by G. H. Ephron
Annie looked like a dandelion puff, her curly, reddish hair backlit by the streetlight, her face clouded with dragon’s breath. Instead of her usual jeans and leather jacket, she had on a full-length coat that looked like one of those sleeping bags that are supposed to keep you warm, camping out overnight on Mount Washington. She slid into the car, leaned over, and gave me a light kiss on the cheek. Her lips were icy.
“To Marlborough Street, Jeeves,” she said, shivering. “And can you crank up the heat in this old car of yours?”
I’d almost finished restoring the 1967 BMW. I was taking my time, hammering out the rear quarter panel—I’d done it once already, but a run-in with a red Firebird in a parking garage had left it in need of further straightening. After that, there wouldn’t be much left to do. I’d miss working on the car at quiet, ungodly hours, long before any sane person willingly contemplates crawling out of bed.
“I do love that leather smell,” Annie added, inhaling. “Mmm. So comforting.”
I inhaled too. But it was Annie’s scent, watermelon and rose water, that I was enjoying.
I caught Annie eyeing me. “I was glad to hear from you,” she said.
“It’s been—” I paused, trying to remember how long it had been.
“Six weeks,” Annie said.
“Not.”
Annie laughed. “No one can accuse you of rushing into anything. Though I have to say, I was disappointed at the change of plans.”
I reached over and put my hand over hers. An electrical charge zapped up my arm. “A quiet dinner for two would have been nice,” I said.
“Next time,” Annie replied, and put her hand on my knee and squeezed.
It was with considerable effort that I continued toward Back Bay—down Memorial Drive, across the Harvard Bridge—instead of making a U-turn and heading back to my place.
This stretch of Mass. Ave. was undistinguished—a row of rundown restaurants, convenience stores, and bars. As soon as we turned onto Marlborough Street, the landscape changed. Trees reached up from either side of the street, not quite forming an arching trellis overhead. Electrified gas lamps cast a soft light on tidy rows of town houses, the cornices lined up in soothing, nineteenth-century uniformity.
The parking was residents-only, but even a resident would have had a hard time finding a parking spot that night. We ended up at a meter on Clarendon and walked back.
We stood on the sidewalk and gazed up at the house.
Annie exhaled. “Wow.”
“Wow,” I echoed. “They used to live a few blocks away. But that house was about half the size of this one.”
The formidable, gray granite town house had a double staircase going up to an arched doorway with windows on either side. A crystal chandelier sparkled through one of the windows.
Annie scrunched up her shoulders and pulled the collar of her coat around her neck. “This place is going to make my teeth itch.”
I smiled and wondered what Channing would make of Annie. The two couldn’t have been more different, and neither one was much like Kate. On the surface at least. Physician, private investigator, artist. Still, each one was about as independent and self-sufficient as a person can get.
We mounted the steps. The brass fittings—banister, wall-mounted mailbox, and door knocker—looked as if they’d just been polished. I rang the bell. The front door was drawn open by a young man in a tuxedo who looked as if his teeth itched, too. Probably a student working for the caterer.
Overflowing floral arrangements were grace notes in the generously proportioned, high-ceilinged entrance hall. There were French doors on either side; one led to a parlor, the other to a book-lined study. The entryway continued past a curved staircase to the back of the house.
It sounded as if about two dozen guests were there already. I recognized some colleagues from the hospital. The ones I didn’t recognize were probably Drew’s friends—stockbrokers and real estate developers, most likely.
I glanced up the stairs to the second-floor landing. No Olivia.
Annie shed her coat like a gray cocoon. She wore a short, sleeveless dress. The black velvet hugged her like a second skin. I tried not to stare. She looked spectacular. I was doing what women say they hate, staring at her legs, the swell of her hips, her breasts, giving her the once over from the bottom up. When I got up to her face, I realized she hadn’t noticed. Or if she had, she didn’t mind. She was looking at me, open-mouthed, as if I’d just swallowed a goldfish.
She touched the lapel of my new suit and whistled. “You clean up good.”
