The Doctor and Mr. Dylan (2 page)

“I heard about that property,” Judith said. “You’re a lucky guy. That house sold for close to $5 million. Her commission is more than some doctors earn in a year. In my next lifetime I’ll be a big-time realtor like Alexandra. Does she give you half her income to spend?”

“In theory half that money is mine, but she invests the dough as soon as it hits her checking account.”

“Smart. Is Johnny looking at colleges yet?”

Her question had eerie relevance, because I’d been ruminating over Johnny’s phone call all morning. “That’s a sensitive point. Johnny just got his mid-year report card, and he’s freaking out.”

“How bad was it?”

“Six B’s. No A’s. He’s ranked #101 in a class of 480 students.” I spilled out the whole story while Dr. Chang twisted the wires together to affix the bony plate into the patient’s skull. I left out the “lazy shit” label from Johnny’s mom.

Dr. Chang had no immediate answer, and I interpreted her silence as tacit damning of Johnny’s fate. She opened her mouth and a flood of words began pouring out. “You know my twin daughters Meredith and Melody, who are sophomores at Stanford? They worked their butts off in high school. They were both straight-A students. Meredith captained the varsity water polo team, played saxophone in the jazz band, and started a non-profit charity foundation for an orphanage in Costa Rica. Melody was on the debate team and the varsity tennis team, and for three years she worked with Alzheimer patients at a nursing home in Palo Alto. Meredith and Melody were sweating bullets waiting to hear if Stanford would accept them, even though they were both legacies since I went to undergrad and med school here.

“The college admission game is a bitch, Nico. It’s not like when we were kids. It’s almost impossible to get into a great school without some kind of massive gimmick. It’s a fact that Harvard rejects 75% of the high school valedictorians that apply. Can you believe that?”

I could believe it. And I didn’t really care, since my only kid was at this moment freaking out because his grades qualified him for San Jose State, not the Ivy League. I didn’t care to hear any more about the Chang daughters right now, either. To listen to Judith Chang, her daughters were the second and third coming of Judith Chang, destined for world domination. I was envious of the Chang sisters’ academic successes—what parent wouldn’t be? But I didn’t want to compare them to my own son.

“What are Johnny’s test scores like?” Dr. Chang said.

Ah, a bright spot
, I thought. “He’s always excelled at taking standardized tests. His SAT reading, math, and writing scores are all at the 98th percentile or better. His grade point average and class rank don’t match his test scores.”

“Does he have many extracurricular activities?”

“Johnny’s extracurricular activities consist mostly of watching TV and playing games on his laptop. At the same time,” I said, as if the combination of the two pastimes signaled a superior intellect.

Dr. Chang grew quiet again. More silent condemnation of my son’s prospects. “Listen to me,” she said. “My brother is a pharmacist in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. His son got accepted to Princeton, and let me tell you, my nephew isn’t that bright. His test scores aren’t anywhere near as high as Johnny’s. But he just happens to live in South Dakota. He just happens to be a straight-A student in a rural state. He just happens to be one of the best students in South Dakota.”

“How much do you think that matters?”

“It matters big time. The top schools want geographic variety in their student body. Stanford wants diversity. The Ivy League wants diversity. Princeton can find fifty kids from Palo Alto who meet their admission requirements. They want kids from all walks of life. They want … the son of a pharmacist from Podunk, South Dakota. If Johnny lived in South Dakota, with those test scores he’d be a shoo-in with the Ivy League admissions committees.”

Judith Chang turned her back on the operating room table, and peeled off her surgical gloves. The bony plate was back in place, and her patient’s skull was intact again. The surgical resident would conclude the task of sewing the skin closed. Dr. Chang paused for a moment, turned her palms upward, and said, “Just move to the Dakotas, Nico.”

I stroked my chin. She made it sound so easy.

CHAPTER 3

QUEEN ALEXANDRA APPROXIMATELY

I drove my black BMW M6 convertible up the semicircular driveway to our Palo Alto home after work, and parked behind my wife’s silver Aston Martin One-77. Together, the value of the two cars approximated the gross national products of some third world nations. Our home was a 7,000-square-foot Tuscan villa built on a hilltop west of the Stanford University campus. The Antone estate encompassed three acres of tranquility, and towered above an urban area of seven million Californians, most of whom were mired in less-than-tranquil rush hour traffic at that very moment.

