The Replacement Wife (6 page)

The night Camille phoned in, it was pouring rain. He recalled thinking, as he slogged across campus on his way to the subway station, that if anyone were contemplating suicide they’d be twice as likely to go through with it on a night like this. The rain had been coming down so long and hard, the campus walkways were flooded and the lawn in front of Low Memorial Library a bog. Armed with only a flimsy folding umbrella, he was soaked to the skin by the time he reached the crisis center. He’d only just settled in at his desk, with a large container of coffee and the textbooks he’d brought in case it turned out to be a slow night, when one of the phone lines lit up. He picked up and a breathless voice, that of a girl so agitated he couldn’t make much sense of what she was saying, began to babble—something about a bad breakup and an asshole of a boyfriend.

“Take a breath,” he said calmly. “Tell me what the problem is.”

“Pills, I think. I’m not sure.”

“You’re not sure if you took pills?”
This is a new one,
he thought.

“No. I mean, yes, I’m sure.”

“But you might have. Is that what you’re saying?” He spoke slowly and carefully, in case she turned out to be even crazier than she sounded. You never knew, with some of these people.

“No! I didn’t take any pills!” she cried.

He frowned in confusion. “Then who did?”

“No one. Yet. As far as I know.”

“So, no pills . . . okay.” He exhaled. “Let’s start at the beginning. Have you been depressed lately?”

“Not me! My roommate. I’m afraid she might try to hurt herself.” She went on in a rush, “She’s been a mess ever since that dickhead broke up with her. Excuse me, but he is, and that’s putting it mildly. Then today I find this vial of prescription pills in her dresser drawer, and I can’t think of why someone who has absolutely nothing wrong with her, except bad taste in boyfriends, needs Codeine.” Finally, she took a breath, saying a bit more calmly, “I didn’t know who else to call.”

“You did the right thing.” He was momentarily at a loss, then after he’d collected his thoughts, he suggested, “Why don’t you put your roommate on? Maybe it would help if I talked to her.”

“No! She’d kill me if she knew I called this number.” She made a sound halfway between a groan and a giggle. “Oh, God. I can’t believe I just said that. Now you’re going to think she’s homicidal on top of suicidal. She’s really not that bad, I swear. Just a little mixed up.”

“Well, you did the right thing. She’s lucky to have you as a friend. What’s your name, by the way?”

“Camille.”

“Like in the movie?”

“You know it?” She sounded surprised. She was probably thinking he wasn’t the average medical student, and she’d be right. Thanks to his nana Clara. Growing up, every day after school that he didn’t have homework he and Nana Clara would watch the black-and-white movies from her girlhood on TV while she did her ironing—films like
Red Dust
and
The Lady Eve
and
The Public Enemy
. By the time he was twelve, he’d seen the entire
Thin Man
series and could quote lines from movies his friends had never even heard of.

“Of course,” he said. “Garbo’s finest hour.”

“My parents were huge fans,” she explained. “Apparently, they didn’t see it as a bad omen that her character dies in the end.” She gave another helpless giggle. “Sorry, I seem to have death on the brain.”

“Join the club. I spent the morning dissecting a cadaver.”

“Which means you’re either a serial killer or a med student. I’m assuming the latter.”

“Third year,” he said.

“So this isn’t your real job? You don’t get paid to talk people off ledges?”

“No. I’m just a lowly volunteer.”

“Well, I’m glad I got you.” There was a brief pause, as if she were considering what to do with him now that she had him, before she went on, “So, Mr. Dissects-Cadavers-by-Day-Talks-People-Off-Ledges-by-Night, are you allowed to give your name? Or is that against the rules?”

“Edward,” he told her, smiling as he leaned back in his swivel chair, his textbooks forgotten for the moment and his unopened container of coffee growing cold. “Edward Constantin.”

“Edward, huh? Not Ed or Eddie?”

“No, just Edward.” Even as a child, he’d only ever been called by his full name. He’d been named after his great-grandfather, whom he was said to resemble. When he was younger, Nana Clara would often remark on it, but it wasn’t until he was older that he saw the resemblance, in the framed studio portrait that hung on the wall of his parent’s cramped row house in Milwaukee, between himself and the young naval officer with the wavy dark hair and solemn brown eyes posing stiffly in his WWI uniform, fresh from the battlefields of Verdun and Ypres.

