A Perfect Life

by Mike Stewart

  Over the next thirty minutes, Kate Billings did isolation curls and triceps extensions with dumbbells, she pumped out military presses and shoulder shrugs, and she did leg work holding thirty-pound weights in each hand. Now she was ready for the barbell.

  After she had returned the dumbbells to their spot beside the dresser, she carried the barbell to the center of the room and faced the mirror. She always worked out in the nude, and she always waited until the last two exercises—the ones with heavy weights—to watch herself in the mirror. By that point, she was pumped up. The muscles in her arms and legs were gorged with blood and tight beneath skin that glistened with sweat.

  Kate began to watch herself at this point in the workout because, she believed, it gave her a view of what she would look like in just a few weeks. Perfection was, in her mind, always just a few weeks away. And that encouraged her to go on, to push harder every day to get there. But she also waited for the mirror until the last two exercises for another reason.

  Watching her engorged muscles work and seeing the veins grow beneath wet skin, it was—well, she wondered if other women found it arousing to pump weights alone in their bedrooms. As she moved the heavy weights up and down, she wondered if her arousal was in anticipation of the way men would react when she was perfect, or was it some sort of self-worship, maybe even latent tendencies?

  She smiled at herself in the mirror as she arched her back to curl the barbell up where cool steel pressed against the tops of her breasts. After setting the weights on the rug at her feet, she stretched out her lower back and straightened up. Her heart raced; her chest expanded, her breasts rising with each breath. She smiled and wondered if the young shrink at the hospital, if Dr. Scott Thomas, could explain why she enjoyed watching herself. Now that he was in her head, Kate imagined him lying on the bed watching her pump weights, imagined his eyes transfixed as her perfect breasts rose and fell with every breath. He was cute. Some of the other nurses had told her that Dr. Thomas had been some kind of almost Olympic-class wrestler in college.

  Kate grabbed the beach towel off the floor and spread it carefully over her bedspread before lying down. She lightly touched the fingertips of her left hand to her collarbone, then traced a wandering path to her nipple. Now, as she concentrated on the last few seconds of her image in the mirror, she used her full hand to massage perspiration into her right breast. She closed her eyes and touched herself with her other hand. Seconds passed, then minutes. Kate hovered at the edge of release, but had begun to believe it wasn't going to come when the phone rang.

  Kate glanced at her bedside clock. It was seventeen minutes past one in the morning, and suddenly each ring of the phone seemed to pour her full of everything she needed. Kate was usually quiet when she was alone, but now she began to whisper words and utter sounds as if encouraging a lover. On the eighth ring, Kate Billings filled to overflowing and gave herself over to the mixture of explosion and release that her imagination and her fingers had been seeking.

  When her breathing had slowed, Kate leaned over and picked up the receiver. She punched in *69 and listened. She stood and walked over to stand in front of her mirror as she dialed the number recited by the operator's mechanical voice.

  Her friend answered on the first ring. Classical music floated through the earpiece, and Kate smiled at her reflection.

  Sirens squealed. The dark lawn tilted, and a mountain of bright flames morphed into a vinyl hospital sofa that melted into the rough shape of a Flexible Flyer. White tile flooring suddenly swept downward and curved out of sight like an enclosed roller coaster. The sled began to slip and swirl. Sirens wailed again from somewhere far away.

  Scott needed it to stop.

  The phone's ringing penetrated his sleep and pushed it aside. Scott reached over and fumbled among jumbled stacks of books and papers for the receiver. He knocked it off the cradle, and a tinny voice called his name from the carpet.

  He called back, “Just a minute.” The bedside lamp was easier to find. White light flooded the room and then faded into a single bulb. Sitting up now, he swung his feet onto the floor and found the receiver between his toes. He picked it up and breathed deeply to calm nerves worn jagged by the same half-remembered nightmare he'd been having for fifteen years.

  When his breathing was normal, he said, “Hello?”

  “Mr. Thomas?”

  “Yes.”

  “You need to answer your door.”

