My Favorite Midlife Crisis (Yet)

by Toby Devens

  I read: “‘Distinguished British physician of international renown searching for exuberant, understanding, loving lady who wants only the best life has to offer—kindness, consideration, and a caring heart.’ Oh, my God.” I stared at Simon who stared back with limpid eyes as he invited me and five thousand other women to email him. “Jesus, Fleur, can you tell when he joined this site?”

  “Doesn’t say. But he’s still on. Three months after meeting you.”

  “What’s that flashy thing?”

  “That flashy thing is an icon that means at,” she peered at the screen, “eight minutes past noon, New York time, or 9 a.m. California time, wherever he may be, your erstwhile boyfriend is at this very moment prowling for pussy. Now,” she swiveled her chair to face me. “Do you believe this betrayal had nothing to do with you and everything to do with the pigginess of Simon Swine? Right. I like that look on your face. Like an Amazon warrior. Tears all dry? Good. Time to call Jordan Conrad.”

  “I will,” I said. “But first, Claire McKenna. Don’t you have coffee brewing? Go pour yourself a cup. I don’t want you breathing over my shoulder while I break this poor woman’s heart.”

  ***

  It took only a couple of minutes to convince Claire McKenna she wasn’t Simon’s one and only. She choked up a bit, but she wasn’t all that surprised. “I was wondering when the other shoe was going to drop. I thought I’d caught him playing around last year. But he swore there was no one else and I wanted to believe him. Damn. I had a feeling when I ran into you,” she said. “Women just know that kind of thing in their bones. So I asked him straight out. He said I had trust issues.”

  “Me, too. All of Simon’s women have trust issues. I wonder why.”

  “Of course, he denied everything. He said you were a colleague from Baltimore working under him on a very important project.”

  “Yeah, well, working under him anyway. He told me you were on his lab staff, nothing more. He made me feel I was paranoid for even suggesting an unprofessional involvement. ‘I never mix business with pleasure, my darling.’” I mimicked Simon’s upper-class British accent.

  “Liar,” Claire said. “Lying, conniving, cheating liar.” The little clicks at her end of the phone may have been her biting her nails. “Did you ever hear of someone named Beata Karnikova?”

  “Bitti,” I said. “Her too?”

  “They had a hot affair years ago. I think maybe while he was married and that’s why Cynara finally dumped him. He swore it was over. But when he was in Prague last summer, he didn’t pick up his cell phone for nearly a week.”

  Sounded familiar.

  “Does the name Jordan Conrad ring a bell?” I said.

  “The cousin in Florida? Oh, jeez, not a cousin, right? What’s wrong with us?”

  I was still working on that. “Not a damn thing,” I said, to buck us both up. I gave it my best shot: “Except we fell in love with the fantasy, not the man. It happens all the time. And give Simon his due; he’s very good at creating the fantasy.”

  “Wait till I get my hands on his fantasy next week. I’ll wring body parts he doesn’t know he owns. I just wish he were coming back sooner. I don’t want to lose this head of steam.”

  “He’ll be at my place on Friday night.” I had an interesting, diabolical thought. Why not? Why not indeed? “You’re more than welcome to come down to Baltimore, Claire. We can make it a threesome. Now won’t that surprise him?”

  Without hesitation, Claire said, “I love it. Ha! Wonderful! Next Friday. I’ll be there.”

  “Not next Friday, this one. He’s planning on flying from California to D.C. for the GRIA meeting on Friday. He’s going to stay the night at my place.”

  “No way. He was supposed to be in California for a week, through Sunday,” she said. “He never told me he was going to GRIA.”

  “He’s giving a paper,” I said.

  “That’s impossible. He would have told me. I would have known.”

  “I can tell you what the paper’s about.” I flipped the sheet with her and Jordan’s names and numbers. “I have the first page here. I read it on the train coming home. Actually, it sounds interesting. Original. An innovative approach to detecting ovarian cancer.” I rattled off the title. When the silence at the other end went on a beat too long, I became alarmed. “Claire? Are you all right?”

