Topping From Below (3 page)

Mrs. Deever had already been weighed in, had her temperature taken and her arm scrubbed with betadine, a form of iodine to kill bacteria. Franny finished taking her blood pressure, then listened to her lungs and heart, periodically making notes on the flow sheet attached to her clipboard. She looked up, over Mrs. Deever’s chair. Blackout screens shaded a row of windows on the far wall. Outside, a fierce northern wind cleared the sky of clouds. When Franny had driven to work this morning, the wind shouldering her car as she’d crossed the Yolo Causeway, she had seen, rising in the distance, the snow-covered mountaintops of the Sierra Nevada. Maybe she could get Michael to take her there this weekend, she thought.

“Cold today, isn’t it?” Mrs. Deever said, watching Franny. “I’ll bet you’re daydreaming about that new boyfriend of yours.”

Franny looked down at her and smiled. Mrs. Deever had shoulder-length, straw-colored hair, which she curled, even though it was thinning and brittle on the ends. And she was wearing makeup, she always did: bright red lipstick, face powder to cover her blotched skin, carefully applied mascara and eye shadow. She was a woman trying to hold herself together, even if her body wouldn’t cooperate. Her face, although puffycheeked and heavy with a double chin, was open and friendly. Franny had gotten close to her over the last two years, and she saw her not only here, but also visited her regularly at the convalescent hospital. Mrs. Deever, with her own two children out of state, was almost motherly in her concern over Franny. She was sympathetic and listened whenever Franny had a problem, doling out advice whether she asked for it or not. Franny knew their close relationship was based on loneliness, but it didn’t matter. Mrs. Deever’s presence reminded her of how much she missed her own mother; and Mrs. Deever, she knew, missed her children.

“Well, yes,” Franny said, smiling. “I was thinking of him.” Over her blue scrubs she was wearing a plastic apron. She also was covered with a clear face shield and rubber gloves, standard procedure for the techs and RNs during the hook-up process to protect themselves from blood splatters. Franny accessed the graft, a permanent shunt that tied an artery and vein together, on Mrs. Deever’s forearm. Most of the patients had grafts located on their arms, although several patients, none of them here now, were unable to use a normal shunt and had Quinton catheters installed in the subclavian vein below their necks. Franny inserted two needles in the graft, then connected the tubing from the needles to the dialysis machine, which would pump out the arterial blood, filter it, and give it back through the vein.

“Did he take you someplace nice last weekend?” Mrs. Deever asked.

“Yes,” Franny said. “We went to Napa Valley and stayed there overnight.”

“Napa? Did you go wine tasting?”

Franny nodded. “We went to a bunch of wineries. I can’t remember them all. And he took me to a really nice French restaurant for dinner. The food was terrific.” She took another blood pressure reading as she spoke; every half hour during treatment she would take additional readings. She told Mrs. Deever all about the trip, adding as many details as she could, the charming bed-and-breakfast they stayed at Saturday night, the souvenir wineglasses he bought for her, the yeasty smell of fermenting wine in the air.

In fact, it was all a lie. Franny was embarrassed to admit that Michael didn’t take her anywhere at all. They had been seeing each other for almost a month now, and he’d never taken her out. He was busy at UCD with his classes and students, and then he had his own music to work on and papers he was writing. With all this, he just never seemed to have much time to spend with her. Franny understood that he was a busy man, and she didn’t like to complain, but she wished that he would take her out occasionally, to a movie, perhaps, or out to dinner. Whenever they did meet it was almost always at his house, when he called her and told her to come over, usually later in the evening, as if she were an afterthought.

“He sounds like a good catch,” Mrs. Deever said. “You better hold on to this one.” She said it as if Franny had many men to choose from, many to hang on to. Franny glanced at her other patients to see how they were doing.

Sighing, Mrs. Deever slowly rolled her head from side to side, working out the kinks, then closed her eyes. She raised her hand to the hollow of her neck, fingering it lightly. Franny started to walk away, but Mrs. Deever opened her eyes and began talking again, tiredly.

“My Frank wasn’t such a good catch. He always gave me a hard time. I don’t know why some men are like that. He spoilt me against other men. After him, I didn’t want to take a chance on another one.” She closed her eyes again and within a minute had dozed off.

