Strange Women, The (7 page)

"I was angling for that. Now I can ask you out to dinner myself."

Nora opened her lips to refuse politely. She and Vic Demorino had had—as always—an unspoken agreement to meet that night. Tentative, as all their dates were; like all doctors, they had to put their work first. There was no such thing as a pre-arranged free evening for either of them. But for months now, it had been an understood thing; if they were both free, they would meet.

It had seemed natural enough to pair off with Vic. From the time she had come to the hospital, they had been a couple. At first this pairing-off had been informal and by accident—except for a couple of wet-eared interns fresh from medical school who treated Nora like an elderly aunt, Vic was the only unmarried man on the staff. Later, as they discovered mutual likes and dislikes, a strong attraction had flared up between them. They had been sleeping together and they spent as much time with each other as they possibly could.

But that day, looking at Kit, a sudden anger at Vic had flared up in her. She had seen him that afternoon at his dictatorial worst. She was eager to make amends to Kit—not only for her own gauche behavior, but for Vic's offensive manners. Vic, after all, had been unbearably rude, and all too ready to make her a party to it.

She smiled at Kit and said, "I'd love to. I'm not busy tonight," and that was where it had begun. It had been though she did not know it at the time, the end of Vic Demorino, except as a colleague she liked.

She had married Kit three months later, still surprised at herself, a little breathless at his insolent violence, his bubbling humor, the unexpected, caged sensuality that had made her feel as breathless, as foolishly romantic as any adolescent virgin...

She came back to the present, blinking at Jill, who sat curled up, her crossed legs displaying silky, bare shins and small white ankles.

"Now it's your turn. You tell me how you met Mack."

"I thought maybe he'd told you. I was working as an X-ray technician in a Syracuse hospital, and he used to come in for checkups—it doesn't show, but he has a stiff knee. He asked me for a date, and I said I didn't date men I didn't know. He said he thought I knew him all the way to the bones. And, well, I did, and we just—kept on, and when he came to Mayfield he asked me to come, too, and I did."

Prodded by a memory, Nora said abruptly, "Jill, have you menstruated yet? If not, you're probably pregnant, and you ought to let him know before he leaves Lima."

Jill did not look up. She said, "I want to be able to tell him, honestly, that I
didn't
know."

"Jill, denying a fact won't change—"

"Please. If I send Mack word, he'll come back, and never blame me. But it would kill him to give up this trip. He's wanted it all his life. I'd feel like a
bitch
to spoil it for him!" The unexpected vulgarity, so out of key for the quiet Jill, somehow lent point to her words.

Nora could sympathize with that, too; but Jill had been brought up in wealth, and conventional respectability; and had already weathered one frightful scandal. Why was she punishing herself this way?

In sudden, ambivalent anger and protectiveness, Nora snapped, "Damn him, he should have married you!"

"He wanted to, you know. Only I—didn't. And I'm not sure I want a baby, either."

Again Nora had that distressing suspicion; but this wasn't the time to face it out. That might slam forever a door that should be kept open between them.

"It's rather late to be thinking of that," she said. "Foresight is better than hindsight in such matters. You're young and healthy, and it does happen, you know."

Touched again by a curious compound jealousy, she stirred impatiently; she just didn't want to sit and talk to Jill in this close, intimate way any more.

"Look here, you're going to catch cold, and I'd like to get
some
sleep—just in case somebody gives me a broken hip or a ruptured appendix for Christmas."

Jill bent to look at the face of Nora's clock. Under the thin nightgown her silhouetted breasts were fuller, the high nipples perceptibly lifting the silk. Nora, looking up at her flushed face, told herself coldly that the pretty breasts, the lovely luster of that skin, were a simple physical result of the flooding of the system with estrogens, the female hormones of pregnancy.

"It's after midnight. Merry Christmas," Jill said, her hand on the doorknob, then turned. "Nora—"

"Yes, my dear?"

"Oh, nothing. Good night."
The door closed, and Nora thought, I am a first class bitch. Why the devil didn't I let her stay in here and talk, ask her to sleep in here with me if she's lonely? Why keep the poor kid at arm's length this way?

