Scarecrow

by Robin Hathaway

  “Name’s Tom. I hear you’re staying on.”

  I blinked. Once more the village grapevine had caught me off guard.

  “Paul Nelson is a friend of mine,” he explained. “I dropped by the motel after you’d left and—”

  “Another generation, isn’t he?”

  He hesitated. “I knew his son.”

  “He has a son?”

  “Had.”

  Silence. I wanted to know what had happened to the son, but I’d be damned if I’d ask.

  “He disappeared.”

  I looked at him. “As on milk cartons?”

  He nodded.

  “When?”

  He shrugged. “Three years ago.”

  “Did they try to find him?”

  “Oh, sure. Even got the FBI in on it. Nothing turned up. I think the Nelsons have accepted it—finally.”

  “That he’s not coming back.”

  He nodded.

  In a flash, I understood Mr. Nelson’s gray aspect—and his expression, It’s only money.

  “What do you think happened?”

  “He ran with a wild crowd in high school …”

  “Yours?”

  He ignored this. “He always needed money. Somebody in his crowd had a leather jacket; Nick had to have two leather jackets. His parents—the Nelsons—couldn’t keep up with it. They tried. But the Oakview Motor Lodge isn’t exactly the Ritz.”

  “I get the picture.” I cut him off. I didn’t want a rundown on the Nelsons’ financial affairs. “Was he into drugs?”

  “His staff of life.”

  “Is he alive?”

  He looked down. “I hope not.”

  “For his sake or the Nelsons’?”

  He raised his eyes to mine and said softly, “I don’t care what happened to that bastard.”

  There didn’t seem to be anything more to say. I worked on the remains of my hamburger.

  After a minute he said, “Paul’s very happy you’ve decided to stay.”

  “I know. I only hope I can live up to his expectations.” Where had that crap come from? “I hafta get back.” I dug in my jeans for a tip, snatched up my check, and made a beeline for the cash register. What’s wrong with me? Why antagonize a perfectly nice hunk? Disgusted with myself, I hurried back to the motel in search of sleep—and oblivion. My last thought before I conked out: I need another man like a hole in the head. Don’t I have enough troubles?

  CHAPTER 13

  Although I had been away from Manhattan for only forty-eight hours, when I got back to my apartment and checked my phone messages there were half a dozen from my father—the note of panic increasing a few decibels in each one.

  “Hi, Dad.”

  “Thank God. Where’ve you been?”

  “I took a little vacation. Needed to get out of town. Sorry I worried you.” (Long ago I’d stopped reminding him that I was twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight years old and able to take care of myself. When I was a hundred, he’d still worry.)

  “Never mind. Where’d you go?”

  “Salem, New Jersey.”

  Dead silence.

  “It’s near the Delaware Bay. Its main claim to fame is a nuclear power plant.”

  “What the—?”

  “Look, it’s a long story—and I just got in. I’ll meet you at the diner for dinner.” The diner was the Gemini just two blocks from my apartment at Second and Thirty-third. Whenever Dad came into the city, we ate there. Not for us the glitzy, expensive restaurants that catered to the tourist trade. Besides, the food was better.

  He grunted his agreement.

  “So that’s the plan.” I glanced at my father over a pile of shrimp carcasses and one squeezed-to-death lemon segment.

  He stared back at me over the naked bones of two pork chops and a parsley sprig that would never rise again.

  I was the first to look away. My father’s gaze had not been hard to read: Are you crazy?

  There was some justification for this. The last time I’d seen him, I had described with pride a cocktail party to which all the great names in New York medicine had been invited—and me, too. At the time I’d suspected he’d thought it was silly, but you could never tell with Dad. Maybe it was just my sudden about-face that had thrown him. But more likely, it was the distance it would put between us. Since my mother died (when I was four), I had never lived more than an hour away from him.

  “It’s just a six-month trial,” I murmured. As usual, one of his looks had set off a chain reaction of doubts about my most carefully laid plans.

