by Sandra Kitt
“Ron here. What can I do for you?”
Diane sat forward and forced herself to sound alert and confident.
“Hi, Ron. It’s Diane Maxwell.”
“Hey. Dr. Diane. How goes it? I hope you’re calling to tell me you can give me two or three hours next week to check out some new cases.”
“I wish I could, but I’m still trying to catch up from being away over Christmas. I do have good news for you. I got the test results for Qa’Shawn.”
“We can always use good news around here.”
“He’s fine. Like I said, that murmur is very common with children. He’s a skinny kid, so his heart lies close to his chest, and when you examine him you can hear the flow of blood. It’s called a functional murmur.”
“Meaning?”
“There’s no heart disease. He’ll probably outgrow it. There’s no need to restrict his activities.”
“Good, because he’s incapable of sitting still.”
Diane grinned. “That means he’s really a very normal little boy. You might want to have me or someone check him a year from now, to see if there’s any change. I don’t think there will be.”
“Sounds like a plan, but I can’t guarantee where Qa’Shawn and his mother will be a year from now. Could find them a real place to live. Or they could end up at another shelter.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that. The families at your shelter are just trying to make it day to day.”
“It’s hard.”
“Well…you know, I think I can come by and give you some time.”
“You sure?”
“I’ll make it happen.”
Ron laughed. “You’re a good woman, Dr. Diane.”
She laughed. “There are some who wouldn’t agree with you.”
“I should have told you you’re on speakerphone. I have someone in my office. Hale Cameron. You remember him, right?”
Diane’s stomach did an alarming sudden drop. She felt both overwhelmingly hot and nauseous. She knew she wasn’t ill. It was the tension. Every time she heard Hale’s name, and had a total recall of the time they’d been together on St. John, her body betrayed her and tied her stomach into knots.
“Yes. I remember him,” she said with as little emotion as she could manage.
“I can always count on you and Hale. He just dropped off a couple of our teens after a Take-Our-Kids-To-Work day. Hale doesn’t have any kids, and most of the kids here have no fathers. But he offered to show them what he does. I think he found a future attorney or two.” Ron cackled.
“That…that’s really great,” she said enthusiastically. Her heart was thumping in her chest. “Listen, I really have to run, and I don’t want to take up your time with…Hale. I’ll bring over a copy of Qa’Shawn’s record when I come next week.”
“Thanks for everything, Diane. You’re the greatest.”
Hale doesn’t think so, she thought, ending the call. She sat holding the cordless in her hands.
She couldn’t blame him.
All her sleepless nights, all the rehashing and second-guessing about what happened at the airport on St. Thomas and, worse, the look of defeat and disappointment in his eyes when he’d walked away from her, clearly spoke of someone who didn’t care anymore.
Her stomach roiled. She pressed her arm across her stomach…and prayed for a swift end to her agony.
You win.
That’s what Hale had said. But what, she asked herself constantly, had she won? To be right? To put him down…or in his place? To be free of him? Is that what she wanted?
Diane groaned and jumped out of her chair as if it had gotten too hot.
I thought that you and I…
Diane covered her face with her hands and blindly began to pace the confines of the small office. She bumped into a chair, her foot kicked the wastepaper basket, the noise startling her.
I thought you and I…
She stopped and collapsed on the edge of her desk, bent over with her head drooping.
She needed to talk to someone. The list of anyone who would empathize with her was very short, but only because she couldn’t clearly articulate what was wrong. Except she felt terrible. And sick.
Diane turned around to reach for the phone again. Maybe Eva or her father. No. Not Adam. Her father had already made his thoughts known on everything Hale and her, and the events of the holidays on St. John. As a matter of fact, when the subject had come up, just a few days after she’d returned to D.C. and had already had second thoughts on the way she’d handled that episode at the airport, she’d gotten no sympathy from her father. If anything, he’d seemed deeply disappointed in her….
“Okay, first things first. Don’t even try to convince me that there’s nothing between you and Hale.”
“There isn’t. By the time we left St. John everything was back to normal,” Diane had confessed.
“That part I get, too. The day you left the island you could have cut the tension between you two with a knife. What’s going on? I thought you and Hale had finally worked things out after all these years of squaring off with each other.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Diane had muttered, letting the dinner her father was treating her to sit and go cold. She hadn’t felt much like eating, either.
“Look, baby, I know you and I know Hale. From where I stood it seemed like something pretty good going on. You seemed happy. Relaxed. We didn’t hear word one about Trevor and two years ago.”
“Well, you’re wrong.”
Her father had narrowed his gaze at her. “Oh. We’re back to that again. When are you going to stop treating the man like he’s done something reprehensible and you can’t stand him? ’Cause I don’t believe that’s the issue.”
“Daddy, don’t. Please stay out of it.”
Adam had sighed, looking both helpless and annoyed with her. He had shaken his head.
