Julia opened the screen door, looking over her shoulder as she stepped down onto the brick porch. “Love you, girl.”
Cassie smiled and said, “God bless” before she inhaled sharply as her friend turned and walked forward into the night. Just beyond the soft glow of Cassie’s motion lights, parked across the cul-de-sac from Julia’s Prius, she recognized the sleek contours of Detective Whitlock’s sedan. She couldn’t see his face, but as she cautiously watched Julia walk around to her own driver’s-side door, Cassie was captivated by the policeman’s silhouette as he lit a fresh cigarette and nodded in her direction.
“First of all,” he had said in the voice mail he left on her cell phone this morning, “I’ll need to know the identities of everyone involved. Every single one.”
7
I’ve been a busy little beaver, Doc,” Norris Beard said, “so I’ll appreciate you keepin’ my answers to yourself.”
“Norris,” Maxwell replied as he scanned his new patient’s registration forms, “you’re aware of doctor-patient confidentiality, correct?”
“I’m aware of the concept,” Beard said, easing his tall, chunky frame onto the inclined seat in the middle of the examination room. “I’m making sure you actually follow it.”
Maxwell gave what probably looked like a half-smile, half-grimace. “They take away my license if I don’t follow it, friend.” He didn’t mention that having nearly lost his license once —over a mentally unbalanced woman who’d falsely accused him of giving her prescription drugs in exchange for sex —he was probably even more attentive to such ethical issues than others. “Now tell me,” he continued, flipping through the rest of Beard’s file, “how many sexual partners have you had within the past six months?”
What felt like several minutes passed as the fifty-four-year-old did the math in his head. When Beard ventured his guess, Maxwell felt his own eyes flicker with admiration. Six months for the older man equated to the numbers Maxwell had put up in four years of college.
Chuckling inwardly, Maxwell nodded respectfully. He already knew that Beard had not bothered seeing a physician for six years; he didn’t want to scare the man off, not when he was entering an age range where he should definitely be receiving routine checkups. “Well, Mr. Beard, I have to say that’s a pretty hefty number of partners. To be frank, given your relatively promiscuous nightlife, my first suspicion of what’s causing your discomfort is an STD. You mind dropping your pants and underwear for a second, letting me have a look?”
A minute later, Maxwell stood, washing his hands at the sink, as Beard hiked his Levi’s back up over his hips. The sound of a zipper filling the air, Beard asked,“You got too much sense to run your mouth, right? I don’t need my boys knowing I don’t always practice what I preach.” He was neither preacher nor politician, but a well-respected community activist; media profiles of Norris Beard usually painted the picture of a saint, not a playboy.
Maxwell rubbed absentmindedly at his five o’clock shadow as he scanned the rest of the registration forms. “Again, you can trust me, Mr. Beard. Based on your physical exam, there’s no sign of obvious discharge or other dead giveaways, but let’s get some blood work done before we draw any conclusions.” He tapped his pen against the folder as he asked a dreaded but essential question. “If we determine that a urology consult makes sense, do you have any way to pay a specialist?”
The older man crossed his arms, nostrils flaring. “Sure, Doc, my money grows on trees just like it do for everybody else.”
Chastised, Maxwell shrugged sympathetically. Although Norris Beard had run a renowned boxing gym on Germantown Avenue for two decades —a gym credited with keeping thousands of at-risk kids off Dayton’s meanest streets —it wasn’t like such noble work came with a Cadillac health plan.
“No worries,” Maxwell said, making a few instructional notes for the benefit of his nurses. “We at the Gem City Clinic are equipped to go beyond the usual limits of family practice.” His notes complete, Maxwell clapped the activist on the shoulder. “Hang tight and I’ll send LaQuita in with your prescription. She’ll take your blood work too. Promise me you’ll treat her nice?”
“Young man,” Beard replied, grinning, “if LaQuita is the fine young nurse who walked me in here, I’ll be a perfect gentleman.”
