Nora Jane (48 page)

He stopped and kissed his wife and took Nieman’s arm. “Wait until you see the cars Steve is bringing to the parking lot this
afternoon. I’m going to make them let me go down and look at them. One is red and one is blue and the girls can draw lots
for them.”

“They had better not be convertibles,” Nora Jane said. ‘And they better be secondhand.”

The nurses looked at each other and then took back their territory. “Please come on, Mr. Harwood. We have other patients.
We need to get you settled.”

“Vaya con Dios hasta todos meet anon,”
Freddy said, and moved on down the hall with the nurses.

“I love the world,” Nieman said. He took Nora Jane’s arm and steered her to the elevator. “Let’s go downstairs and get some
coffee or watch people smoking on the corner by the benches. Let’s have some fun.”

D
ANEN MARCUS, MD
, had Stella Light-Gluuk pressed into a corner of a hall leading to the Harwoods’ living room. It was a champagne party from
three to seven on a Sunday afternoon, and everyone understood it was supposed to start late and end on time. Freddy was dressed
and in the living room when everyone arrived. He had disappeared around six and the party was winding down.

“The most useful ideas often come from research that doesn’t seem scientifically challenging,” Stella was saying. ‘A woman
at Technion in Tel Aviv is way ahead of me in this. She’s already isolated a protein and it’s destroying cancer cells like
crazy in the dishes.”

“I wanted to go into research,” Danen said. “Robert Gallo is my idol. I saw him on C-Span the other night and it all came
back to me. He’s so healthy and strong, still such a presence.”

“Why didn’t you do it?”

“Dad wanted me to practice with him. You know. So I did internal medicine. Sometimes I wonder if it was the right choice.”

“Why?”

“Oh hell, treating colds. Telling fat people to lose weight, watching them die when they don’t. I lost three patients from
October to Christmas. You know who they were. You went to the funerals.”

“You saved Freddy. You diagnosed it.”

“Not soon enough. I believed the lab work.”

“You did what anyone would have done.”

“I hope so. So tell me what you’re doing?”

“I’m breeding a cold virus I had a couple of years ago. It was a bad one. It took three rounds of Levaquin to get it. So I
cultured it a few times and I kept noticing it had extra spikes so I started messing with the proteins. It’s killing one of
the herpes viruses in the dishes. I need to try it with the monkeys, but I hate to start that unless I’m sure I have something
worth the money and bad karma.”

“Karma?” He started giggling. “Sorry,” he added. “The champagne.”

“I’m open to those ideas. My parents were old hippies, Danen. How do you think I got named Stella? For all I know they got
me stoned when I was young. They deny it but I have my doubts. Look, anyway, it’s good to talk to you, Danen. We appreciate
all you did for Freddy.”

“I didn’t do much. I was just standing by. Is it true you had nuns praying for him?”

“I’ll tell you about that one day.” She touched his arm. “There’s a lot going on in the universe, Danen. Stay open to it.”

“I do. Well, tell them to keep praying. We’re not out of the woods yet. I would have kept him in the hospital if it were me.
His immune system’s so compromised. I’d have him where I could watch him. Don’t tell anyone I said that. That’s just between
you and me.”

“Quality of life and all that notwithstanding.”

“Graft-versus-host disease can develop very slowly. I’d be testing constantly if it were me. It’s not me.”

“We’re watching,” Stella said. “Everyone knows what’s going on. Well, I better go find Nieman. It’s good to talk to you, Danen.
Come visit the labs sometime. We’ll hit you up for a contribution. Just kidding.” She gave him one of her best smiles, touched
him on the sleeve again, and made an escape. GVHD, there’s a happy thought for a party, she decided. God, Danen’s really burned-out.
We use people up too fast in this culture. We eat them up.

When they got home from the party, Stella sent an e-mail to Sister Anne Aurora. “Keep praying for Frederick Harwood. The enemies
now are anemia and GVHD (graft-versus-host disease). It’s a sneaky demon. Can’t see it coming. It can happen in days and become
acute. Also, check arriving by mail to buy two hours of prayer for the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. Also, one hour
for the Primate Center at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Plus an hour for the Centers for Disease Control
in Atlanta. And half an hour for Danen Marcus, MD, San Francisco, for peace of mind, gratitude, and to make him believe in
his work. I guess it would be too much to ask for his patients to stop killing themselves with food and cigarettes.

