“I’m still going to try to save his life.”
No one at the table seemed able to accept Ann at her word and people began to angrily dream up situations where Ann would choose to let someone die.
“What if he had killed your mother?”
“Then I’d have to let someone else work on him.”
“Because you’d want to kill him?”
“Because I’d want him to get the health care he and every human being deserves.”
“If you start to draw a line,” Ben was the speaker, “between who deserves health care and who doesn’t, when does it stop? What about indigents? They don’t pay for health care. Should they get it?”
“That gang member is innocent until proven guilty.” Ann’s red headed friend was talking.
“Oh, he’s guilty.”
“Guilty or not,” Ann announced, “my job is to treat them. We have a court system to judge them. You should have all been lawyers instead of doctors.” It was the ultimate insult. Most doctors had a strong aversion to lawyers and the table erupted in more hostility.
Kira and Mike returned to the table. “Dudes,” Mike addressed them. “The Lobos are creaming Utah.”
This news distracted most of the group from their ethics debate.
“Is that game tonight?” someone asked.
“Hello?” Mike asked sarcastically. “Look at the TV screen.” Over the bar, the basketball game was on.
“Jeez.” Tony Mendez, General Surgery, was talking. “Damn, I had tickets to that! I thought it was Saturday.”
“Friday,” someone told him, stating the obvious.
Meredith finally caught Kira’s eye. “Oh, hey Meredith!” Kira looked slightly drunk. “Hey! The Lobos are winning! Against Utah!”
“She’s drunk,” Meredith whispered to Ben.
“She’s got a buzz,” he answered.
“Who’s seen the new Brad Pitt movie?” Kira was addressing the table.
“Sucks.”
“Awesome.”
“Who has time for movies?”
“Who’s Brad Pitt?” That was Tony Mendez. The table broke out in laughter.
“Who said awesome?” Kira asked.
The redhead next to Ann raised her hand. “It was three hours. It felt like five minutes.”
“It was three hours and felt like ten,” added the guy who had said it sucked.
“I could stare at Brad Pitt for twenty hours,” announced a woman at the end of the table.
“I want to see it,” Kira announced.
“How about Sunday night?” Mike asked her. “I’m on call Saturday, but I should be home by noon Sunday. I’d just need a couple of hours of sleep.”
Kira was scribbling on a napkin. “Great. Here’s my number. Call me Sunday. I’ll check out the movie times.”
“Can you believe that Kira? She was the star of the night. How does she do that?” Meredith was already in bed.
“She’s social.” Ben pulled back the sheets on his side and settled in next to her.
“Aren’t you going out for a smoke?”
Ben grinned. “Finally. You finally noticed.”
Meredith was wondering why she was always so tired when all she did was loaf. “Noticed what?”
“I quit smoking.”
“Huh?”
“Yesterday. Last night I didn’t smoke any cigs. I expected you to notice right away.”
“God, how did I miss that? Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“What made you decide to stop?”
“I want to be healthy. I want to take care of my body.” He snuggled up to her. “I don’t want to find out I’ve got lung cancer when I’m forty years old with four kids.”
“Four kids by forty? Yikes. You’d better start now, finding yourself a fertile woman.”
“I already have.”
“Hey, is it eleven already? Wow, do I feel it. I’m exhausted.” One benefit of hanging out with residents was that their parties tended to break up early.
Ben kept his arms around her and nuzzled her neck. “Too tired for a little lovin’?”
“The mention of four children has strangely lowered my libido.”
Ben let go and turned out the lights. Just as Meredith had started to drop into unconsciousness, Ben’s voice jarred her back up to the surface. “We haven’t made love in two weeks. Have you noticed that? We barely even kiss.”
“You sound like Kira.” That shut him up for awhile. Meredith was just drifting off for the second time when he spoke again.
“How many hours of sleep are you getting a day, Mer?”
