Harvesting the Heart (17 page)

We
pulled off the Mass Pike and stopped at the corner of Dartmouth.
Copley Square danced around us, lit with the glitter and whirl of
Halloween. Beside the car stood Charlie Chaplin, a gypsy, and Raggedy
Andy. They held out their hands as we slowed, but Nicholas shook his
head. I wondered what they had expected and what others had given. A
sharp rap on my window surprised me. Standing inches away was a tall
man dressed in britches and a waistcoat, whose neck ended in a bloody
stump. He cradled the blushing oval of a face under his right arm.
"Pardon me," he said, and I think the face smiled, "I
seem to have lost my head." I was still staring at him, at his
plumed green cape, as Nicholas sped away.

Although
there were more than three hundred people in the Grand Ballroom of
the Copley Plaza Hotel, Nicholas stood out. He was among the
youngest, and he attracted attention for having come so far so fast.
People knew he was being groomed; that he was the only resident
Fogerty thought was good enough to do transplants. As we moved
through the double doors, at least seven people came forward to
talk to Nicholas. I gripped his arm until my fingers turned white.
"Don't leave me," I said, knowing well that Nicholas would
not make promises he couldn't keep.

I
heard words in a familiar foreign language: infectious endocarditis,
myocardial infarction, angioplasty. I watched Nicholas in his
element, and my fingers itched to draw him: tall, half in shadow,
steeped in his own confidence. But I had packed away my art supplies
when we moved, and I still did not know where they were. I had not
sketched in a year; I had been too busy working at Mercy in the
morning, at Dr. Thayer's office in the afternoon. I had tried to get
other jobs, in sales and management, but in Cambridge I was easily
beat out by people with a college education. I had nothing to my name
except Nicholas. I was riding on his coattails, which, ironically, I
had paid for.

"Paige!"
I turned to hear the very high voice of Arlene Goldman, a house
cardiologist's wife. After my last experience with Arlene, I had told
Nicholas that I physically could not sit through a dinner party at
their house, and so we'd declined invitations. But suddenly I was
glad to see her. She was someone to cling to, someone who knew me and
could justify my presence there. "So good to see you,"
Arlene lied, kissing the air on both sides of my cheeks. "And
there's Nicholas," she said, nodding in his general direction.

Arlene
Goldman was so thin she seemed transparent, with wide gray eyes and
sunny gold hair that came out of a bottle. She owned a personal
shopping service, and her biggest claim to fame was being sent by
Senator Edward Kennedy to choose his fiancee's engagement ring at
Shreve, Crump and Low. She wore a long peach-colored sheath that made
her look naked. "How are you, Arlene," I said quietly,
shifting from foot to foot.

"Ducky,"
she said, and she waved over some of the other wives I knew. I smiled
around at them and stepped back, listening to conconversations
about Wellesley reunions and six-figure book deals and the merits of
low-E glass for houses on the ocean.

The
wives of surgeons did it all. They were mothers and Nantucket
real estate agents and caterers and authors all at once. Of course
they had nannies and chefs and live-in maids, but they did not
acknowledge these people. They spent galas dropping names of
celebrities they'd worked with, places where they'd been,
spectacles they'd happened to see. They chained themselves in
diamonds and wore blush that threw off sparkles in the subtle light
of the chandeliers. They had nothing in common with me.

Nicholas
dipped his head into the circle of faces and asked if I was all
right; he was going to ask Fogerty about a patient. The other women
crowded around me. "Oh, Nick," they said, "it's been
too long." They put their cold arms around me. "We'll take
care of her, Nick," they said, leaving me to wonder when my
husband had decided it was all right to be called something
other than Nicholas.

We
danced to a swing orchestra, and then the doors were opened for the
banquet. As always, dinner was a learning experience. There were so
many things I still did not know. I didn't realize that there was
something called a fish knife. I didn't realize that you could eat
snails. I blew on my leek soup before I figured out it was being
served cold. I watched Nicholas move with the practiced ease of a
professional, and I wondered how I had ever stumbled into this
kind of life.

One
of the other doctors at the table turned to me during dinner. "I've
forgotten," he said. "What is it you do, again?"

I
stared down at my plate and waited for Nicholas to come to my rescue,
but he was speaking to someone else. We had discussed it, and I
wasn't supposed to let people know where I worked. It wasn't that he
was embarrassed, he'd assured me, but in the political scheme of
things, he had to present a certain image. Surgeons' wives were
supposed to present Rotary plaques, not blue-plate specials. I put on
the brightest smile that I could and affected the flip voice of the
other women. "Oh," I said, "I go around town breaking
hearts so my husband has something to do at work."

It
seemed like years before anyone said a word, and I could feel my
hands shaking under the fine linen tablecloth, sweat breaking out in
the hollow of my back. Then I heard laughter, like shattering
crystal. "Wherever did you find her, Prescott?"

Nicholas
turned from the conversation he'd been having. A lazy grin slipped
across his face to hide the line of his eyes. "Waiting tables,"
he said.

I
didn't move. Everyone at the table laughed and assumed Nicholas
was making a joke. But he'd done exactly what we weren't supposed
to do. I stared at him, but he was laughing too. I pictured the other
doctors' wives, driving home with their husbands, saying,
Well,
this explains a lot.
"Excuse
me," I said, pushing my chair from the table. My knees shook,
but I walked slowly to the bathroom.