“Ah, the traditional type. I like that,” she said. “I suppose you also open doors and pull out chairs for us poor, helpless females.” He heard the lilt in her voice and realized she was flirting. She must have realized it, too, because her tone at once became more subdued. “So, um, Edward, what do you think I should do? About Melissa—my roommate. Should I confront her?”

Following the crisis center’s guidelines, he instructed, “Yes. But if she denies it or refuses to get help, you need to speak to someone about it. A guidance counselor or her parents.”

“What if I’m overreacting?”

“Do you want to take that chance?”

“She could end up hating me.”

“You’d hate yourself even more if she ended up harming herself.”

Camille sighed. “You’re right.”

Edward, quite outside the center’s guidelines, found himself offering, “Look, this isn’t strictly protocol, but I’m going to give you my home number. Just in case. That is, if you, um, need . . .”

“Thank you. That’s very nice of you,” she said, not letting him finish. He braced himself for a polite brush-off. Maybe she thought he was some creepy guy who was hard up for dates. “But you don’t know me. I could be some crazy person who’s making this up just to get attention.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” he said, feeling the tension go out him.

“We should probably meet in person, though, so you can be sure. In a public place, of course. You never know with crazy people, even the ones who seem harmless. You can’t be too careful these days.”

“How do you know
I’m
not some lunatic?” He played along.

“Easy. If you were, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” He chuckled, and she went on, “So, Edward, do you ever get time off from dissecting cadavers and talking to depressed people?”

“Not too often,” he admitted.

“Tell me about it.” She gave a sigh of solidarity. In the next five minutes, he learned Camille was in her junior year at NYU and that she worked part-time cataloguing data at a research lab. “How about breakfast then? You can spare an hour on Sunday, can’t you? I’ll see if I can get Melissa to join us. She needs to be reminded that not all men are assholes.”

He laughed. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Not at all. I have a good feeling about you, Edward Constantin.”

They arranged to meet at Barney Greengrass, at nine a.m. on Sunday. She promised to call and give him an update on Melissa before then. He wished her luck. “I hope it turns out okay.”

“Yeah, me, too,” she said. “But either way, no backing out on me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Edward was grinning as he hung up. He felt strangely buoyant the rest of the evening for someone taking calls at a suicide hotline on a dark and stormy night. He wasn’t even able to concentrate on his studies between calls—a first for him. He kept thinking about the girl. What did she look like? Was she pretty? All he knew was, he couldn’t wait to meet her.

She phoned the following evening to let him know she’d spoken with her roommate. The crisis was a false alarm, as it turned out—the vial of prescription pills was for an old injury; Melissa had no intention of killing herself. After that, talk turned to other things. When he finally hung up, he was surprised to note that more than an hour had passed, during which time he hadn’t given a single thought to his studies or the paper that was due tomorrow.

Sunday morning, at nine a.m. on the dot, Edward arrived at Barney Greengrass, on the Upper West Side. As he walked into the deli, his gaze was drawn to a girl seated at a table by the window who fit Camille’s description. Slender and fair-skinned with blue eyes and auburn hair, wearing a red sweater and faded blue jeans, a pink scarf looped around her neck. She was pretty; prettier even than he’d imagined. He stood rooted to the spot for a moment, dazed by her beauty and all those blazing, sunset colors converging on him at once. Then she spotted him and waved, breaking into a smile so dazzling it was all he could do to keep from tripping over his own feet as he wound his way toward her through the maze of Formica tables.

As he drew near, he could see she was even more beautiful up close. Fine-boned, with delicate features, and, sweet Jesus, those
eyes—
they were the bluest of blues. He saw, too, that her hair wasn’t just one color; it was a dozen shades ranging from russet to pale gold. As she rose to greet him, it glimmered like firelight. “You’re taller than I expected,” she said as they shook hands.

Edward was speechless for a moment. When he finally recovered his wits, he blurted unthinkingly, “Am I?” As if it weren’t perfectly obvious that he towered over her, at six feet four inches.