I laughed out loud. “Speak for yourself!”
“Peter, I’m so glad you could make it,” Channing said as she flowed into the room, holding a half-filled champagne flute. Her face was flushed, and she tripped over the hem of her voluminous maroon skirt and then quickly recovered her footing. Some champagne splashed onto the Persian carpet.
This time I executed the Kiss without bumping noses. I handed her a bottle of 1986 Calon-Segur, velvety red, just ready to drink. “For a special occasion,” I said. “Channing, this is …”
Annie smiled sweetly, “Annie Squires—criminal investigations, missing persons”—she raised an eyebrow at me—“lost loves.”
Channing laughed. “How appropriate,” she said, and extended a long, elegant hand. Annie gave her a solid handshake back. “I’d definitely like to hear more.” She leaned in toward me and lowered her voice, “Peter, you must promise to rescue me if I disgrace myself. I got beeped last night, and I barely slept a wink. I feel like roadkill, and this”—she held the champagne glass at arm’s length—“is going straight to my head.”
“Peter!” Gray-haired and distinguished in a red plaid dinner jacket and black bow tie, Channing’s husband, Drew Temple, came toward us, two glasses of champagne in hand. With his six-foot-plus frame, he had to stoop coming through the doorway. “Delighted you could make it.” When he smiled, the lines in his face deepened.
We took the champagne, and I introduced Annie.
Annie shivered. “You still cold?” I asked, and put my arm around her. Then I felt the draft, too.
We turned. The front door had been pushed open. Channing went over to the young woman who’d stepped into the hallway.
“Chan …” the woman stopped herself. “Dr. Temple,” she said, and extended a stiff arm. The bracelets on her thin wrist jingled.
Channing took her hand and squeezed it. “Jess, I’m so glad you could make it. Let me take your coat.”
The woman slipped off her wool coat. Beneath, she wore a short black sleeveless dress, like Annie’s. I looked around. Most of the women at the party were wearing practically the same outfit. With her long neck, narrow waist, aristocratic nose, and the way she held her head slightly tilted, the young woman reminded me of a blond Audrey Hepburn. The same innocence mixed with sophistication. Definitely not Audrey Hepburn was the battered backpack she set on the floor, and the small tattoo, maybe a butterfly, that adorned her ankle.
“You look very pretty tonight,” Channing told her. Then, she put her arm around the young woman and presented her to me. “This is Jess Dyer,” she said, emphasizing the name as if it was one I should know. But it didn’t ring a bell.
“Pleased to meet you,” I said, shaking her hand. She had long fingers, like the slender toes of a wading bird. I introduced her to Annie.
“Dr. Dyer. The resident I told you about,” Channing reminded me.
“Oh, right! You’ll be starting your Neuropsych rotation next week,” I said remembering the message Channing had left me a few weeks ago. “We’re looking forward to having you.” We were always understaffed. A good resident was an extra doctor on the unit, one with a not-yet-jaded perspective.
“Believe me, I’m looking forward to it as well,” Jess said.
“She’s unusually talented,” Channing said. Jess blushed. “That’s why I recommended she work with you. She’s interested in testing.” That was unusual—psychiatrists are generally
content to leave testing to psychologists.
At the top of the stairs, a gangly, dark-haired girl peered down. She vanished before I could get a good look. Even from a brief glimpse, I realized I never would have recognized her as Channing’s daughter.
“I’ll be there, bright and early Monday morning,” Jess said. Then she excused herself to find the powder room.
Channing watched her leave. “Smart, very empathic. She’s been through a rather difficult year. Just needs a bit of centering. Ballast. The kind of mentoring I got from Daphne when I was doing my own residency.”
How much centering, I wondered? I hoped this young woman wouldn’t turn out to be an extra patient.
“Is Daphne here?” I asked.
A peel of laughter rippled from the adjoining room, followed by, “Oh, sod off, Liam. You can’t be serious.”
Channing raised a finger. “That’s her, in the flesh.”
