The Sandman (12 page)

“No,” he said. “I like Dr. Beauregard too. I wouldn’t miss his dinner party for the world.”

He was surprised at how well he was able to use the chopsticks. It was as if he had been doing it all his life.

“Peter and Debby, I’d like you to meet my wife, Heather,” Beauregard said.

Peter exchanged glances with Debby and shook Heather Beauregard’s firm hand. He looked at her long model’s face—the perfect cheekbones, the skin like velvet, the green eyes, and blond hair cut a little longer than Debby’s, but just as full and silky down her back. Cross found looking at her disconcerting. It was like meeting a movie star close up. She was too good-looking, really … like a vision. And her body. Cross tried not to look at it. She was so obviously a physical person, her tight Halston gown, which trailed to the floor, her long, thin, but strong legs. Peter smiled but dropped his eyes.

“It’s really a pleasure to meet you,” Heather said in a low, throaty voice. “Beau has told me so much about you … and I mean that. Actually, I don’t know whether it’s to your advantage or not, because when my husband likes someone, he expects them to be as totally devoted to their work as he is. Which means you’ll sleep once a month and have no time for Debby.”

Debby and Peter laughed as Heather shook Debby’s hand, but Beauregard protested.

“Not true,” he said. “That is simply not true. I’m starting a new regime. Tonight. The hospital is going to have to share equal billing with my family and friends … I mean it.”

He poured each of them a glass of champagne and lifted his glass.

“A toast,” he said, “to friendship and to the return of my lovely wife, who graces this room.”

“Hear, hear,” Debby said.

They clicked their glasses and drank the champagne. Peter loved the taste of it … but then felt a swirling sensation in his stomach. He was being bought … bought off with all this … friendship, luxury. He looked around the room, at the modern paintings, at the white carpet, the mirrored walls, the fireplace with the wrought iron, at the plants, the elegant bar with its leather-covered bar stools, and from the living room through the French doors out into the dining room, where the maid put the finishing touches on the long, beautiful dinner table. This was “the class” his father had resented so desperately, had dreamed of, and finally had killed himself over.

“Well,” Heather said, “come here, Peter. There is someone special I want you to meet.”

She took him by the hand and led him around the corner, to the bedroom, and he felt the sweat breaking out on his brow. There was an old English door with stained-glass windows, and when they opened it, he stared in on a beautiful little girl, as fair-haired and perfectly complexioned as her mother.

“Sarah, I want you to meet Peter Cross.”

“Hello,” Sarah said, sitting on her bed, holding a copy of Catch 22 in her hands. She wore a pink pullover and tight Levis, and her eyes were as intense as any Peter had ever seen. He couldn’t believe she was only twelve.

“Peter is the best anesthesiologist at Eastern,” Heather said, patting him on the back. “So you be nice to him … or he’ll put you under.”

Sarah giggled and reached out her hand. Peter stepped forward and shook it.

“Weird,” Sarah said. “What a weird job. Putting people under.”

Peter felt as though he were stung. Then he got hold of himself.

“Not really,” he said. “It’s my job to prevent pain. When you think of it that way, it’s natural as … eating or sleeping.”

“Still,” Sarah said, “it’s scary.”

She smiled so good-naturedly that Peter felt all right. He shouldn’t let a child upset him anyway. Except she didn’t look like a child … her body was just starting to develop, and her grace was that of a mature woman. It was unnerving. Behind him, he heard Beauregard talking with Debby.

“Come meet my precocious daughter,” he said.

Then they were all in the room, and Debby and Sarah were smiling at one another, shaking hands. Peter looked at them, then at Heather and Beauregard, dressed casually in his Ralph Lauren tweed pants, his herringbone shirt and English tweed jacket. Though Debby was from upstate, no one who walked in here would ever know it. They all belonged here … by virtue of their looks, their ease with one another. He was an imposter. The thought made him feel like bolting. But he smiled affably, and soon they were back in the living room, smiling at one another and drinking more champagne. Within minutes Peter felt giddy, and with the giddiness felt an esprit de
corps
that melted his fear.

“Well, Paris is wonderful,” Heather was saying to Debby, “especially wonderful when you are young and in love. If Beau ever gives you two any time off, I insist that you go. I have a poet friend who has a house over there … and he just got a scholarship to teach in Montana … the French are crazy about the Wild West … anyway, he’d probably rent you the place for practically nothing. Oh, you really should go.”