  “Can you read the whole page, please?” she whispered finally.

  I read it.

  “Where did you get that?” she asked after I finished.

  “The paper? From Simon’s wastebasket. In his office at the apartment. He had a load of stuff he’d printed out and trashed. I needed something to write on. I grabbed it.”

  “That’s my work,” she said. “I’m the one who should be up there. Simon York is standing before hundreds of the best scientists in the field giving a paper on my research.”

  Well, that wasn’t uncommon. “He’s the senior. The lab director,” I said, making my voice soothing. “You know science. It happens all the time. I agree not telling you is really crummy. Still.”

  “You don’t understand. Simon pulled me off this project because he said the line of inquiry lacked promise. I managed to get the experiments done in spite of him. Under the radar for nearly a year. I showed him the data a month ago. He was thrilled. Said my work was a major breakthrough.” She sounded about to spiral out of control. “We were drafting the paper together. Slowly. Carefully. You know the rules, Gwyneth. He was going to get a piece of the action. But now he’s written it all by himself and he’s copping the credit.”

  A mewling, like the whimper of an animal caught in a trap, came through the phone. I imagined her face white with shock.

  “I’m so sorry for you,” I said. “It’s a really lousy thing to do.”

  “The lousiest. God. Oh, God.” I actually heard her swallow. “Is my name in the author’s list? Did he credit me at least?”

  I scanned the paragraph. “There are five authors listed. Your name is third.”

  “Buried,” she said. “You know, he’s done this before. I’ve heard gossip. I never believed it. I couldn’t and still love him, but you hear things. And if they’re true, this wouldn’t be the first time he’s grabbed the glory whatever it took. But he’s always gotten away with it.”

  “Well, you know the protocol. Go to Simon’s boss or his board and lay out your case.”

  “Please,” Claire snorted, “I’ll never get an impartial hearing. Simon is a superpower at Brubaker. His cronies would never undercut him. Plus, he’s their clinical golden boy with all those private-pay surgeries he does on the foreign jet-setters. He brings in multimillions to the hospital every year. I’m just a PhD. He’s a PhD and an MD. It’s not a fair fight.”

  I sighed agreement.

  “What a prick! He fucked me over in bed. He fucked me over in the lab.” Her voice broke. “I’m sorry, Gwyneth. I can’t talk anymore right now. This is too much to take. I’ll get back to you, okay? And thanks. I know it wasn’t easy to make this call.”

  She hung up.

  ***

  After Claire’s call, I tossed on a jacket and went outside to pace in Kat’s garden. I was seething. The man had betrayed my personal trust—nothing new for me. See Stan, op cit. And not to minimize it, Simon’s bed-hopping was cruel, wounding, and incredibly vulgar for such a superficially elegant man. But far, far worse was his forking around with the medical profession I loved. Now that made me ready to throw down the gauntlet and go for his throat.

  I circled the flower garden, the memory of Claire’s broken voice replaying, fueling my anger. Pulling my jacket close against the chill of the December afternoon, I stared at a row of shriveled stalks and spent flower heads, the layer of shredded bark over sleeping earth. We were well past the growing season. And yet, as I walked, I thought an
d, after a while, I felt something germinating. Something wicked and wonderful. It would hit Simon York where he’d hurt most: in his reputation. It would restore to Claire what was rightfully hers and satisfy a bloodlust for revenge I hadn’t known was in me. It was dangerous as hell.

  It was perfect.

  Chapter 38

  One down,” Fleur said two hours later from her perch on the corner of Kat’s bed, “Jordan Conrad to go.” She waved Kat’s bedside phone at me.

  “What’s your hurry?” Kat asked, rearranging the prop of pillows against her headboard. “It’s not as if you’re bringing the Conrad woman good news. Give yourself a few days to recover, to process all this craziness.”

  “And become really depressed,” Fleur chirped.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “Depression is anger turned inward. My anger is right out there.” In fact, it had ebbed since coming in from the cold. In the spicy warmth of the house, sanity bloomed. I decided my idea was a ridiculous stunt. Much too risky. I’d just confront Simon with his cruddy behavior towards me, then try to let it go.

