Two of a Kind

by Yona Zeldis McDonough

  “All right,” he said, “what’s the emergency? Does it have to do with your paper?”

  Oliver shook his head. “It’s Cunningham, Dad. He said that since I missed my third appointment with the school psychologist, I couldn’t go on the eleventh-grade retreat. And I have to go on that retreat, Dad. I just have to.”

  “When did you find this out?” Andy asked. It was only six thirty in the morning; school would not start for another hour and a half.

  “Yesterday,” Oliver admitted.

  “And you waited until now to tell me?” Andy asked.

  “Uh, well, yeah.” Oliver had the grace to look abashed.

  “All right, Ollie,” he said. “As soon as I’m done with my workout, I’ll see if I can get Cunningham on the phone to discuss it. When does the retreat start?”

  “Today. We’re supposed to leave right after school. The bus will be waiting at three fifteen.”

  “Pack your stuff and go to school now. I’ll text you later.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” Oliver said. He fingered the hole in his faded gray T-shirt, stretching the dime-sized opening to that of a quarter. All the money Andy spent—and gladly!—on the kid’s clothes and still his son insisted on wearing stuff not even fit to donate.

  Andy returned to his workout, but his concentration was shot. It wasn’t just this thing with Cunningham. The kid was all over the place. Excelling in some courses, failing others. Took the PSAT last fall and scored a cool eight hundred on the math, yet this year he was getting a D in algebra. It was the loss of his mother, of course. Andy sympathized. Empathized. Hell, he wasn’t over Rachel’s death and he was a man; Oliver was still just a kid.

  A little more than an hour later, Andy was showered, dressed in a bespoke suit and crisp white pima cotton shirt from Brooks Brothers, and walking through the door of his Park Avenue office. It was still dark when he entered; as usual, he was the first to arrive. He had two C-sections scheduled later on, but he reserved these early-morning slots for meeting new patients. He flipped on the lights and walked through the reception area with its framed vintage movie posters, sleek black leather sofa, and wall-sized aquarium before reaching his sanctum.

  Today he was seeing Beth Klein, a woman who had gone through four first-trimester miscarriages in the last two years. Her fifth and last pregnancy had lasted six months, only to end when a raging bacterial infection had necessitated inducing her; she gave birth to a one-pound baby girl who’d lived for half an hour and died in her arms.

  He opened the file and began to read. Beth had an incompetent cervix as well as an abnormally shaped uterus—a cramped almond instead of a roomy triangle. Why the idiot doctor who’d treated her before had not ordered bed rest and had her surgically stitched was a total mystery to him. Letting her run around, take Pilates and play tennis even, with all those miscarriages behind her? But it would do no good to dwell on this. He needed to help Beth bring a healthy baby to full term.

  There was a light tap on the door, followed by the appearance of his newish secretary, Joanne. “Here’s your breakfast, Dr. Stern.” She set the Morning Glory muffin and freshly squeezed carrot-apple-orange elixir from the juice bar on Lexington Avenue in front of him. He took a long swig of juice and unwrapped the muffin. Stone-cold. Joanne knew he liked his muffin toasted, damn it. Was that so hard to remember? He was just about to call her back when his eyes settled on the framed photograph of Rachel that had pride of place on his desk.

  It was his favorite photo, taken on the beach some years before she’d gotten sick. Her corkscrew blond curls were partially contained by a red bandanna, and her eyes, the clear, light blue of a swimming pool, looked straight at him. Give it a rest, Andy-boy, she seemed to be saying. Joanne’s a good egg and you know it. So she forgot about the muffin today. Is that such a big deal? Rachel had this way of talking him down from himself. He was a better man in her presence and now that she was gone, he missed the person he’d been when he was with her almost as much as he missed her.

  Biting into the cold muffin, Andy looked down at the file, though he wasn’t really seeing it anymore. He was thinking of his Rachel, and the unbelievable irony that she’d died of ovarian cancer, when he was in fact a gynecologist, trained to diagnose such diseases. Of course he hadn’t been her gyn; that was a breach of protocol. But still, he felt haunted by the idea that somehow he should have known.

