwhile.
“If it’s just about making money, you will never have enough. If it is just about looking right or keeping up some image, I dare say the proverbial moths are nibbling at your favorite suit in the closet right now.”
“For you,” I asked, “it’s watching the beginning of life? I don’t think there is much in my profession that will compare to that.”
“No.” Dr. Nathan responded leaning back in his chair again and putting his hands behind his head. “It’s not the birth so much as watching how the birth affects people. For just a moment, you get to see how we are all alike, all capable of good, all full of hope. I know parents leave the hospital and drift off into their lives, but, for a few minutes, they all share the same dream.
“Michelle has always had everything that a girl could want. If you tell her mom I said this, I will tell her that you were dreaming. The truth is I think Michelle has missed out a little bit in the family department. Her dad’s a good provider, but he wasn’t always around, to put it kindly, when she was growing up. I would say the most important thing in the world for Michelle is having a baby. She wants a family. She’s been getting ready her whole life to have a family of her own, and now you have come along and put that in jeopardy.
“Maybe I’ll do the C-section, but promise me you will talk to Michelle and tell her about the herpes before you come in for the delivery,” he said leaning toward me again and gesturing to the pages of paper that sat in my lap. “You brought your calendar with you. You have about ninety days. I suggest you mark a date now for when you are going to have this conversation. This afternoon would be a good place to start.”
“I promise. I will,” I said and looked down at the calendar that was in front me. As I looked at it, the dates on the pages seemed to swirl together.
When I left Dr. Nathan’s office that day, I intended to tell Michelle.
When I got home, she asked me what I was doing out dancing by myself in Memphis. Apparently her dad had told her mom about not being able to find me that night in Memphis, and her mom had told Michelle. I wondered why I felt compelled to keep Sullivan’s secrets safe for him when he didn’t feel the need to reciprocate. Maybe he just didn’t think that I was capable of similar indiscretions.
“I didn’t even know that you were in Tennessee,” Michelle said. “Who were you dancing with?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. But I found myself on the defensive, and I didn’t tell Michelle that night or the next day about the affair or the herpes. As the weeks crept by, I began to wonder if I ever would.
16
CHELSEA WOKE UP IN THE ROOM at the Peabody as the sun began to shine brightly through the sheer curtains, and she wished that she had exhibited the foresight the previous night to close the opaque blinds when she took off her clothes and went to bed. She closed her eyes and tried to count the number of beers she had consumed the night before. It was difficult to estimate, partly because of the headache that was throbbing in her temples and partly because of the size of the number. Her mouth felt like a small rodent might have nested there overnight, and she reached blindly for the telephone on the nightstand. Eventually, she found the receiver and sat up in bed to find the zero to call the operator.
“Good morning, Mr. Jessie.” The voice on the phone answered.
Jessie? Chelsea thought to herself. She didn’t remember having heard previously her prospective paramour’s last name, and she couldn’t help but to play the old game of trying her first name with it to check for matrimonial appropriateness. “Chelsea Jessie” would not have worked at all. Too singsong. Way too many vowels.
“Good morning,” Chelsea responded into the phone.
There was a slight hesitation on the other end of the line while the operator tried to conjure up a polite way to recognize the fact that he was not speaking to Mr. Jessie, and that he had no idea whether there was a Mrs. Jessie, and what the likelihood was that this might be her. “How may I help you, Ma’am?” was the selection he chose.
“Do y’all have any of those darlin’ little personal grooming kits that you could send up to Mr. Jessie’s room?” Chelsea asked, affecting her most pronounced southern drawl. “You know toothpaste, toothbrush, deodorant, razor, that sort of thang?”
“Of course, ma’am. Is there anything else I could get you? A pot of coffee perhaps?”
“Coffee would be nice. Thank you.” Chelsea said and hung up the phone. She glanced over at the clock and realized that if she were going to make it to her first class on the subject of secured transactions, she would have to hustle. She laid her head back on the pillow and closed her eyes. Maybe thirty more minutes of sleep would help with the headache. After a moment she realized that she was not going to be able to sleep. Besides, the man was coming with the coffee, and she really needed to go to the bathroom. She flung off the heavy covers. If she got going now, maybe she could still make it to school on time. When she stood up out of bed, however, she quickly abandoned the notion of racing to class. It would not be the first session of secured transactions that she did not attend. She had no interest in practicing law in that area, but it was on the Tennessee bar exam, and she promised herself that she would read the materials during the time that her classmates were actually in class.