...Hell, I must be coming unglued. Pammy liked to play kissing games, so I accuse Jill of God-knows-what. What's wrong with me anyhow?

In the dark she smiled without amusement.

You know what's wrong with you. You know what you need.

There is nothing like it—the loneliness of a woman's body. Separation can be accepted with the mind; for the lonely body there is nothing. Empty arms. Breasts that hurt, longing for a touch. Thighs that ache to be parted. And—shame because this hunger can be more imperative than real love.

Kit, Kit,
she whispered, burrowing her hot face in the pillow, pressing her body into the cold sheets until the tautness was a crucifixion,
Kit, Kit, Kit…

Kit… or anyone. Anyone just now. Anyone…

She forced herself to stand up, to walk to the bathroom and slap her face, hard, with a washcloth wet with cold water, until the tight breathing relaxed in shivering sighs

…I wish I could cry.
If
I walked into my own office as a patient, I'd tell myself to have a good cry…

Instead she stepped under the shower and made herself stand, enduring the icy needles, for minutes. When she got out she was blue with cold; she rubbed herself harshly, thinking with vicious satisfaction that now she was too busy shivering to have room for any other physical satisfaction. She pulled the bedclothes to her chin, feeling the warmth seep into her chilled body.

At least this was over. Jill was going back with her, but there would be no more of this forced isolation and intimacy. She wouldn't have spare energy for morbid notions. And Kit—but she shut off that thought, sternly. Better not to think of Kit at all. Not tonight.

When she got back to Albany, she found that during her absence Kit had been transferred to a ward, and for the first time since he had re-entered the hospital, he was sitting up.

He was in high spirits, but there were lines around his mouth and eyes, and Nora found herself condemning his doctor.
He isn't ready for a ward yet,
she thought; but when she bent to kiss him goodbye, she looked quickly around at the other wives taking leave of their men, and thought;
yes, it's better.
It was better for Kit not to be alone through the long days and nights.

It gave her courage to touch again on an old sore point between them. "Kit," she said, holding his hand and speaking softly, "now that my office is ready and I'll be back in harness—I may not be able to come here regularly. There's at least a chance—if they knew I was on the medical staff at St. Margaret's—that they'd let me come and see you outside regular visiting hours."

The point of flame burned up in his fierce eyes.

“I don't think that would be much of an idea. No, Nora. No special privileges."

She looked around the ward resentfully. "Other women have nothing to do but make themselves pretty for visiting hours!"

"Oh, I don't think you're as unique as all that. There are other men here with working wives."

"With regular hours! I never know when I may be called out!"

"Well, you can quit if you want to," he said irritably, "we're not that hard up for money."

"With a shortage of doctors? Oh, Kit, are we going to quarrel about that?"

"Darling—" Kit reached up and drew her head down to him again. His kiss bruised her mouth and when he let her go they were both shaking. Kit looked grim. "See? I think it's better if we have to—see each other with other people around, for a while, Nora."

He was right, of course. It was torment to exchange that strained kiss in sight of the whole ward, but it was better for Kit—better even for herself—than the momentary, furtive fumbling for a little more, on the rare moments when they were unobserved.

Later, in her car, she let her mind sift the past months. They had never known the easy sharing of good times and bad, the jokes and domestic habits that weld lovers into man and wife. And then another thought probed its way in; if we weren't tied together legally by marriage, could either of us live through this? Was that why Kit hadn't wanted to wait?

Deliberately, she turned the leaf of her mind and let Kit fall astern. Her new office was a good address on a quiet street; she parked the car, looking up at the neat doorplate;

LEONORA CAINE, M.D.
VICTOR DEMORINO: OBS. & GYN.

It was gallant of Vic—to have given her name the top spot. The stairs were quiet, muffled with new black rubber treads; the waiting room they shared had been painted in fresh pastels and there were prints, flowers and birds, on the walls. Inside her private office someone was humming; then a small curvy girl, in close-fitting white nylon uniform, came to the door.

"Why—Dr. Caine," she said, her bright lips curving in a smile, "Do you know you have four appointments booked already?"

"Not today, I hope?"