We peered into the neighboring room. There was Dr. Daphne Smythe-Gooding, her straight, shoulder-length white hair gleaming against shoulders-to-floor dark silk. “She’s looking well,” I said.
“She certainly seems to have come out of mourning.”
Daphne’s husband had died the previous summer. Robert Smythe-Gooding had been only sixty years old. He and Daphne were icons of solidity at the Pearce. Robert, the brilliant researcher; Daphne, the scholarly clinician. When I first arrived at the Pearce, he was chief of psychiatry. Everyone assumed he’d be in line to become director of the hospital. Then, there had been some kind of reshuffling that had the whiff of scandal about it, and he was shunted aside to a new position, director of clinical trials.
I’d seen it happen many times since. Hearsay about drugs disappearing under a particular unit director’s watch. A doctor rumored to be sleeping with his patients. Gossip about an administrator’s mishandling of funds. Who knew if the stories were true? The dirty little secret at the Pearce was that though senior staff rarely got fired, they got “promoted” into meaningless jobs, assigned “special projects.” The rumor mill managed attrition by grinding away at reputations. Eventually, the person disappeared from the org chart, leaving barely a ripple.
That wasn’t what had happened to Robert. At first the new position had no real duties. Single-handedly, he’d written grant proposals and spearheaded research projects. He recruited doctors to work with him, courted the National Institute of Mental Health, the pharmaceutical companies, and the foundations. When the money started to roll in, it became apparent that research was going to be key to the institute’s survival.
Robert had been director of clinical trials right up until his death. Cancer, metastasized to the brain. Daphne was at his side constantly in his final months, until they’d both disappeared from view. A few weeks later, I saw the obituary. I was glad for him. Cancer like that usually means a lingering death.
“Didn’t I hear that Daphne’s been named director of clinical trials?” I asked.
“Yes. Of course, she’s been doing the job for a while anyway. Robert was trying to carry on for as long as possible with the same old routines, but he was failing. Refused help from anyone but her. Cantankerous old son of a bitch.” Channing smiled at the memory. “Still, I never expected her to defect to the dark side.”
It was typical Channing. She had no trouble seeing the issues her patients faced in every shade of the color palette. Medical ethics were another story. She saw a monochromatic battlefield, inhabited by armies of black hats and white hats.
There was another peel of laughter. “I almost don’t recognize her these days,” Channing said.
Daphne seemed smaller than I remembered her, somewhat tentative in the way she stood, with her head tilted to one side. She was holding a wine glass in one hand, but her other hand seemed to float away from her side, as if she were groping for something that wasn’t there. Perhaps without her husband beside her, she felt off balance. That wasn’t so unusual. Six months after Kate’s death, I’d only just begun to come to terms with the loss—two years later, I still had trouble defining myself as “alone.” When my dad died, I remembered, my mother took more than a year to bounce back. Dad had been the one who had organized their social life, initiated friendships. No one was more surprised than Mom when she turned out to be a natural schmoozer.
A waiter slid by with a tray of hors d’oeuvres. Daphne helped herself to what looked like a stuffed mushroom. She didn’t eat it. She just held it. It anchored that free, fluttering hand in place.
“She’s gaining back some of the weight she lost, too,” Channing went on. “For a while there, we were afraid she was going to disappear entirely. You should go say hello. She’s always been a big fan of yours.”
“Me? She barely knows who I am,” I said.
“Peter, I can assure you, she knows all about you.”
I felt my face get a degree warmer. Daphne had analyzed Channing during her residency. If Channing had discussed her former lovers, which surely she had, then Daphne knew more about me than anyone had a right to know. I caught Annie watching me speculatively.
Liam Jensen, a senior psychiatrist who worked on the Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation Unit with Channing, was expounding to Daphne and to a small group of listeners; “ … a new treatment for alcohol and drug dependence.” Jensen was hinged over at the hip, his upper body dipping, his waxy nose pressing the point home. “Today we can detox patients with Librium, but the rate of recidivism is discouraging. DX-200 actually diminishes the psychological dependence.”