  I thought out loud as I helped Kat adjust the tray in her lap. “Okay, I can put off phoning Jordan Conrad. But Simon is another story. He’s going to call before Friday and I want him to think everything’s just the way he left it when he kissed me good-bye. I don’t want to tip my hand. He needs to be blissfully oblivious and standing right in front of me when I let go with both barrels.”

  “Normally, I’d suggest something nonviolent,” Kat said. “But I’m with you on this one. Give him hell.”

  “It’s the radiation destroying her cells,” Fleur said. “That’s the only explanation for that last sentence coming from the mouth of Katherine ‘The Pacifist’ Greenfield.” She picked a cookie off Kat’s plate. Studied it. Put it down. “I’ve got a problem. So you tell Simon he’s a bad boy, wag your finger, and send him on his way. Seems to me he’s getting off much too easy. Don’t you have anything bigger than a double barrel? Like a heat-seeking missile. I mean, after what he did to Claire McKenna, he deserves a really big bang. And I don’t mean the kind he usually gets from you.”

  “You know,” I said, feeling the insanity rise, “there are moments I think my mother was right and I was born with an evil mind. Because out in your garden, Kat, I came up with something that’s either devilishly brilliant or totally maniacal. Something that could blow Simon out of the water and at the same time give Claire a really huge win. The problem is that the big payoff carries a big risk. It could put Claire’s entire professional future in jeopardy.”

  “But of course. The poor soul hasn’t had enough pain and suffering. I’m sure she’d sign up for that.” Fleur gave in and gobbled the cookie.

  “She’s a grown woman. And she sounds like a smart one,” Kat said. “Let it be her decision.”

  “And ours,” Fleur said. “Tell us.”

  I did.

  “You gotta do this,” Fleur said when I finished. “Claire’s going to love it.”

  Kat looked skeptical. “Or hate it. Very risky business. Bottom line, it all depends on her,” she said.

  “Call her.” Fleur reached for the phone.

  Kat’s hand whipped from under the quilt to catch Fleur’s wrist. “Not so fast,” she said, playing Ethel to Fleur’s Lucy. “You need to do this in person, Gwyn. What you described is a pretty reckless maneuver. All the more reason to be cautious and deliberate as you plan it. So you need Claire right there in front of you. You have to gauge her response, make sure she won’t fall apart if things get dicey. It’s going to take a strong personality to bring this off. And you’ve got to see her face so you can make sure she knows what she’s getting into. That’s the only responsible way.”

  I peered at Kat, wavy hair pulled up with tendrils spiraling against her too-gaunt cheekbones. Her face, its Mediterranean color drained by a bombardment of isotopes, made a cameo above the drape of her nightgown. She looked like a Greek goddess—Athena, goddess of wisdom. As always, she was on the mark.

  “See her in person.” I considered that. “I’m loaded up in the OR for the next few days and we’ve got to get started stat.”

  “Why not today?” Kat checked her watch. “It’s still early. She could hop the Metroliner and be down here in a few hours. Then all of us could get in on the action.” Her wan face lit with the prospect of a juicy coconspiracy.

  “You sure, Kat?” I said. “I don’t want to overtax you.”

  “It will be good for her.” Fleur gave me a radiant smile. “Consider it entertainment. Like a soap opera. ‘As the Stomach Turns.’”

  I called Claire who sounded stuffy, as if she’d been crying. I gave her just enough information to clear her sinuses. “Holy shit,” she said, and I heard a spark of hope in her voice. “I’m on my way.”

  ***

  Claire arrived at Kat’s door looking très chic, very New York. There was the meticulously—to achieve the illusion of carelessly—highlighted hair, the designer handbag, the two-hundred-dollar jeans, and the multiple bracelets on each wrist. Fleur gave her the once-over and twisted her mouth in disapproval. I could hear her thinking “phony.” But Claire wasn’t and Fleur told me later she’d quickly picked up on what I’d sensed on the phone: Claire was genuine. She was also bright, furious, and determined. And the New York thing was more than the outer layer. She wore attitude with a capital N and Y.