“You’re also better looking,” she went on with a frankness that made his face warm. “You should’ve warned me.”

“I don’t think of myself that way,” he replied self-consciously.

“Really.” She cocked her head, smiling at him. “You don’t have girls telling you that all the time?”

“The only girls I come into contact with these days wouldn’t know a live body from a cadaver,” he replied with a laugh. “Med students are notorious for being bad romantic prospects.”

“I see. Well, that explains it.” Her smile turned coquettish, and she announced as they sat down, “Oh, by the way, my roommate won’t be joining us. Melissa’s not speaking to me at the moment.”

“She’s not?” Edward adopted an appropriately sober expression so she wouldn’t guess how relieved he was to learn he’d have her all to himself. “I thought you’d sorted things out with her.”

“Yeah, well, that was before Dickhead begged her to take him back and I told her she’d be crazy if she did.” Their waitress, who had to be at least a hundred years old and looked as if she’d been working there since the Nixon administration, handed them laminated menus and went to fetch the coffeepot. Camille waited until she was gone to confide, “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m fairly outspoken.”

“I’ve noticed,” he said, pressing his lips together to keep from smiling.

Over an enormous breakfast of scrambled eggs and lox washed down with endless cups of coffee, Edward told her about the courses he was taking at Columbia and some of the challenges he faced as a third-year med student. When Camille asked what had made him go into medicine, he answered, “It was my grandmother, actually. Though she didn’t have much faith in doctors.” Camille eyed him curiously, and he explained, “She was from the old country; she relied on folk remedies.” He saw clearly in his mind the jars of mysterious herbs and roots that had lined the kitchen cupboards when he was growing up, each one bearing a handwritten label. “Though in the end, she didn’t have a cure for what killed her,” he said, his voice turning hard.

Camille was quiet for a moment. “I’m sorry. Were you and she close?”

“Very.” He saw she was waiting for him to go on, but he hesitated to divulge more. He’d never told anyone the story of how he’d carried his beloved
bunicuţa
in his arms to the hospital, when he was just thirteen and she was little more than a bundle of sticks covered in skin. The memory was too painful, even after all these years. “It was hard seeing her suffer at the end, but I’ll spare you the gruesome details. Anyway, you’d have to know my family for any of it to make sense.”

She regarded him with a thoughtful expression, as if sensing it was a painful topic. But she only remarked, “Well, I don’t see how your family could be any more screwed up than mine.”

“Was it as bad as all that?” he asked as he sipped his coffee.

She shrugged. “I wasn’t starved or beaten, if that’s what you mean.”

“You don’t have to be, to have a miserable childhood.”

“My mom died when I was fourteen.” Her tone was matter of fact, but he could see the flicker of some deep emotion in her eyes. “And my dad . . . let’s just say he wasn’t around much after that.”

“Who looked after you when he was away?”

“No one, really. We had a live-in housekeeper, but it wasn’t really her job to take care of us. Mostly it was just me and my sister.” He caught an undercurrent of bitterness in her voice. “Holly was only eleven at the time. She doesn’t remember it as being all that bad, but that’s probably because she had her big sister looking out for her.” She pushed her plate aside as if she’d suddenly lost interest in her food. He felt a pang of sympathy for the young girl she’d been.

“There weren’t any relatives who could help out?”

“Just my grandmother in California, but we only saw her when we went for visits in the summertime.”

To Edward, it was unfathomable: two young girls left to more or less fend for themselves. He was an only child, but the community he’d grown up in was a close-knit one. Growing up, he’d been surrounded by adults. Everyone he knew was related to him in some way, whether by marriage or blood, or simply by virtue of having come from the same region in Romania as his parents. “What sort of work does your dad do?” he asked, sensing the need to tread carefully.

“He’s vice president of operations for Pan Am. Before that, he was a pilot.” She began tearing off pieces of bagel, leaving them scattered over her plate. “We never know what time zone he’s in, much less when we’ll see him. When I was a kid, I used to count the days until he came home from trips, but I don’t bother to keep track anymore. What would be the point? I wouldn’t go home at all if it weren’t for Holly. Though she’s not around much, either.”