Debby sat down next to Peter on the white couch. She touched his knee.

“Did you hear that?” she said. “God, I’d love to go to Paris, wouldn’t you, Peter?”

“Yes … of course,” Peter said.

The way the light hit the room … the way it came in off 61st Street. Even the light in the room looked expensive and successful. Peter thought of his own barren place on West 12th. He felt as if he were a starving man who was being offered overly rich food.

“The life is so wonderful there,” Heather said. “People take time with things. I’ll tell you … I got off the plane the other day and the first thing I noticed was the stress factor here. People wear their stress on their faces. You can actually see the difference.”

Beauregard smiled and poured everyone another round of champagne.

“That’s true,” Beauregard said. “I remember when we went to Sweden the first time … I got back here and it was like entering the depressive ward of the hospital. You simply can’t notice it unless you’ve been. How’s everyone doing?”

Peter and Debby smiled. Peter was doing fine; in fact, he had never felt more lightheaded, more carefree. He looked up and there was the maid staring at him. In her hand was a silver tray on which were twenty or thirty hors d’oeuvres.

“This is terrific,” he said. He took one and put it in his mouth. It was warm and full of a delicious cheese. He sat back and stared at Debby, and again noted how well she seemed to go with the company, the decor. As if she were meant for such a life. He felt a rumbling in his stomach, but he drank some more champagne and it quieted down.

“Speaking of stress,” Peter said, “I think maybe this champagne might be better than all the tranquilizers in the world.”

“Well, have some more,” Heather said, and before Peter could protest, she was pouring for him. He sipped and sat back, and Heather began telling them about all the places she’d been in the last year. London, Belgium, Germany …

“Oh,” Debby said, “we simply have to go, Peter. Wouldn’t it be wonderful?”

“Yes,” Peter said, “I’d really love that.”

He was surprised at himself for saying so. Indeed, up until very recently he hadn’t wanted to leave his room. Now here he was chatting with these sophisticated people and holding his own. He felt strange, like he was swimming in unfamiliar waters … but such pleasant waters. They seemed to hold him up effortlessly.

“How long will you be staying now that you’re back?” he heard himself ask. Immediately, he knew he had committed a faux pas.

“Well,” Heather said, “I’m not certain. I’m supposed to help a friend who is opening a bookstore in Montmartre … I did promise to go back for that … in a month.”

Beauregard cleared his throat and smiled a little painfully at Peter.

“I didn’t mean …”

But Beauregard raised his hand.

“It’s perfectly all right,” he said, “but we’re betting that Heather won’t leave at all. I think we’ve got a few magic tricks to keep her here.”

“Keep feeding me these hors d’oeuvres,” Heather said.

“And this champagne.”

“There is a basement of it,” Beauregard said.

“You’re kidding,” Debby said. “You’ve got a wine cellar?”

“Well,” Beauregard said, “not exactly a cellar. More like a wine room. Temperature-controlled. Just right. I’ll show you after dinner.”

“Speaking of which,” called Mrs. O’Shea from the other room, “dinner is served.”

She rang a golden gong, and Debby and Peter laughed. As they walked into the dining room, Debby pinched Peter’s ass.

He turned and smiled at her.

“Are you really interested in books?” Peter said, as Mrs. O’Shea served them their seafood salads.

“Oh, yes, very much so … and I hear you are a great admirer of Poe.”

“That’s right,” Peter said.

He reached across the table and saw Sarah there. Her perfect face … the kind of girl he dreamed of as a child. The champagne had made him feel as though he were floating, as though anything were possible. He could not look at her, though. She was so physical … It was unnatural in a child. He wished to God they hadn’t seated him next to her.

“You know,” Heather said, “the French are crazy about Poe.”

“Yes?” Peter said. “They are?”

“Certainly,” Heather said. “Baudelaire really discovered him.”

Peter shook his head as he ate his salad.

“Of course,” he said, “men of talent are rarely appreciated in this culture.”

“Oh, I don’t know that that’s true,” said Beauregard. “That’s the argument I hear all the time. But you take our field. In spite of all the backbiting and infighting, I think as a whole the medical profession in this country, and in anesthesiology in particular, is open now to experimentation.”