Franny remembered going to Mrs. Deever’s house after school with Jenny, Mrs. Deever’s daughter, when they were in grade school together. Jenny’s father was always going on mysterious trips, during which Mrs. Deever kept herself happy with a bottle of booze. While she and Jenny were playing in her room, Mrs. Deever would burst through the door with a plate of cookies or brownies, or sometimes with nothing at all. She’d just wanted an excuse to be with them. She’d waltz in the room, smiling too hard, and interrupt their play. She was beautiful back then, a curvy, busty woman with long painted nails and golden hair and jewelry that clinked and glittered as she moved, enthralling the ten-year-old girls. With her legs crossed at the knees, her foot swinging absently, she’d sit on the end of Jenny’s bed, smoking a cigarette and sipping her amber-colored drink—she always seemed to have a drink in her hand, ice cubes tinkling, that both girls knew came from the liquor cabinet—and she’d chatter mindlessly and laugh too loud about something that wasn’t really funny. Franny thought it was sad, the way Jenny’s mother acted, and Jenny must have thought so, too, because she preferred to play at Franny’s house. By the time the girls were in junior high school, Mrs. Deever was divorced. She was sick most of the time, and Jenny had stopped inviting Franny to her home. She and Jenny were still best friends, but Jenny always came to her house, and she seemed to adopt Franny’s mother as her own, seeking her out, hugging her for no reason at all, effectively replacing her own mother as if she were a defective piece of merchandise, something that could be returned and exchanged for a better model. It was strange the way things turned out, Franny thought now. Jenny needed Franny’s mother when they were kids, but now it was Franny who needed Jenny’s.

Franny checked on her two other patients. She took their blood pressure, asked how they were feeling, scribbled notations on their flow sheets. Then she walked around the room, supervising the technicians. The room had settled into a quiet buzz of routine, everyone hooked up, their machines whirring softly beside them, the techs, dressed in pastel scrubs or whites, calmly monitoring their patients. Everyone was doing fine, so she decided to take a break while it was slow. She used the bathroom, and then went into the employees’ lounge and got a candy bar out of the vending machine. Her diet wasn’t going anywhere, but Michael didn’t seem to mind. She still went on her bike rides in the afternoons, trying to keep up a pretense of losing weight, but they weren’t as much fun as they had been. Michael was busy and no longer had time to meet her at Putah Creek. She missed their long discussions and strolls around the Arboretum. They still talked, of course, but somehow it was different.

Franny nibbled on her candy bar, crumpling the wrapper when she finished it. She decided she was imagining things, creating a problem where none existed. It wasn’t as if they jumped into bed the minute she arrived at his house. They did talk, they talked a lot, and he had cooked her dinner several times, and they watched TV together, and she always spent the night when she went over there. Michael was sweet and attentive when they were together, and just because he didn’t meet her at Putah Creek or take her anywhere—well, she shouldn’t fault him just because he had to work long hours. She decided to call him at his office at school to see if she could come over this evening. When she dialed, he picked up on the first ring.

“Yes,” he said sharply, sounding annoyed.

Franny wished now that she hadn’t phoned him. “It’s me,” she said. “Did I call at a bad time?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. I’m going to be late for a class.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll call you later.”

He gave an impatient sigh. “Franny,” he said, and then he caught himself. He sighed again and didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he began again, his voice not so harsh. “You caught me at a bad time,” he said. “Why did you call?”

“I thought maybe we could spend the evening together. Maybe have dinner out someplace.” She heard him drumming his fingers on the desk.

“I have to work late,” he said. There was a pause. The drumming stopped. “Come over at nine o’clock. And Franny?”

“Yes?”

“Wear your nurse’s uniform tonight. Not your scrubs. The uniform. The white dress, white shoes and white nylons, the hat, stethoscope, the complete outfit. I’ve got a surprise for you,” and, abruptly, he hung up.

Franny replaced the receiver and smiled. Michael was always pulling surprises on her. The past month had been an eye-opener. She wished she had a close girlfriend she could confide in. The person she was closest with was Mrs. Deever, and she couldn’t imagine talking to her about sex. She thought of her sister: Nora would know about these things. She picked up the phone again and dialed The
Sacramento Bee
. Then she hung up, without leaving a message. She decided, after all, that she didn’t want to talk to Nora about this. It was much too personal.

