Knitting Under the Influence (7 page)

IV

D
inner Friday night didn't go as well as the girls had hoped.

It started off fine. Kathleen was late, of course, but the girls knew that Kathleen never paid much attention to time, so they went ahead and ordered drinks without her. For a while, they drank and chatted about restaurants and movies, and James seemed fairly relaxed for once, his arm draped around Lucy's shoulders, his long legs stretched out under the booth they shared.

Then James asked Sari what she did for a living and she told him.

He was already shaking his head before she had finished speaking. “I know you don't want to hear this,” he said, “but it just kills me when I hear about these autism clinics popping up everywhere. Like they're going to make a difference.”

“Excuse me?” Sari said, blinking.

“How many kids do you see in a day?”

“Me, personally, or at the clinic?”

“At the clinic.”

“Roughly thirty, I guess. Some evaluations, but mostly ongoing therapy.”

“Which means most of the kids are repeat visitors, right? So it's not like you're seeing thirty different kids every day.”

“Yeah, right,” she said. “So?”

He was shaking his head again. “It's a waste, that's all. A drop in the ocean. It's like a doctor putting calamine lotion on
one
kid with chicken pox instead of vaccinating all the kids in his practice.”

Sari shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “We help every kid who comes through our clinic.”

“So you patch up a few kids,” he said with a shrug. “At a huge expense, right? Meanwhile, that money—and intelligent clinicians like you—could be put to far better use pursuing scientific solutions to the problem.” He picked up his beer glass with his free hand, the one that wasn't around Lucy's shoulders. “Autism isn't going to go away because some kids learn to say a word or two. We've got to find a real biomedical solution to the problem. The only way to do that is to take all the money we've got and put it directly into reputable scientific research.” He took a sip and put his glass back down.

“I’d be thrilled if someone found a biomedical solution,” Sari said. “But no one's come knocking on our door with one yet. Behavioral interventions are all we've got that
work—”

“One kid at a time,” James said. “And each kid requires— what?—hundreds of hours of one-on-one intervention, right? Come on, Sari, it's a waste. All those man-hours, all that money … Put them to use, I say. Stop playing around with one or two kids and set your sights higher.”

“You want to come to the clinic and tell our parents that?” Sari said. Her cheeks had turned red. “You want to come tell them we're closing down and not helping their kids anymore because maybe someone someday will find a better solution? ‘Sorry, folks, your kids aren't going to learn to talk but, hey, if we find a magic pill, we'll be sure to call you’? Like that?”

“Whoa, there,” James said, removing his arm from Lucy's shoulder so he could put up both hands in surrender. “Calm down, buddy. I’m on your side. It's just that I come from a hard science background—I deal in research and real solutions.”

“Our approach is completely research-based,” Sari said. “This is science, too. Behavior mod can change people's brains at the chemical level.”

“Not as fast as chemicals can,” James said. “But let's not argue. It's great that you want to help kids. Really.” He slid out of the booth and stood up. “Excuse me, guys—got to make a quick trip to the men's room. I’ll be right back.” He left.

The girls sipped their drinks and didn't meet each other's eyes. “I’m sorry,” Lucy said after a moment. “I didn't know he'd—”

Sari waved her hand. “Don't worry about it. A lot of people feel that way.”

There was a flurry and a blur and suddenly Kathleen was sitting next to Sari. “Sorry I’m late! Where's James?”

“Men's room,” Lucy said.

“I miss anything?”

“Yeah,” Lucy said. “James was a jerk and now Sari hates him.”

Sari rolled her eyes. “I don't hate him.”

“Why does she hate him?” Kathleen asked. She was wearing a red handkerchief top and tight jeans and looked pretty spectacular, the way Kathleen always did when she got out of her sweats and made an effort to dress up.

“I don't hate him,” Sari said again. “We had a polite disagreement about something.”

“Whatever,” Kathleen said. She put her fingertips to her neck. “My throats killing me. It's been hurting all day.”

“You should take some vitamin C,” Sari said.

“You know, there's no actual scientific evidence that that works,” Lucy said.

“Don't
say
that. Haven't you heard of the placebo effect? Which you've just ruined for me?”

“I’ll try anything right now,” Kathleen said. “I so don't want to get sick. There's lots of vitamin C in orange juice, right?” She signaled to a waiter and ordered a screwdriver when he came over.

James came back to the table a minute later. For the rest of the meal, they stayed away from the subject of autism clinics, and James went out of his way to be charming and friendly. But no matter how pleasantly Sari smiled, Lucy
knew
she had to be pissed off that James had called the career she loved a waste of time.

James and Lucy left soon after ten—he was worn out from all the traveling and lecturing he'd been doing—but Kathleen and Sari lingered over slices of flourless chocolate cake.