“I ordered a weekly journal called Science News for you. Thought you might like it. Just a late Christmas present.

Love, Stella.”

When she finished the e-mail Stella went into the kitchen where Nieman was feeding Scarlett baked chicken and vegetables for
dinner.

“Here’s a weird bit of data,” she said, standing by the microwave oven and watching Scarlett boss her father around about
exactly how many vegetables could go on the fork he was holding. “I’m four days late. I just realized it. Isn’t it the sixteenth?
I missed a few pills.”

Nieman turned his face to hers. Scarlett reached up her left hand and delicately removed a green pea and a carrot slice from
the fork, leaving only one pea and one square of potato. She was eating the vegetables to get to the dish of chocolate pudding
waiting by the fruit bowl and she was getting sick of this stupid game and counting all these forkfuls of peas and carrots.

Nieman did not notice that she had moved the pea and the slice of carrot. He was looking at Stella.

“You stopped the pills?”

“I didn’t have any last month for about a week. It was while Seth Rosen was in town and Freddy was still in crisis …priorities
…the day-care center had that chicken pox case so I had to take Scarlett to get a booster. I think it was about a week, ten
days maybe, that I didn’t have any.”

“You could have had them delivered from Mallison’s.”

“They charge too much. I wanted to get them at a Walgreens.”

“Stella!” He put the fork down for Scarlett to use herself, then took the pudding and put it before her and handed her a spoon.
“Go on, honey, eat the pudding if you want it.” He walked around the table to his wife. “Do you think it could be — tell me
what you think.”

“I think we made ourselves another child, is what I think, and if it’s true it means you will have to take over my project
because I’m not going to play with viruses while I’m pregnant.”

“Preeegnant,” Scarlett said. “Preeegnant.” She tore into the pudding, eating it so fast a weaker child would have choked to
death. “Can I have another one when this is threeew?” she asked, pausing near the end of the dish. “Can I have just one more
pudding?”

“May,” Stella said to her. “And yes. Just this once you may have two.”

Nieman was crying. Not weeping and not looking sad and not really even understanding what he was feeling. He was just looking
at Stella and tears were falling down his face.

“I think I deserve to cry,” he said at last. “I didn’t cry the whole time I thought Freddy might die and now I’m crying over
this and we don’t even know if it’s true.”

“It’s probably true,” Stella said. She opened the refrigerator and got out a second chocolate pudding and pulled off the top
and put the dish in front of Scarlett. “The simplest explanation is the best. Plus, the conscious mind is the size of a screw
in the door frame of the mansion of the unconscious. So I guess we wanted this.” She was laughing and extremely pleased with
herself and absolutely delighted that Nieman was crying. One thing about Nieman Gluuk, like all true intellectuals he was
a sucker for his emotions.

Danen Marcus drove home from the Harwoods’ party the long way that had less traffic. He was listening to an old Gato Barbieri
tape called
Viva Emiliano Zapata
and thinking about his wife, Donna Marie, how she’d played it all the time when he met her and how excited it made him when
he’d walk into her hot little house on Cafino Drive. She’d tell him about her day in the shop and he could never trust it
that she loved him. He was so jealous of her he couldn’t stand it until after their third child was born and he finally settled
down and believed she was going to stay.

I have wandered away from Donna, he decided. I shouldn’t have been holding on to Stella Gluuk’s arm so long. My goodness,
was she telling me she cultured her own cold virus? I would never think to do that, but how can I think? I have three times
too many patients and most of them are either related to me or knew my father or my grandparents. This town has gotten too
small for me and I need another doctor in the office and I need one now.

His buzzer was going off and he let it ring for two blocks before he picked it up and listened to the answering service and
turned off the music and started back toward the hospital. Shit, he decided. Goddamn it to hell. I am not behaving well lately
and I need a vacation in the islands or at least in Cabo, or anywhere. Antarctica will do.

He pushed a button and Donna’s voice answered the ring. “You aren’t going to be here for dinner,” she said.

