Garden of Lies (21 page)

like.

[116] Then all at once, as if he’d read her mind, David smiled, that brilliant smile, like the sun

coming out from behind a cloud, and Rachel felt herself relax. David clapped Gary on the

shoulder.

“I’m sure it won’t. You followed through correctly on the rest. Good work, Doctor. Now ...”

David was moving on to the next bed, the next patient, leaving Gary McBride grinning in his

wake, his relief so obvious it was a little comical.

Yes, that’s how he’ll be when I tell him,
Rachel thought.
At first he’ll be surprised, upset,

maybe even a little cross. But then he’ll put his arms around me and hold me, tell me he loves me,

and that everything will be all right.

And it
will
be, she told herself. It’s just got to be.

Rachel felt herself trembling, and quickly stuffed her hands in her pockets so no one would see.

Her fingers brushed against the paper. Now it didn’t seem so terrible, so impossible to accept as

something real.

I’ll tell him tonight,
she decided.

For the first time in twelve hours, since she’d found out, Rachel felt that things might turn out

to be okay.

“The bastard! We had a transverse arrest on our hands, a tachy baby, and he fumbled around

like a first-year med student. Christ, the man was blasted out of his skull. The whole DR stank of

his breath. ...”

Rachel watched David pace furiously back and forth across the worn Bergama rug in her tiny

living room. This was the latest Dr. Petrakis horror story. David was right, she thought idly, head

of Obstetrics or no, the man should have been fired years ago. A raging alcoholic not fit to do the

job of an orderly.

But she was finding it hard to stay tuned in. She couldn’t stop thinking about the baby. And

how to tell David. She’d even considered writing him a letter, tucking it in his pocket as he was

leaving.
Dear David: I have a patient for you. She’s about eight weeks pregnant, and probably a

raving psychotic. ...

But would it be crazy, she asked herself, to keep this baby? Curled on the sofa, Rachel brought

her hand to rest against her [117] abdomen. It was too soon to feel anything, of course, but she

did.
A kind of warmth, a steady glow. The way a lighted window at night lets passersby know

there’s someone at home.

But would he understand? She remembered his telling her once that one of the things he

admired about her most was her toughness, that she wasn’t sloppily sentimental like most

women. And wasn’t her wanting this baby just that?

But I didn’t ask for it, dammit. He knows that.

But as she looked at him now, eyes drawn into green slits, face harrowed with anger, working

up little hills in the old rug with his furious pacing, a worm of doubt burrowed into her gut.

And how could she leave here, go live with him? She loved this crummy Village apartment,

despite the five flights of stairs and the postage-stamp-size rooms. And she loved sharing it with

Kay Krempel, an RN she’d gotten to know at Bellevue, who was more fun and a better friend

than anyone. It had been Mama’s idea—her gift, really, since she’d insisted on paying for and

overseeing everything—to strip the cracked and gouged walls layered with paint dating back to

the Paleozoic era down to the brick, and to burn the paint off the moldings and leave the

woodwork bare. Then bring in plants in Mexican pottery tubs, inexpensive rattan furniture with

madras cushions, a ceiling fan in every room. “Early Casablanca” Rachel had dubbed it, adoring

it, though she wished Mama would stop hovering.

Are you nuts?
She then lashed into herself.
Of course you’d leave this place for David. Who

wouldn’t?

“... the man’s a goddamn maniac. Fuck malpractice suits, he ought to be arrested. If I had any

clout with the Board ...”

She watched David stride to a halt in front of the curtainless window overlooking Grove Street.

In the daytime you could smell the marvelous bread in the ovens of the Italian bakery down

below, see old armoires being carted in and out of the antiques shop, watch couples holding

hands going into Pierre’s Bistro.

