I stood as she walked in. “Molly.”
She turned to look at me.
I stuck out my hand. “Dylan Foster. Thanks for meeting me.”
Her eyes moved up and down my body, starting at my Converse sneakers, pausing at my slouchy leather bag, and settling on my auburn ponytail. “Wow. You look just like me. You could be my mother.”
I cringed. “Ouch.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Big sister. Cousin, I could work with. Aunt, even. But mother? Did you have to go there?”
“Sorry.”
I smiled and waved away her apology. “Kidding. Don’t worry about it.”
“But you are too young to be my mother, right? Like, way.”
“Thirty-five and lucky to have made it this far.”
“Way too young. My mom’s, like, fifty.”
“What a relief.”
She studied me. “Not a match, exactly. More like a conjugation.”
Big-girl words too.
“Can I order you something?” I asked. “I’m having iced tea.”
“That’s okay. I’ll get it.”
She turned and walked to the counter. Odd for a student to pass up an offer for free coffee. They usually assume they’re being treated, even though most of my students could buy and sell me a dozen times over.
She bought an iced coffee, followed me outside, and sat down opposite me, tucking the change into her pocket. She pulled the wrapper off the straw and began to twirl it into a knot.
“So, you teach at SMU?”
I nodded. “Guilty.”
“What do you teach?”
“Psychology.” I waited for the next question, intrigued that she had taken the lead.
She untied the wrapper and started in on it again without looking up. Clearly it was my turn.
“What about you? You’re at SMU, right? Studying what? Business?”
“Art.”
“Unusual. At SMU, anyway.”
She glanced up. “Yeah, everybody’s in the B school. It’s a good department, though. There’s cash behind it. Have you been to the museum?”
I nodded. “Lots of big Spanish art. Do you paint?”
“Some. I do sculpture, mostly.” She twisted the paper into a half bow and curled it up on the ends. I looked down at her hands, which were calloused and rough looking, the cuticles torn and dry, the nails unpolished. She caught me staring. “Makes it tough to keep a manicure,” she said.
“You don’t seem like the manicure type.”
The corners of her mouth turned up for the first time. “Neither do you.”
“Guilty.” I held out my hands for her review. They weren’t as bad as hers, but I could have used a visit to Madge the Palmolive-manicure lady. “Tell me about your art. Figurative or abstract?”
“They make us do both, but I like abstract.”
“What medium?”
“Mainly bronzes. That’s what I like to do, anyway. We do a lot of clay—for pragmatic reasons. It’s hard to get studio time for bronzes or any kind of metals. One of my professors has a studio, though. I do most of my bronze work there.”
“Would I know his work?”
“He doesn’t show much. His studio is in the garage behind his house. He helps me with my stuff more than he works on his own.”
“Sounds like a good arrangement.”
She shrugged. “I don’t have to sleep with him or anything.” She caught the look on my face. “It happens. Students get exploited like that all the time. Especially the poor ones like me.”
“But not you.”
“I let him know the first day he’d have to stay on his side of the workbench. I pay him for studio time. I don’t owe him anything else.”
She was self-possessed, much more so than I had been at her age.
“So why SMU?”
“My parents. They’re mad for the place.”
“They must be to pay the tuition.”
She shrugged nonchalantly. “I have a full ride. It came down to SMU or one of the art conservatories if I decided to go away. But I didn’t want to be stuck with artists all the time. They’re too weird.”
“You’re on an art scholarship, then?”
“Academic. President’s Scholar.”
Oh. That was a whole different level of smart.
“I went all the way through school on scholarships,” I said.
She laughed. “And look how you turned out.”
“This,” I said dramatically, “is your destiny.” I gestured toward the window at my crummy truck.
“That’s yours? I noticed it when I came in. It’s so cool!”
“Well, I like to think so, but I’m usually the only one.”
Her eyes were on the truck, but from the side I could see her expression lapsing, her eyes changing focus. She looked back at me.
“So.” She took a sip of coffee. “John Mulvaney.”
“Right. John Mulvaney. I hear he’s been harassing you.”
“E-harassing, I guess. Is that a word?”
“What’s he been doing?”
“Mainly talking about me on his blog. E-mailing me all the posts.”
“By name?”
“By name, by address, by description, by phone number, by e-mail. Pretty much advertising all over the Web who I am and where I live and how to contact me, just in case any of the sickos who read his blog want to know.”
“Why would he do that?” I asked.
“He says I’m his muse.” She rolled her eyes. “It makes me want to puke.”
“What does that mean?”
She looked at me with a level, hardened gaze. “You tell me. You’re the one who posts the content. He calls you his ‘liaison to the free world.’ A little grandiose, I thought.”
“I don’t have anything to do with the blog, Molly.”
Her expression softened. “You don’t, do you? I could tell as soon as I saw you. And not because you look like me.” She cocked her head. “You just don’t look like the type. You know what I mean? Those women who visit prisons and write letters to convicts and then marry them and never even spend one single night with them?” She took another sip of coffee and unwound the straw wrapper again. “Weirdos.”
