Doctors (88 page)

“He was a full professor at Stanford,” Laura retorted. “They even offered to double his salary when he was asked to come here. They’d be overjoyed to have him back.”

“Oh, I suppose under normal circumstances you might be right. But Max Wingate, his former chairman, owes me one—a very
big
one. And as much as he likes Marshall, he wouldn’t dare cross me.”

“I think you’re bluffing,” she replied.

“Want me to call him right away? I’ll put on the speaker phone so you can hear with your own ears while I blackball your lover with his home team. I promise you, Laura,” he continued, now raising his voice, “one word from me and he’ll be out in the professional cold forever.”

There was a sudden silence.

At last she inquired softly, “What does this have to do with me?”

“Absolutely everything, Dr. Castellano,” he replied with a tinge of savage delight. “You hold the fate of that worm Jaffe in those sweet little hands of yours. Because if I don’t get your resignation, Marshall Jaffe dies.”

“That’s a bit melodramatic, isn’t it?” Laura commented.

“I don’t think so. You and I both know his career
is
his life. And I can take it away from him with one phone call. Now have I made my point?”

“I’ll sleep on it,” Laura answered disdainfully.

“I’m sorry, Laura. I want your answer now. Then, as far as I’m concerned, the two of you can go to sleep—or to hell.”

Laura had never experienced such a brutal verbal assault. She looked fiercely at Rhodes and spat out, “You are one slimy bastard.”

“I don’t care what you think,” he replied smugly, “just as long as a letter withdrawing your renewal application is on my desk in half an hour. And I don’t mean thirty-one minutes.”

Laura sat in her lab, desperately trying to numb herself into signing the document she had just painstakingly typed. Did she dare test Paul’s threat?

The phone rang.

“Hi, Baby.” It was Marshall.

“How’s it going?” she asked, trying to sound cheerful.

“Well, you know me,” he jested, “the cat with eight more
lives. I think I’m gonna get my job back at Stanford. Max Wingate is calling a special meeting of the department. They’re probably rubber-stamping me as we speak. So much for the Colossus of Rhodes.”

Laura was petrified. She looked at her watch: ten minutes to five.

“Marsh, let’s meet for dinner. I have something to finish in a hurry.”

“Okay, sweetheart. What if we rendezvous around six at the Jefferson Memorial?”

“Why there, of all places?”

“I like to look at all those great words of Thomas J., carved on the huge marble tablets. It sort of soothes my soul when I feel really down.”

I’ll give you more comfort, she thought to herself. And then said aloud, “I’ll be there, Marshall. Just stay loose.”

He had been serious.

When Laura arrived in the great domed marble monument she found Marshall gazing up at Jefferson’s eloquence. He kissed her.

“I can understand why you feel uplifted in this place. Are you okay?”

“Well, it’s official,” he announced joyfully. “I’ve got my job back at Stanford. They were really great about it.”

“Oh,” she said. And thought, At least Paul kept his part of the deal. “When are you going?”

“Well, Max says I can move back into my old lab whenever it’s convenient. But I think we should wait till the kids finish the semester at school. I don’t want to upset their lives even more—they’ve got enough to deal with.”

“Well,” she commented, “I guess that gives us both time to get used to it.”

He gripped her firmly by the shoulders. “No, Laura—I want you to come to California with me.”

She was astonished for a moment. And then confused. Could he possibly be willing to abandon his family for her?

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

Laura was in such an ecstasy of hope she almost felt guilty. She asked for reassurance.

“As what?” she asked.

“What do you mean, ‘as what?’ There’s no question—you’d be a full professor.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I guarantee you—Stanford, Berkeley, San Francisco—they’d all fight to get you on their faculties. And trust me, I’ve got pull in California.”

Then slowly it began to dawn on her. “Are you actually saying that—except for a jump in my academic rank—things between us would be just the same?”

“Absolutely. We’d be like a married couple.”

“Only Claire would still be Mrs. Jaffe and I’d be like a second car.”

“No—” he began to protest.

“That’s what you’re asking, isn’t it? You want me to drop everything I’ve accomplished in Washington—to go and be your geisha girl.”

“I thought you loved me, Laura.”