"No, Vic said you wouldn't be in till tomorrow."

"Oh, it's
Vic
already?" Nora teased, as they went into the shiny new office. "Did you have a nice Christmas?"

"Grand." Ramona Barbieri crossed the room and opened the door to the examination room, with her quick swinging walk; the walk of a sexy movie star.

It was always a low-keyed irritation to Nora.
Phony.
But Ramona was unusually capable and efficient, and few trained nurses were available for office work; they could make more money in hospitals. So she said, "You have everything looking very nice in here, Ramona."

"Nora, is that you?" The door across the waiting room opened and closed and Dr. Demorino came in; a stocky man about Nora's age, with deep-set dark eyes and a small well-trimmed mustache. He came and shook Nora's hand. "Ready to get back to the grind?"

"If you think I've had anything else, you should have been in Mayfield and Fairfax with me. Keeping busy, Vic?"

"Keeping the birth rate up," Vic said cheerfully. He was an immensely successful and popular obstetrician who could have been rich if he put his mind to it; but he preferred to spend a good deal of his time on poorly paid work in the Italian slum quarter.

"Take a peek in the waiting room, Ramona."

He followed the girl with his eyes, and it seemed to Nora that the provocative walk was just a little more wriggling and hip-swaying than usual.
Sexy bitch.

"You found a good nurse, Nora. Barbieri's a divine doll."

"She's very efficient." Nora herself had never thought Ramona particularly pretty.

"Decorative, too. Of course it could be contrast. After the daily parade of the pregnant, in smocks and sacks and bags, it's restful just to look at a nice shapely tummy."

As she went out, she caught a glimpse, through the open door, into Vic's office. Ramona was bending over an opened file drawer; Vic, passing, gave her a smart spank on her plump backside. She jumped and giggled and rapped out
"Cattivo!"
And Nora went down the stairs.

It's just fun with Vic. He's just a big overgrown kid. Anyway he won't get much charge out of Ramona. She's been living with one woman after another, ever since I've known her. And now she's settled down with Margaret Sheppard. But I might have guessed that she and Vic would get a kick out of being able to talk
paisan
with each other.

She got into her car, sighing at the thought of her empty apartment with only a cat—Gerda left at three—and then warmth stole over her, at the realization that the place wouldn't be empty, after all. Jill would be there.

* * *

Jill was curled up on the divan, at the center of a pile of thick-looking books, but she let the one on her lap fall shut as Nora came in. In a fuzzy pink sweater, her pleated skirt tucked up over bare round knees, she looked like a tousled pixie.

"How is Kit?"

"Fine. He sent you his love." As a matter of fact, Kit had said with an outrageous wink, "Give that sexy brunette a kiss for me."

She went through into the kitchen, calling, "Come and set the table while I dish up supper. Gerda's a genius at these delayed-action meals—she always manages to leave everything all ready, yet it never tastes warmed-over, no matter what time I get in."

Nora had pushed away her dessert plate and poured a second cup of coffee before she asked "What did you do today?"

"Registered at Loudon College, and told the Dean I'd take that lab job. I'm taking Parasitology and Vertebrate Embryology, and I supervise two freshman lab sessions."

Nora started to say, if you're pregnant it doesn't make sense to take a teaching job, does it? Jill simply was not facing facts. Then she gave an interior shrug. Jill hadn't asked her advice and hadn't taken it when she gave it. And she might not be pregnant after all. "Well, it sounds interesting. We'll stack the dishes for Gerda."

She spent the evening working on her tax records. Jill buried in a book behind her. When at last she put them away, Jill raised her head. "Do you have any ink? My pen's dry."

"Help yourself." Nora pulled her arm away as Jill came and filled her pen, and suddenly the night in Fairfax came back to her, so that she had to hold herself by force from touching the pink sweater sleeve.

The silver cylinder disappeared into the dark fluid; Jill's dainty fingers manipulated the plunger fastidiously. Two rings glinted in the light; a small gold signet and a silver ring with a pair of tiny opals. Jill withdrew the point and capped it.

"I'm sleepy. I think I'll go to bed early, Nora."