Flashback

by Michael Palmer

  Suzanne Cole and her six-year-old daughter, Jennifer, shared an isolated, narrow two-story north of town with a fat, yellow cat named Gulliver ("… because," Jennifer explained, "he likes to travel") and a black Labrador retriever who seemed oblivious to any name. The rooms in the modest place were cluttered and warm. Snow shoes, ski poles, tennis rackets, and even a pair of old stethoscopes hung on the smoke-darkened pine walls, interspersed with prints and original oils representing all manner of styles. There was a Franklin stove in the living room and a loom in one of the back bedrooms, as well as a battered spinet ("Mommy used to play a lot, but now she can only play Deep Purple' ") and dozens upon dozens of books. The spaghetti dinner, Zack had been proudly informed, was largely Jennifer's creation, and she served it with a charm and enthusiasm that made almost as deep an impression on him as did her mother. She was a tall girl for her age, with an elegant nose, straight auburn hair that hung midway down her back, and Suzanne's magical eyes and smile. She talked of school and animals and ballet, and seemed quite pleased to show off her collections of rocks and stuffed animals. In return, Zack had promised to introduce her to Cheap dog and to teach her to fly his radio-controlled plane. He even completed a relatively smooth, Italian-style thumb palm and transfer, although when he was finished, Jennifer had smiled earnestly and said, "That one could use a little more practice, Zack. I could see the coin."

  By dessert-chocolate brownies with ice cream-what self-consciousness he had arrived with had long since vanished, and he found himself feeling more like a friend of the family than a guest. E If there was an uncomfortable edge to the evening at all, it was due to Suzanne, who seemed, at times, distant, distracted, and content to let Jennifer keep the conversation afloat. But unwilling to find any fault with the woman, Zack read into her mood swings an introspection and vulnerability that only made her that much more interesting and attractive. She was returning to the table with some coffee when Jennifer hopped up and announced that she was leaving to watch TV* and wash her hair. "There's only one thing that troubles me, " the girl said as she shook Zack's hand. "What's that?"

  "Well, it's your dog. I've heard of sheep dogs, but never a name like Cheap dog."

  "Well, " Zack said, "they're sort of the same thing." From the corner of his eye, he saw Suzanne stop and lean against the wall, watching. "You see, I was walking on the beach one morning in a place called San Diego.

  Do you know where that is?"

  "In California?"

  Zack nodded. "They have a great zoo out there and a killer whale who does advanced calculus and prepares his own tax returns. Well, there was this man on the beach-he was Mexican, but he was sort of… sleazy. Do you know that word? Well, it means, like, sneaky. Not all Mexicans are that way, by any means, but this guy sure was. "Anyhow, there he was, with this big cardboard box, and in the box were a bunch of puppies-scruffy little mongrel puppies. He reached in and pulled this little fur ball up by the back of the neck. Like this. And he held him up for me to see. "Sefior, he said, how would you like to buy this leetle fellow.

  I geeve you my word, sefior, he is purebred, ol' Eengleesh cheap dog.

  His papers are een my safe at home. Buy him now, and I breeng them to you tomorrow. Si?"

  "That means yes, " Jennifer said. Si. XS "And you said?…"

  "Si." The three of them said the word together, and laughed. "And that's how Cheap dog got his name."

  "Isn't there any old English sheep dog in him at all? " Jennifer asked.

  "There must be some, " Zack said, "because every time Princess Di or Prince Charles comes on the television, he stands up."

  "That's silly." She thought for a moment, and then added, "I like that story." Again, she formally shook Zack's hand. Then she turned and raced up the stairs. "Thanks again for dinner, " he called out after her. "I like that story, too, " Suzanne said after the footsteps overhead had died away. "And I really liked the way you talked to Jen.

  Person-toperson, not grown-up to child. No condescension. And believe me, she appreciated it, too."

  "Thanks. That girl doesn't encourage anything approaching kid talk, believe me."

  Suzanne nodded somewhat sadly. "She's had to do a lot of growing up in a fairly short time. My marriage and divorce were a bit-how should I say-turbulent."

  "Oh?"