“I don’t know. She made her voice sound groggy so he would realize he was waking her. “Eight or nine?”
“Well, you’re in bed now. It’s just after eleven. You’ve been getting up at seven. That’s eight hours. You were sleeping this afternoon when I called. What time do you think you dozed off?”
“I don’t know. Three?” Meredith lied. She had gone to bed promptly at one, after Jeopardy.
“And I woke you at five. That’s ten hours of sleep.”
“I used to sleep twelve hours on the weekends in grade school.”
“Mer, you’re sleeping through half the day, almost.” He paused. “Are you running?”
“So you quit smoking. I’m so proud of you.”
“Yes, me too. I just hope I can keep it up. I’m already feeling irritable.”
Meredith sighed. “Ben, do you really want sex right now?”
Ben sighed. “No. Just go to sleep. Sorry I woke you.”
“Rise and shine.” Ben was prodding her. She’d been dreaming about guns. “Let’s go, sleepyhead.”
She was in the bathroom, brushing her teeth when she noticed how gray the sky was.
“Is it raining?” She asked as Ben appeared in the doorway.
“Nope. It’s just 5:30.”
She could barely formulate the words. “In the morning?”
“You’re unemployed. I’m suffering through life without nicotine. I thought we could both do with an endorphin release.” He handed her her running shoes. “Let’s go.”
“No way!”
“Meredith, I can’t date the walking dead any more. Put the shoes on.”
They stretched in the yard. In the early morning chill, Meredith's breath was white as she bent on the ground, trying to prepare her tight limbs for the ensuing trauma. “If I’d known you’d be like this, I wouldn’t have nagged you about smoking.”
Ben smiled, but it was a grim smile. He stood and started running in place. “You never nagged. Let’s go.”
By 7:30 Ben was gone and Meredith sat, freshly showered, in her kitchen drinking coffee. Her recommendations list sat in front of her. She started dialing Doug’s direct line before she could talk herself out of it. As it rang, she counted backwards from ten to keep herself from thinking of reasons to hang up.
“Yes.”
“Doug. Hi. It’s...”
“Meredith. I’m glad you called. I’ve been thinking of you but I didn’t know if I should call. How are you?”’
Meredith played it cool. “Fine. You know, job hunting. Not the funnest way to fill a day, but I’ve got some good leads.”
Doug sighed. “I’ve written you a recommendation.”
“Do you think Carmela would write me one too?”
“Hmmm. Yes. I think she probably would. I can ask her.”
“No. I think I’ll do it myself.”
“Should I mail this letter out to you? Or do you want to pick it up?”
“Maybe I’ll have Ben pick it up.” She felt a surge of shame, as if she was admitting to a lie she’d told. But she wanted that letter right away, not in the two days it would take by post. “Maybe you could put it in his mailbox.”
“Absolutely.”
“Well, I’d better run. I’ve got a busy day ahead of me.”
“Thanks for calling Meredith. If there’s anything I can do, anything you need, please call me.
”
“I will. Thanks.”
“Meredith, when you find a new position, will you call and let me know? Or drop me a line? I feel responsible for this and I’ll sleep better at night when I know you’re working again.”
“Doug, you are not responsible. Corky Lubbock is the one who got me fired. And probably I could have tried harder to be more accommodating with her. You were a great boss, Doug. The best I’ve ever had. Don’t blame yourself. I certainly don’t.”
Doug took her comments gracefully, but she could tell his mind wasn’t eased. She almost wanted to get a job more for him than herself. As she hung up, she wondered how his marriage was surviving the grief that had torn up their lives.
“Okay. Stop procrastinating,” she told herself. She dialed Carmela’s number. It rang four times before it rolled over to the front desk. She hung up and looked at the clock. 7:40 a.m. She’d try again later.
Her apartment was a mess. Clothes were strewn everywhere. Ben had been washing the dishes every night. She started cleaning. By ten her place was spic and span. She called three more of the jobs on her list. One was already filled. One wanted her to fax her resume with three recommendation letters.