Maxwell chuckled, a foot poised in the direction of the door. “I didn’t hear that, sir.” It wasn’t a lifestyle he could ever justify as a serious —or, at least, a striving —Christian, but Maxwell was pretty sure a man with a sex life as active as Beard’s could charm the woman of his choice.
“Hey,” Beard started, reaching for Maxwell’s hand, “I do appreciate this. I never thought I could afford medical attention from a Simon.” Beard’s and Maxwell’s families went back a good ways; Beard’s older brother had graduated from Roosevelt High with Maxwell’s father. “The fact you came back to Dayton —to do this of all things —that shows some real heart. You musta called in all kinds of favors, to be able to provide free health care.”
Maxwell returned the older man’s brisk handshake before stepping to the door, unable to deny a trickle of the truth. “Nothing’s free at the end of the day, sir, but I appreciate the kind words,” he replied, cracking a smile. “Good seeing you.”
Once he had shut the exam room door after himself, Maxwell breathed a sigh of relief. While he got a certain satisfaction from treating people of his parents’ generation, he couldn’t escape the awkward side of it; the fact that his parents hated —no, despised —the type of medicine Maxwell had decided to practice.
Stepping into the hallway, he grabbed the chart hanging from the door adjacent to Beard’s room. He flipped it open, then paused when a familiar, doughy hand landed suddenly on his shoulder. After three months of working with her, he didn’t even need to look over to confirm who had accosted him. “Yes, Edna?”
“Dr. Simon, I’m so sorry.” Edna Whitlock-Walker-Morrison shook her head wearily as she looked up at Maxwell. “I know the girls have you booked until seven tonight, but I need you to stay for an extra hour after that.”
“Edna, look.” Maxwell softly patted the woman’s shoulder. “I realize you’re the boss around here and all, but you know Tuesday nights are nonnegotiable for me.” They didn’t see each other nearly as often as either one desired, but in addition to weekends, Maxwell had a standing date with Nia every Tuesday night.
As the only employee of Maxwell’s who knew about Nia, Edna patiently placed her hands on her hips. “Doctor, I understand you need to keep her happy, and your personal affairs are obviously none of my business” —she lowered her voice —“but all the same, I need you to let me do my job, which these days seems to consist of saving you and your partner from yourselves.”
“Well,” Maxwell replied, glancing around to make sure no impressionable staff member stood nearby, “that’s probably true in more ways than you realize, Edna.”
“I know we were supposed to have our biweekly budget review tomorrow night,” Edna continued, “but one of you medically trained geniuses offered to provide free physicals to the Dunbar football team.”
“That was my idea,” Maxwell replied, nodding. “They have to be cleared physically in order to play, and many of their families can’t afford preventive medical care. Bruce said he had time on his schedule to handle the physicals this Saturday, since I have house call duty at that time.”
“What one of you didn’t do was take good notes,” Edna said. Again, with the weary but loving shake of her head, the office manager transmitted the benevolent exasperation of a maternal figure. “The physicals have to be administered tomorrow, starting at four, and based on the numbers of kids, Bruce will be tied up well past six-thirty.” She frowned. “So the budget meeting has to be tonight.”
Maxwell resisted asking the obvious question: Can’t it wait a few days? More than most, he knew that a discussion of the clinic’s finances could not be put off. He had founded the Gem City practice by investing the rainy-day
fund he’d set aside during a profitable six years with his Dallas practice, but after a year, those funds were pretty well exhausted.
When he and Bruce Williams, his roommate from medical school, decided to open a nonprofit clinic, they had calculated a specific patient mix to ensure the ability to stay afloat. The idea was that while they would provide free care to all low-income residents in the four zip codes that surrounded their office’s West Side neighborhood, the clinic would also aggressively promote itself to the increasing numbers of middle-income residents moving into the Wright-Dunbar neighborhood and other corners of the city, in addition to the long-established professional families up in Dayton View.
Maxwell had been confident that the power of his family name, combined with the positive publicity Gem City would gain from its reputation for serving the underprivileged, would make his practice the choice of progressive, paying patients from across the community.
