by Alice Adams
“I don’t know. Maybe.” It was true that Molly didn’t know. She thought she would wait and see how she felt when he called. If he called.
“He takes a little getting used to,” Felicia told her, adding, for no reason, “He was really crazy about his wife.”
“This is Dave Jacobs. Dr. Jacobs, we met the other night—I took you home from Felicia’s party? I was wondering if you were free for dinner on Thursday. There’s a nice place here in Mill Valley, if you don’t mind driving over …”
Having received that message on her machine, Molly called back and got his tape, and said that she was busy on Thursday. She said to Felicia, “And I do mind driving over—it’s too far for someone I don’t even know. And then the drive home.”
• • •
The second call came a week or so later, and this time he caught her at home.
“You’d really better see someone about those sinuses,” he said after Molly had said she was busy again, on the night that he suggested.
“I guess I should.”
“You sound terrible. Who’s your internist?”
“Douglas Macklin.”
“Oh, a very good man. Not the best, but very good.”
“Well, even if he’s not the best, I’ll call him.”
Surprising herself—she did not usually follow orders—Molly did call Dr. Macklin, who agreed that she should see someone. She should be seen, is how he put it. He would call a Dr. Beckle, and then she could call Beckle and make an appointment.
Dr. Beckle turned out to be away at a conference for the next two weeks, which seemed very long for a conference; Molly wondered about that. But in the meantime her allergy or whatever seemed in mild remission.
Dave Jacobs called her again, and again she was busy. And that was a fact that they were to argue about, among many other facts and opinions: his having called Molly three times before she could (or would) go out with him. “I’d never call anyone again who turned me down three times,” he swore. “Never. I’ve got too much pride.”
But he had, Molly knew that he had. She remembered remarking to Felicia, “Wouldn’t you know. I’m not at all interested, and so he calls and calls. Sometimes I think men are very predictable.” Making such negative generalizations, Molly always automatically exempted Paul—who indeed would not have called, not have been turned on by someone who was clearly not turned on by him.
“Especially doctors,” Felicia told her. “Egos like armored trucks. I often wonder which came first, the ego or the doctor.”
“That’s a good question.”
The next call from Dave Jacobs mentioned concert tickets, and then dinner. On a Sunday. Since Paul, Molly had found Sundays the hardest days to get through; also, a concert sounded like a proper date. What the doctor ordered, so to speak. And she was free. She said yes.
She wore a red dress. “You knew red was my favorite color,” he later told her, grinning and pleased.
“No, of course I didn’t.” From the start, almost, Molly was driven to combat with Dave, no matter how frivolous the issue.
Driving to the concert, Dave asked about her health, and she said that it seemed to have improved, but that she had made an appointment with Dr. Beckle, the ENT man.
“Alfred Beckle?”
“I think so.”
Dave Jacobs began to laugh—an actual chuckle. “Must be the same one. He got into an interesting malpractice case a few years ago. Some patient who was a homosexual claimed that his throat was ruined. You know, for sex. He wasn’t Deep Throat anymore.”
“Oh, really?” Molly could not bring herself to laugh at this, early training (laugh at men’s jokes) notwithstanding. Nor could she understand, either at the time or later on, just why he had told that story. She guessed that some gay-bashing was intended: those dirty people who do dirty things. But also a more general bashing of patients: crazy people who sue over crazy issues.
The concert, however, was a joy: chamber music, Schubert and Boccherini, Mozart. Dave Jacobs had liked it less. “I only really go for Bach,” he confessed. “My wife and I used to go down to Carmel every year. The Bach Festival.”
Getting the car out from the parking lot, fumbling with the ticket, getting onto the street and off to the restaurant, parking it there—all that seemed unusually difficult, and when Dave Jacobs said, “You wouldn’t believe how long since I’ve done all this. Martha did most of the driving in town,” Molly again felt a certain sympathy—even as she thought the word “dependent.” Obviously he and his wife had things worked out in some way, as had Molly and Paul, who took cabs to most concerts and walked home. This was in its way Daves “first date” too, as awkward for him as for Molly, and he did seem to be working at it.