“I can fax the resume today. The recommendations will be ready in two days.”
“Wait on the resume. Fax everything together, otherwise we’ll misplace them and label your application incomplete.”
Meredith replaced the receiver and sighed. She knew she should call Carmela again but she was pretty sure that Carmela would refuse to give her a recommendation. So why set herself up for defeat? Instead of calling, Meredith made a list of what she needed to do. She put the call to Carmela as number seven so that it wasn’t waiting for her at the top of the list. Maybe she’d be able to sneak it in as she chugged through the other tasks.
Number one was to clean her house. She drew a line through that task with a satisfied grin. Number two was calling her professors from college for another recommendation. Mike Bauer had been a real advocate. She dreaded telling him she’d been fired. She could already hear herself offering the excuses fired people inevitably give. Corky had it out for her. She didn’t understand what went into doing Meredith's job. Meredith, of course, was blameless in the whole matter. She looked at the phone. Just the sight of it elicited dread.
Mendra’s form flew past the window and Meredith jumped up to let her in. She could tell him that it was a personality conflict that had snowballed but that she had never allowed it to interfere with her work. “Then why did they fire you?” her devil’s advocate asked. She capitulated. She’d have to deal with Bauer later. Number three was calling her former classmates for job leads. Finally, a task she could handle.
For the better part of the rest of the day she was on the phone. Somewhere in between calls, Sarah got through. “I’ve got two words for you: Call waiting.”
“Sorry, I’ve been hunting down job leads.”
“Any luck?”
“It’s hard to say. I mean, yes, there are jobs out there. But who’s going to hire me? I was fired.”
“Well don’t tell them that!”
“How can I not?”
“Is it tattooed on your forehead?”
“I can’t lie!”
“Grow up, Meredith. Of course you can. Just say the decision was mutual.”
“Well, I did decide to leave right away instead of staying for two weeks.”
“If you want to twist it around in your head like that, so that you don’t think you’re lying, go for it. The point is, don’t let the word ‘fired’ escape your lips.”
“I need to call Mike Bauer, my old teacher. How should I explain to him that I was fired?”
“Hello? Did you not hear anything I just said? A conflict of interest. That’s what you say.”
“I can’t lie to Mike Bauer.”
“I can’t have this conversation again. Do what you like. Do you want to have dinner Thursday?”
Meredith paused. Was she ready to let Sarah fully back into her life? “Sure.”
“Okay. Gotta run. Oh, and I’m bringing Victor. Why don’t you bring What’s-his-name?”
“You can remember Corky’s name but you can’t remember my boyfriend’s?”
“Sorry. Ben. Why don’t you invite him too?”
Chapter Fifteen
Meredith continued calling people from school. She lied to them all about being fired. Two had immediate openings in their offices. They encouraged her to apply. She knew that they welcomed her because she wasn’t a threat to them. Even in school, despite her tendency to be the curve breaker, she was much too timid to be considered competition. Or so they think, she thought with satisfaction. There was a vicarious thrill to being fired and lying about it. She felt like one of the girls smoking behind the high school that she passed every day on her drive to work. Or used to pass. It was odd to know that she’d never again drive to Family Practice. Lily and Lourdes and all the rest were there right now. And Meredith was home at her kitchen table, job hunting. She felt like she was just home sick. In another day she’d pack up extra tissues and cough drops and return to her cinderblock office building.
Kira was looking happier since she’d met Mike Pederson. They sat in Meredith’s kitchen, listening to the shrieking wind. “I’m going insane,” Kira whispered.
“I’ll be glad when the windy season is over,” Meredith agreed.
“Don’t use that word. ‘Wind’ is too benign. Call it, ‘the whistling curse of madness,’ or something else more appropriate.” Kira took a deep breath.
“When I’m outside, it feels like the wind might suffocate me.” Meredith said.