Now the window was dark, and all Rachel could see was the ghost of David’s reflection. A tall

well-built man in pressed navy slacks and light blue V-neck sweater, neat hair. Loafers without

socks was as far as he’d bent to today’s laid-back life-style. It was almost as if he had stepped

right off a page out of
Gentleman’s Quarterly
. [118] You could almost see the caption below:

PRINCETON. CLASS OF ’60. VARSITY CREW. Yet somehow, seeing the contrast of his rigid

face, the muscles in his neck working as he fought to bring himself under control, Rachel had the

disturbing sense of there somehow being two Davids battling it out under one skin. She felt

suddenly, uneasily, as if she was on the verge of discovering something she would be better off

not knowing.

She cut her gaze away, looking down at their drinks nested in little pools of moisture on the

small oak table. He hadn’t touched his, and now the ice had melted.

Rachel uncurled her legs, and pushed herself up. “I’ll get some more ice,” she said with

artificial cheeriness. “How about something to eat while I’m at it?”

After he’s calmed down, then I’ll tell him,
she promised herself.

“What’s on the menu?” David called after her as she stepped around record albums scattered

like playing cards in front of the stereo cabinet. She paused, smiling, and picked up the first two.

“Surrealistic Pillow” and “Beverly Sills at Covent Garden.” There in a nutshell, the difference

between her and Kay.

Rachel thought of the surreal conversation she’d had with Kay this morning before both of

them had dashed off. She, huddled in a chair, puffy-eyed from crying. Kay standing at the sink,

taking gulps of her instant coffee like a gunslinger knocking down whiskeys in Dodge City’s

Long Branch saloon. All of five feet in her Dr. Scholl clogs, white nurse’s pantsuit stretched taut

across her plump bottom, dark hair a halo of curls.

“I can’t tell you what to do,” Kay had said. “Just whatever you decide, make sure it’s what you

want, not what David wants.” She gave Rachel a dark little smile over the rim of her coffee mug.

“You know, I’ve always thought there was a tombstone way down deep in each one of us where

we bury our own wants under some man’s. Only they can’t seem to stay buried for very long, can

they? We never really forget. ...”

Rachel shivered now, slipping the record albums back onto the pile.
Oh, Kay, what makes you

so sure that what I want is different from what he wants?

She watched David carefully as he came toward her, his face smoothed now into easy lines, a

smile in place. She relaxed.

[119] Stepping into the old-fashioned kitchen, Rachel peered into the refrigerator. “Milk. Eggs.

Peanut butter. Some leftover chicken lo mein. At least, that’s what I think it is.” She sniffed the

contents of the carton. “Better scratch the lo mein. I’d have to carbon-date it to see how old it is.”

David circled her with his arms from behind, nuzzling her neck. “Let’s skip dinner. I’m not

that hungry. I’ll make us an omelette after.”

“After what?” She squirmed around to face him.

Her heart, she now realized, was beating very fast. Damn him. He was making her want him,

making her wet. One touch, one kiss, and she was ready. Like an alcoholic who, with one drink,

is lost.

David didn’t know the half of it, half the intensity of her passion for him. She’d kept it light.

On purpose. The future seemed to be a topic he wasn’t comfortable with, and that was okay. She

wasn’t ready for marriage, either. Living together maybe, someday, when they both felt like it.

But that was before,
she told herself.
Before the baby. You’ll have to talk about the future now,

we’ll have to make some kind of plans ...

She looked at him, opened her mouth to speak, then stopped herself. He was giving her that

look that turned her knees to water, his eyes sleepy, gold lashes over cool green pupils, the

corners of his mouth curled up faintly, suggestively. Not Dr. Sloane, efficient, remote. Just David.

She could see the veins cabling his neck, one thick one, the jugular, pulsing on his right side,

impatient. It made her think of his penis, hard, ropey with veins, the tip soft, dewy, like rose

petals.

Oh dear Christ,
she thought.
I
could probably come right now. Like this, just looking at him.

She could feel his need, too, as he backed her up against the open refrigerator, its cold wire

shelves pressing into her spine, moving his hands up her ribcage to squeeze her breasts gently.