  For a moment, she looked as if she might want to expand on the remark, but then she shook her head. "Fodder for another evening, " she said.

  She chewed at her lower lip, rested her chin on one hand, and stared into her cup of coffee. There was a sadness in her eyes, but there was also, Zack observed, something else-a restlessness, perhaps, a tenseness in the set of the muscles in her face and neck. "Is anything the matter? " he asked. Suzanne hesitated, and then pushed away from the table and stood up. "I think we'd better call it a night, " she said. "I have a really busy day tomorrow, and I have a lot of things to sort through before I go to bed. You've been great company-for both of us-but I guess I just need some time alone."

  Nonplussed, Zack glanced at his watch. It was not yet quarter to eight.

  "That's it?"

  She shrugged and nodded. For a few seconds it seemed as if she were about to cry. "I'm sorry, Zack, " she said finally, "but I guess this just wasn't a good night for me to be charming and entertaining. God, it seems like all I ever do around you is apologize. Well, forgive me, anyhow.

  I'll make it up to you some other time. I promise."

  She waited until he had stood up, and then locked her arm in his and guided him across the screened-in porch and down the wooden front steps.

  The subtle scent of her and the touch of her breast against his sleeve made his sudden dismissal that much more confusing and painful. He shuffled along beside her, wishing he were less inexperienced in understanding women, and feeling totally inadequate and foolish for not knowing what to say. At the camper, she once again apologized for cutting their evening short and promised him a rain check good for one after-dinner conversation sometime very soon. He reached for the handle and then stopped and turned back to her. "Yes? " she asked, eyeing him appraisingly, as she had that first night. "Suzanne, I… I know that something's bothering you, " he heard himself say. "I only wanted to say that whatever it is, I hope it comes the way you want."

  He hesitated, expecting her to thank him politely for his concern and send him on his way. She did neither. "I'm afraid I've been guilty of not paying attention, " he went on.

  "I guess I was just too busy indulging my own fantasies. Look, I just want you to know I'm glad we've met, and I'm grateful as hell we're becoming friends." He opened the door to the van. "If you ever do want to talk about whatever it is, I'm available… no strings attached. In fact, for a modest fee I'll even omit the coin tricks."

  He moved to kiss her on the cheek, but then thought better of it and climbed up behind the wheel of the camper. "Zack, wait a minute, " she called as he began to back away. He stopped and leaned out the window.

  "There's a spot halfway up the hill behind the house where you can see almost the whole valley. It's really peaceful on an evening like this to sit up there and watch the lights of town wink on. If you'll give me a minute to check on Jen and get a blanket and some wine, I'd like very much to go up there with you."

  "It's okay not to, you know."

  She smiled in a way she hadn't all evening. "I know, " she said. The soft evening air was filled with the hum of cicada wings and the chirping of peepers and crickets. For nearly an hour they lay side by side in the noisy silence, watching the mountain shadows stretch out across the valley. High overhead, a solitary hawk glided in effortless loops, its silhouette a dark crucifix against the perfect, blue-gray sky. "The girls in the O. R. said you did a beautiful job on that woman's neck this morning, " Suzanne said at last, sipping at what little remained of a bottle of chardonnay. "You checked up on me?"

  "Of course I checked up on you. Do you think you have a corner on the attraction-to-someone-you just-met market?"
/>   "No, " he said, trying to ignore the sudden pounding that seemed to be lifting his chest off the blanket. "I guess not."

  "Technique, high marks, speed, high marks, looks, high marks."

  He grinned. "Well, I'm glad I made a decent first impression on the nurses. After nine years in various O. R. s, and all that time on rock faces, there's not too much that rattles me. This morning, though, I'll admit I was a little nervous."

  "I can understand that. Doctors are always under a big magnifying glass of scrutiny, but never the way we are during the first few months at a new hospital. For a time after I arrived on the scene, I felt sort of like a new haircut. Every one had to express an opinion… The case you did is doing okay?"

  "Pain free for the first time in a year, and moving all the parts that are supposed to move." Zack held up crossed fingers for her to see.