  He massaged his eyes with thumb and forefinger, then reached up to run the fingers of his free hand through thick wavy hair that, no matter the effort, never looked quite tamed. Wire-rimmed glasses lay on the bedside table. He picked them up and looped a gold wire over each ear. “What's this about?” He glanced at red numbers on his clock radio. “It's two-thirty in the morning.”

  “Yes, two thirty-eight. This is the Cambridge police. You reported your car stolen earlier tonight. One of our officers has been outside your door for twenty minutes pressing the doorbell.”

  “I'm in back.”

  “What's that supposed to mean?” The dispatcher's pronunciation grew sharper, sliding her tone from condescending to confrontational.

  “I live in an apartment over the garage. I don't even have a doorbell.”

  “Then you should have told us that when you called in your report.”

  Scott pushed again at his hair. It was a nervous habit. “I did.”

  “As a matter of fact, I have your report right here in front of me, and I can assure you that—”

  “Please tell the officer to come around back. I'll meet him at the top of the steps.”

  “Right.” The line went dead.

  Scott shoved bare feet into untied leather sneakers and tugged at his zipper on the way to the door. Outside, the cop was already walking up painted wood steps that ran along the left side of the Ashtons' garage. Scott opened the door.

  “Mr. Thomas?”

  “Yes. Come in. I need to grab a shirt.”

  The cop chuckled as he followed Scott inside and pulled the door shut. “Don't wanna look like one of the perps on Cops?”

  Scott went into the bedroom, got a sweatshirt from the dresser, and pulled it over his head. Back in his little living room, the patrolman waited by the front door. “That your Toyota?”

  Scott stopped short. “What?”

  The patrolman pulled a square of paper from his shirt pocket and unfolded it. “You reported the theft of a . . . a-ah, 1976 FJ40 Toyota Land Cruiser. Hard convertible top. Tan inside and out.”

  “Right.” He blinked away sleep and tried to focus. “A guy and a girl—”

  The cop pointed a thumb over his shoulder. “It's parked in your driveway.”

  CHAPTER 3

  “What's the big deal?”

  It was Friday morning, and Kate Billings leaned against the curved Formica top of the nurses' station, speaking to a plump redhead seated in front of a computer keyboard.

  The plump nurse shrugged. “Her husband's rich. Something Hunter.” She spun the wheel on her mouse to scroll down the computer screen. “Charles Hunter. He's the architect who designed the new children's wing. Supposed to be some kind of genius.” She looked up at Kate. “Have you seen it? Guess I'm not artistic enough to appreciate it. Whole thing looks like a spaceship to me.”

  Kate smiled. “I think that was the idea. You know. Children's wing? Children? Spaceships? That kind of thing.”

  “Oh. Well, I guess that makes some kind of sense. Still looks stupid. Anyway, your new patient is Hunter's wife, Patricia.”

  “I've been taking care of her for two weeks. I know her name.”

  “I thought—”

  “Mrs. Hunter has requested full-time nursing. That's what's new. Like I said, I've been taking her her meds and looking in for a couple of weeks, you know, whenever my rotation hit. I just meant what's the big deal about her that requires a full-time nurse. I didn't know her husband was the famous architect Hunter. I'd've been nicer to her.”

  The
redhead smiled and stood and pushed her chair under the keyboard. “Oh. Okay. I just thought that because Dr. Reynolds asked for you specially. Course, I always wonder when a doctor does that.” She paused to smooth white cotton fabric that had gathered around her ample waist. “Just watch yourself. You never know. I've seen Dr. Reynolds looking down my blouse a couple of times.”

  Kate grinned. “But you've got more to look at than I have.”

  The redhead stood a little straighter. “That's true, honey. A few extra pounds may pump up the back bumper, but what they do for the headlights makes up for it in spades.” She winked. “Believe you me, honey. Believe you me.”

  Kate laughed as the redhead turned and walked away.

  A deep voice came from behind her. “Nothing wrong with a healthy self-image.”

  Kate turned and came face to face with Dr. Phil Reynolds. She blushed. “We were just kidding around.”