“I thought so, too, Marsh. But since you’re not a Mormon or a Moslem, you’re not entitled to more than one wife—and I refuse to settle for only half a husband.”

“Hey, for God’s sake, Laura, can’t you appreciate what a bind I’m in? My two kids are already screwed up. Can you imagine what it would do to their heads if I divorced their sick mother? I mean, I’m a bastard—but God knows I’m not
that
much of a bastard.”

She did not know how to react. She wanted desperately to be “legitimized,” yet in a way she could understand his quandary. And could even grudgingly respect his refusal to hurt his already-wounded family.

“I don’t know, Marshall,” she said, stalling for time.

And then he questioned
her
motives. “Or are you still too dazzled by the Washington limelight to exile yourself to the provincial vineyards of California?”

“I’m entitled to a career, dammit!” she retorted indignantly.

“How the hell would this compromise your career? Berkeley’s not exactly the boondocks. In fact, if you’ve been keeping up with the academic scene, you should know most of its graduate departments now outrank Fair Harvard.”

“It’s not that,” she protested, unwilling to concede that he was even partially right. And then she added softly, “Look, one of these mornings I’m going to wake up and suddenly discover I’m over the hill, and I just might want to have a baby before then. I mean, look at your hero’s philosophy.”

She pointed to the tall majestic panel engraved with Jefferson’s famous description of man’s inalienable rights to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

He waited for a moment and said almost in a whisper, “Laura, you’re asking too much. You’re not being fair—”

“
Fair?
You’re talking to me about fair?” She was so incensed that she nearly told him of the deal she had struck with Rhodes. But somehow it no longer seemed to matter.

“Laura, do you think I like the cards life has dealt me? Don’t you think I would change things if I could? And can’t you even meet me halfway?”

“You mean like Chicago?” she joked bitterly.

For a moment they just stood there looking into each other’s eyes. The monument was empty and so quiet that their breathing seemed to echo in the dome.

“Well,” she said wearily, “scientifically speaking, I’d say our relationship can best be described by the second law of thermodynamics—it’s just about run out of energy. Otherwise stated, I can see now that you’ve got to stay with Claire. But I also know that
I’ve
got to stay away from
you.
Goodbye, Marshall.”

She turned and started off. He called after her.

“Laura, please—are you sure we can’t—”

Moments later she was out of earshot and kept walking down the many steps of the memorial into the darkening twilight.

And kept descending. To a depth of sadness she had never known before.

She was proud of herself.

Laura felt distraught, depressed, nearly suicidal. But she was nevertheless proud that she had not broken down in front of Marshall, for whose career she had just immolated her own. It took all her strength to keep from phoning Barney during office hours. She knew he usually got home around eight. She’d call a little later.

But suppose he had a date? If he got back at midnight he wouldn’t want me to disturb him then, either, she thought. Shit, I’m going crazy.

At that very moment the phone rang.

“Castellano, what the hell’s the matter with you?”

If ever she had doubted the existence of ESP, she was now a true believer.

“Hi, Barn,” she said in a voice that could not help disguise the deadness of her soul.

“Hey, I’m not interrupting something, am I? I mean, I wouldn’t want to cramp the style of that tennis-playing asshole. Has he made you boycott me or something? I mean, you haven’t called in weeks. Is everything okay?”

“Fine, fine,” she answered mechanically.

“Hey, kiddo, your enthusiasm sounds pretty underwhelming. What’s up?”

“Nothing’s up,” she answered. And then, still unable to reveal her pain, she said obliquely, “You might say everything’s down.”

She paused for a moment and then asked, “It just occurred to me, are
you
alone?”

“Yes. At the moment, anyway. Ursula’s coming a little later.”

“Who’s Ursula?”

“Oh, you should see her, Castellano. She’s Holland’s gift to cardiology—and my heart in particular. In fact, tonight’s encounter might decide the gold medal in the Livingston Matrimonial Olympics.”

“Then I’d better hang up,” Laura said apologetically, her tone more leaden than ever.

“Aw, come on, Castellano, what’s the problem?”

“Are you sitting down?” she asked.

“Why, is this going to shock me?”

“No, but it might take a while.”

As Barney carried the phone over to an easy chair, he answered gently, “Laura, take all the time you need. I’m a professional listener, remember? Come on—spill.”