“It’s dangerous, too. Pieces of metal are flying around. I saw the roof of a metal shed peeled halfway off on the way to work today. This is the worst I’ve ever seen it.”
“There’re always a couple of bad days.”
“I’d take any other weather in a heartbeat.”
“Tornadoes?”
“Absolutely.”
“Negative forty degrees cold?”
Kira’s face weakened. “Does it really get that cold somewhere?”
Meredith nodded.
“The North Pole?”
“Try Minnesota.”
“Ugh. No. I’ll take the wind.”
“It won’t last.”
“Mike and I are going out again tonight.”
“You seem happy.”
“I’m working on it.”
Meredith forced a smile. “Good.”
Sarah’s Victor was friendly guy, with dark hair and a warm smile.
“Where’s Ben?” Sarah had asked as soon as Meredith sat down.
“He’s still at work. He thought he might be able to get out in time, but it’s been really busy. He sends his regrets.” She realized she was bracing herself for a pointed comment from Sarah, but none came.
“This is Victor. Victor, Meredith.” They nodded greetings to each other.
“You’re a yoga teacher, right?” Meredith asked.
“Victor’s going to open his own gym,” Sarah informed said. She’d already let Meredith know over the phone that he was actually twenty-eight, not the twenty-one years she’d originally worried he was.
Victor shrugged. “Eventually,” he conceded. “The gym I’m in now just isn’t my ideal. They put too much emphasis on the sell. I just want to teach. Yoga, kick boxing, tai chi.”
“He’s got his black belt in karate.”
“Wow!” Meredith obliged.
Victor turned to Sarah and smiled. Then he placed his index finger over her lips and leaned in further to kiss her on the cheek. He straightened himself out and turned to Meredith, clearing his throat.
“What do you do, Meredith?”
They discussed computer programming for awhile. Victor had gotten the same degree as Meredith, but he didn’t enjoy the work. “The money’s good,” he admitted. “I just don’t feel any passion for it.”
Sarah, who had been sile
nt during the conversation, excused herself to use the bathroom. Victor watched her retreat in silence, then turned back to Meredith. “Will you excuse me too? I’ve got a phone call to make.”
Meredith sipped her water and thought of Ben, busy at work. She decided to call and ask if he wanted her to order a take-home dish for him. As the waiter came by to refill their water glasses, Meredith rose from the table and headed back to the phones herself. Victor was not there, but that wasn’t a surprise. He was probably outside, on his cell. A moment later, she heard them. He and Sarah were arguing in the hallway between the bathrooms and the phones.
“I’m not a piece of merchandise. You don’t need to sell me to your friend.”
“I’m just showing off your best qualities. What’s wrong with that?”
“Well, for one thing, I can impress people on my own. I don’t need you to list off my life like a resume.”
“Great. Be my guest,” Sarah snapped. Her heels clicked angrily away. Meredith dialed the floor Ben was on. He was unavailable. She left a message telling him she was bringing home food for him. Victor stepped into the phone area as she hung up. He looked at her wryly. “Heard that, did you?”
Meredith shrugged. “She does the same thing to me. She wants everyone she knows to be as driven and successful as she is. ”
Victor looked at Meredith with a new awareness. Then, they headed back to the table.
Her first interview happened two days later.
“So you graduated with Martin.”
“Yes.”
“He speaks well of you.”
“Well, that’s nice to hear. He’s a great programmer.”
“We’re not all that blown over by his skills.”
“Oh.”
“His real talent lies in people. He’s great at interfacing with the client. Most computer people are weak in that area.” Pause. “How are you?”
“Well, my real strength is programming. I think I’m good with people, though. I wouldn’t say bad. I like people.”
“How would you handle an angry client?”
“I would try to let them know that I heard them. I understood their anger. Sometimes acknowledging the anger is enough to diffuse them.”
Searching For Meredith Love Page 21