“Sunday night a lot of places are closed. I’d forgotten that,” he said, and Molly was touched, as she imagined him calling around. Taking trouble.
His final choice had been unlucky: a bright new on-the-waterfront brasserie-type place, lots of high polish and white linen. Already very popular with very young people. Molly was the oldest young person there, so to speak—and Dave was simply old.
Maybe for that reason, their combined advanced ages, the greeter seemed to take pity on them, seating them in the quietest possible corner window table, with a view of the bay and the new tall palms that lined the Embarcadero.
“How about a nice martini?” Dave asked, and before she could say, No, a glass of white wine, please, he added, “You’re not one of those white-wine-only Yuppies, I hope?”
“Actually, a martini sounds good. Straight up, with a twist.” That was how Molly had drunk martinis with Henry, all those years ago, and it did sound good.
“Good for your health,” the doctor said, with that grin. “Cure your cold, or whatever it is that you’ve got.”
Whatever it was that Molly had was coming back on her in full force, and it occurred to her to wonder if it could be doctors that she was allergic to—a thought that she was to continue to have for a very long time, in various forms. She felt, then, terrible. Heavy in her head, especially her nose. Heavy everywhere. Exhausted. It was comforting to have a doctor so close at hand, in a way; it would have been much more so if she had liked him more.
And obviously this needs some explanation, the fact that Molly continued to see and eventually to be involved with, to go to bed with, a man whom in many ways she did not like. She castigated herself for that involvement, hating to use illness as an excuse, which sounded so wimpy. But that was certainly a part of it, and more so as she got sicker, and sicker. Also, Dave did come along fairly soon after Paul, and although with the kind strong help of Dr. Shapiro (and maybe some inner strength of which she was occasionally aware), Molly had been getting stronger, oddly enough that made her lonelier. Or maybe just more aware of the lack of human (male) touching in her life. Sometimes she had thought that just a mouth to kiss would do it, or a large male back to hold in the night. Sex was almost secondary, though she surely missed that too, a lot.
And so, although at first she certainly did not want to do any of those things with Dave Jacobs, eventually she did.
Another way to put it would be to say that it is hard to say no to a doctor, when you are sick.
The martinis were very good. “I’d forgotten what a good drink,” Molly told Dave.
“I’ll make you some that are even better.” His grin. “Martha always said I could retire and be a bartender.” From the start, he had this way of quoting the most trite remarks from Martha as though they were gems, which Molly found both touching and boring—finally.
He talked a lot about Martha during that first dinner. About ways in which he missed her, still. More things that she said. Her cooking. Her sadness that they had not had children. Molly did not get either then or later a sense of what she was like, what kind of woman, really, she had been. She thought it quite possible that Dave did not know either, and eventually she developed quite a few theories of her own about the character of Martha, which she k
ept mostly to herself. She never told Dave much about Paul, but then he didn’t ask.
“It was actually sleeping together that I missed so much. Next to each other,” Dave said, leaning forward to lower his voice. “Not just sex, although that too. But not having her with me in bed—that was the hardest to get used to. I honestly thought I couldn’t.”
“I felt that way too,” Molly told him. “For a long time I couldn’t sleep. Do you take pills or anything?” A doctor, he might have some great new surefire pill that she hadn’t heard about.
But, “Hell no,” he said. “I play tennis, and run. How about you? You don’t take sleeping pills, do you?”
“Not usually,” she lied. She knew that every night indeed was usually. But she was remembering the night when she found herself pushed over onto her side of the bed, and she realized that she didn’t have to do that. There was no one on the other side to make room for.
“Exercise beats pills or any so-called psychotherapy,” Dave told her, and she did not argue. “For a long time I wished I’d died too,” he said. “I don’t mean I was suicidal, I’m not a depressed person. I just wanted to be dead along with her.”