Later that night, in bed, Franny snuggled up close to Michael. She was wide awake, but he was breathing deeply, almost asleep, lying on his back. Earlier, they’d played out a variation of his doctor-nurse fantasy on the dining room table, which doubled as an examining table. He’d told her that if she wanted to keep her job she’d have to minister to his needs as well as to his patients’. He wore a white lab coat and latex surgical gloves, and he’d made her call him Doctor. He’d unfurled a red velvet cloth containing an array of gleaming stainless-steel instruments, some of them medical, most of them not. This was new to Franny. Until she’d met Michael, she didn’t know that people actually played out their fantasies. He’d led her along, examining her with his instruments, poking and prodding carefully, coaxing her to play along. And then he gave her her reward: he touched her the way she liked it, and played with her until she was ready to come. He made her close her eyes and give in to his fantasy, turning it into her own, and all during this he spoke to her in a firm, persuasive tone, urging her further, pulling her along with his words, and she had the uneasy feeling, even while she came, that he was preparing her, tutoring her, for something more.

She listened to Michael’s deep, easy breathing, watching his chest rise and fall. Moonlight filtered through the gauzy curtains. A tree swaying in the wind, its branches upswept and reaching like beggars’ arms, cast pale, ghostly shadows through the window of the darkened room. She toyed with the black hair on his chest until, annoyed, he placed his hand on hers, stopping her. She wanted to tell him something but wasn’t sure how to begin. Propping herself up on one elbow, she looked at him in profile, his jaw square and resolute even in rest. She was in love with that jaw.

“I’m not sure if you want to hear this,” she began uncertainly. “You probably don’t. I know you don’t feel the way I do, but I just wanted you to know how I feel about you.” She could hear herself stumbling over the words. “The thing is, I think I’m falling in love with you.”

She chewed on a fingernail, waiting for him to respond. She knew he had heard her because his breathing had changed. He didn’t say anything.

“Does that upset you?” she asked him finally. “Do you wish I hadn’t said that?”

Slowly, he reached for the bedside lamp and switched it on. It glowed, bright and harsh. In the stark realities of a lighted room, her proclamation of love seemed naked and vulnerable, like a tiny spider caught out in the open. She wanted to crawl under the covers.

“Oh, Franny,” he said, and he rolled over on his side, facing her. He pushed the blankets down to her knees, exposing her to the harsh light even though he knew this made her uncomfortable. She tensed, then made an effort to relax. With his eyes he took in the milky-white fullness of her, her fleshy thighs and hips, her ample belly, her big drooping breasts, plump and squishy soft. He put his hand on her cheek, stroking it, smiling, then let it drop to her breast. He rubbed the rosy nipple, as pink as a dusty damask rose, between his fingers, getting it hard, then took the heft of her breast in the palm of his hand, circling it with his thumb and fingers, holding on to it as if it were a doorknob. It was a funny way to hold her breast, she thought.

“Dear, sweet Franny,” he said. “It’s been a long, long time since I’ve been in love. And of course I’m glad you told me how you feel. It pleases me that you’re in love with me.” He spoke quietly, still gripping her breast. “I don’t fall in love easily, but I’m glad I’m the recipient of yours.” He paused, then said, “You know what this means, don’t you?”

Franny shook her head.

“It means”—he squeezed her breast, giving it a little painful twist, smiling—“that officially you’re now my girlfriend, and that gives me territorial rights over your body. It gives me a proprietary interest in you. You belong to me now.” He smiled again, playfully, and jiggled her breast. “This tit belongs to me. Your body belongs to me, and I can do whatever I want with it.”

Franny laughed. His girlfriend,
his
girlfriend: she loved the sound of it. She didn’t think she’d ever been this happy. He wasn’t in love with her yet, but that would come. What mattered was that he cared for her … he really cared. And he said he thought of her body in a territorial way; he would protect her as her father once had.

She snuggled closer to him, a content smile settling across her face. Teasingly, she asked, “And what do you plan to do with my body?”