He parried. “Let’s just say, I’m in a line of work like yours—where I usually ask most of the questions.”
“Let me guess. You’re a lawyer.”
“Close, actually,” said O’Malley. “I did finish a year of law school.”
“And then?”
“U.S. S—” Just as he was about to tell her more, a voice over the loudspeaker announced that the scores were being posted.
Katherine’s curiosity shifted into high gear. There was a great deal more that she wanted to know about Sean O’Malley, but their private conversation came to a halt when three of his buddies, still in racing gear, came to their table, full of high fives. They said hello to Katherine and then one shouted to their friend, “You did it again! Time to get your trophy. Besides, we’re starving.”
“Nice talking with you, O’Malley,” Katherine said. “I should go. I’m tired, soaked, and a little sore . . . heading back to the city. Good luck with your job—whatever it is you do.”
O’Malley appeared more than a little disappointed. “I’d like to see you again, 6D. How do we do that?”
“I’d like that, too,” Katherine said. She got up from the table. “But it’s going to be crazy for the next few weeks, graduation.”
“How ’bout a phone number then?” he persisted.
Katherine kept walking, thinking about her paper and Sean O’Malley’s experience as a racer. And he wasn’t exactly ugly. She wanted to talk with him at length to learn what had prompted him to start riding, get a sense of what he enjoyed about it, find out how much time he spent on the hobby, see what kind of bike he had and where he rode it, discover what other sports he was into. At bottom, she wanted to know what motivated him. She knew she needed time to get the information she wanted, but she felt it was too late to try to do it now. Besides, she was exhausted. It would have to wait.
Then she stopped, took out her iPhone, spun around, and snapped a picture of Sean.
She scribbled on her pad [email protected], ripped off the paper, and handed it to him. “Going to be really tied up for a while . . . but I definitely would like to stay in touch.”
“Me, too. Have a good trip back to the city,” he said, turning and walking away to join his friends.
Once again, Katherine was looking at the back of 6A.
Katherine caught a ride back to the cabin she’d rented at Prospect Mountain Campground so she could shower and pick up her bag, and then headed back to New York City. She dropped off her rental car and took the subway to Union Square. At her second-story walk-up apartment a block away, she struggled with the two locks on her door, heard Hailey bark, and was thankful that her friend Susan Bernstein, who’d looked after Hailey, was able to drop her off earlier that evening. Inside Katherine romped with Hailey on the floor and after a flurry of kisses perched herself on a kitchen stool and sipped some soup. Katherine scribbled some memories of the race while they were still fresh, and made a note to set up a meeting with her journalism school mentor for early Wednesday morning. She took out her cell phone and studied Sean’s picture. Just another uncertainty, she decided, and fell into bed.
CHAPTER TWO
“Hey, P.J., see if you can make the horn blow?” Preston prompted, his expression telegraphing his frustration and pain in not knowing how much, if anything, his thirteen-month-old son could hear. P.J. smiled and bounced around, his energetic little hands hitting everything in sight.
Preston could see that Marcia relished the moment. She got down on the floor and joined P.J. Preston was proud of the way his wife applied her psychology background, always reinforcing their young son’s opportunities for new learning experiences. Not wanting to get into a fight with Marcia, though, he refrained from talking about the hearing issue.
Preston lifted P.J. high above his head, delighting in his son’s giggles but unable to quell his anxiety over his son’s hearing impairment. At forty-seven, he remained conflicted. On the one hand, he felt incredibly lucky—he’d pulled his marriage back from the brink, even though he’d nearly given up on fatherhood. When P.J. came into their lives soon afterward, he knew he had closed the deal. Marcia was thrilled to finally have a child, and he was, too. At last, their home, while not a model of domestic tranquility, appeared to have at least settled down, and they’d put the turmoil of the preceding decade behind them. Still, there was P.J.’s disability and Marcia’s concurrent uneasiness. And secretly, he was still struggling with the sudden death of his mother two months before P.J. was born.