“Lucy's lucky,” Kathleen said. “She's going home to have sex.

“Remind me what that is again,” Sari said. “Sort of like this chocolate cake, only better. You shouldn't go so long between guys, Sar.”

“It's not like I
want
to.”

“No, but you don't actively go after them, either. Let's go to a bar and I’ll show you how to pick someone up. Just for practice.”

“I don't do that,” Sari said.

“But you should.”

“I don't know how to go after guys, anyway,” Sari said. “They didn't teach that where I went to school.”

Kathleen squished a crumb of chocolate cake with her index finger then licked it off. “You just find a cute guy and listen to him talk like he's interesting—whether he is or not—and smile a lot and touch his arm and make it clear that you're available. The rest just kind of follows.”

“It just kind of follows for
you?
Sari said. She had moved to the other side of the booth when Lucy and James had left so they could face each other, and now she gestured across the table toward Kathleen's face. “You're gorgeous. Guys fall all over you. It's not like that for me.”

“It could be,” Kathleen said. “You're the cutest girl around, Sari. You just have to stop acting all sweet and shy like the girl next door and put a little slut into your moves.”

“That works for you, huh?”

“Almost always.” She took a sip of water and grimaced. “Hurts to swallow. Hey, Sari, remember how you said the best job for me would be to marry someone rich? I’ve been thinking you may be right about that.”

“I was joking,” Sari said. “Marrying a guy just because he's rich is a bad idea.”

“I know that,” Kathleen said. “But what if he's rich and nice and you actually
like
him?”

“That's a lot of ifs.”

“I’m suddenly really tired,” Kathleen said and pushed the cake away. “Fuck, Sari, I don't want to get sick.”

V

Y
ou look like shit,” Sam said when he opened the kitchen door for Kathleen the following night.

Kathleen had come up the back way to the service entrance, which was how she almost always came up to Sam's place, once she'd discovered that the back stairs took her directly from her kitchen to his. At first, she came when she needed something, like a pair of scissors or a cup of coffee. But sometimes she came just because the silence of her bare apartment made her desperate for company and she knew that Sam was likely to be there when he wasn't at work.

“I’m sick,” she said. “My head hurts and I can't stop shaking.” “And you had to come
here?”
He was backing away already. He was terrified of germs. Once Kathleen had wiped her mouth on his napkin, and he had freaked out when she pushed it back over to him. He had threatened to start locking her out if she ever did anything like that again.

“I need some medicine,” she said. “You've got to have something in that drugstore you call a bathroom.”

“Just go back downstairs to bed and sleep it off. Best thing for you.”

“Can't,” Kathleen said. She pressed the palms of her hands against her cheeks, which felt hot. “There's a big company party tonight. My first. I have to go and impress people.”

“Oh, for God's sake, you're an assistant. No one cares if you go or not.” He retreated farther. “They certainly won't thank you for going if there's a chance you're contagious. You start sneezing, and you'll just make them all hate you.”

“No one will know I’m sick,” Kathleen said. “I haven't really been sneezing. I just need something to make my throat and head stop hurting. Tylenol, Advil, anything like that. Or that aspirin stuff that has caffeine. I could use some. I feel so tired.”

“If I give you something, will you leave?”

“I swear.”

He led her to his bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. Kathleen reached over his shoulder, grabbed a prescription bottle and peered at it, pretending to read, in mock surprise, “Viagra? I’m shocked, Sam. And a little intrigued.”

“Very funny,” he said, snatching the bottle away. He plucked another container off the shelves and thrust it at her. “Take this and get the hell out of here. You're infecting the whole place.”

“It's a
cold,
Sam—not the Avian flu.” She shook a couple of pills into her hand, tossed them into her mouth, then bent down and drank some water straight out of the faucet, shoving her head sideways into the sink. She stood up again, and swiped at the drops around her mouth with the back of her hand. “How long do these take to work?”

“Didn't anyone teach you any manners at all?” He threw her a towel.

“They tried,” Kathleen said. “But it was no use.” She dropped the towel and suddenly grabbed on to the sink. “Yikes. Dizzy.”

“You don't
have
to go to this thing,” he said and sat down on the edge of the bathtub. “You
want
to.”

“Yeah, I want to. Man, my head's spinning. I want to see everyone from work get drunk and act silly. And I want to see if Kevin Porter has a girlfriend.”

“Why do you care?”

“I’m curious is all. Oh, and the food should be good. If I don't throw up, which right now I think I might.”

“Not here,” Sam said. “I am not cleaning up after you, Kathleen, so if you re feeling sick, get out now or be prepared to mop it up yourself.”

“Boy, and I thought my
father
was a jerk—”

“Get out,” Sam snarled, and she fled.