  She hugged me and shook hands with Fleur and Kat, who’d dressed and descended for the occasion. Within minutes, Claire was leaning back in the club chair in front of a blazing fire in the family room hearth sipping the scotch she chose over wine.

  “Before you show me yours, let me show you mine,” she said with a wry smile. Gathered around like kids at summer camp, we listened to her spooky story.

  It went back more than a year.

  First of all, she told us, we needed to understand that Simon ran one of the major-league labs in his field. Staffed with top people. She’d been lucky—especially as a woman, even these days—to have him take her on. Fifteen months ago, she believed she was on the fast track to discovering the elusive test that would detect ovarian cancer in its earliest stages. Hundreds of researchers around the world were hunting for the same prize. At first, Simon encouraged her experiments. They were in a race with at least two other labs and he thought she might be riding a winner. But when her first experiments didn’t produce good data, he pulled her off the project.

  “Do either of you do science?” she asked Kat and Fleur.

  “Kat is a brilliant artist,” I filled in. “Fleur is a very successful businessperson.”

  “I run a dress shop for fat ladies,” Fleur said.

  “Well, Fleur, you could have done the meaningless shit he shifted me to. And what pissed me off was I knew—the way you know, Kat, when something works in your art—I was sure I was on to something. I begged him to let me continue. He gave me the song and dance about limited resources. That he couldn’t play favorites. Even though he loved me.” We looked at each other with mutual sympathy. “Finally, he just ordered me to stop. But I couldn’t. I knew I was hot. I just needed a few more months. So I did it anyway.”

  Fleur had been stoking the fire. She turned now, her jaw in exaggerated drop.

  Claire said, “Simon works on his hospital cases in the mornings. He gets his patients out of the way first. Then between ten and noon, he comes into the lab and, I’ll give him this, he goes sometimes into the night. But I had a window of opportunity in the very early morning when he wasn’t there and neither were any of the other staff. I hit that lab every day at 5 a.m. so I could put in three hours before even the early birds got in.” She grinned at the memory of her own cunning. “And I pulled it off. No one knew. A couple of months ago, I got the data that clinched it.”

  She pulled a book from her handbag. “My lab notebook. All th
e details are in here. Of course, it’s going to take trials and human studies. But the basic material is sound. My conclusions will hold up.”

  “And Simon’s response when he found out you’d done it behind his back?” I asked, imagining how enraged he must have been.

  “Deliriously happy. Overjoyed. He forgave me everything. Simon is the most ambitious human being I ever met. And I was part of his lab, after all. If I get a Lasker, odds are the chief gets a Lasker.”

  The Lasker Award, I explained to Fleur and Kat, is like an American Nobel Prize. “In fact, many Lasker recipients go on to win the Nobel.”

  Claire nodded. “It’s that big. So Simon told me not to tell a soul. Not even our own lab staff, who might leak it. We couldn’t chance other labs getting a whiff that we were onto this.”

  “And then he stole your work out from under you,” Kat said, shocked. She’d always given Simon the benefit of the doubt in our relationship. But something so unethical, so immoral that affected millions of women? I doubted she could forgive that.

  “I understand he wanted to beat the other labs to the finish line.” She poked at the ice in her scotch. “But to preempt me, to shaft me in public. And it’s deliberate. He’s giving it as a post-deadline paper.” She explained to Fleur and Kat, “Those are the ones that come in just under the wire, too late to appear on the conference website. I checked. It’s not up there. Don’t you think that’s—”

  “Unconscionable,” Kat finished for her. “And I assume there’s also money involved. Patents. Royalties.”

  “With something this significant, for the primary scientist it could be like winning the lottery,” Claire said.

  “So he’s a romantic terrorist. And a credit thief. And if you figure in the money, a common pickpocket,” Fleur fumed. “He’s got to be stopped. You’ve got to expose him. Pull his trousers down around his knees and let the world see his shriveled dick.”