  "That's super. You know, I'm curious. You seem like the type who would thrive on an inner-city madhouse like Boston Muni-all that action."

  "Actually, I loved that part of it. But not just that there were so many cases and so much trauma to work on. I loved the patients-talking with them, getting a sense of their lives, becoming important to them, even growing into friendships with some of them. But I never was comfortable with the pressure in big teaching hospitals to become the world's expert in some little corner of neurosurgery."

  Suzanne nodded. "And if you don't play it that way, " she said, "then you end up being the world's expert at being passed over for promotion."

  "Exactly. I also confess that I was getting a little tired of the political bullshit-the empire building and back stabbing, having to grovel before a department head or administrator just to get a lousy piece of equipment that the hospital would have been able to purchase out of petty cash if it weren't so damn inefficient."

  "So you thought corporate medicine would be more stream-lined-more responsive to the needs of the hospital and the patients?"

  "That's what I thought."

  "You say that as if your opinion's already changed."

  Zack propped his chin on his hands and stared out over the valley. "I don't know, " he said. "A few things have happened since I arrived here that…"

  His voice trailed away. Throughout the day, he had more and more come to realize that there was no way he could discount Guy Beaulieu's claims.

  And if they were true-if Ultramed or Mainwaring or Frank had conspired, for whatever reason, to drive the old surgeon out of practice-then the situation in Sterling was more virulent, more frightening, more… unacceptable than anything he had ever encountered at Boston Muni. He also knew that if his old mentor's concerns about the ethics and practices of Ultramed proved accurate, there would be no way he could walk away from the problem. He had returned to Sterling to practice the best possible neurosurgery in the best possible setting, and that was that. "Hey, Doc, " Suzanne said, "do you know that that last sentence of yours never quite made it out of the womb?" He looked at her. "Fodder for another evening, " he said. "I believe that's the established way out?"

  "That's it, Charlie. Nuff said, then."

  Suzanne rolled onto her side, resting her cheek on one hand. After a time, she reached over and ran her fingers lightly over his face. "You really are quite handsome, you know, " she said. "Thanks. I have trouble believing that, especially having spent my life in the shadow of a man with Frank's looks, but it's nice to hear."

  "It's nice to say."

  Zack cleared his throat, which seemed to be getting drier and grittier with every passing moment. He was, at once, reluctant to touch her and even more reluctant not to. "So, " he managed, struggling to pull his thoughts from her perfect mouth, "what tale of crisis and resolution brought you to this place?"

  Again, she touched his face, this time allowing her fingertips to linger on his lips. "I guess I didn't make the law of the mountain clear to you, " she said. "As long as we're Lying on my little overlook at the base of my mountain, I get to ask the questions. That's the law. Take it or leave it."

  "But what happens to those unfortunates, like me, who don't have a mountain?"

  Her eyes, and the very corners of that exquisite mouth, formed the smile that was, perhaps, her most alluring. "In that case, " she said, "you must adopt one. I'll send you the paperwork in the morning and have our social worker come by for an interview as soon as possible. Meanwhile, we'll save all that stuff from between the lines of my curriculum vitae until you get approved, okay?"

  Zack shrugged. "It's your mountain."

  "Exactly. It's my mountain. Do you think I'm too forward, touching you like this?"

  "No. Not forward. Maybe a little tough to read, though, considering that a couple of hours ago you were trying to rush me out of the house and down the hill."

  "Ah, " she said, "but that was before you said the magic word."

  "Oh, of course. The magic word. How stupid of me. Why, I've used that damned magic word approach so often, it's become automatic… In fact, it was so automatic this time that that ol' magic word just slipped right past me."

  She took his face in her hands and drew him toward her. Again, as at the dinner table, he saw a strange sadness in her eyes. "The magic word, Zachary, was friend."

  Her kisses, first on his eyes, then around his mouth, and finally over his lips, were as sweet and warm as the mountain air. For one minute, two, she held him, her tongue exploring gently beneath his lips, and then along his teeth and around the inside of his cheeks. Finally, she drew away. "Was that okay? " she asked. Zack swallowed hard. "There are at least a hundred words I would pick before settling for okay."

