First Sight

by Danielle Steel

  On Saturday night, they canceled a dinner reservation at Cipriani, and stayed in bed at the hotel instead. It was pouring rain, and they were both relaxed and unwinding, making the most of the days they had together. Timmie didn’t want to get dressed up and go to a fancy restaurant, she said. So they stayed home in their little cocoon, dozing and talking, and when they made love that night, Timmie felt a closeness to him that even they had never felt before. Theirs was such a passionate love story, but every now and then, they seemed to reach heights that were almost frightening, their feelings for each other were so profound. It was as though for a span of time, not only their bodies merged, but their minds did, and their hearts and souls. He felt it too that night, and there were tears in her eyes after they made love. She had never felt anything like it with anyone before. What they did together defined making love, and afterward when she lay spent in his arms, she felt as though her whole soul had opened up to him and would never separate from him again. Each time they made love was different and better than the time before. And this time, she lay in his arms all night, pressed tightly against him, his arms around her. She drifted off into a deep sleep, as he looked at her sleeping, and his heart melted again. She touched places in him that he hadn’t known existed, and she had done that that night. She had given him a gift of herself and taken something from him that he offered. And all night long as she slept in the safe circle of his arms, she dreamed that they were one.

  Before they woke in the morning, they lay sleeping, facing each other, and smiled when they first saw each other the moment they woke up. Their noses were touching, and almost their lips. He kissed her, and they lay for a long time before either of them got up. She hadn’t moved from where she lay the night before. He ordered breakfast for them, and even then she didn’t want to get up. She just wanted to lie there forever in his arms and doze. She got up finally to have breakfast with him, and did him the honor of brushing her teeth and combing her hair. She looked beautiful as she sat down to breakfast with him. They each read sections of the Sunday newspaper, and discussed what they’d read. She always devoured the business section, and he liked the supplements on science. It made for intriguing breakfast conversation and an interesting shared life.

  They went to the Metropolitan Museum that afternoon, and then went back to the hotel in the rain. She was profoundly happy and sated. They made love for a last time before they had to get up to leave, and Timmie still looked sleepy. She had been so tired when they met this time that she never quite caught up on her sleep. She dozed as she lay against him in the cab going to the airport, and he held her tightly. She loved it when he did that. And then they did the agonizing dance of saying goodbye to each other again. She promised that she would come to Paris in a few weeks. She was going to try and shake up some of their textile mills so she could do business there as well. But even if not, nothing pleased her more than Paris in spring. It was April now, but she was hoping to get to Paris to see him by the first of May, which would be even better. And once there, there would only be one more month left in his somewhat absurd living arrangement. But she wasn’t even thinking of that now. She was drifting, floating beside him. And when he kissed her goodbye this time, she felt slightly less sad. What she felt instead was total harmony with him, total synchronicity of thought and movement. She felt as though the two strong, independent people they were had finally become one.

  She still felt that way when she got back to California. She was feeling strangely peaceful, and more in love with him than ever, although even days after they left each other, she still hadn’t been able to organize the trip to Paris, but she was working on it. She was determined to have a reason to get there, although he was reason enough. She wanted to kill two birds with one stone. She was going to Paris, or wanted to, for their romance, but she also wanted to address the local business issues wherever she was. And it would give her something to do while he was busy working.

  She had just set up a series of meetings with a new textile mill outside Paris, and was waiting for confirmation, three weeks after his last visit, when she got violently ill one afternoon. Jade had ordered them all sushi for lunch, and it was obvious to Timmie that whatever she’d eaten hadn’t been good. She had rarely been so sick in her life, or been so frightened by how ill she was. She called Jean-Charles to discuss it with him, and he suggested she go to the emergency room. He wanted her to get an IV for dehydration, but she hated hospitals so much she waited, and she felt better by that night, so didn’t go. But she still felt weak the next morning, and was annoyed that the textile mill had sent no confirmation. It was the first of May, and she wanted to come to Paris to see him. Their months of waiting were almost over. He was moving out in a month, when the school year ended, and he was starting to look at apartments. Everything was beginning to happen, and then she got sick again. She felt ill in rolling waves, and she called him again to say how sick she was. He said it sounded more like a gallbladder attack than food poisoning, or maybe some virulent kind of flu. And this time, she finally called her doctor and met him in the emergency room. She was so pale when she got there, she looked translucent, and he decided to run a series of tests on her. She didn’t want them, but Jean-Charles insisted she have them, as she was throwing up again.

  She had spent a truly miserable two days, and then Jade called her at the hospital on her cell phone to say that the textile mill had finally confirmed. She had appointments with them the following week, and Timmie was pleased to report it to Jean-Charles. But he was far more worried about her health.

  “Never mind the textile mill,” he scolded her, “just get the tests your doctor ordered. Do you want me to talk to him?”

  “No,” she said, sounding calmer. “I’m feeling better. I think it really is the flu. I feel stupid having a bunch of tests for nothing. I’m sure I’m fine.”