“You’re going to blow this. You’re too stubborn to realize Hale’s your equal, in every way.”
“Stay out of this!” She had stopped abruptly and clamped her mouth shut. She had realized she was drawing attention in the restaurant.
Adam had ignored the outburst and had looked at her sternly.
“I’m your father. I can see what’s going on because you’re just like me. You get hurt by someone or something, or think that someone has done you wrong, and you’re like a wounded animal. Get over it, baby. Or you’re going to be sorry….”
You’re going to be sorry….
Diane moaned, then started when the phone rang. She stared at it. It rang a second time. A large part of her wondered at the possibility of it being Hale. But why would it be, after all the terrible things she’d accused him of and after what he’d said to her. It rang a third time and she picked it up.
“Diane Maxwell.”
“It’s Eva, honey.”
She didn’t know if she was relieved or disappointed. “Hi, Eva. I was just thinking about you.”
“Really?”
“I was going to call you….”
And cry on your shoulder.
“About what?”
Diane shrugged, trying to make up something quickly. “Oh, just to say hello. See how you’re feeling. I did want to find out if you’ve been to see your doctor since returning home.”
“That’s what I’m calling about myself. Well, they did another sonogram and confirmed what they found on St. John. The cysts will disappear on their own. They’re not a problem. But the fibroids…the bottom line is there are actually two, one behind the other.” She chuckled. “I gave your father a good scare. I was beginning to look three or four months pregnant.”
“Your doctor wants to operate,” Diane guessed succinctly.
“Yes. The fibroids are pushing and crowding some of my vital organs and my doctor isn’t happy about that. Adam and I talked about it, and I’m going ahead with surgery in February.”
“That’s a good idea. What method have you and the doctor agreed on?”
“Have you heard about Hale?” Eva asked.
Diane was alert again. It was a simple enough question and didn’t sound as if Eva was fishing for information.
“What about him?”
“I know your father told you Hale is a lobbyist. Now, I know what people think about lobbyists, but Hale is different. Really. Anyway, he’s been invited to speak as a rep for a committee investigating drug companies, before a congressional hearing. He was asked for his opinion after talking to some of the bigwigs on the Hill about some of the ongoing problems. Can you believe it? Our Hale!”
“That’s impressive,” Diane said, her voice flat with shock.
Eva gave her the date, still exclaiming like a proud mama. As well she should, Diane conceded. Eva always knew that Hale would do himself proud.
All Diane could feel in that moment of Eva’s excitement was overwhelmed. Empty. And sorry for herself.
That night she had the dream again but it was slightly different. She knew the heat of passion was going to rise within her, possibly consume her with need and the desire to be satisfied with him. That was both the delicious and frustrating part of the night. Then he’d whispered to her, but the words had gotten lost and faded in the act of her awaking.
Diane lay trying to reconstruct that moment. Putting the sounds together and the words and the meaning.
To imagine he’d said something like I love you was just wishful thinking.
Diane took her bag from the plastic bin that had just been passed through the scanning machine at the public entrance to the building. She was directed to an elevator and boarded along with a dozen other people, headed to one committee meeting or another in the House. Once off the elevator, she began walking in the direction of the room assigned to the hearing on health and families.
From the moment she’d made the decision and pursued the arrangements to attend the hearing, she had been filled with anxiety. A few times she’d thought better of the idea, afraid of the message it might send to her parents, or even Hale if he got wind of it. But mostly, she was afraid of what she was telling herself about finally wanting to hear Hale speak for himself.
But it was also that anxiety and inability to find peace, day to day, that forced her to recognize some hard truths not only about Hale and how terribly she’d misjudged him, but also about herself. The picture that was painted was not pretty.
Her heart racing, Diane took a deep breath and walked with purpose and her head high as she reached the hearing chamber. Someone took her ticket for the event and checked her name on a list and asked her to turn off her cell phone. They might have taken it from her until the hearing was over, until she identified herself as a doctor.
Beyond the last line of security Diane spotted a woman standing in the corridor along the wall. She looked familiar and Diane approached her. The young woman, petite and smartly dressed, seemed uncertain about going into the hearing chamber.
“Hi. Jenna?”
The young woman stared at her, momentarily puzzled, and then she smiled.
“Hi. You’re Hale’s friend, Diane.”
“How are you?” Diane asked, ignoring Jenna’s reference. “How’s the baby?”
“Oh, he’s great. He’s with a sitter today. But he’s getting so big.” She beamed.
“I bet. Are you here for the hearing?”
“Yes. You, too?”
Diane nodded. “As a doctor I’m curious to hear what Hale has to say about upcoming legislation on the drug company issues.”
Jenna made a face. “He’d like to cut their you-know-what off, not that he’s really said that. You know Hale’s been on the inside so he knows what he’s talking about. He wants the companies to be responsible for their dirty tricks. And he wants them to pay.”