As we approached, Daphne ate the stuffed mushroom she’d been holding, then reached out her hand to Channing and pulled her close. She gave her a wry smile and rolled her eyes in Jensen’s direction. “Of course, Channing is working on a different treatment for the same thing,” Daphne said.
“Kudzu vine,” Jensen said, pursing his lips with distaste.
“Witch doctor’s brew,” Channing said, a mischievous gleam in her eyes. “We’ll see which one proves more effective. At least we know which one is more expensive.” Channing seemed to savor their rivalry. Jensen did not look amused—but then, he was a dyspeptic kind of guy.
A man asked, “And the potential market?”
Daphne broke in. “Dr. Jensen has his priorities. Wouldn’t be wasting your time on anything insipid, would you, Liam?” Under her breath, she added an aside to us, “Besides, he owns the bloody patent.” Now she sounded like the old Daphne, self-assured, razor sharp.
Jensen gave a thin smile. “Conservatively speaking”—he paused—“hundreds of millions of dollars, in this country alone.”
The last words came during a little gap in the party noise, and an assortment of heads lifted and angled in Jensen’s direction, harvesting his words.
Across the room, Drew Temple was talking to a woman maybe in her early thirties. Between the form-fitting, pale-blue suit, the suntanned skin, and the dark hair that hung like a long, straight curtain, she didn’t look like a hospital type. She reached up and smoothed the collar of Drew’s dinner jacket. He glanced about and caught me watching. He took a wooden step back and gave a self-conscious cough.
Just then, Channing announced that it was time for dinner and led the way into the dining room. The fellow who’d taken our coats was removing one of the place settings and rearranging the chairs to camouflage the hole where it seemed Olivia wouldn’t be sitting. I found myself seated between Daphne and Channing.
Annie ended up across the table, next to Liam Jensen. Jess Dyer sat on Jensen’s other side. He put his arm around the back of Jess’s chair, and they spoke quietly for a few moments. Then he picked up his empty wineglass and she picked up hers. They touched the glasses together in a silent, symbolic toast.
I quickly got into a back-and-forth with Daphne and Channing about how come smart liberal women in politics don’t get any respect, while smart conservative women do, with forays into abortion rights and gun control. No one commented on Olivia’s absence.
Channing talked about a wh
ite-water-rafting trip she was planning for the spring. “Aren’t you terrified?” Daphne asked her.
“Completely. That’s what makes it exciting.”
I had forgotten that aspect of Channing—the side that courted her fears. An edge that years of wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase hadn’t worn down. She’d once shown me the gun her mother used to kill herself. She kept it cleaned and oiled. Learned to shoot like an expert. She used to say anything you could master loses its menace.
Channing pushed away from the table and picked up her cup. She gave a bright smile to the other guests who’d followed her lead and were standing as well. “Shall we take our coffee into the parlor?” she suggested.
As we passed the foot of the stairs on our way to the living room, I said, “Olivia must still be up in her room. Shall I go up?”
Channing sighed. “It sure doesn’t look as if she’s going to come down.”
“Which door?” I asked.
“Top of the stairs, first door on the left. Make up some excuse.”
3
AT THE top of the stairs I ran into Jess, emerging from a doorway across the hall from Olivia’s. She seemed startled to see me, her eyes large and bright. “Just using the ladies,” she said, as she zipped up her backpack.
Of course, that was the perfect excuse for bumbling into Olivia’s room.
Olivia’s bedroom door was ajar. I stood in the hall, listening to the tapping of her keyboard. I nudged the door open an inch more. She was sitting at a desk facing me, staring intently at a computer screen. Olivia looked nothing like the lively six-year-old or the mousy preadolescent I remembered. A long neck and bony elbows stuck out of her loose black T-shirt. But the hair was what you noticed—black spikes with poster-paint red streaks running through them.
She took off her round, wire-rimmed glasses, picked up a bottle of eyedrops from alongside her keyboard, tipped her head back, and squeezed some drops into each eye. She had a leather lace tied around her wrist and silver rings on all her fingers, including the thumb.