Our living room featured thirty-foot-high ceiling-to-floor windows overlooking San Francisco Bay. The décor included opulent white Baker couches no one ever sat on and a Steinway grand piano no one ever played. I sped through the formal room at flank speed. I couldn’t remember ever spending more than five minutes hanging out in this museum piece of showroom design.

I carried a large bag of Chinese take-out food from Chef Chu’s, and set it down on the stainless steel countertop of our spotless, never-used kitchen. I made a beeline for the refrigerator, popped the top off a Corona and chugged half the bottle, still vibrating from my day in the operating room. I looked out the French doors toward the back patio.

Alexandra was lying on a lounge chair and sipping a tall drink through a straw. A broad-brimmed Panama hat graced her swirling mane of black hair. She wore a white one-piece swimming suit. It was an unseasonably warm day for January, and my wife never missed an opportunity to bronze her lanky limbs.

I walked up behind Alexandra, wrapped my arms around her neck, and kissed her left cheek. She held a cell phone against her right ear, and pushed me away while she continued her conversation. I frowned and said nothing. Was it so hard for Alexandra to pretend she loved me? I sank into a second chaise lounge beside her, closed my eyes and listened.

“That property is overpriced at $6.5 million,” she said. “I know we can get it for 6.2. Put in the bid tonight and tell the seller they need to decide by tomorrow morning or the deal’s off. Got it? Call me back when they cave. Ciao.”

Alexandra set her phone down and lit a Marlboro Light 100. She inhaled with a violent effort, exhaled the smoke through her nostrils, dragon-like, and turned toward me. She wore broad Ray-Ban sunglasses. I couldn’t tell if she was looking at me or if she was looking out over San Francisco Bay, a vista Alexandra may well have considered far more interesting.

“How are you?” she said.

“I had a busy day. Today I was in the neuro room…”

Her phone rang again, and she waved me off while taking the call. My heart sank anew. She listened for an extended time and then said, “I’ll be there at 5. No problem. Thanks.” She hung up and thrust her fist into the air. “Got a whale on the line,” she said. “There’s a couple from Taiwan who want to see the Jorgensen house tonight. Their agent drove them by the property this morning. They are very, very interested, and very, very wealthy. It’s an all-cash deal. A blank check.” She took a second long drag on her cigarette, and leaned toward me. At this angle, I could see my own reflection dwarfed in the lenses of her sunglasses. “This is big, Nico.”

“How much is the Jorgensen house listed for?”

“Just under 8 mill. That’s a quarter of a million dollar commission for yours truly.”

Her monomaniacal pursuit of money baffled me. Alexandra Regina Antone was one of America’s top real estate agents. Because of her explosive earning power, we lived in one of the nation’s most expensive residential neighborhoods, a zip code where Silicon Valley’s multimillionaire CEOs and venture capitalists lorded in their castles. The residential properties Alexandra bought and sold for her clients were in the $3 million to $10 million range, and she earned a 3% commission on each sale. She sold one or two houses each month, and her income for the past year topped $9 million.

Alexandra’s salary dwarfed mine. None of my medical peers lived in this kind of luxury. To Alexandra, another $240,000 commission was headline news. It wasn’t about the cash—this was about the glory of Alexandra and her talent. It was about the Queen of Palo Alto rising higher and higher on the pedestal she’d erected for herself.

“So, you were telling me about your day,” Alexandra said, as she stretched her arms toward the sky and stifled a yawn.

“I did a craniotomy with Judith Chang. One case. It took all day.”

She took a final drag on her Marlboro, shivered in disgust, and said, “Judith Chang is such a stiff. Always bragging about her robotic daughters. I don’t know how you can do that job, locked in a windowless room with her hour after hour.” Alexandra had zero interest in listening to medical stories. She changed the topic at once. “Did you hear about Johnny’s report card?”

“I did. He’s pretty upset. Johnny wishes his grades were better. I wish his grades were better. He said you yelled at him.”

“Johnny’s a slacker. God knows I tried to light a fire under him years ago, but you taught him how to watch ESPN instead of pushing academics.”