  Reynolds was a tall, gaunt man with a white mane and twin cotton balls for eyebrows. And, as every student in psych rotation for twenty years had noticed, the snowy puffs above his eyes moved when he spoke. Even Dr. Reynolds's thoughts were often accompanied by much waggling of those famous eyebrows. Now they had moved apart to form quotes at the outside edges of his eyes. This was, Kate knew, a look of bemusement.

  “We started out discussing my new patient, Patricia Hunter. I heard you asked for me to be assigned to her full time.”

  He nodded. “That's right.”

  Kate waited, but Reynolds had the therapist's habit of assessing when he should be speaking. Finally, she said, “May I ask why?”

  “Why full time or why you?”

  “Both, I guess.”

  “Full time because she can afford it and because her husband is important to this hospital. Not very pretty, but there it is.” His pale eyes searched Kate's face. “Why you is a little harder to explain. Let's just call it a hunch.”

  “That clears that up.”

  The older man laughed. “Okay. Let's just say that Patricia Hunter is a strong woman. Wealthy. A little condescending. Unusually pretty.” Reynolds pushed both hands into his hip pockets and looked at the floor. “I suppose I thought that she would be less likely to try to intimidate you and that you would be less likely than most of the nurses to be intimidated. You are . . .” The old shrink's cotton-ball eyebrows bunched beneath the weight of his discomfort.

  Kate Billings was not analytical by nature, but she understood men. She always had. Now she interrupted to save him. “Can you tell me why Mrs. Hunter is here? I mean, I know depression. But I was wondering . . .”

  Reynolds smiled with relief at not having to tell a beautiful young nurse that she was beautiful. It was a comment that hit too close to home for casual conversation in a busy hospital corridor. “Oh, ah. Her seventeen-year-old son, well, really, her stepson, Charles Hunter III, I think, died a few days before she checked herself in. The boy drowned somewhere down off the North Carolina coast. Mrs. Hunter is, as you said, experiencing depression.” He lowered his voice. “Also, self-destructive thoughts. That kind of thing. She asked me for help.”

  “Do I need to do anything special?”

  “No, no. Just be available to her at all times when you're on duty. I'd like you to switch to a noon-till-eight shift, though. Mrs. Hunter seems to be a late sleeper, and it'll make it easier for you to work with Dr. Thomas on this.” The old man used the hospital courtesy of referring to doctoral students as “doctor,” even though that title had yet to be earned. “You do know Scott, don't you? He's monitoring a number of patients for me.”

  Kate Billings flashed on her fantasy of Scott Thomas lying on her bed, his eyes transfixed on her breasts as she pumped weights, and her face colored. Dr. Reynolds said nothing, but his eyebrows floated higher on his forehead and a smile formed at the corners of his mouth.

  “Yes, I know him. Not well. Just around the hospital.”

  “Yes, well, I'd like you to work with Scott. I'm not asking you to report to a graduate student. I'm just asking you to talk with him, to tell him any observations you may have about Mrs. Hunter. Dr. Thomas is in charge of coordinating her treatment.” He paused. “That's about it. You'll start tomorrow at noon. Dr. Thomas will be in this afternoon after classes. Please touch base with him.”

  Kate knew that Patricia had asked for her by name. She smiled. “I will, Doctor.”

  As the old man walked away, Kate wondered how much Patricia had told him about their relationship. But, she thought, so far, so good.

  CHAPTER 4

  Scott Thomas hated hospitals.

  He hated the long tubes of fluorescent light that made sick people look even sicker; he hated the depressing art—the waiting-room pastels and the picture-book landscapes that lined the hallways. He hated every cough, every gasp and wheeze that emanated from the patients' rooms, not because he lacked sympathy but because he seemed to feel every guttural response and plea in his own gut. Most of all, he hated the medicinal smells of disinfectant and managed death—smells whose stain had first seeped into his mind in a Birmingham waiting room when he was ten years old.

  He pushed his glasses up to massage his eyes, then reached across the counter to pull a patient's chart from a stainless steel rack. Scanning the chart, he pulled a Palm Pilot out of a hip pocket and flipped open the metal case.

  Behind him a child's voice said, “You're not supposed to do that.”