Still naked, she walked into the bathroom, used the toilet, and stood at the sink looking at herself in the mirror. She pulled her hair back behind her left ear and leaned into the mirror for a closer inspection. “Freckles all present and accounted for, sir.” She said to herself and saluted.
For a moment, she wondered if she had been so drunk that she forgot about having sex the night before. Then she remembered the entire episode with the young lawyer from Texas. She had expected that he would join her in the sumptuous Peabody bed at some point during the night and, despite whatever pangs of guilt he might be experiencing, would succumb to her feminine charms. She could not decide whether to be disappointed or glad that she had not had sex with him, but the more she thought about it, she decided that her feelings were hurt.
She worried for a
moment that the beer calories were adding up before confirming that her waist was still small and well-defined. She patted her tummy approvingly, proud that there was no jiggle with the patting. As she looked in the mirror, she cupped her breasts and then turned and looked over her shoulder at her bare behind. She wished that her legs were longer, stood on her tip-toes, and decided they were the right length for her body. Her calves, taut from standing as if she were wearing heels, still showed the muscle she had developed playing high school soccer, and how long ago was that now? “What were you thinking, Mr. Jessie?” She asked aloud.
She started the shower after checking the water at the bathtub faucet several times to make sure that the temperature was right. Again, she stood in front of the mirror and looked at her reflection as the fog of the steam made the reflection disappear. A thought crossed her mind about whether having an orgasm might help stop the aching in her head, and her right hand drifted down to her clitoris.
She had barely closed her eyes when she heard the knock at the door. She assumed it was the man with the coffee since she now remembered that she had heard the young Houston lawyer shower and leave much earlier that morning. She sighed, took the plush, terry cloth robe off the hanger on the back of the bathroom door, put the robe on, and closed the bathroom door as she went across the room to the guestroom door.
The young, white-jacketed waiter averted his eyes from her as he said, ‘Good morning,” and entered the room with a tray carrying a coffee pot, two cups, and a toiletry bag.
Despite his youth, he had worked at the hotel for several years, and his job had required that from time to time he intrude upon rather intimate settings, although this was not his favorite part of the job. He walked across the room as Chelsea let the door close behind him, glancing at her just long enough to determine that he had not seen this young woman before. That was when the job could get awkward—when you recognized somebody and knew that they were not where they were supposed to be. He walked over to the nightstand, being careful not to step on the woman’s underwear that had been dropped beside the bed. He couldn’t help noticing there was only one set of folded clothes on the bed. He wondered if there was anyone in the shower. It sounded like just water from the faucet was running, but he thought that this fellow Jessie could have taken his clothes with him into the bathroom.
The waiter started to put the tray down on the nightstand, hesitated when he saw the package of condoms beside the room keycard, and then decided to set the tray on top of the package and card. He turned and handed a ticket folder to Chelsea for her to sign for the room charge.
“He’s in the shower, but I’ll sign for him.” Chelsea said, confirming the waiter’s suspicions. She took the folder from the man, noticed that he was blushing, signed the ticket with a scribbled “Jessie,” and added fifteen percent to the charge. She saw that a room service gratuity was already included, but she included the tip anyway because she was feeling magnanimous. She considered flirting with the waiter just to see if she could get him to blush again, but thought better of it, and walked to the door and let him out. As the waiter left, Chelsea thought to herself that she was about to find out if Mr. Jessie, or whatever his name was, had checked out of the hotel or if she was still able to charge items to the room.
After showering, dressing, combing her hair, and putting on some mascara, Chelsea left the room after picking up the room key and the package of condoms from beneath the serving tray. She had no real plans for using either, but it seemed like the most prudent course. She was considering having breakfast downstairs, putting it on the room bill, and reading the secured transactions assignment just as she had promised herself. Her first step, however, was to pop into the lobby gift shop and buy a new black T-shirt and some aspirin. She chose a close-fitting shirt with cropped sleeves and a small mallard embroidered on the left chest with the phrase “Meet me at the Peabody.” She charged the shirt to the room and then went back upstairs and changed shirts.
“Okay,” she thought to herself as she sat down at a table in the spacious, yet crowded, lobby bar. She was intent on ordering a full breakfast and perhaps a Bloody Mary or Mimosa to take the edge off the pounding headache that remained in spite of a dose of aspirin and strong black coffee. A waiter brought over a menu and she decided to go with the bloody. She scanned the menu for the Peabody’s version of eggs Benedict, and ordered it when the waiter brought over her drink.