  He tossed his balled-up paper napkin on the table. “When do you leave?”

  “In a week.”

  “Not much time. What about your office? Your apartment?”

  “I can rent the office like that!” I snapped my fingers. “And I think I can sublet the apartment.”

  “You’re sure this is—?”

  “It’s just an experiment, Dad.” I cut him off before he could undermine my decision any further. “I can be back in Manhattan tomorrow.”

  “But your opportunities …”

  “My credentials are my opportunities.”

  He sighed. And it was the sigh of someone from another generation—a generation in which education was not as easy to come by, or work as readily available.

  He shook his head. Suddenly he looked up. “What about Ken?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Now I get it.”

  He didn’t, but I let him think he did. He thought I was perfect. Why disillusion him? I had told him about Sophie when it happened, of course. But it was an abbreviated account, omitting such salient points as my misdiagnosis. To spare his feelings, I told myself.

  “Shall we go?” I started to pull on my parka.

  He couldn’t resist one last searching glance for signs of unrequited love. Finding none, he shook his head again and wormed his way into his own parka.

  Leaving the glittering amber lights of the diner behind, we headed south on Second Avenue. Usually we linked arms, exchanging heated views on some past or upcoming contest between the Yankees and the Orioles, the Islanders and the Rangers. Tonight we walked in silence with space between us until we hit Thirty-fourth. There we parted, Dad heading across town for his subway while I continued on to Thirty-third.

  CHAPTER 14

  As I’d told Dad, it was a snap to unload my office. Office space in upscale medical buildings in Manhattan is always at a premium. The apartment was another story. My lease still had six months to go, and my landlord wasn’t about to let me worm out of it. I had been planning to call Ken and get him to find me a subletter. He had lived in my apartment for over a year—why shouldn’t he take some responsibility? But when I went to dial him, I realized I didn’t know where he was. I could call him at work, but he shared an office with a couple of colleagues and I wasn’t in the mood for small talk. I could track him down, of course, but this would mean a roundabout phone search through friends, and endless explanations about our split that I didn’t feel up to right now. Fortunately, he called me. He had been trying to reach me all weekend. It was an uninspired conversation, but one that ended to my satisfaction—a promise from him to find a subletter for my apartment. Whew! Home free. Now I just had to decide what to store and what to take. Dad had promised to bring his van over to pick up the things I didn’t want to take to New Jersey. There was plenty of storage space in the cellar and garage, he assured me. If there was any overflow, there was always the print shop. But I’d have to rent a U-Haul for the remainder.

  It took a little over ten days to wind things up. There had been no problem staying on the courtesy staff of my fancy hospital. My colleagues had managed to keep their surprise under wraps. What they said behind my back, I could only guess. I left my savings account untouched in the Manhattan bank (all $200 of it). My final act before leaving the city was to mail the apartment keys to Ken. (He was temporarily sharing a pad on the West Side with a couple of his buddies.) As I walked back d
own the block from the mailbox toward my overstuffed U-Haul, I felt as giddy as a kid on the first day of summer vacation. Edging the U-Haul out of the parking spot, I pointed it downtown toward the Holland Tunnel.

  CHAPTER 15

  “You’ve got a house call!” Paul hailed me as I came in the door to pick up my key.

  My mouth did a good imitation of the Grand Canyon.

  “It just came.” He handed me a slip of paper with a name and number scrawled on it.

  “But—” I sputtered, “my Jersey license hasn’t—”

  He handed me an envelope from the Board of Medical Examiners.

  “But my narcotics—”

  He handed me two more envelopes from the narcotics bureaus.

  The Grand Canyon snapped shut. Apparently New Jersey’s bureaucracy was more efficient than New York’s. I looked down at the first piece of paper. Amy Nice, Midway Motor Inn, and the phone number. “Midway between what and what?”

  “Salem and Bridgeton,” he said, and he handed me another slip of paper. This one bore a map that he had drawn himself.

  Sheepishly, I thanked him. “Any info on the patient?”