“He said you called him a lazy shit.”

“I did. He is a lazy shit.”

“He’s your son, for God’s sakes. Johnny loves you and looks up to you. How do you think he feels when his mother says that?”

“I don’t give a fuck how he feels. Johnny needs to hear it, and he needs to change. Clue in! You don’t seem to get it, either. You think he’s fine just the way he is. Well he isn’t, Nico. Johnny’s a spoiled brat, living in luxury on top of this hill. He has no incentive to work hard. He thinks he can live off my money forever.”

Alexandra was dogmatic about the pathway to success. She was an unabashed academic snob—a graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Business School—and she’d have tattooed her Ivy League diplomas across her cleavage if she hadn’t been too vain to disfigure her silicone orbs. I wasn’t going to fight with her—I never won.

I shifted gears. “Dr. Chang had an interesting take on Johnny’s grades. She said Johnny could get into any college he wanted to if we lived in South Dakota.” I explained how Dr. Chang’s nephew from Sioux Falls was accepted to Princeton.

Alexandra removed her hat, shook out her hair, and took off her sunglasses to reveal flashing brown eyes. “For a change, Judith Chang is right. Johnny’s chances for success are slim on his current path. He has no chance at the Ivy League coming out of Palo Alto with his B average.” She chewed on the earpiece of her Ray-Bans as she contemplated. “Why don’t we send him to Minnesota to live with Dominic?”

“You’re kidding,” I said. My Uncle Dominic had a home near the Canadian border, in Hibbing, Minnesota, where I graduated from high school. Hibbing was a great place if you wanted to hunt partridge or ice fish for walleye pike, but the tiny village was a subarctic outpost light-years removed from the opulence Johnny grew up with in California.

“I’m not kidding. Johnny needs a gimmick for college admissions, and he has none. Hibbing could be his ticket.”

“He can’t just move up there with Dominic. Johnny’s 17 years old. And Dominic moved to Arizona. His house is empty.”

“Then take a year off. Go up there with him. Get your ass out of that windowless tomb of an operating room and take your son back to your childhood home.”

I frowned. “What about you?”

“Are you kidding? I’m not going anywhere. My friends are here, my job is here. But you go right ahead, Nico.”

Now it was my turn to stare off at the blue expanse of San Francisco Bay. Move back to the Iron Range of Northern Minnesota, to the land of rusted-out Fords and beer-swilling Vikings fans? What had my marriage come to? Before Johnny was born, Alexandra and I used to sit in these same chairs and drink margaritas together. Naked dips in this same pool led to nights of laughter and hot sex. Our current sex life had declined to hall sex, when I murmured “fuck you” under my breath after Alexandra walked past me in the hallway on her way to the second bedroom where she slept alone.

Alexandra was unrelenting. “Don’t give Johnny an option. Tell him you’re taking him to Minnesota to turn his life around, get some A’s, and graduate number one in his class from Hibbing High School. Call Dominic tonight and make the arrangements. It’ll be the best decision you’ve ever made. Trust me.”

Trust me. Alexandra could sell bikinis to Eskimos. “You’re OK with your husband and son moving 2,000 miles away?” I said.

She wrapped her arms around herself in an absurd parody of self-love and said, “Of course I’ll miss you.” Then she laid back onto the chaise lounge, the top third of her breasts busting out of her swimsuit top. She knit her hands behind her head, pushed her cleavage out into the January sunshine, and grinned in silence.

I watched the spectacle of her arching self-absorption and winced. Move 2,000 miles away? I was 2,000 miles away from this woman already.

“Hey guys,” came a voice from behind us. Johnny was home from school. He walked onto the patio and stood between us. My mood improved at once. Our son was tall and muscular with perfect skin, dark wavy hair, and striking blue eyes. He wore his usual uniform of gym shorts and an oversized T-shirt. My love for Johnny was unlike any emotion I’d ever felt. Romantic love for a woman was a wonderful abyss—the subject matter of a million songs, books, movies, and television shows. I’d watched romantic love drift off into the ozone as years passed, but with my son I was in love forever. If Alexandra and I ever divorced, I’d carry on. If my son ever shut me out, I’d need electroshock therapy.