“That’s the clinical term, I believe.”
“So. Dr. Mulvaney.”
“Weirdo du jour.”
She folded the paper in half lengthwise and started to twirl it into a spiral. “I can’t get much information from SMU. They told me he had to take an unexpected leave of absence. For personal reasons.”
“Well, that’s sort of true.”
“I mean, it’s not like he went home to nurse a sick relative. There’s a difference.”
“You found out what happened, though, right? It was all over the news.”
“I looked it up in the Morning News archives.”
“Well, I can’t speak for SMU. I do know the department head, and she’s terrific. I guess it was a judgment call.”
“Whatever. The whole thing is freaky.”
“I’m sorry.”
“How well do you know Dr. Mulvaney?”
“Not well, I’m happy to report. Only professionally. I knew him well enough to know something was a little out of whack. I had no idea he was as disturbed as he turned out to be.”
She looked away. “Yeah, well, you can’t always tell about people.”
“Did he ever, you know …”
“Come on to me? You’re kidding, right? I don’t even know the man. I only know what he looks like from the blog.” She grimaced. “What a drip.”
“I wonder how he knows your address?”
“Don’t professors have access to students’ addresses?”
“We have e-mail addresses because students log in to our online classes.” My eyes mentally scanned my desk. “And come to think of it, we all have a campus directory. I guess he got it out of that.”
“I’m not in the directory.”
“Why not
?”
“You can decline to be listed.” She looked up at me. “For privacy’s sake.”
She shuddered.
“I wish I could help you,” I said. “I can’t think what—”
“I thought about visiting him in jail and asking him to stop.”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea. At all.”
“It’s weird that we look so much alike. Do you think that’s why he’s doing this? Did you make him mad or something?”
“Well, yeah, I did make him mad.” A slight understatement, but she was better off not knowing the whole story. “I don’t think that’s why he’s picking on you. I think he’s picking on you because he’s sick, and men who are sick like he is tend to stick to one physical type.”
She sipped her coffee and stared at the parking lot as a motorcycle buzzed by. “Didn’t someone marry, like, Ted Bundy?”
“I think so, yeah. After he was convicted.”
“But before he was executed, I take it.”
“I don’t think they got much of a honeymoon.”
“Yeah, and like Eva Braun?” she said, her face animating. “Didn’t she marry Hitler and then kill herself, like, ten minutes later?”
“Wouldn’t you have shot yourself too?”
“I thought it was poison.”
“I think that was the Goebbels. They poisoned their children with cyanide. All six of them. Can you imagine?”
“Weirdos.”
I laughed. I liked Molly Larken. I mentally put John Mulvaney on my skin-him-alive-next-time-I-see-him list. “So what are you going to do?”
“Move. Disappear. I’ve already changed my phone number and e-mail address.”
“I’m sorry. It’s not fair that you have to do that.”
“Hey, it’s a free country.”
“As long as you’re in jail.”
“Makes you proud to be an American, doesn’t it?”
She stood up and tossed her empty cup into the garbage, then tucked the twisted piece of paper into her pocket.
She dug around in her bag, pulled out a business card, and turned it over to write something on the back. She handed me the card and shook my hand.
“It was nice to meet you, Dr. Foster. You’re pretty cool for a professor. Maybe I’ll take one of your classes.”
I groaned. “Don’t take my class. You’ll just be bored. But I would like to see your art sometime.”
“I’m not working on anything now, but I’ve got some stuff in storage you might like.” She pointed at the card. “My new e-mail’s on the back. You already have my phone number.”
“Right.”
She turned to walk away.
“Good luck,” I said. “Keep in touch.”
She looked back and waved. Then she was gone.
I bought myself another iced tea and sat down to make phone calls. I called my father who, lucky for me, was in surgery. I talked to his office manager, Janet, who chided me for being so hard to reach.
Janet has a knack for scolding me and yet still managing to sound perky and nurturing. My father would have been sued out of the medical profession years ago, I’m convinced, if it weren’t for her. The patients love Janet. My father they tolerate because he’s so good. He’s got a perfect surgeon’s personality—works too hard, has no hobbies, no social life, unbelievably rigid personal habits. You can count on a guy like that to show up on time and concentrate on what he’s doing. You’ll never catch him making careless mistakes or bantering with the anesthesiologist.
I checked my voice mail at the office and was relieved to hear that Harold had returned my call. I called him back and caught him in his office.
“Helene tells me you’re in a bit of a snit about your review.”
“I don’t know if I’d say snit. Pickle, maybe. Frenzy, surely. Snit sounds so … snippy.”
“Snit, snip. It’s all the same to me.”
“It’s more like a panic, truthfully. I mean, I know it’s months away, and I’m pretty confident going into it …”
“ ‘Pretty confident’ don’t feed the bulldog, Dr. Foster. Let’s aim a little higher, shall we?”
“Well, that’s why I called,” I said sarcastically.
“Now you sound snippy.”