“I have to go see about Buddy Caison, because it looks like his aorta burst. Could you come and meet me at the hospital later
and have dinner somewhere? It’s just a thought. I know—”

“What time?”

“An hour. He’s in MRI. He was drinking again, I suppose.”

“I’ll be there.”

“No underpants.”

“Bad man.”

Danen pushed the button to end the call and went into emergency mode. He turned on the blinkers, called to notify the police,
pulled into the center lane, and started making time. Buddy Caison, who had gone to high school with him and who had been
in his office two weeks ago and told for the tenth time to start walking and stop eating and smoking. Now he was maybe an
hour away from being dead, if not dead already, and he was a really wonderful man with a wife and two children and a couple
of million, if not ten million, dollars. At least thirty movie stars would be at the funeral and that would be another day
on which he would not get any work done—no wonder he didn’t have time to culture a virus or fuck or even think.

Danen pushed the button to talk to Donna, and the first thing she said was, “I’m not coming to meet you if you don’t slow
down. How fast are you going?”

“Seventy-five, sixty-five, sixty. Are you getting dressed?”

“Yes.”

“Put on that red silk suit you wore at Christmas when we went to Momma’s house, with that little blouse with the swirly things
on it.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m tired, Donna. What are the boys doing?”

“Teddy’s doing homework in the kitchen. Al’s watching a football game, and Arthur’s in his room, probably masturbating. I
think that’s all he does half the time now. Don’t talk while you’re driving.”

“Okay. Hanging up. Ten-four.”

I’m not just going to tell them anymore
, Danen vowed as he left the highway and started the half mile to the hospital on the side road. I’ll give them a printout.
I’ll tell them if they don’t lose weight I won’t treat them. I’ll tell them I don’t think it’s funny. I’ll tell them to grow
up. I’ll quit, is what I’m going to do. And then I’ll go back to Berkeley like Nieman Gluuk did and do what I really want
to do. Is there anything I want to think about tonight? Freddy Harwood, that’s a light in the tunnel. I can’t believe it was
Larry Binghamton and that it worked. I don’t think we’re completely out of the woods, but it’s the best match I’ve seen since
I was part of this.

He got out of the car at the emergency exit and gave the keys to the attendant and hurried into the hall and took the elevator
and went down the hall to find out if there was anything that could be done to save a life, although the answer was already
there.

Fucking cigarettes, he thought. Don’t be negative, he lectured himself. Slow down, take some breaths. Donna’s on her way.
I’ll get to go home. I’ll get to sleep in my bed. Grow up. The hell with it anyway.

It was Sunday night. Freddy Harwood was in his bed, wearing a pair of paisley pajamas Lydia and Tammili had picked out for
him while he was in the hospital but which he had not taken out of the box until tonight. They were made of artificial silk
and looked like one of his favorite ties.

The twins were sitting side by side on the edge of the bed, and Little Freddy was cuddled up beside him trying not to fall
asleep.

“So did you like the party?” Lydia was asking.

“Yes, I did. I liked it as much as I like any party, which is not much, but don’t tell your mother. Where is she?”

“Paying the caterers. They left all sorts of food. We have to take part of it to the neighbors tomorrow. I don’t want all
those petits fours left around here if nobody minds.” Tammili turned and patted her father’s leg. “I’m quitting dance. I can’t
stand having that bitch yell at me anymore. I mean it.”

“We told you you could quit if you wanted to. It’s given your mother a lot of pleasure, but you don’t have to do it.”

“I want to take a geology class at the university. They let people from our school take night classes there if they get recommended.
So can I do that?”

“Drive at night?”

“I’ll carpool.”

“My daddy was right. You should put bricks on children’s heads the day they are thirteen. Who did you torture when I wasn’t
here?”

“No one,” Lydia put in. “We saved it for you. Oh yeah. I’m quitting too, but I’m not going to take anything else. I have too
much to do, that’s why I didn’t do well on the PSAT.” Lydia lay back across the bed with her black hair spread out on the
covers exactly like her mother’s always was and Tammili just kept touching Freddy’s leg and Little Freddy gave up trying to
keep his eyes from closing and let them close, saying in his small voice as he did, “I’m awake.”