  There was a knock on the door. “Dr. Stern, your first appointment is here,” said Joanne. “And oh, I realized I forgot to have them toast your muffin; sorry about that. I’ll make sure it’s done tomorrow.”

  “Thanks, Joanne,” he said, glancing at the photograph. See, Rachel seemed to say. You can have your muffin toasted without being an ogre. “Send them in.”

  Beth and her husband, Bob, entered his office. She was thirtyish, with pretty features clouded by an anxious look; the husband held her arm like he thought it might break. Andy took in Beth’s expensive-looking slacks and top. On her arm she carried a quilted Chanel bag—he recognized it because many of his patients carried those bags—that cost more than four grand. But all the women he saw had money; he charged a lot and took no insurance. Only the very wealthiest women could afford him.

  Even though he now made plenty of money, Andy never quite shook off the feeling of inferiority when he met people like the Kleins. He’d been a scrappy kid from the Bronx, dying to claw his way out of the neighborhood where the three of them were crammed into a tiny apartment above a butcher shop; life there had been permeated by the smell of blood. His parents were always fighting and Andy’s memories included slammed doors, dishes hurled, and plenty of shouting. It was a relief when his father finally left. He and his mother moved in with her best friend while Ida looked for work. She’d found it too, and she was able to see him through City College, where he’d been in the top one percent of his class. She even helped with his medical school bills, though he’d taken out plenty of loans to pay those. As for his father, there had been sporadic attempts to stay in touch, but eventually those petered out. Andy had moved from grief to anger to apathy; he never thought about his father anymore. The man had been dead for twenty years now.

  “Please sit down,” he told the Kleins. “I’ve read through your history,” he began. “That last pregnancy must have been excruciating.”

  “It was,” she murmured, looking down.

  “I know. Which is why I am going to make sure that nothing like that happens the next time.”

  “Next time?” This was from Bob. “Will there be a next time?”

  “Absolutely,” said Andy. “We know that Beth can get pregnant. Now we just have to make sure she stays pregnant.”

  “Do you really mean it?” Bob said. His wife was weeping softly and he took her hand.

  “Yes, I do.” Andy handed Beth a tissue. “Now, let me tell you exactly what we’re going to do.” For the next fifteen minutes, he outlined a plan. Pending the results of the pelvic exam and the sonogram—he needed to see whether there was any residue from the last pregnancy—he would urge her to begin trying again, using an ovulation predictor to speed the process along. Once she was pregnant, he’d stitch her cervix until it was as tight as a cork in an unopened bottle of wine. Then he’d place her on total bed rest. The only thing she would be allowed to do would be to come—in a taxi—to see him. Would it be an ordeal? You bet, he told her. But at the end of it, she would have her baby.

  “You’ll take up knitting,” he told her as he escorted her to the examination room. “Or read The Magic Mountain. In German.” This elicited a smile. “Why don’t you have a seat in the waiting room?” he told Bob. “We won’t be long.”

  Andy waited the requisite few minutes while Beth undressed and put on the blue paper gown; after Pam, the technician, completed the sonogram, he went in, scrubbed his hands, and donned the latex gloves. The instruments had been warmed and he kept his tone genial, con
ducting the exam with such delicacy that he actually had her smiling while her feet were in the stirrups.

  Beth got off the table, dressed, and came into his office while Joanne got Bob from the waiting room. “Everything looks good,” Andy said. “The sonogram was all clear.” He could see how their faces began to open, like flowers in the sun. Once they were gone, Andy saw his unfinished muffin and juice still sitting there. He dumped the muffin, drained the juice, and pulled out the next file. By lunchtime, he was ravenous and he had Joanne order him a tofu platter and a cup of gazpacho, both of which were consumed at his desk. Andy scrupulously watched what he ate and was proud that in his mid-forties he still weighed 178 pounds, the same as he had the day he graduated from college.