The cold medicine kicked in, and by the time Kathleen got to the party an hour and a half later, her head wasn't throbbing so much, although she still felt kind of shaky and strange— which could have been the virus or the drugs or a combination of the two.

She looked a lot better, too. She had washed her hair and blown it dry, so it was straight and glossy, and had covered up the shadows under her eyes with concealer, then applied her evening makeup with a skilled, if slightly heavy, hand. She chose a black dress tight enough to flaunt the strong V-shape from her shoulders to her waist and short enough to make her long legs look about a mile long, especially once she had also strapped on a pair of spike-heeled sandals.

As soon as she entered the banquet hall, a waiter was at her elbow with a choice of white or red wine. She chose red and strolled through the room while she sipped it slowly. There was a string quartet quietly playing lively music in one far corner and lots of waiters wandering around with trays, passing out drinks and offering hors d'oeuvres. The general atmosphere was fairly subdued and genteel, but, given the ubiquity of the alcohol, Kathleen suspected—and hoped—that things would get a lot more interesting before the end of the evening.

There were open French doors at the far end of the room, and through them you could see a balcony and, beyond that, the ocean. The hotel was right on the beach in Santa Monica. Kathleen didn't feel like making small talk with anyone yet, so she walked through the room—smiling and waving at a couple of semi-familiar faces—and out onto the balcony. There were a few other guests out there—mostly couples who were holding hands and watching the sunset.

There was one guy standing alone by the railing, apparently captivated by the play of light on the waves. Kathleen stepped forward so she could see his face. She smiled.

She came and stood next to him and joined him in looking at the water.

“It's pretty amazing,” she said after they had stood side by side in companionable silence for a moment or two. “Too bad you can't bottle and sell it.”

He shook his head. “That's what makes it so great. It only lasts for as long as you're there to look at it. And it belongs to everyone.”

“No admission charge.”

“The best things in life are free.”

“So are the worst, but no one goes around pointing that out.

He laughed and turned to look at her. She smiled back at him, assessing him in this light as she had back in the office. Not gorgeous, Kevin Porter, but attractive, helped by the glow of good health and comfortable living, though he was starting to swell a little at the waist and chin. Slightly better than average looks, but when you added in the bank account, he became gorgeous, because how many men in that price range could even come close?

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know you're Luisa's new assistant, but I’ve forgotten your name.”

“Kathleen.” He wouldn't ever forget it again, she'd make sure of that.

He leaned back against the railing, the ocean view put aside for the moment in favor of the closer eye candy. “So, Kathleen … How's it going? Are you enjoying working with us?”

“Sure. Everyone's been very nice to me.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Kevin Porter said. “How'd you happen to come interview in the first place?”

“A friend referred me. Sam Kaplan.”

Kevin looked surprised. “Sam's a friend of yours?”

“Sort of. I only met him a few weeks ago. But he got me this job and a free apartment, so he's definitely on my good guy list.”

Kevin Porter smiled. “Biggest shark in L.A.”

“You're kidding.”

“My father adores him. The only guy in town who's tougher than he is.”

“Really?” She filed that piece of information away. Interesting.

There was a pause, then Kevin said, “Are you a runner, by any chance?”

“I am,” Kathleen said. “How did you know?”

“You just looked like you might be.” They both knew it meant he had been looking at her legs. And they were both okay with that.

“How about you?” she said. “Do you run?”

“I like to. But only if I have company. I get bored running alone.”

“Ah,” she said. “That's where the iPod comes in.”

“Music?” he said. “Not enough of a distraction—I still know I’m running.”

“Well,” she said. “If you ever need a partner—”

“Let me buy you a drink,” he said immediately.

“I think you already did,” she said, putting her empty wineglass down on the edge of the railing. But she let him walk her back into the party.

That night in bed, after spending the whole evening talking and dancing with Kevin, she pictured a future in which
she
would be the one buying the cars for her mother and sisters.

Maybe she'd even get them all a beach house. She had liked looking at the ocean that evening, and the twins didn't own a beach house yet. She could lead the way.

One day, Christa and Kelly wouldn't be cute anymore, and their earning potential would just shut down, but if she married Kevin Porter, Kathleen would always be rich. And then they would come to her, begging her for money. And she'd give it to them. She would be very generous when she was rich.

When Kathleen got bored with picturing herself as the bulwark of her family, she wrote herself an even better scenario. One day, she decided, she would stroll into Sam Kaplan's place and let him know that the moment her apartment was cleared of all legal hurdles, she was prepared to buy it. With cash. “You see?” she would say to him, “I
did
figure out my future after all.” He would, for once, be speechless.

And that thought was so delicious, she kept running the scene through her head until she fell asleep, a smile on her face.