In Preston’s excitement bordering on euphoria at the hospital at P.J.’s birth, he either was unaware or did not notice the equipment the technician was using. He barely focused on the doctor’s concern that P.J. had not passed the hearing test.
Preston didn’t know that an infant’s hearing could be tested so quickly after birth. It was later, in discussions with the doctor, that Marcia and Preston learned about measurement of an acoustic reaction produced by the inner ear that bounces back in response to a sound stimulus from a small probe with a microphone and speaker. It was all too technical to Preston, who knew lots about business but little about science—something about electrical stimulus sent from the cochlea to the brain stem and a second and separate sound that does not travel up to the nerve but returns to the infant’s ear canal, the otoacoustic emission.
During the weeks following P.J.’s birth, there was much discussion with Marcia’s gynecologist, and numerous pediatricians and audiologists, concerning the causes of hearing impairment, its varying degrees of seriousness, and the need for continued assessment. The good news was that with early detection, depending upon the cause and type of loss, much could be done to increase P.J.’s access to sound. Notwithstanding many consultations since, however, Preston still couldn’t understand how P.J.’s hearing could ever be normal.
Marcia saw things differently. “P.J.’s hearing will never be normal.” The audiologist had explained that hearing aids amplify the sounds that would reach an infant’s brain and stimulate it to produce the architecture that will allow him to hear and speak normally with aids or cochlear implant depending upon the severity of the loss. “If you can’t accept our son’s disability, Preston, at least I have—and I thank God every day that it was not worse,” she pleaded as she gently rolled the baby over to face them and leaned down to cuddle his cheek. “He can be fitted with hearing aids right away. Don’t you think it would be worth trying?”
All year Preston and Marcia had argued about whether to fit their growing son with hearing aids. When Marcia chided him for his unwillingness to make the decision, Preston only procrastinated further. She feared now it might be too late.
For Preston’s part, he was totally supportive of full exploration of all efforts to correct P.J.’s hearing, but worried at the time it was taking and whether his son’s hearing would ultimately be normal. Besides, the pediatric specialist he had consulted counseled patience, telling Preston that he had seen many cases where hearing ultimately developed on its own—as late as year two or three—and to wait and see.
Preston had worked hard over the years to develop automobile sales franchises—Porsche, Audi, BMW, Mercedes—that were upscale, unique, and more durable. His success hadn’t happened overnight. Now it was a bit like having a cartel. On the business side, his stores appeared to have recovered from a previous setback and were even showing spurts of growth; most of his dealerships, in part because of the nature of the franchises, were far ahead of the dealers he knew who had struggled more to achieve much less. Of his ability to lead Wilson Holdings, Preston was certain. Accumulating wealth and managing relationships, however, were another story.
Preston’s thoughts were interfering with his playtime with P.J. He pushed them out of his mind and lifted P.J. into his circular bouncer, where he could play with all the buttons and colored animals.
“Daddy’s got to get back to the office,” Preston sai
d for Marcia’s benefit.
Marcia looked up at Preston and said, “We’ll never get another chance to build our early relationship with our son. This time is so important.”
“It is,” Preston said, kneeling down beside her. “But I have a meeting at two. Maybe we can all go to the park—or even the zoo—tomorrow.”
“Are we still on for dinner with Mary and Bill tonight?” Marcia, Mary, and Marcia’s old roommate Ann, had been close friends at Smith College. Mary and her husband Bill lived in Soho, and Marcia had been trying to get together with them for some time. She reached for her cell phone to call the nanny. “I want to make sure Nadine comes early, so P.J.’s fed and asleep before we leave.”
“As far as I know,” Preston replied.
“I have to get Ann up here. I miss her and I know Mary does, too. I wish she lived in New York. Speaking of relationships, what’s going on these days with Missy? And Tommy?”
Preston thought for a while. “Uh, they’re fine. I guess.”
“When’s the last time you spoke to either of them, Preston? I’m getting a bad feeling here. Slipping. Remember who we named this little guy after?”
