by Alice Adams
But she said, “I used to think Raleigh was a little rude, and he was, by Boston standards.”
“Did he change much?” Jane eagerly asked.
“No, really not.” Connie could not resist saying this, the truth. Raleigh’s manners had not changed much, he had only become so successful that no one minded. She said, “Maybe doctors are like that, do you think? Basically very self-absorbed?”
Jane frowned. “No, I don’t think that. Not really. I think Dave’s just reacting to such terrible treatment from that Molly Bonner. Talk about ungrateful! You know, she was really sick, and he took care of her, he even took her down to Alta Linda, radiation for her cancer, and she was just—just terrible to him. I think he’s hitting out at the world, because of her.”
Connie remembered Dave as a rather rude and aggressive young man, many years ago, when he was supposedly happily married. And at that time, since Raleigh was somewhat like that too, she had indeed wondered, Is it being a doctor that makes some men rude? Not wanting to say any of that to Jane Stinger (if Jane and Dave Jacobs made each other happy, tant mieux), Connie said another thing that she had not intended; she said, “I’m really worried about Raleigh. I never hear from him, and God knows the children don’t. I just hope he’s okay.”
With a short laugh, Jane suggested, “I could call that Felicia Flood. Dave knows her. She might know.”
“Oh, I don’t think we have to do that,” said Connie. And as she too laughed, she added, “I’m not all that concerned.”
Connie was also thinking about the (to her) unknown Molly Bonner. Henry’s first wife. Henry had spoken of her almost not at all, and when he had he had done so with characteristic gallantry and restraint. “She’s a marvelous woman,” he had said, not specifying in what ways—so that Connie had wondered: Did he mean great moral stature of some sort, a marvelous hostess, or cook? Marvelous in bed? “She just doesn’t seem to marry very well,” Henry had added, with a smallish laugh. Connie asked him, “Paul wasn’t wonderful?” “I know almost nothing about him. I meant me.”
As Connie and Jane sat there in the briny Sausalito sunshine, though, sipping at innocently unfermented fruity drinks, Connie reflected that what she had said about Raleigh was not entirely true. She did worry about Raleigh; she felt that in some permanent way they were married still.
And so in some spirit of obligation to the truth, perhaps AA-inspired, she said to Jane, “Actually I can’t seem to just dismiss Raleigh, just to decide that he’s not my worry anymore. I wish I could but I can’t.”
Jane was more sympathetic to this view than Connie would have expected. “Oh, I know,” she said, with feeling. “I worry about Mark too, never mind that he has this beautiful Japanese girlfriend.” But she added, in a mutter, “Shit that he is.”
“Some curious instinct is telling me that Raleigh’s really in trouble,” said Connie very seriously. “And I can’t do a damn thing to help.”
“You didn’t cause it, you can’t cure it,” Jane quoted, and then, with an obvious shift of attention, away from Connie and Raleigh, she began to smile. She said, “I really gave it to Dave last night, though. I guess he thought he was being flattering, but he told me he’d always liked shiksas, his wife and now me. Can you imagine? Of all the ridiculous, racist, sexist remarks. Well, I really let him have it—” And she laughed with pleasure, remembering.
TWENTY-FIVE
Felicia said, “This is terrific! You never drop in. And I’ve got so much to tell you! You won’t believe what’s happened. You really must have felt me wanting to see you. I called but of course you weren’t there.”
“Well, I did have this strong feeling that I wanted to come and see you, and it seemed silly to look around for a phone before I did.”
They both laughed.
It was true: partly because of the warm and beautiful day, Molly had not wanted to go directly home—where, alone with her cats, she might well be subject to lonely thoughts, even regretful ones, concerning Douglas Macklin. But more strongly than the weather and fears of solitude she had heard an inner voice that urged her toward Felicia. She would find Felicia out in her garden, she knew that she would, and they could just sit out there for a while and talk.
And Molly did just that. Instead of turning off Divisadero toward her own flat, on Pacific, she continued down to Vallejo Street, to Felicia. And she went into Felicia’s garden, where the gate had been left open, as though for her coming (but she would have to remind Felicia again, that was really not safe).