  “Thank you for the diagnosis, doctor. Just get the tests. And we’ll talk after you get the results.” Jean-Charles wanted her to make sure she didn’t have something like hepatitis. She drove herself so hard and traveled so much that it could have been anything, including an ulcer. So she let them do whatever they wanted. They took samples of blood and urine, and by then she felt better anyway, so she went home, feeling slightly stupid for having made such a fuss over what was probably nothing. But she was touched by how concerned Jean-Charles was about her. He still wanted to talk to her doctor when the results came in, if anything significant turned up.

  “Stop worrying. I’m fine.” She went home and went to bed, and fell asleep, exhausted. The next morning, she was slightly queasy, but infinitely better, and she was back in her office, feeling decent again when the doctor called. Jade told her he was on the line, and Timmie took the call. She was looking distracted, and had convinced herself that she was fine. Whatever it had been in any case was gone.

  “Hello, Timmie,” her doctor said pleasantly when she took the call. “How are you feeling now?”

  “Fine,” she said, sounding faintly embarrassed. “A little queasy, but I think I got it out of my system. I don’t know if it was food poisoning or the flu, but I can tell you I won’t be eating sushi again anytime soon.” She had never felt as sick in her life, except maybe when her appendix ruptured. This had been nearly as bad, though not quite.

  “I’m not completely convinced you got it out of your system. I’d like you to come in this afternoon, so we can go over some of your tests.”

  “Is something wrong?” Timmie sounded suddenly worried.

  “Not at all. I just don’t like giving results over the phone. I thought if you had some time this afternoon, you could come in. Or tomorrow morning. It can wait. Everything is fine.” It didn’t sound right to her. If it was so fine, why did he want to see her? She was instantly concerned.

  In fact, she had two appointments waiting for her, and unless she canceled them and sent them home, there was no way she could get free. But after what he had just said to her, she was tempted to skip her appo
intments and go in.

  “Is it anything serious?” She was beginning to panic.

  “Timmie,” he said, trying to reassure her. He had been her doctor for years. “I agree with your diagnosis. I think you had food poisoning. But some of your blood levels were high here and there, in the panels we did. I’d be irresponsible if I didn’t go over them with you.” He made it sound simpler than she had first feared, and she started to calm down.

  “It’s not cancer or anything, is it?” She always assumed the worst.

  “Of course not. It was just a good idea to get those tests, given how sick you were two days ago. And as I recall, you haven’t had a checkup in a while. It’s time for you to come in.”

  “I’ve been busy and traveling a lot,” she gave him as an excuse, and it was true.

  “That’s also why it’s a good idea to check on things. Doing these blood panels was a good idea. You could pick up a number of things on your trips.”

  “I was in Taiwan a couple of months ago. But I never drink the local water when I travel, and I’m careful what I eat. I didn’t pick up something disgusting, did I?” He laughed, and she could hear that he didn’t sound worried, which was a relief.

  “No, you didn’t. Stop worrying. Take it easy. Watch what you eat for the next few days. And come in tomorrow, if you have time.” He sounded almost casual about it now, which greatly relieved her mind.

  “What time?” She couldn’t cancel her appointments for that afternoon, but she was willing to the following day. She wanted to hear what he had to say.

  “How does ten o’clock work for you?”

  “That’ll work.” She could make her New York calls from home, and come into the office late after her appointment at the doctor.

  “See you then. Just don’t go out for sushi tonight,” he teased her.

  “Don’t worry, Brad, I won’t. I’ll see you tomorrow at ten.” She sounded businesslike and unconcerned, which was not how she felt at all.

  She hung up, and didn’t have time to think about it after that. She had two appointments back-to-back, one with a design consultant she wanted to hire, and the other to look over ads for the winter line. They were always working six to nine months ahead. And by the time she thought of her conversation with her doctor again, she was on her way home. Whatever Brad Friedman had seen in her tests couldn’t have been too serious, or she felt sure he would have insisted she come in that afternoon. She mentioned it to Jean-Charles that night. It was already the following morning for him.

  “Did he say what was elevated?” he asked, sounding concerned.

  “No, he didn’t. He just told me to come in tomorrow.”

  “You might have an infection, or an allergy. I don’t know why he didn’t tell you on the phone.” He was annoyed about the delay, and sounded worried.

  “Doctors are always weird here about things like that. They never want to give you test results on the phone.”

  “I want you to call me as soon as you talk to him. And if he makes it confusing, I’ll talk to him myself. It sounds like he’s just trying to make himself important. I agree with you, if it was serious, I think he’d have had you come in right away.” She was glad that Jean-Charles agreed with her, and she felt better after talking to him, and slept soundly that night.

  Timmie was up early in the morning, made her New York calls, and had a cup of tea. Her stomach still felt somewhat delicate after the food poisoning, so all she had was a piece of toast for breakfast, skipped the yogurt, and got to Brad Friedman’s office, after crawling through traffic, at ten-fifteen. The nurse took her into his office immediately. They never made her wait to see him. Even if he was busy, they put her in his private office. At the doctor’s office, just as everywhere else, she was treated like a VIP. And she didn’t have long to wait to see him. He walked into the room five minutes after she sat down. She was beginning to feel nervous again. What if it really was something serious, and he had only been trying to reassure her until he could get her in to give her the bad news in person, whatever it was.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked breezily. He was a health nut, played a lot of tennis, had a second wife who was twenty years younger than he was, and he had three young kids.