  "I'm glad. You look a little bewildered, though. I suppose I owe you some kind of apology-or at least an explanation-for being so inconsistent."

  Zack ran his hand through her hair, then down her back and over the seat of her jeans. Her body was fuller than Connie's but tighter, and far, far more exciting to touch. "You don't owe me anything, " he said. "Shaw wrote that there are two tragedies in life. One is not to get one's heart's desire, and the other is to get it. At the moment, I think he was wrong about number two."

  "Zack, out by the camper before you said, No strings attached. Does that promise apply if we make love-right here, right now?"

  "It applies." He slid his hand beneath her blouse and over her breast.

  Her nipple hardened instantly to his touch. "Whatever's going on, I just want to make it better."

  "You're making it better, " she said. Again and again, they kissed.

  There was an urgency and hunger in her lips and her touch. Zack knew that it was the secret of her sadness that was driving her into his arms. He knew that, this night at least, she needed him rather than loved him. But this night, at least, it was more than enough. She helped him slip off his shirt and nestled her face against the hair on his chest. "Slowly, " she pleaded. "Just make it last. Please, just make it last."

  Zack undid the buttons of her blouse, pausing between each one to kiss her lips and her wonderful breasts, then eased off her jeans.

  He worked his moistened fingertips over her nipples, then down her belly, along the edge of her soft hair, and finally to the tense nubbin of her clitoris. "Touch me here, " she murmured. "Two fingers. That's it. Oh, God, Zachary, that's it."

  Moment by moment, what questions he had faded in the smoothness of her skin and in her craving for him. With every touch, every kiss, he felt himself drawn closer to her. He brushed his lips over her ankles and along the softness of her inner thighs, and then he drew his tongue over her again and again. She dug her nails into the skin of his back, pulling him even more tightly against her. "Don't stop. Oh, don't stop yet."

  She was an angel-at once vulnerable and knowing, chaste and worldly wise. And making love with her was unlike anything Zachary had ever experienced in his life. She drew his face to hers as she eased him onto his back, caressing him, then sucking on him until he begged her to let up. "Now, Zachary, " she whispered, her lips brushing his ear. "You're so wonderf
ul. Please, do it now."

  They made love-slowly at first, and then more fervidly, each immersed in the other, each focused on pleasing, rather than being pleased.

  Darkness settled in across the valley. Far below them, the lights of Sterling flickered like so many stars, mirroring the expanse overhead.

  "Zachary, what time is it?"

  "Midnight. A little after, actually."

  They were half dressed, bundled in the blanket against a slight, early morning chill. The connection between them had already transcended their lovemaking, and each minute, every second, it grew. "Do you know, " she said, "that in my entire life I have never come like that? What a wonderful rush."

  He kissed her on the neck, then on the lips. "It must have been that chardonnay."

  "Yes, of course, " she said, buttoning her jeans. "How foolish of me to overlook that. Next time we'll have to try it without the wine.

  A controlled experiment. Just to be sure."

  "My mountain?"

  She laughed. "Your mountain it will be. You know, I keep saying it, but you are really a very kind and very sweet man." She kissed him lightly on the mouth. "I only hope you'll still respect me in the morning.

  Believe it or not, making love like this is a bit bevond my usual first date fare."

  "Not to worry, " he said. "Doing what one wants in situations like this is a payback for all of the headaches and responsibilities of having to be a grown-up."

  Her expression darkened. "Zachary, I'd like you to know what's going on-why I've been acting so weird all night. Well, almost all night."

  "Listen, it's perfectly all right if-"

  "No. I want to. Besides, by tomorrow night you'll know anyhow." She rolled onto her back, took his hand, and guided it to her right breast.

  "The upper, outer quadrant, " she said. "Fairly deep."

  It took his fingers only a moment to find the lump-a disc-like mass, the diameter, perhaps, of a half dollar, and as hard as the sidewall of a tire, which was to say, too hard. His first impulse was to reassure her, to label the mass a cyst. But he knew better. There was, without a biopsy, absolutely no way to tell. Suddenly the whole night-her distraction, her mood swings, their passion, everything-made sense.