It seemed somewhat confused, this death wish coupled with a censoriousness concerning depression and suicide, but his very confusion was touching. What came through to Molly was genuine human pain, human love, and terrible loss. Molly felt that possibly she should clarify her own confusion, too: in her case it was not just mourning a loss through death; she was also hurt, still, that Paul had wanted out of their marriage. And so they sat there, she and Dave Jacobs, a mismatched pair of mourners, swilling white wine and eating good fresh salmon.
It was still early when they got out, and so as they drove up in front of Molly’s building, she asked him in. He accepted, and then accepted a brandy, telling her with approval, “This is good stuff.”
As he not too subtly inspected her living room, some wayward instinct informed Molly that he was weighing her as a possible replacement for Martha, checking out her taste and especially her housekeeping habits. She wanted to say, Look, in some ways you’re a very nice man, but you shouldn’t bother with me. It won’t work out. I am not meant for you, nor you for me. Go and find some nice doctor’s widow, who will think you’re wonderful and cherish you into old age. Which I won’t.
But of course she said none of that, and only thanked him when he said how nice it all was.
“You do all your own housework?” A rather nervy question, really.
“No,” she told him. “There’s someone who comes in once a week. She’s not a very good cleaner but she’s so nice, I can’t fire her.”
“Martha wouldn’t have anyone, she was always worried about stuff getting broken.”
“I guess I don’t have anything that I care about that much.”
Their conversation, such as it was, then languished.
Looking at Dave’s face, his large strong nose and those exemplary teeth, so white and healthy, Molly had a very odd thought, which was: If he tries to kiss me good night I’ll probably hit him. Very odd: never in her lifetime that she could remember had she hit anyone, unless possibly as a small child—and she was by now surely old enough to say no without resorting to physical violence.
What was even odder was that within a few weeks she had developed a sort of sexual fix on Dave Jacobs; she really liked their kissing, when once it happened. Although in many ways she did not like him, still, and had even thought of hitting. And only men did this, one used to think; only men had sex or wanted to have sex with women whom they otherwise disliked. But of course that isn’t true; like so many things, including hitting, women do it too.
But at the front door, that first night, Molly and Dave quite formally shook hands. No kissing, or hitting.
She thanked him, saying how much she had enjoyed the concert.
“Lucky that Carl gave me those tickets,” he said. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
“Carl?” Molly was not sure why she asked this.
“New man in the office. Johns Hopkins. He’s very good, and always buying tickets to concerts he doesn’t go to. His kids get sick or something. Lucky for me, I almost always use them.”
“Oh. Well, thanks.”
The news about the free tickets had been just slightly dispiriting, she realized. Irrationally (what difference did it make?), she had been pleased by the small trouble he had gone to, and now she liked him just a little less. She wished that he hadn’t told her.
FIVE
“I can’t have people coming in late!” screeched Dr. Beckle’s nurse. Her small angry pale-blue eyes darted around the crowded waiting room as her flimsy yellow-gray hair flew out in all directions.
Uncharacteristically, Molly argued, “But I’m really not late. It’s exactly two-thirty now.”
It was only then that the nurse seemed to focus on her. “Oh, I didn’t mean you. It’s everyone, and doctors running late. You’re for Dr. Morris? Mrs. Winter?”
“No, Bonner. Dr. Beckle.” Molly had said his name, and her own, about four minutes earlier.
“Oh yes, you’re the one with the ear problem, right?” Her voice seemed to fade in and out, like a defective radio.
“No. Sinuses. I think.”
There was no place in that room to sit down, so that at first Molly thought, Indeed, a bad season for sinuses. Later she guessed that all those doctors had simply overbooked. Greedy bastards, she thought.