However, Felicia was much too eager to tell her news; literally breathless, she had no time for remonstrance, or even for much greeting small talk. “I’ve got so much to tell you,” she repeated.
In brief, what happened was that Sandy, Dr. Raleigh Sanderson, had tripped and sprained his ankle. Right there in the garden. Couldn’t move, had to be carted off in an ambulance, which Matthew called. In fact, Matthew had begun the whole process that led to the fall, the sprain, the ambulance.
Matthew and Felicia had had a long, pleasant dinner together in Felicia’s kitchen, one of Felicia’s richest, most garlicky stews, and a bright crisp salad, a nice wine—very possibly too much wine. And too much food. So that Matthew said, “I’ve really overeaten. Shall we run around the block?”
“Are you serious? Sounds crazy but it’s probably a good idea.”
They looked at each other in a smiling but still-testing way, and Matthew said, “You’re really the greatest, you know?”
“You’re so nice—”
“Well, okay! Let’s go.” They both stood up.
But at that moment the phone rang, and Felicia made two somewhat odd choices: one was that she answered it at all, and the other was that she did so in her bedroom, rather than right there in the kitchen. Later she was to think: Maybe I sort of knew it was something private, and bad?
Five or so minutes later she came back from the phone, not quite knowing how to tell Matthew what had happened. But she started in. Looking at him very directly as she spoke, she said, “That was about Will. A man I knew in Seattle. His sister was on the phone—she told me he’d shot himself, and she thought I’d want to know. Well, I didn’t exactly want to know but I guess that’s what people say, they think you’d want to know.
“He had this huge gun collection—we pretty much fell out over that. He even belonged to the NRA. I knew he was unhappy, that things weren’t working out for him, but I guess I didn’t see how depressed he was. With all his guns.” She shivered a little. “It’s scary, you know? To tell you the truth, now I don’t much feel like a walk. I think about guns, and whoever it is that comes into the garden—”
Matthew said, “Of course,” and came over to pat and then to enfold her in a brief, unsexy, but reassuring hug. “If you don’t mind I’m going out for a little while,” he said. “I’ve got an idea about this guy in the garden.”
She should have been thinking about poor Will, Felicia thought, in her bathroom, getting ready for bed. But she was not; she was washing and drying herself, brushing and lotioning, here and there the tiniest touch of perfume. Silk and lace on her clean smooth naked skin, and then the cool touch of fresh linen sheets. She was thinking of Matthew, thinking happily of love, and pleasure.
Matthew came back into the house, and he too was thinking of love, but first he said, with a small pleased laugh, “I think I’ve fixed that guy. But good.” And then, “Oh God! what a lovely woman—everywhere—lovely.”
About an hour later, half dozing in the happy aftermath of love, they were awakened by a shout—a scream of surprise and pain from the garden. Terrible, and to Felicia identifiable.
“Jesus!” she whispered to Matthew. “It’s Sandy.”
“ ‘Embarrassing’ is barely the word for it,” Felicia told Molly. “Except that all three of us were more than a little out of focus. Matthew and I were still a little—well, you know, half-asleep—and we had had a lot of wine. And Sandy was really in pain. Matthew’d grabbed up his sho
es and pants and sweater, and I just had a robe and slippers, so it was all pretty obvious. Jesus! I had to introduce them. Of course they didn’t shake hands or anything, just sort of grunted, both of them—and Sandy stuck out his elbow and he said, ‘Don’t touch me,’ or something like that. ‘Just call 911.’ Matthew asked if he wanted a brandy or anything, and Sandy said no, and then he said, ‘I’m a doctor.’ As if that explained anything.”
“Actually explains quite a lot,” said Molly.
They both laughed.