At that moment her emotional dam cracked.

After nearly forty minutes he cut her off. “Hey look, Castellano, I’ve got to rush to the airport.”

“Oh, sure,” she responded apologetically, “you’re meeting Ursula.”

“Negative—she lives two blocks away. I want to catch the last shuttle to Washington.”

“No, Barn—please don’t. I’m okay. I really am.”

“That’s for
me
to judge. You just better be there at the other end to meet me. Meanwhile, do not drink. Do not take a pill. Do not even drive. Take a friendly taxi and be waiting for me. And wear a red rose so I can recognize you.”

“What about your patients?” she asked in a semi-chiding tone.

“Hey, kiddo, don’t you even know what day it is? Tomorrow’s Saturday. The couch doesn’t work weekends. So like it or lump it, I’m on my way.”

Although subconsciously she had hoped for this, Laura protested weakly, “But what about Ursula?”

“No sweat. I’ll explain it to her. She’s used to my antics—she’ll understand. You just be there,” he commanded.

As Barney was stuffing clothes into an overnight case, Dr. Ursula de Groot let herself in.

“Were you planning to elope tonight?” she challenged.

“Listen, Urse, sit down for a second. I’ve got a short time to tell a long story.”

He did his best to impress upon her the urgency of his mission of mercy. But somehow the flaxen-haired cardiologist was not convinced.

“I hate Laura,” she said bitterly.

“Why?” Barney asked as he hastily snapped shut his valise.

“Isn’t it obvious?” she replied, holding out her key to his apartment. “Here, you’d better take it back. I think Ms. Castellano needs it more than I do.”

L
aura did not breathe for the next two hours. At least it felt that way. It was only the hope of seeing Barney that kept her minimally functioning.

She was waiting in the arrival lounge when he hurried in from the tarmac, jacket lapels pulled up to protect him from the cold wind.

His first glance at Laura made him ache. She looked sheet-white and so vulnerable, as if she had wept away all her energy.

“Hi, thanks for coming,” he said, hugging her.

“Shouldn’t that be my line?” she asked weakly.

“Okay, take it if you want it. But where are we having dinner?”

“At eleven at night?” she asked.

“I’ll bet you haven’t eaten yet, have you?”

She shook her head. “I wasn’t hungry.”

“Well, be anorexic on your own time.
I’m
starving, and I’ve gotta get some pasta in me fast or I’ll die of starvation.”

They were standing on the curb now. As a cab pulled forward and Laura climbed in, Barney asked the driver, “What’s the best Italian joint between here and the Mason-Dixon line?”

“Well, I take a lot of people to Pasquale’s in Georgetown.”

“Then take us, too.”

He got into the cab and they zoomed off.

“I am sorry, signore, but I do not see a reservation for Yehudi and Hepzibah Menuhin.”

“Well, I’m very sorry,” Barney retorted in his best imitation of artistic temperament. “Our impresario assured us that he’d made arrangements. Can’t you manage even a small table in the back?”

“
Mi dispiace
, signore. Even if I could, you are both lacking the proper attire.”

He did not for a minute think he was dealing with the great violinist and his sister. And in any case, Pasquale’s had a sartorial as well as a gastronomic reputation to uphold.

“Listen, Captain,” Barney said, “I want to tell you the truth. I’m a medical doctor and this woman is in carbohydrate shock. If we don’t get some fettuccine into her fast she may die right here. And that certainly wouldn’t be good for your business.”

The captain, fed up with debating, was about to call Rocco, the barman-bouncer, when one of the elegant diners—a tall, gray-haired man whose attention had been caught by the animated
recitativo
—came to the rescue.

“Is there any problem here, Pasquale?” he asked, and quickly turned to greet Laura. “Nice to see you, Dr. Castellano.”

“Nice to see
you
, Senator Otis. This is my friend, Dr. Barney Livingston.”

“Hello, Doctor. Would you two care to join us for a drink?” the lawmaker asked hospitably.

“Actually,” Laura replied, “we were about to leave. They don’t seem to have a table for us.”

The Senator frowned at Pasquale. “Are you quite sure,
padrone
? Dr. Castellano is a very important staff member at the
NIH. She’s probably been on an emergency call and was unable to change. I’m sure you can bend the rules just this once.”