Diane raised her brows, a little amused by the young woman’s vehemence. “You seem to know a lot about it.”
“Well, I’m almost finished with my nursing degree so I’ve heard and seen a lot where I’m working now.
“I got some really good news that Colby may be coming home by June,” Jenna said, changing the subject on a dime.
Her excitement was palpable, her eyes bright with love and anticipation.
“That’s really great news. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you.”
“You ladies will have to go in if you’re here for the hearing.”
“Hale doesn’t know I’m here. I had to beg a coworker to change days with me,” Jenna confided in a whisper as they walked together into the chamber and were directed to seats.
“He doesn’t know I’m here, either,” Diane confessed.
The preliminaries, while interesting to witness, only served to draw out Diane’s nervousness until her hands were icy cold and her body was stiff with tension. She didn’t see Hale among the people already seated, and didn’t want to appear gauche by turning her head every time someone entered the room. People continued to file in. Then another door opened into the chamber on the other side of the room. A number of men and two women entered single file and took seats in the front row behind a long balustrade. Hale was the third person in.
Diane’s stomach did what it had been doing for weeks. Twisting and turning, even more so, now that she was seeing Hale for the first time since that last horrible time they were together. She couldn’t take her eyes from him. Like that night she’d seen him at the gala in Baltimore. He looked incredibly handsome in his dark business suit. He moved, tall and imperial, with a walk that still had a hint of a swagger.
Her heart seemed to ache in her chest and, unconsciously, she placed a hand over to soothe it.
Diane watched as the announcements were made about the purpose of the hearing, naming the committee members and the invited expert speakers. Hale leaned in to catch the comments of another speaker, an elderly woman, seated next to him. As he turned his head to whisper a response he happened to glance over the woman’s shoulder and his gaze met hers.
There was no mistaking the surprise in his eyes. Diane sat stunned as she decided what to do. Should she smile? Wave? Nod encouragement? She was not given a chance to do anything.
“I think he saw us,” Jenna murmured softly.
Well, what did you expect?
The hearing was about a committee of the House that proposed legislation that did more than go after drug companies who blatantly disregarded rules and regulations of the FDA, solely in the pursuit of profits while putting the health of citizens at risk. The committee wanted to raise the already steep fines imposed on companies found guilty, and they wanted prosecutors to be able to go after doctors who accept kickbacks from companies to promote and prescribe their drugs.
When Hale took the mic to give his presentation, Diane sat riveted. He was authoritative and he was courageous in talking about how he came to know Carlyle Pharmaceuticals. Hale admitted working for them fresh out of law school, the high pay and benefits seductive and hard to turn down. After several years he put together a true picture of how the company operated and why the profits were so high. He quit and, on behalf of a group of poorly served people, filed a class action and sued the company.
Carlyle lost the case and was forced to pay billions in retribution. Hale’s case also caused the company to nearly go bankrupt, until the CEO was forced out and the company was under new leadership. It was now known as Medpro. The new company has a better vision and believes in their mission, Hale said, to provide quality and safe medications to the millions of people whose lives depend on them. The company hired Hale back to work for them, and their new commitment, on the Hill in D.C. as a lobbyist.
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br /> The information left Diane feeling numb. And very stupid. She hadn’t known, and she could have found out. She could have had the information before she made the unfounded accusations she had against Hale.
She’d ruined everything and for no reason. Except, maybe, fear.
His presentation was flawless and even under questioning from the panel afterward, he never faltered and answered every question with facts, statistics, anecdotes, sometimes throwing the questions back at the panel members, much to the amusement of the attendees, who chuckled or laughed at the attempts to trip Hale in his logic or argument.
The hearing lasted two hours. By the time the panel adjourned Diane was exhausted, as if she had endured the same cross-fire. She had, but it was self-imposed.
They filed out of the chamber, the crowd meandering toward the bank of elevators.
“I’ve got to get back,” Jenna said, frowning. “Time to pump or I’m going to start leaking.”
Diane chuckled. “It was nice to see you again.”
“Yeah, same here. Maybe I can have you and Hale for dinner one night. If you don’t mind the baby fussing for my attention.”
She encouraged Jenna to squeeze on to the first elevator available. The elevators were slow and even more people gathered as the committee room emptied. Two arrived at once, the bell indicator dinging at the same time. She boarded and turned to face the front. Diagonally across from her some of the hearing speakers were just getting on the other elevator, laughing and chatting now that it was over. Hale was in the middle, entering the elevator and facing front.
Across the distance between the two elevators they, once again, stared at each other. But there was no time for Diane to assess that moment. She left the building feeling that it may possibly be the last time she’d ever see Hale.
It was just after ten when Hale entered his apartment, cold and tired. Winter had never been his favorite time of year, and between the weather and the last four weeks of preparing for the hearing, not eating right if at all and thinking about the end of the Christmas holidays, he was also not in a particularly good mood. Crappy would be the right word.