  “Seven-year-old girl with hives.”

  My stomach did a ninety-degree flip. Why couldn’t it have been a male octogenarian with a hernia? I considered heading back to the Turnpike. But medical training dies hard. I beat it to the U-Haul without another word. Hives, if not treated promptly, can spread to the throat and block the air passages.

  On the way to the motel I had time to think. I hadn’t planned to jump back into practice with an emergency—especially not one involving a child. That nocturnal emergency in the room next to mine had been an unavoidable episode, a chance occurrence not to be repeated. When I decided to come to Bayfield I had planned to ease myself back into practice little by little, starting with a few bad colds, a bee sting, or a case of poison ivy, gradually working my way up to some more serious respiratory infections, an appendectomy maybe, and eventually—say in a year or two—a heart attack. All my patients would be sixty-five or older, people whose lives had been lived to the fullest and, if shortened, would not have too many regrets.

  The Midway Motor Inn was a carbon copy of the Oakview Motel, minus the 1930s cabins. But the motel operator bore no resemblance to Paul Nelson. He was a she, with heavy makeup and a hard stare. She directed me to Room 32. I had forgotten how casually I was dressed—in parka, T-shirt, jeans and sneakers—until I saw the startled expression of the neatly groomed woman who opened the door. The only clue she had that I was a doctor was the black medical kit in my left hand.

  “Dr. Banks.” I offered my right hand. “Excuse the informality of my dress, but I thought I’d better come right away.”

  “Come in, Doctor.”

  I stepped into the room and caught the first sight of my patient. Big for seven, the child had taken over the entire double bed and made it her own. The sheets were littered with gum wrappers and comic books. Her eyes were glued to the TV screen. Even from this distance I could see the welts on her stomach. She had pulled up her T-shirt and pulled down her jeans to facilitate easier scratching. Each welt was white and about the size of a quarter.

  “Hello, Amy,” I said.

  She glanced at me briefly.

  “After I wash my hands, I’ll take a look at that rash.”

  She began to scratch her stomach vigorously with both hands.

  “Try not to do that,” I said.

  “It itches.” She pouted.

  I turned to her mother. “May I use your sink?”

  “Go right ahead, Doctor.” The woman gestured to the bathroom.

  When I came back to the bed, Amy had pulled down her T-shirt and pulled up her jeans, hiding her rash from me.

  “Let’s have a look,” I said.

  Her lower lip popped out and she shook her head.

  I didn’t expect much help from the mother. Fragile and feminine-looking, I automatically categorized her as wishy-washy.

  “I can’t stop the itch unless you let me see what’s wrong,” I said in my most reasonable tone.

  “Let her see!” barked the mother, scaring me more than the child.

  Up came the shirt.

  So much for my powers of psychoanalysis. Lucky I’d opted for family medicine and not psychiatry. I carefully examined her stomach. “Do you itch anywhere else?”

  She shook her head.

  I took a tongue blade from my kit and asked her to open her mouth.

  She glanced at her mother who was standing behind me. The mouth opened.

  “Wider, please.”

  “It doesn’t itch there,” she whined, but obeyed.

  I pressed her tongue flat with my blade and flashed my light over the back of her throat. Faint white spots were beginning to show on either side. If untreated, they could swell into hives large enough to cut off her breathing. I withdrew the blade.

  “Why’s your hand shaking?”

  Kids notice everything. “I was up all night.”

  “Why?”

  I could feel the mother’s eyes lasering into my back.

  “My cat was sick,” I lied.

  “What was wrong with him?”

  “Uh—he had a pain.” Get hold of yourself. She’s not Sophie. Sophie was small and delicate with auburn hair, soft gray eyes, and a sweet smile. This kid was big and blond with dark brown eyes and a sullen expression.

  “Is he okay now?”

  “I think so.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Frankie.”

  “That’s not a good name for a cat.”

  “It isn’t?”

  “Nah.”

  “What’s a good cat name?”

  “Mustard.”