“When I think of how we looked!” Felicia went on. “Remember that fancy pink silk robe that Sandy brought me from New Orleans? Well, it sort of matches the nightgown I’d uh, started out in, put on after my bath, and so that was what I just grabbed up. Oh, I forgot to say that Sandy was in black tie. God knows where he’d been, some fancy doctor do. But there the three of us were in our costumes. And poor Sandy, really in pain. His face all screwed up. But he insisted on just lying there until the ambulance came, he wouldn’t let either of us touch him. God, talk about glowering. And then when the ambulance pulled up and the guys got out, you would have thought he was R. Milhous Nixon, with his troops. Giving orders. In fact that’s what he said, ‘Take me to the General.’ It was a minute before I realized that he meant San Francisco General, the hospital. That’s where he always said you should go for emergencies. Well, anyway. What a night!”
“Indeed,” agreed Molly.
“So odd,” Felicia mused. “If it hadn’t been for that terrible phone call, poor Will’s sister, I would have gone for the walk with Matthew, and Matthew wouldn’t have set the trap that made Sandy trip and sprain his ankle.”
“What kind of a trap was it?”
“Really simple. Just one of my little gardening benches across the path. But actually it’s lucky he didn’t get hurt worse. Poor man, lying there in his fancy clothes. His black tie. I guess I should call and see how he is.”
“Maybe,” Molly reluctantly said.
“Matthew’s gone to some sort of diving meet out at Ocean Beach. It’s interesting how unlike they are, isn’t it? Matthew and Paul.”
“Yes,” said Molly, hoping this to be the truth.
As she walked up the hill toward her building a little later, Molly reflected on several not quite related topics. One, on the whole she felt that she was pleased with the way things had worked out with Dr. Macklin. He was a very nice man and a very good doctor, and his wife was obviously what he most wanted, so it was good that he should get her back. Also, good doctors were not all that easily come by—she guessed.
She thought too that she was much more tired than she should be, and for just an instant a familiar panic touched her. Had her green-golf-ball tumor come back, or maybe a new one, more virulent, more aggressive?
But then she thought: It’s only a year since all that surgery. In fact, as she recalled the date, which was also that day’s date, she saw that this was the anniversary. And, as a present, she let up on herself a little, assuring herself (as she might have a friend), You’ve been through a lot this year. It’s not surprising that you’re not entirely recovered. It’s okay to be tired.
Knowing she should not, though, Molly imagined that time a year ago. The weeks and days just before surgery when she had thought that any change, even death, would be an improvement.
She remembered the anesthetist in that frightful green OR saying to her, “Good night, now, sleep well,” heavily ironic. The Recovery Room, then Intensive Care. The doctors, including Dave, saying over and over, “The size of a golf ball, how lucky you are!” Doctors asking the other women in the room, who was really only one poor crazy woman, “Do you know where you are?” The double clock.
And then radiation. Nausea, endless nausea—thinking again that any change would be an improvement. And Alta Linda, the bottom of the world.
There in the brilliant, clear winter sunshine, Molly shuddered a little; she tried to reassure herself that none of that could happen again, not ever. And in the meantime she stopped for a minute to rest, halfway up that very steep hill, with its glorious view of water, and boats, and farther hills of promising bright grass.
She was struck by a vision, or a fantasy: for a euphoric moment she imagined that she and Felicia would rent some space down in the Tenderloin, say (or even buy a building; with all this money Molly could afford to do that), and make it into a warm bright clean new shelter, with beds and food and baths and privacy for homeless people, men and women, children, anyone. A crazy idea (she imagined what Dave would say), impractical, probably, but nevertheless it made her smile with pleasure. She would call Felicia right away, when she got home. At least Felicia would be enthusiastic. Forgetting fatigue, Molly began to hurry up the hill.
TWENTY-SIX
Dr. Raleigh Sanderson wheeled along expertly in his chair, his injured, bandaged ankle riding ahead like a banner, a signal that he was of a breed apart; he was not related to all the other men in wheelchairs who, less skillfully and less aggressively, maneuvered the long corridors, often with the help of attendants, or who sat about in the bright self-consciously cheery waiting rooms. Just as Dr. Sanderson’s bright-white hair signaled otherness: although he and many of these men were about the same age, and some were even younger, he had the best head of hair in the bunch, white but strong and full. Alive, and vigorous.