It hadn’t quite worked out that way.
Maxwell rubbed at his eyes, rolling his shoulders rebelliously as his body reminded him he’d had six entire hours of sleep the past three days. “Okay, Edna,” he said, “see you guys at seven.”
Edna smiled thinly, turning over her shoulder as her stubby legs propelled her down the hallway. “You regretting hiring me yet, Doctor?”
Realizing the playful tone of his office manager’s question, Maxwell waved her off and took the latest patient chart over to his desk. Funny thing was, of all the decisions he had made since leaving Dallas, the one his family had most questioned was the hiring of Edna Morrison.
His baby brother, Forrest, had summed it up best. “What are you, nuts?” They were standing on the patio of Forrest’s newly renovated home in an expensive corner of Centerville, manning a huge grill loaded with expensive cuts of meat. “You have a death wish or something, man? How can you hire a woman who probably hates everything you stand for?”
Maxwell had frowned in confusion. “What exactly do I stand for, now?”
Forrest had retrieved his fat, costly Cuban cigar and taken a puff before responding. The only non-physician in the family, he just so happened to be the highest income-earner. After graduating from the top of his classes at both Tuskegee and the Wharton business school, Forrest had quickly earned his place as a top executive with the Simon family’s chain of for-profit hospitals and physician practices. “What you stand for, my brother,” he said finally, “is the very thing that drives poor white folk crazy —a black man with money.” Flipping a cut of filet mignon, he cut his eyes back in his oldest brother’s direction. “Or should I say, a black man who once had money.”
“She’s not like that,” Maxwell had replied, shrugging off the dig. He wasn’t sure why he was defending the decision. After all, Bruce was the one who had interviewed Edna independently, picking her résumé from the application stack without having any insight into the fact that she was the mother of the Eddie Walker. Once Bruce was so sold on her, insisting Maxwell include her on the list of people to get a second interview, Maxwell had been hard-pressed to deny her qualifications.
“She’s really built herself up,” Maxwell had explained to Forrest that day. “Not only does she have fifteen years of nursing experience, she earned a master’s in health administration at Wright State and spent several years managing two private practices. They sent glowing recommendation letters.”
Forrest glared as he asked, “So why would she leave a practice that could clearly pay her more than you could afford, to work for the classmate of her nearly dead son?”
“The woman has faith,” Maxwell had replied, happy to hit a topic that he knew was a sore one with Forrest, who seemed to grow more arrogant and humanistic by the day. “Without me even bringing it up, she told me all about the trials she and Eddie have suffered through the years . . . the surgeries, the signs of recovery that turned out to be teases, all of it. This woman could have crumpled into a tragic figure, Forrest, but instead she’s come to treat Eddie’s fate as motivation to see to it that more people receive effective health care.
“Now that’s not to say you can’t still see signs of pain in her, or that she’ll ever stop mourning in her own way, but she doesn’t let it consume her. Frankly, she’s an inspiring presence to have in the office.”
“Well, God bless you, Pollyanna,” Forrest had said, handing him a plate of steaks. “Take those inside for me, please.” Maxwell hadn’t stayed at his brother’s house much longer that afternoon; the contempt hanging in the air had clouded his ability to enjoy the company of Forrest’s pleasant wife, Margaret, and their two young children.
• • •
Finishing his review of the patient chart before him, Maxwell stood and headed toward the appropriate examination room. The trilling of his cell phone slowed his gait and the number that popped up reminded him of the touchy task awaiting: Nia. He would have to explain, somehow, that he wouldn’t be able to make it out to her house tonight, and he knew she would not be pleased.
Weighing the ringing phone in his hand, Maxwell began rehearsing the conversation in his head: “I love you, you know that. I just can’t get out there to see you by a decent hour tonight.”
He knew the basic tenor of her response: “Why can’t we just live together? Why don’t you move out here, or let me come live in Dayton with you?” Nia might not use those exact words, but her disappointment would speak volumes.