They’d chosen their son’s middle name, Joseph, to honor Joe Hart, an attorney friend who had helped Preston overcome some thorny financial and banking issues that had nearly toppled Wilson Holdings, Preston’s automotive and real estate firm—and empire. It was hard to believe Joe Hart had been gone for more than a year.
“Don’t do that,” Preston said, seeing the expression on Marcia’s face and knowing he was in trouble the minute the irritable comment left his lips.
It wasn’t that Preston didn’t appreciate all Joe had done for him. Facing enormous debt, Preston had been sure his automobile business was doomed to bankruptcy. Worse, because Marcia had personally guaranteed the notes, she, too, was at risk. What bothered Preston deep down was Joe’s requirement that Preston fulfill an unspecified condition in the future before he would undertake the case. Preston could not understand how anyone could commit to do something without knowing what it was. When he’d raised the question Joe had simply replied, “Some men can and some men can’t,” which Preston had interpreted as “my way or the highway.” Faced with a Hobson’s choice, Preston had made the commitment.
Joe Hart had delivered. He’d worked hard in preparing and carrying on negotiations with Preston’s banks. He also showed Preston how to stabilize, restructure, and grow his business. Preston had to admit he’d learned a lot from Joe, and he was grateful.
“Look,” he said to Marcia, more amiably, “I am well aware of my promise to Joe, and we both know all he did.”
“I just think you have to remember the promise to Joe regarding the Collectibles never really ends,” Marcia reminded him gently. When Joe had called in the IOU, he’d revealed his conditions: that he wanted Preston to meet, earn the trust of, and care for several friends of Joe’s, including a battered wife, a photographer with bipolar disease, a man suffering from Alzheimer’s, a gambling addict, and a mentally challenged man.
Preston had at first hated and resented the assignment. He could not figure out why Joe would have taken on these people and their issues in the first place, much less pawn them off on someone else. But Preston felt he had no choice but to live up to his side of the bargain, and he’d set out to find his charges.
Preston had been in the process of tracking down Harry Klaskowski, Joe’s photographer friend, when events took an unexpected turn.
That was a little over a year ago. Life was indeed good for Preston now. And here he was, again being tied by his wife to past commitments. Why now? He asked himself, afraid to ask Marcia. How long do you owe a duty to the dead?
Preston’s automobile stores were booming with business and his real estate was holding its own. He had ample time for golf, the club, and travel, and Marcia was totally consumed with being a mother. They enjoyed the occasional dinner out, thanks to their godsend of a nanny, and they’d hung onto the home in the Hamptons, where they had taken P.J. a few times to experience the country and to see the ocean. Apart from Marcia’s disappointment and occasional nagging, Preston felt that he and his wife were in a better place than ever, except for the P.J. issue. And now that accusatory word slipping. It left a wrench in his gut and spoiled his afternoon.
He had thought many times about calling Tommy and Missy, but something always seemed to come up at the office, or time with P.J.’s doctors got in the way. As for Harry, Preston had certainly let him know that he’d intended to get together . . . it was just that he’d been so busy.
“I’ll give Bill or Mary a call about tonight,” Marcia said, interrupting Preston’s thoughts.
Preston gave Marcia a perfunctory kiss good-bye and headed out of the door.
CHAPTER THREE
Katherine rolled over to find Hailey sniffing expectantly at the window, where sunlight was streaming past the gauzy curtain. The chilly spring storm that had brushed the city was past, and she knew Hailey would be eager for an outing. Her mother had warned that Katherine’s beloved golden retriever would be a distraction during grad school, and, of course, Susan—who loved dogs—thought anyone who wanted to keep a dog in a cramped apartment in the city was completely nuts. But Katherine couldn’t imagine getting through graduate school without Hailey’s companionship and moral support.