  “I’m fine,” Timmie said, feeling anxious and looking suspicious. “Never mind how I feel. Why don’t you tell me how I am.” He could see that she was worried.

  “I wanted to ask you a few questions, which is why I had you come in. I haven’t seen you in a while, and things change in people’s lives, sometimes pretty radically. I assume that you’re still single, you haven’t advised us otherwise.”

  “What does that have to do with anything? Shit, have I picked up an STD?” It probably would have been Zack in that case, if it was one of those slow-cooking silent ones. She couldn’t imagine that Jean-Charles would have given her an STD, although she had slept with him far more recently.

  “No STDs. We checked for those too. What kind of relationship are you in at the moment?” he asked, watching her more carefully.

  “Oh my God … AIDS or HIV?” He smiled and shook his head at that one. He had done an AIDS test on her, and didn’t have the results yet, but he wasn’t worried about that with her either. At her age, such as he knew her, she wasn’t in a high-risk category for HIV. “No, we picked up something else, that came as a surprise to me, and may be a surprise to you. Or you may have forgotten to mention it to me. My lab tech is a little overzealous, she’d run prostate tests on women, and pregnancy tests on ninety-year-olds. I didn’t ask her to, but when I asked her to order a complete blood panel on you in the emergency room, she must have checked off every box on the form. The level I mentioned to you that ran high was your HCG level, which was a little bit startling to me. So we ran a pregnancy test on your blood and urine. You came back positive on both, Timmie. Maybe you knew that already, but I wanted to get you in and discuss it with you, to see which way you’re planning to go on this.”

  “You what?” Timmie stared at him in disbelief. “Wait, run that by me again. I’m pregnant? Are you kidding?” She couldn’t be … but she could. She trusted him. They hadn’t used condoms. They’d made love more than she ever had in her life. They’d had sex several times each day and night. She just didn’t seriously think that she could get pregnant anymore at her age. She had said as much to Jean-Charles, and he didn’t seem to think it was likely either. People had a hard enough time getting pregnant, at her age, she figured it would have taken a lot of effort, hormone support, and state-of-the-art assistance. Apparently that was not the case. It truly hadn’t occurred to her that she’d get pregnant on her own, just making love with Jean-Charles, like people half their age.

  “Do you still get your period regularly?” He didn’t seem upset about it one way or the other. But that was because it wasn’t happening to him. She was so shocked by what he had just told her, she had no idea what to think. She had no reaction to it at all, other than to be totally stunned.

  “No, I don’t. They’re irregular, but I still get it. Maybe it’s a mistake. Maybe you got someone else’s tests confused with mine,” she said, looking hopeful.

  “No, it’s not a mistake. And your elevated HCG levels say that your body is supporting the pregnancy, at least for now. How pregnant do you think you are?”

  “I have no idea.” She had slept with Jean-Charles in February, March, and April. And it was now early May. “At most slightly less than three months, at the least just about a month.” She hadn’t seen Jean-Charles now in nearly a month.

  “My guess is that you’re closer to a month, or six weeks the way we figure it from LMP.” He was speaking jargon to her and she was feeling crazy. This couldn’t be happening to her. And what would Jean-Charles say? She loved the idea, in theory, but the reality of a baby at this point in their relationship might be something else. He might not be pleased at all. And she had no idea what she felt. She was still too stunned to sort it out, although a part of her was thrilled, and
she told herself that was insane. They weren’t married, they lived six thousand miles apart, he was still living with his wife, and she was forty-eight years old.

  “I think if you were more pregnant than that, you’d have noticed the signs by now. You’ve been pregnant before.” He knew about her son. He had been her doctor when Mark died, and Derek left.

  “Do you think that’s why I got so sick?” She looked utterly amazed.

  “Maybe. It probably was just bad sushi, but maybe you were more sensitive to it, and got sicker, because you’re pregnant.” She still couldn’t absorb the words. “My question to you is what you want to do about it. I don’t know how serious you are about the father. If this isn’t a pregnancy you want to keep, you should probably opt for a termination now.” Pregnancy. Termination. HCG. LMP. The words were flying around her head like birds. “You should see your gynecologist and make a decision fairly soon, particularly if you think you might be two months pregnant. I’d rather see you deal with it within the next month, and I’m sure so would you. Is this someone you’re serious about?”

  “Very,” Timmie answered. “But he’s fifty-seven years old, lives in Paris, and we’ve only been going out for three months, if that. Not quite.” Not to mention the fact, which she didn’t tell Brad Friedman, that Jean-Charles was still living with his wife, and wasn’t due to move out for another month. Although admittedly, this might speed him along. Or blow him right out the door of her life. She was not entirely sure which. This was a lot to ask of any man, even Jean-Charles. “And my gynecologist just retired,” she added, as though that made a difference, which it didn’t. She didn’t know what to think or say.