Peter thought of the men who discovered the first anesthetics … Horace Wells, who had been laughed into madness …

“No,” he said, “that’s not true. It’s true with you … Because you set up an atmosphere at Eastern that encourages experimentation. But it’s certainly not the rule. The safe ways—the tried-and-true—are the only things most of the administrators want to use.”

“I’d have to agree with Peter, Beau,” Heather said.

Beauregard nodded and smiled, as if he agreed.

Encouraged, Peter went on.

“And as for Poe,” he said, sipping the champagne again, “you know, I think few people really understand what he was up to. He was a visionary … His tales weren’t just horror tales meant to shock, but explorations into dreams, into moments of pure consciousness.”

Heather leaned over the table now and nodded enthusiastically. “That’s right,” she said. “He was trying to get outside of what is known … altogether … the French poets were the same way … what was it Rimbaud said, about the systematic derangement of all the senses … that’s what Poe was after. He was a revolutionary … and this damned country was too conservative, too puritanical to understand a thing he was doing.”

Peter felt thrilled. He couldn’t have put it better himself. Heather Beauregard was almost too good to believe. Not only beautiful but excited by ideas. He felt as though she would understand him.

“Well,” Beauregard said, “excuse me for playing devil’s advocate, but my feeling about ‘systematic derangement’ and all that stuff is it’s pretty scary. I remember the 60’s when kids were talking like that … though I would scarcely blame poor Edgar Allan Poe for it. Anyway, they were all popping drugs, psychedelics, and the like, in an effort to become instant visionaries, and a lot of them are now thirty-year-old cripples with half a brain.”

Debby held up her glass and nodded.

“I’ll have to go with that,” she said. “Whatever happened to good old-fashioned love and friendship. I don’t know, maybe I’m just an uptight Yankee, but it seems to me there are certain roots …”

Everyone chuckled around the table, including Peter, who was again amazed at how pleasant he felt. It was almost as if he had wings and had been lifted, magically, out of the ordinary and dull into a dream world where all the visions were full of bright yellow light. Perhaps this was success … this was what it meant all along. To be with brilliant people … to talk and be friends with them … and even in disagreement to realize their essential worth. But he felt vaguely suspicious … It seemed to be too good to be true. Certainly it was totally different from anything he had experienced before … but, Christ, it felt good.

“Well, a toast,” Beauregard said, holding up the wine glasses. “I propose a toast to Peter and Debby … the good young people on our staff … and good friends …”

Peter smiled and found himself joyously clinking glasses with the others. Heather smiled at him, Debby put her hand on his leg under the table, and Beauregard looked down on him calmly, full of pride … like a father beaming at the All American son.

“Oh, Lord,” Beauregard said. “We’ve run out of wine.”

He held up the empty bottle and turned it over. Mrs. O’Shea was by his side.

“Yes,” Beauregard said. “We could use a little more … but maybe this is a good time to show Peter the wine room. How about it, Dr. Cross?”

“Sure,” Peter said.

Again he felt that excitement. Like a kid going down at Christmas to get his train set. He felt foolish but too damned good to care.

They descended the spiral staircase into the basement, and at the bottom came to a dark oak door. Beauregard pushed it open, and Peter was amazed at the coolness of the room. It was at least ten degrees cooler than upstairs.

‘Brr,” he said.

“Yes, it’s always fifty degrees in here,” Beauregard said. “And here we have the wine.”

He gestured toward the wine bins, and Peter stared at the many bottles with their silver and golden seals. Beauregard walked over to one of the bins.

“Here we have a fine Bordeaux,” he said. “Château Mouton Rothschild, 1959. It’s really full-bodied, well-developed … and, as they say, has a beautiful nose.”

He handed the bottle to Peter, who took it awkwardly, afraid he would drop it. Wine cellars were, to him, the stuff of movies or TV.

“And here,” Beauregard said, moving down the line, “we have a Chateau Lafite, 1961. Though ‘59 is slightly better, this is also very, very good.”

Peter took the bottle in his hand, and this time a strange sensation came over him. It was as though the wine was more than simply a liquor to drink. It seemed to possess the qualities of a talisman, magic to stave off the ordinariness of life. Suddenly he understood how serious wine tasters felt … wine—collecting it, making it, tasting it—was a way of life, an aristocracy of the senses … and he felt delighted, sophisticated.