Four days after the race, Katherine finally felt rested—and hungry. She hopped in the shower, as always appreciating the tremendous water pressure and instant hot temperature inherent in these old Manhattan buildings. She welcomed the pounding of the water on her body, particularly the strained muscles in her neck, shoulders, and back, as she thought about her meeting this morning. She toweled off in front of the mirror. Dissatisfied with what she saw—thighs too big, breasts too small, legs too thick—she renewed her pledge to eat less and work out more, and picked out a pair of khaki pants and a light tan collared blouse with small red flowers.
“C’mon, Hailey, Dr. Gerry’s waiting!” Katherine said as she grabbed a scarf, looped it around her neck, and bounded down the twenty-five stairs and around the corner to the coffee shop, her favorite hangout morning and night.
After hot coffee and a bagel with lox and cream cheese, another New Yorker habit she’d been happy to adopt, she hoisted her backpack, took Hailey’s leash, and headed north toward Broadway, but not before noticing all the tents already in place in the square. She loved NYC’s street fairs, festivals, and farmers’ markets, especially the artists and vendors they drew. The fresh produce of the farmers’ market always reminded her of home.
When Katherine first came to the city, she had been overwhelmed by the crowds—people rushing everywhere all at once—and the cacophony of honking horns, sirens, jackhammers, traffic, garbage trucks, and street sweepers. A world away from the rural peace and quiet of Marion, New York. But Katherine had quickly absorbed the energy of the city, and now, on her rare trips home, the slow pace, absence of crowds, and quiet felt like forced re-acclimation.
Entering Broadway, Katherine heard a man playing a saxophone beneath the silvery statue of Andy Warhol, as she passed under a block-long scaffold, portending renovation, but without ever seeing a single workman. When she got to East Twentieth, she could just make out the side of her destination, the iconic Flatiron Building and the fourth-floor office of Professor Gerald Simpson, her mentor at the Fletcher Thomas School of Journalism.
She had studied the history of the Flatiron Building and, like so many others, had fallen in love with its architecture and culture. In sharp contrast to the city’s grid of modern skyscrapers and office buildings, it seemed a throwback to a different era, a relic of a golden age.
The park was already filled with people as Katherine entered the building from the Broadway side with Hailey and ran her security card through the turnstile.
“Service animal, right?” said the building’s voluble su
perintendent, grinning.
“My very survival depends on her,” said Katherine, slipping past. “How’d Adam’s softball team make out?” She hardly waited for the answer. As usual she took the wooden-railed stairs, pausing at the bottom momentarily to admire the view straight up through all twenty-two stories. All trace of muscle pain had vanished.
Anxious to hear the evaluation of her project and turn in her Enduro exposition, Katherine knew Simpson wouldn’t care that she was late; she’d waited for him countless times, and during the past ten months they’d overcome the initial tension inherent in their professor-student relationship.
Grateful to have such a talented and well-regarded teacher, Katherine had come to think of Gerry as a good friend and mentor. While her academic performance was in the top tier of her small class, Katherine appreciated that his teaching her was more important to him than his grading. She knocked, then breezed into the small triangle-shaped office with the smell of old books and narrow tall windows overlooking the junction of Broadway and Fifth.
Professor Simpson, a thin African-American man in his forties with the face of an intellectual, glanced up from his computer monitor. “Miss Kelly and Miss Hailey,” he said in a slightly mocking tone, glancing at his watch. “I’ve been expecting you.”
Katherine seated herself in the high-backed wooden armchair in front of his vintage desk, pulled out the thin wooden writing tablet, and sighed, “Okay, let’s have it.” Hailey lay down at Katherine’s feet, nose resting on outstretched paws.
Simpson began slowly, carefully, addressing Katherine in a deliberate manner, as a master chef might prepare a delicate dish. “People should know—and will likely care—about the fraud and abuse in our Medicaid and Medicare health-care delivery systems, and your narrow focus on foreign doctor fraud made the issues easier for the everyday reader to understand,” Simpson said, spinning his chair around to the shallow black shelf in front of the window and pouring himself a glass of water. “Would you like some water, Katherine?” he asked.
The Concealers Page 3