  While he ate, he scanned the messages on his phone. Here was one from Cunningham, whom he’d contacted even before coming to the office. One was from his mother and another from his old buddy Gavin Rothberg; he hadn’t talked to Gavin in ages. And look, here was a message from that decorator he’d met at the wedding, Christina Connelly. Now, he had never expected to hear from her. His verdict? Classy but cold. Icy, even. Still, he did need some work done on the apartment. He’d call her tomorrow.

  The last message was the best of all, a flirtatious text from Jennifer Baum, the sexy little blonde he’d been dating for the past few months. He smiled when he thought of Jen. Her text was brief. See u 2nite? Planning what NOT to wear. XOXO. Obvious, yes. But effective too. He quickly texted her back.

  Lunch finished, he launched into the next phase. First he phoned Cunningham and managed to smooth things over at least enough so that Oliver could go on the retreat. Oliver was happy when he got the text letting him know, but Andy understood this was just a Band-Aid. As a condition of allowing Oliver to go on the trip, Cunningham had insisted on a meeting in his office next week: the school psychologist and Andy would be in attendance as well. “We won’t exactly call it an intervention,” Cunningham had said. “But that’s what it is.” Oh great, thought Andy. Still, an intervention—a bullshit term if there ever was one—was better than a suspension or an expulsion. Then Andy headed over to New York Hospital, on East Sixty-eighth Street. On the way, he called his mother. She answered on the first ring.

  “I went shopping today,” she announced. “That gonif at the Food Emporium charged me the regular price for the cheese; the sharp cheddar was supposed to be on special this week.”

  “You don’t have to worry about money, Ma,” he said gently. “You know I’ll take care of you.”

  “Please,” she said. “It’s not about that. It’s the principle of the thing.”

  “I know.”

  “And another thing: I gave that fellow downstairs a big tip to fix the leak in my bathroom faucet and it’s still dripping. The sound is driving me crazy at night.”

  “Is he a plumber?” Andy asked, glancing at his watch.

  “No, but he said he could handle it.”

  “Ma, I think you need a plumber to take a look. Do you need me to call one?”

  “I’d appreciate that,” she said.

  Again, Andy checked his watch. “Can I call you later?” he asked.

  • • •

  At the hospital, both C-sections went extremely well. Julie Bixby delivered a perfect little boy—seven pounds, five ounces—and Samantha Kane hit the jackpot with triplets, all of them girls. They were preemies of course, whisked off for testing practically the second they came out. All three were more than two pounds each, which was tiny but still viable. And their vital signs looked good. When Andy held the first one in his arms, she screwed up her face and looked at him with such indignation that he wanted to kiss her. Feisty, Andy thought. This one is going to make it.

  So he was in an excellent mood while he made his rounds and then left the hospital. He planned to walk up to Seventy-ninth Street, which was where Jennifer lived. But just as he crossed Seventy-third Street, his phone buzzed again. This time it was his service, calling to inform him that Linda McConnell, one of his patients, was in labor now; she’d been monitoring the contractions for the last hour. Which would have been fine except that she was only twenty-six weeks pregnant; the baby in there was not fully cooked. He called her back immediately.

  “Tell your husband to take you to the ER; I’ll meet you there. And have him call an ambulance.”

  “All right, Dr. Stern.” She was crying of course. They all cried.

  “And Linda? I want you to hang on. Tell yourself you are not going to have this baby until you get to the hospital.” He said good-bye and checked his watch. No way was he going to make that date with Jen. Then he raised his arm and hailed a taxi to take him straight to the hospital.

  FOUR

  Oliver sat on an ornately carved wooden bench outside Cunningham’s office, which was on the ground floor of the fortresslike building that housed Morningside Grammar and Prep. The seat of the bench was worn in places, evidence of all the kids who’d waited here before him. Oliver wasn’t looking forward to this meeting, but his father had made it clear that Cunningham was insisting on it. “And this time you’d better show up,” his dad had said. “Otherwise, you’ll be spending your senior year somewhere else.” Oliver might not have cared about this had it not been for the presence of Delphine, an incredibly hot French girl who had shown up in his grade this year. The thought of being apart from her this summer—she was going back to France—was bad enough; he had to know that he would be seeing her in September.