“Snippy, snitty, what difference does it make? My career’s flapping in the wind, and you’re commenting on my temperament?”
“Your temperament could use some improvement. And the wind—why, the wind will soon die down, and when you look around, you will see how far it has carried you. Why don’t we get together Thursday? I’ll take you to lunch.”
“When and where?”
“You’re one of those sushi people, aren’t you? Maybe that new place over on—”
“Inwood? I love that place. Twelve thirty?”
“Perfect.”
“What should I bring?”
“Just a pen and paper, your brilliant mind, and a reasonably good attitude.”
“It’s a stretch, that third one.”
“It’s what we all love about you, my dear. See you then.”
I dialed Liz. “Any developments?”
“We’re about to take Christine in for her first round of tests.”
“What kind of tests?”
“Some chest x-ray thing. I don’t know.”
“They didn’t explain it to you?”
“They did, but I heard from Tony DeStefano in the middle of it and had to step out. Andy and the boys are fine.”
I felt the breath leave my lungs. “What happened?”
“It was what I thought. They landed safely but couldn’t get through because of the weather.”
“They’re okay, though, right?”
“They’re fine. They’re playing soccer and eating tamales.”
“Earl strikes again. Did you talk to them?”
“Andy and the boys were sleeping when he called. Tony said to tell you his wife was making spaghetti. He said you’d be jealous.”
“Jenny’s spaghetti is sublime. I think it’s his mom’s recipe. Like, from Italy—one generation removed. I practically pass out every time I have it, it’s so good.”
“They’re in good hands, then.”
“Very good hands. How’s Christine?”
“Scared.”
“Will it be invasive? There’s no, like, dye or anything?”
“I don’t think so. Besides, she already has the IV. They should be able to use that, right? She’s just so little …”
“What time does she go?”
“They’re on their way up.”
I looked at my watch. I could beat the traffic if I left now. “Be there in ten.”
I threw out the rest of my iced tea and stood to go just as the Chanel chick stepped out onto the sidewalk. She was a magazine ad—perfect makeup, heavy but tasteful jewelry, Chanel head to toe. Just the right shade of coral painted onto her sneer. She even had the pose down. One foot delicately pointed forward, ankles crossed, as she reached into her quilted bag for her cigarette case.
The one flaw in her otherwise exquisitely crafted image was that she had this huge, cartoonish helmet of stiff, fake-blond, beauty-pageant hair. I was positive that if I stood downwind, I’d be smothered in Chanel No. 5 and Final Net fumes.
She looked me up and down with barely concealed disgust. As her eyes followed me to the truck, I felt my hostility rise up, take over my brain, and tackle what few weak instincts of proper social conduct I possess. It’s an old reflex, one I’m not proud of, certainly. But honestly, I couldn’t help myself.
I yanked open the door to my truck and slid onto the hot vinyl seat. As the engine coughed to life, I slammed the door, backed out of my space, and cranked down my window.
I waved gaily to her. “Love the hair!” I shouted. “Hope you win!”
As her jaw dropped and her face flushed to a lovely shade of magenta, I drove away sporting my first genuine smile in days.
Sometimes you have to create your own v
ictories.
14
IT’S TEN MINUTES FROM Starbucks to Children’s Medical Center. But if you have bad traffic luck, which of course I do, the drive stretches quickly into an obstacle course of orange-and-white-striped barricades and stalled vehicles. You end up waiting in long, snaky lines of steaming SUVs with their hoods up and with steaming drivers inside them talking on cell phones.
The congestion today was even worse than usual—worse than I’d ever seen it, in fact. The epic traffic was surely part of some well-deserved reprimand from Jesus, but I didn’t mind, honestly. Even in Dallas traffic in high afternoon sun with Stone Age air conditioning. Forty-five minutes after I three-point-landed my beauty-pageant joke, I pulled into the parking garage at Children’s, sweating like a barn animal but still crowing with guilty satisfaction.
I had just missed Liz and Christine, so I had to track them down in radiology. Children’s Medical Center is part of the Parkland system—a sprawling hive of buildings with byzantine signage and a maze of multicolored stripes painted on hallway floors. The stripes are supposed to serve as directional indicators but instead meld into a Daedalean mess that eventually leads you all the way to nowhere.
Three nurses’ stations, two missed turns, and one wrong elevator later, I was standing in the radiology hallway, just outside the reception window, trying to con the guard-dog nurse into letting me in. His name was Patrick, and he was wearing pink scrubs and black eyeliner.
“Name of patient?”
“Christine Zocci.”
“Social?”
I decided to try to charm him. “Yes.”
He narrowed one eye at me.
“I mean, I guess she’s pretty social. Why?”
A level of disdain I did not realize was humanly possible clouded his already dark expression. Someone should introduce him to the Chanel beauty contestant. They could share makeup.
He glared. “Security number. Social Security number.”
I stubbornly maintained eye contact. He did have lovely green eyes—Irish eyes, set off by freckled skin and a shock of black hair, which had been waxed into a sharp center peak. He didn’t need the liner at all, really.
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