After about fifteen minutes more, the nurse told her, “You can go right in now,” ushering her—almost shoving, in fact—into an examining room, as Molly wondered if she was really the right patient for this doctor, this room—which was small, bare, all sterilized. Nothing there to read. On one wall was a large poster of the interior of the nose, nasal passages, ears and their passages—all that. It was a little scary, and, never having felt anything like fear in a doctor’s office before, Molly thought that she was truly not quite herself.
Certainly, lately she had been feeling like some other, very sick person. The self with which she was familiar was never sick. But her head had been weighted, and she had frequent very sharp headaches. Quite out of character, she had fantasies about brain tumors. Galloping hypochondria, she thought. But still, she was both very uncomfortable and scared. And the longer she stayed in that room alone, the more uncomfortable, the more scared she got.
“All doctors do that to you,” Felicia told her later. “They strip you of any possible sources of comfort—often, of course, including your clothes—and they leave you alone for one hell of a long time.” At least Molly was fully dressed, but in Dr. Beckle’s case, that day it was forty-five minutes that she had to wait. “They make you wait so you’ll be ready when they are,” Felicia said. “But I don’t know why they can’t time it a little better than they do. It doesn’t seem fair to make a patient wait fifteen or twenty minutes so a doctor won’t have to wait for two. But I don’t think they see it that way. They don’t care about fair. They assume that a patient’s time has no value, whereas all of their time is priceless. God knows how often I’ve argued this with Sandy. Sometimes their time is really valuable, I know, but it’s not as though they spent even most of it saving lives, it really is not.”
And all that time in a room by yourself can be very scary for a patient, Molly realized, that day; you sit there contemplating your illness, whatever it is. In forty-five minutes she had almost everything. Including AIDS: just how unfaithful had Paul been, she wondered, and with whom?
She also had time to think a lot about Dave Jacobs, and the strangeness of their connection. He had wanted to come to this appointment with Molly, and in a way she wished that he had. But some inner voice continued to insist that really she did not like Dave, and that for that reason she should not use him, not for anything. Including sex, which by now she almost recognized that she looked forward to, although so far they had not even kissed. She wished that she could lighten up at least a little about both sex and her silly s
inuses. For a woman of her generation, Molly thought, she was sort of a throwback, a relic of earlier, more inhibited times. Some of which she put down to being Southern, Richmond, St. Catherine’s, all that, and some to the special craziness of her parents. But everyone grew up in a place with some peculiarities, and when you get to know them everyone’s parents sound fairly nuts.
Felicia on the whole, though, handled those things better, Molly thought. She spent considerable time in bed with Raleigh Sanderson, whom in many ways she did not like, but she liked the sex quite a lot, Molly gathered, and she evened things out by occasional sexual forays elsewhere. These days Molly suspected someone new on the horizon, the man from Seattle, probably—and she looked forward to whatever Felicia would say about it. Felicia was never literal or explicit—her delicacy was a quality that Molly valued.
“Well now, let’s see what’s the matter with you.” Dr. Beckle entered talking loudly, and not, either then or later, apologizing for being late. “What seems to be the trouble?” he demanded, frowning.
Short and stocky, with no neck and no bodily tapering, he was built like a bullet, Molly thought, and he moved aggressively, speaking in a rapid-fire, unstoppable way.
Molly tried to describe what was wrong, but she felt that she did a poor job of it. She sensed that Dr. Beckle had already come to his own decision about her case, from whatever Dr. Macklin had told him, and that she merely bored him as she spoke. He only half listened; the rest of his attention was waiting for his own speech.
When Molly stopped, feeling that her time was up, Beckle started in with what sounded like a set speech. Which she was soon able to forget, only that it was extremely frightening at the time.
He explained in detail and with some vividness the various problems that could be causing her “condition.” Tumors, aneurisms, a long and horrifying panoply of ailments. And as he spoke he pointed at the big ugly picture on the wall, locating sources of trouble.
After maybe five minutes of this he said, “Well, let’s have a look.”