  He turned to see a little girl, seven or eight years old, standing outside the room of a newly admitted paranoid schizophrenic. Scott said, “I'm a doctor,” which wasn't exactly true.

  “You don't look like a doctor.” She took a tentative step forward and self-consciously tugged at the hem of a green sweatshirt that had Limited Too written in glitter across the chest. “Doctors wear white coats.”

  Earlier that afternoon, the girl's mother had been delivered to the psych floor in full-body restraints after a neighbor had discovered her cooking the family cat for lunch. Scott hadn't clocked in until four. He knew nothing of the girl or her mother. He smiled. “What do I look like?”

  The girl didn't answer right away. She was studying his clothes. “I don't know what you look like. You dress like the boys in my class.”

  He smiled again because she was right. “What's your name?”

  She crossed her arms. “Not supposed to tell.”

  Scott's eyes moved to the nurses' station and the corridors beyond. “Probably a good idea.”

  The little girl said, “I won't tell on you.”

  He said, “Thanks,” but his eyes were scanning the hallways. He caught the eye of a plump, redheaded nurse leaving a patient's room. She paused, and Scott motioned for her to come.

  He turned back to the little girl. “Are you here visiting?”

  “My mommy's sick.” The child's lip quivered slightly, but her guarded eyes never changed. It was the reaction of someone who is hurting but who is used to the sensation. This child was well versed in keeping the family secret. Scott had seen too many children of disturbed patients who wore that wounded expression. The truth was, he had seen it in the mirror.

  He walked forward and squatted down to be level with her bright blue eyes. He pointed at the door behind her. “Is your daddy in there?”

  She nodded, and her eyes left Scott to take in the nurse who was now standing beside him.

  Scott looked up. The redhead looked irritated at having been beckoned by a student shrink. Scott stood. “This beautiful little girl is visiting her mommy. She won't tell me her name, but she says I dress like I'm her age.”

  Understanding replaced irritation in the nurse's eyes. She knew as well as Scott that the psych floor was no place for a child. The only thing worse than seeing a parent in emotional trouble is seeing one strapped screaming to a hospital bed.

  The nurse smiled. “Why, this is Mrs. Winton's little girl. How are you, honey?”

  “My daddy told me to wait here.”

  The kid was no dummy. She sensed
that the grown-ups were going to move her to a more convenient location, like a piece of awkward or misplaced furniture. Scott spoke to the nurse. “Why don't you step in and have a word with Mr. Winton while I stay here with Miss No-name?”

  The nurse nodded, then she gently pushed by the child and into the room. Seconds later, a young father with old eyes and pale skin stepped into the hallway. He looked down at his daughter. “Time to go home.”

  “What about Mommy?”

  The father's words caught in his throat.

  Scott put his hand on the man's shoulder but spoke to the child. “We're going to take good care of her. Right now, your mother needs to rest. And you need to take your father home where he can get some rest, too.” He turned to the nurse. “Why don't you take No-name—”

  “My name's Savannah.”

  “Savannah, can you go with the nurse for just a minute? I'm sure she can find you a Coke or a Sprite. I need to speak with your father.”

  Winton told his daughter it was okay to go, and the plump nurse led her away.

  When the child was out of earshot, Scott spoke quietly to the man whose wife had been losing her mind since the day they married. “I know this is hard.”

  Winton glared now. “You do? You know what this feels like?”

  “Yes.” Scott nodded, “I do. But, as tough as it is for you, it's a thousand times tougher for a child.” The man started to interrupt, and Scott held up his hands. “I know you're doing the best you can. Just, please, find somewhere for your daughter besides these halls. It's a tough place for adults. For her . . .” His voice trailed off as he paused to examine the man's defeated face. “Look. My name's Scott Thomas. I'm here every weekday afternoon.” He pulled a generic hospital card from his pocket and jotted his number on the back. “Call any time. Leave a message if I'm not here. I can find out more than you can. And”—he paused again—”see if you can get Savannah to talk to you about her mother. She's keeping too much inside, Mr. Winton. I know the look. She needs to know it's okay to talk with you about this.”