She reached into her large black purse that was more like a tote bag and pulled out her copy of the Nutshell Series volume on secured transactions. The day had begun a bit roughly, but things seemed to be improving. Her idea to charge the breakfast to the room was not done as a vendetta against the jilting Mr. Jessie or because she was unable to pay for it on her own. This was what she would have expected Mr. Jessie to do if he had bothered to wake her up before he left so abruptly. Clearly that must have been what he expected when he left the room keycard on the nightstand.
She sat back in the plush, overstuffed chair and tried to concentrate on the reading. Most law school classes use textbooks that contain reported cases clustered around a theme or the historical development of a rule of law. Sometimes excerpts from a statute (depending on the subject matter) interrupt the cases. Sometimes the cases are separated by a series of, supposedly, thought-provoking questions designed to elicit broader thinking by the reader.
The teaching concept is that by reading the cases and statutes, a law student learns “to think like a lawyer” and to glean a global understanding of whatever it is the cases are trying to accomplish in the development of the law. One could synthesize most classes into a few rules that would easily fit onto a three-inch by five-inch recipe card. “Nutshell,” and other similar publications, attempted to summarize the cases in the textbooks and distill the recipe-card information for the busy law student who could not find the time to read the cases in their entirety as a kind of Cliff Notes for law students. The professors, of course, frowned upon the use of these study aids, but Chelsea was not dissimilar to other law students in finding herself relying more and more upon them and she advanced through law school.
The waiter returned in a moment with the eggs and a refill on the Bloody Mary. He set them on the table without interrupting her reading. As he left, a tall, dark-haired woman in a handsome, beige suit stopped at Chelsea’s table. She was carrying a Louis Vuitton duffle bag in one hand and a matching laptop case in the other. She had a healthy tan and enormous, brown eyes.
“Excuse me.” The woman said. “Would you mind if I sat down with you at your table. There don’t appear to be any open tables right now.”
“Of course.” said Chelsea, opening one outstretched hand to the empty seat across the small table from her. “Help yourself.” She was secretly glad to have an excuse to put away the book.
Chelsea noticed, and then wondered why she noticed, when the woman took off her suit coat that she was not wearing a bra under her eggshell colored blouse.
“I can’t remember if I read that one or saw the movie.” The woman said as she sat down.
“You’re a lawyer?” Chelsea asked.
“Sort of.” The woman answered. “Certainly not one that knows anything about secured transactions.”
“Doesn’t it seem like the world is full of lawyers?” Chelsea asked.
“I’m sure there is always room for one more hard-working young attorney. What year are you in?” She asked.
“Third.” Chelsea answered.
“Oh, you’re through.”
“Almost.” Chelsea noticed as she exchanged pleasantries with the woman that while she was extremely attractive with large brown eyes, there was also a certain sadness about her. It looked like she might not have slept recently or that she had been through some ordeal that left her upset and vulnerable. Chelsea noticed that while the woman was not wearing a wedding ring, there was a tan line where the ring had been, and then Chelsea wondered to herself why she had bothered to notice that. The woman forced a
smile when she spoke, but even though smiling was an effort for the woman, Chelsea noticed that she had beautiful, full lips and that she looked directly into Chelsea’s eyes when she spoke to Chelsea.
“I’m afraid that I am too far along to discover that there are too many lawyers already. There doesn’t seem to be any turning back now.” Chelsea said.
17
TO THE CASUAL OBSERVER, it might have seemed financially irresponsible for Beth to check into the luxurious Peabody Hotel when she did. She was not employed at the time, and her husband had abandoned her and returned to his parents’ home in Milan, Tennessee, a small town in Gibson County about ninety miles from Memphis. Beth had decided, however, that the unpleasant nature of her visit to the Volunteer state required that she splurge to some degree on creature comforts, even if it meant dipping into her rapidly dwindling savings. The task in front of her demanded a high thread count.
She flew from Houston to Memphis on Northwestern, rented a car, and drove from the airport to the hotel. After checking in, she took her bags to her room and ordered a bottle of chardonnay from room service. The bed was comfortable, and she was surprised the next morning at the amount of sleep she actually got. It was the most sleep she’d had in weeks.
After dressing in jeans, a white T-shirt, and flats, she called downstairs for the car. She had only brought the T-shirt and a suit because she really did not anticipate staying long, and she didn’t think she would even need the suit. Sitting in front of the Peabody, she studied the Hertz map as to how best to get to Milan, and she made sure that she had her MapQuest information on how to get to her in-laws’ house once she was there. She had not talked to her husband in over a week, but she knew from talking to Ari’s mom that he would be there. She also pulled out the large envelope with the papers that she need to give Ari and laid it on the passenger seat.
A Minor Fall Page 20