The question was, how would he answer this time? Was it time to just tell the truth? “Because it’s too complicated.”
For some reason he couldn’t explain, Maxwell felt the spirit of Julia Turner, of all people, observing his anguish. What would someone like her —a beautiful, educated, and witty black woman —think of his relationship with Nia? It still surprised him that he now cared; he hadn’t seen the attraction to Julia coming. When she had first walked into the boardroom at Christian Light, dressed in a dark pinstriped suit, rocking a natural hairstyle and two simple hoop earrings, Maxwell had felt that unexplainable stir within that told him when a woman was worth investigating. He wondered if she knew how pretty her smile was; from what he could see, Julia held it close, letting it out only in rare moments where she dropped her guard.
Maxwell knew he was probably wasting his time on such questions. He’d sensed during their confrontation a few days ago that Julia still held a grudge over his lack of attraction to her all those years ago. Did his relationship with Nia prove that Maxwell was still the same shallow, white-woman-obsessed kid of years ago? He didn’t want to think so, but he had a feeling Julia wouldn’t be so charitable.
Why did that bother him so much?
8
I’m going to tell him, Cassie told herself as she grabbed her car keys from the counter. Right now.
The sudden sensation of Marcus’s lips against her cheek surprised her. “You sure you don’t have time to join me for breakfast before the meeting?” From behind, he wrapped his wife in an embrace. “It won’t take me a minute to drop the girls at school; then we could meet up at First Watch.”
“You know I would if I could,” she replied, her left hand caressing the right arm Marcus had draped over her shoulder. “I really need to get this first meeting of the day in, though.”
“All right,” Marcus said, a slight growl underneath his words. He turned Cassie around to face him and planted a romantic kiss before saying, “I’m just excited to have you at my side today. We’re going to finally prove them wrong.”
It was hard to believe that God had finally aligned all the necessary players —venture capitalists, bankers, and advertisers —that Marcus had sought while trying to launch Renewed, the Christian magazine he’d first conceived while working as a senior editor for the Dayton Daily News. Today’s meeting was the linchpin, where Marcus and his leadership team would sign the leasing agreements for the magazine’s office space.
Now that their marriage had survived the stresses driven by her husband’s career change, the last thing Cassie wanted to do was
reveal the fresh horror stalking her. As she stood on her toes and returned Marcus’s kiss, she prayed to God for strength. She knew deep within that the recent hours she had invested in prayer and meditation had delivered one certainty among the anxieties Peter Whitlock had stirred within her. Anything that threatened her sanity, her welfare, and, more crucially, M.J.’s had to be shared with Marcus. If she couldn’t share something like this with her husband, what was the point of marriage anyway?
“Marcus, wait!” The words burst forth from Cassie when she realized he had already shrugged into his trench coat and grabbed his briefcase.
A teasing smirk twisting his lips, he looked back at Cassie, one hand on the garage door knob. “Yeah, sweetie?”
Cassie felt her lips part, heard nothing but exhaled air escape. Swallowing, she ran a hand over her forehead. “There’s something we need to talk about. I know you’re pressed for time right now, but God put it on my heart this morning —”
Cassie’s unsteady words were cut short by the ring tone of Marcus’s cell phone. His eyes still on hers, as if to encourage her to keep speaking, he nonetheless raised his phone so that its face was within his line of sight. “Aw, no,” he said, brow furrowing. “I’m sorry, Cassie, this is that new attorney we brought on board last week. I need to make sure he knows how to get to the meeting.”
“No, I understand,” Cassie replied, biting her upper lip. “Take it. I’ll go make sure the girls are ready to join you in the car.”
When Cassie returned with Heather and Hillary in tow, she kissed each one and ushered them out to the driveway. Marcus sat in the driver’s seat of his DeVille. The engine was already running and he was still in a focused conversation on his cell phone headset. Standing just inside the garage, Cassie waved to her family and sighed as Marcus began to back out of the driveway. I was ready to finally do it, Lord, she prayed. Not my fault that modern technology got in the way.
God Only Knows Page 5