“Nice. Ripe,” he murmured. “Maybe I’m hungrier than I thought.”

Rachel wished she’d thought to wear something sexier, more feminine, her silk robe instead of

this old tattered shirt of Kay’s.

Then she realized how silly she was. It didn’t matter. In a minute, she wouldn’t be wearing

anything at all.

[120] Rachel pressed toward him, swinging the refrigerator shut behind her. He was already

tugging at her buttons, fiercely, impatiently, ignoring one that popped from its frayed threads and

clattered against the scuffy red linoleum.

“Not in here,” she said and laughed, nervous, her voice fluttering with excitement. “Kay might

get back early. Let’s go in the bedroom.”

He laughed. “I told you. I’m hungry.”

Jesus. He didn’t care who saw. Would he take her right here on the floor? The thought of it

both alarmed and excited her. She felt strangely weak, her breasts—heavier and more tender than

usual—tight, throbbing, nipples stiff against the soft underside of her shirt. Heat funneled down

through her, like hot sand in an hourglass, settling between her legs. She felt as if a warm,

perspiring hand were clutching her there.

Oh Jesus, sweet Jesus,
the table,
he was guiding, now lifting her onto the small round table, a

little roughly. He was tugging at her pants, wrestling them over her hips, peeling them off her

legs, which were dangling over the edge. She felt the varnished pine surface cold against her ass,

the rough straw edge of a table mat pressing into her. He was still in his clothes, except that he’d

opened his pants, pushed his slacks down a little over his narrow hips.

Rachel squeezed her eyes shut, waiting, ready for the first thrust, oh so ready. Then felt

something hard, bony, poking between her thighs, surprising her a little, not his cock after all, but

his fingers. Pushing in and out in a hard, steady rhythm.

The table, the harsh light overhead, the pressure of David’s fingers for a moment reminded her

of something else, something she didn’t want to think about. She felt the hotness inside her begin

to cool. The gynecologist, that was it. Like a visit to the gynecologist’s, a pelvic exam.

This is what David does to pregnant women at the hospital, feeling up inside them while they

lie on a table, feet in stirrups.

No, no, I won’t let myself think about it that way. It’s not the same. Just my mind playing

stupid tricks. Because of the baby. Because I need him to be gentle tonight.

But playing together like this could be good too. The fire inside [121] her was coming back.

Yes, oh yes. David knew so well just how to please her. She could come like this, any minute

now. Would he let her?

No. David was pulling her over on her side, face toward him, eye level with his crotch.

“Suck me,” he said.

Rachel hesitated an instant, then took him in her mouth. It was always like this, the little shock

first, feeling somehow as if it was bad to do this, depraved. But then she began to feel good,

powerful almost, feeling him swell even larger, hearing his moans of pleasure, imagining she was

the only woman in the world who could do this.
She
would give David what no one else could.

And it’s not dirty,
she told herself,
not when you love someone.

She moved her tongue along his shaft. He was thrusting against her now, grunting, she could

hear the steady ticking of his zipper against the edge of the table as he pumped his hips. He kept

the rhythm with his fingers too, still inside her, sliding in and out. Hot. So hot they felt as if they

were on fire, burning her.

She came, like shooting up in flames, and at the same time felt David burst out too, tasted the

surge of salty liquid filling her mouth. She didn’t mind the taste, though she’d heard some women

did. Maybe she would have with someone else, but David was the only one she’d ever done this

with.

David was pulling away from her now, pulling up his pants, helping her onto unsteady legs.

His face was flushed, but otherwise they might have been sitting here playing cards, Gin Rummy.

Cool. Nothing ruffled him. That’s what made him such a good doctor. But damn it, she wished he

would hold her. She needed his arms around her so badly.

Rachel watched David walk to the sink, begin washing his hands, and the awful feeling she’d

had before swept over her, of being in a doctor’s office.
Well, young lady, it looks as if you’re