  “But my cat’s black.”

  “Licorice, then. You could call him Lick for short.”

  “That’s perfect. He does a lot of licking with that rough tongue of his.”

  “Why is it rough?”

  “To remove loose hair when he’s shedding …”

  We both turned at the interruption.

  “ … and other forms of dirt,” the mother added.

  I glanced around for a wastebasket in which to throw the tongue blade. The mother brought one quickly. I tossed the blade and noted with relief that my hand was steady again. I rummaged in my medical kit. The child watched me carefully. When I drew out a syringe in a see-through wrapper, she squealed and drew back against the headboard.

  I laid the syringe on the bedside table. “Amy, I can’t tell you this won’t hurt. It will—a little.”

  Her eyes filled and she began to sniffle.

  “But I need your help in a little scientific experiment.” I picked up the syringe. “I’m going to tell you exactly what this shot will feel like, and afterwards I want you to tell me if I’m right or wrong. You have to concentrate very hard so you can describe how it felt afterwards. Then I can add it to the data I’m collecting for a very important scientific paper. Are you ready?”

  She bent her elbow and held her arm tight against her chest.

  “Amy!” Her mother’s voice was like a pistol shot.

  The child stretched out her arm.

  As I swabbed her skin with alcohol, I said, “First you’re going to feel a pinprick. No more than the prick of a thorn.” I tossed the cotton and tore the wrapper off the syringe. “This will be followed by a sting, which will last three seconds.” I positioned the needle. “Now, here’s the important part.” I forced her to look at me. “I want you to count those seconds—one chimpanzee, two chimpanzee, three chimpanzee …” I slid the needle in.

  With her eyes squeezed shut, she counted, “One chimpanzee, two chimpanzee, three chimpanzee, four chimpanzee.” Her eyelids flew open and she looked at me accusingly. “It was four seconds.”

  “Good for you.” I smiled, easing the needle out. “You’ve just made a great contribution to modern science.” I took out a pad and pen. At the top I wrote, Sting lasts 4 seconds.
“Will you sign this, please?” I handed her my ballpoint pen.

  She signed.

  As I placed a Band-Aid over the puncture, I said, “Thanks to you, the next time I give this shot, I’ll have to tell the patient the sting will last four, not three, seconds.”

  She smiled with satisfaction.

  I scrawled a prescription for hydrocortisone cream and handed it to her mother. “This should take care of the itching. And that shot of adrenaline I gave her should prevent the hives from swelling or spreading.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.” She placed the prescription carefully on the bureau. “What do I owe you?”

  After a quick calculation, I came up with, “Thirty-five.”

  She didn’t whistle, but looked as if she’d like to.

  I thought of explaining that I’d traveled ten miles and the adrenaline had cost ten dollars, but caught myself. No apologies. No excuses. A house call is a house call is a house call. This wasn’t the horse-and-buggy days when a loaf of bread cost ten cents, and a cup of coffee, a nickel.

  She took a wad of bills from her purse and wordlessly peeled off three tens and a five.

  “Are you going to be here long?” I placed the bills in my pocket and wrote out a receipt.

  “We’d planned to leave tomorrow.”

  “If Amy complains of any difficulty breathing or swallowing during the night, be sure to call me—no matter how late it is.”

  A look of alarm crossed her face.

  “It’s very unlikely,” I reassured her. I turned to Amy. “So long. You have the makings of a great scientist.”

  She barely nodded, her eyes glued once more to the TV screen.

  I climbed into the U-Haul, still packed with my belongings. Before turning the key, I sat a minute, breathing deeply. I had scaled one hurdle. I had treated a child. I turned the key. Now—if only those hives don’t swell!

  CHAPTER 16

  “Come with me to the Craft Fair.” Maggie waylaid me as I came in the door.

  “Oh, I don’t think …” I had been up since six, driven the U-Haul from New York, and was still recovering from my first house (motel) call. Even though it was barely noon, I was exhausted. And I still had to unload the U-Haul.