  Oliver looked around the waiting area. There was a frayed rug in front of the bench, and the table in front of him was scratched. Everything about this place was worn-out. But the lack of attention to appearances was a reverse kind of snobbery. We don’t care about any of that statusy stuff, it said. We just care about the life of the mind. Which was pretty funny when you considered that Morningside was a third-rate school for kids who couldn’t cut it at Dalton, Spence, Chapin, Brearley, or any of the other really good private schools. Oliver used to go to Dalton, but that was before his mom died and everything went totally to hell.

  On the table sat copies of the student paper and yearbook. Once, he’d thought about becoming involved with both; now, like most of his classmates, they just seemed stupid to him. Delphine was the only one who was different; she just seemed to understand things that other people didn’t. She was tall—taller than he was, even—with long, shiny brown hair. Her clothes were different too: short, pleated skirts, sweaters that looked like they belonged to her older brother, button-up blouses with funny old-fashioned collars, black tights, flat shoes. And that accent of hers: he could come just hearing her say his name—Ol-lee-vair—with the emphasis on the last syllable. She was the reason he’d been so insistent on going on the retreat; otherwise, he’d have totally blown it off.

  Just then, Cunningham opened the door and stuck his big head out. In a deep, fake-friendly voice he said, “Come in, young man. Come in, come in.” Oliver shuffled into the office and sat down on the lumpy, blue-flowered sofa that everyone called the hot seat. His dad was already here, sitting in a stiff chair and trying not to look at his watch; it was like a tic or something with him. Ms. Warren, the school psychologist, was here too. Her gray hair had a serious case of bed head, though he did like the cherry red frames of her glasses; his mom might have worn them. Rounding out the group was Mr. Pollock, the grade dean. He had a pathetic comb-over and called the boys dude; no one thought he was in the least bit cool.

  Cunningham shut the door with a definitive smack. “Thank you all for coming,” he said, looking around the room. “And thank you, Oliver, for gracing us with your presence.” Was the guy sincere or ragging on him? Cunningham droned on for a few minutes. . . . Bright boy, not living up to his potential, potentially at risk were some of the phrases that flitted across Oliver’s radar, but then they too were gone.

  “So, Oliver, what do you think of what Mr. Cunningham just said?” asked M
s. Warren.

  Oliver looked at her and blinked. “Uh, I’m not sure.”

  “Dude, were you even listening?” Mr. Pollock chimed in. Oliver ignored him and focused instead on his dad, who was of course checking his watch.

  “You can go,” he said to his father. “Really, Dad, it’s okay. If you’re busy, you can just leave now and I’ll tell you about the conversation when you get home tonight.” He had a phony smile pasted on his face, but inside he was seething. Yeah, throw me under the bus, why don’t you? Throw me under the bus and let it roll right over me.

  “Leaving? No one’s leaving until we’re through here,” Andy said. He sounded pissed off, but he was finally able to pull his glance away from his wrist.

  “Mr. Cunningham was saying that he thought your behavior might have to do with your mother’s death; do you think that’s true?” Ms. Warren looked at him earnestly.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think about her death too much,” said Oliver. Now, that was a major lie. It seemed to him that he thought about little else, except for smoking weed and, lately, Delphine. She had art this period; he’d memorized her schedule.

  “You must miss her,” Ms. Warren continued as if he had not spoken. “And missing her might make you act out in ways that are not always in your best interest.”

  Miss her? Of course he missed her. Did Ms. Warren need a wall full of degrees to figure that out? She was his mom, after all. He had loved her and been devastated when she got sick. But what no one seemed to get was that he didn’t accept that she was dead, not really. He knew she had died; he had seen her at the end, scrawny and terrifying, the remains of her curly hair like wisps of fluff around her poor, nearly naked head. That she stayed dead, though, day after day, month after month—that was the part that tripped him up. When he’d once said as much to his best friend, Jake Horowitz, Jake just tapped a hand to his forehead. “You’d better get some help, man,” he’d said. “Because you’re nuts.” Oliver never brought it up again.