The other men, the patients, had looks of defeat and shame. (Of impotence.) They were embarrassed to be in this place at all; they had let it get them down. Even, this morning one old guy in cords and one of those old-timey camel-hair cardigans—this bald guy actually asked, “Does this here particle stuff work on ankles too?”
Jesus H. Christ! Laymen. Sandy started to explain but then he thought, Oh, why the fuck bother? Let this stupid prick assume whatever he wanted. So he just said, “Sure, these fifty-million-buck machines can do anything.” And he laughed, as though he had paid for them himself. (Come to think of it, he wouldn’t mind owning a piece of this action, not at all. He wondered who did—he would have to investigate. Even post-divorce he’d have a few bundles around.)
“You headed for the room?” this jerk asked next.
“Oh no, I’m heading out. I’ve got a car coming.” Not saying, I’ve already been to the room, I’ve had my jolt for the day.
And he certainly did not tell the story of how he had been railroaded down here. How he went to the General in the ambulance, thanks to that slut Felicia and her boyfriend. His terrible attack of groin pain, and the smart-ass resident who said, “That’s sure a long way from your ankle. Sounds like a prostate problem to me. Should we call your regular doctor?” And so on, until he, Raleigh, had been convinced that at this place, this Alta Linda, he might, just might, get radiation that would shrink the tumor. Avoid surgery. If only what he had said to that stupid guy (and impotent: Sandy could tell from his eyes) turned out to be true, that these fifty-million-buck machines could do anything.
The car he had ordered turned out to be a limo, an old one, not a stretch; still, it looked long and sleek and black and conspicuous among the old clunks or new Jap cheapos that most of these people, these patients drove or were driven in by relatives, not chauffeurs. Moving toward the car—of course it was his—Sandy wished he did not need crutches. But his ankle did furnish a kind of disguise for him; no one would guess that he too had the big P problem. He might even be just a visiting doctor—which, in a way, he was. Or a big investor, looking things over.
The driver was dark and fat—Mexican, probably—and not in uniform, but what can you do? He could call the company and complain about sloppiness (maybe even refuse to pay); on the other hand, why bother?
And the streets they were driving through looked like Mexican slums, and probably were. Ugly bright small stucco houses, lots of small failing businesses: auto parts, computer parts, dirty-looking restaurants. Sandy’s pure Cedar Falls Presbyterian soul revolted, and he tapped on the glass. “Couldn’t we get more out into the country? Leave the city?”
Well, the guy was black, no Mexican, but how in hell could you tell? They’re all so dark, those people.
Then, very quickly, they were actually up in some mountains, large rounded bright green ones, bulbous, like something diseased. The ugliest scenery, ugliest countryside Raleigh had ever seen. He closed his eyes and thought of New England. He remembered driving to Maine with Connie about a hundred years ago, the narrow twisting bad black roads, back then, the fields and stone fences. Birches and lakes everywhere, and how beautiful Connie said it was. But then silly Connie even thought it was beautiful in Cedar Falls; she loved the river and the falls, all that. Felicia too was always saying how beautiful something was, her garden, her flowers (even, he smiled briefly to remember, his cock). Were all women basically superficial and silly, after all? And, except for screwing, did he really not like them much? Oh shit, he thought as he looked at the monstrous swollen extrusions of earth, these mountains—oh shit, who cares? Who cares if anything is beautiful or not?
Sandy did wonder if either Connie or Felicia, those scenery-enthusiasts, would have anything good to say about these hills, this horrible landscape. God, probably they would.
Quite suddenly, then, Raleigh Sanderson, who did not believe in intuition, nor certainly in visions—suddenly he knew with a terrible clarity that all these treatments would not work for him; he would have to have the surgery, and after that he would be—useless. No more Felicia, no more nurses, no more even Connie.
Horrible! but also unreal, untrue. Layman’s superstitious thinking.
He forced himself to concentrate instead on the idea that he had earlier had about investments, investing in particle therapy (of course it would work for him; it would shrink—if not remove entirely—his prostate tumor). Those guys with money in dialysis really screwed up, did a lousy job and let it get out publicly that they owned the fucking machines.