There
were several people inside, but nobody I recognized. I slipped into a
stall and sat on the edge of the toilet. I balled up some tissue in
my palm, expecting tears, but they didn't come. I wondered what the
hell had convinced me to live at the end of someone else's life
rather than live my own, and then I realized I was going to throw up.

When
I finished I was hollow inside. I could hear the echo of blood
running through my veins. Women stared at me as I stepped out of the
stall, but nobody asked if I was all right. I rinsed my mouth with
water and then I stepped into the hallway, where Nicholas was
waiting. To his credit, he looked worried. "Take me home,"
I said. "Now."

We
did not speak during the ride, and when we reached the house I pushed
past him at the door and ran to the bathroom and got sick again. When
I looked up, Nicholas was standing in the doorway. "What did you
have to eat?" he said.

I
wiped my face on a towel. The back of my throat was raw and burning.
"This is the second time tonight," I told him, and those
were the last words I planned to say.

Nicholas
left me alone while I undressed. He'd draped his bow tie and
cummerbund over the footboard, and in the play of the moonlight
they seemed to shift like snakes. He sat on the edge of the bed.
"You're not mad, are you, Paige?"

I
slid between the covers and turned my back to him. "You know I
didn't mean anything by it," he said. He moved beside me and
held my shoulders. "You know that, don't you?"

I
straightened my back and crossed my arms. I would not speak, I told
myself. When I heard Nicholas's even breathing I let the tears come,
spilling across my face like hot mercury and burning their path to
the pillow.

I
got up as usual at 4:30
a.m.
and
made Nicholas coffee to take on the road, and I packed a light lunch,
as I did every day, because I knew he'd need it between his
operations. Just because my husband was being an asshole, I told
myself, was no reason for patients to suffer. He came downstairs with
two ties. "Which one?" he said, holding them to his throat.
I pushed past him and walked back upstairs. "Oh, for
Christ's sake, Paige," he muttered, and then I heard the door
slam behind him.

I
ran to the bathroom and threw up. This time I was so dizzy I had to
lie down, and I did, right on the fuzzy white bath mat. I fell
asleep, and when I woke I called in sick to Mercy. I would not have
gone to Dr. Thayer's, either, that afternoon, but I had a hunch. I
waited until she had a lull between patients, and then I left the
reception desk and stood beside her at the counter where we kept the
jars for urine samples, the Pap smear glass slides, and the
information sheets on breast self-examination. Dr. Thayer stared up
at me as if she already knew. "I need you to do me a favor,"
I said.

This
was not the way it was supposed to happen. Nicholas and I had
discussed it a million times: I would support us until Nicholas's
salary began to pay off the loans; then it was my turn. I was going
to go full time to art school, and then after I got my degree we
would start a family.

It
shouldn't have happened, because we were careful, but Dr. Thayer
shrugged and said nothing was completely effective. "Be happy,"
she told me. "At least you're married."

That
was what brought it all back. As I drove slowly through the traffic
in Cambridge, I wondered how I could have missed the signals: the
swollen breasts and spread nipples, the way I'd been so tired. After
all, I had been through this before. I hadn't been ready then, and in
spite of what Dr. Thayer said, I knew that I wasn't ready now.

The
realization sent a shiver through my body: I was never going to art
school. It would not be my turn for many years. It might never
actually happen.

I
had made my decision to attend art school after I had taken just one
formal art course, connected with the Chicago Art Institute. I was
only in ninth grade; I had won free tuition for a course through a
city-wide student art contest. Figure Drawing was the only class
offered after school hours, so I signed up. On the first night, the
teacher, a wiry man with purple glasses, made us go around the room
telling who we were and why we were there. I listened to the others
say they were taking the class for college credit or for updating a
portfolio. When it was my turn I said, "I'm Paige. I don't know
what I'm doing here."

The
model that night was a man, and he came in in a satin robe printed
with theater ticket stubs. He had a steel bar he used as a prop. When
the teacher nodded, he stepped onto a platform and shrugged off the
robe as if it didn't bother him in the least. He bent and twisted and
settled with his arms overhead, holding the bar like the Cross. He
was the first man I'd seen completely naked.

When
everyone began drawing, I sat still. I was certain I'd made a mistake
in taking this course. I could feel the model's eyes on me, and
that's when I touched the conte stick to the sketch pad. I looked
away, and I drew from the heart: the knotted shoulders, the stretched
chest, the flaccid penis. The teacher came over shortly before class
ended. "You've got something," he said to me, and I wanted
to believe him.

For
the night of the last class, I bought a piece of fine gray marbled
paper from an art supply store, hoping to draw something I'd want to
keep. The model was a girl no older than I, but her eyes were weary
and jaded. She was pregnant, and when she lay on her side, her belly
swelled into the curve of a frown. I drew her furiously, using white
conte for the shine of the studio lights on her hair and her
forearms. I did not stop during the ten-minute coffee break,
although the model got up to stretch and I had to draw from
memory. When I was finished, the teacher took my drawing around to
show the other students. He pointed out the quiet planes of her hips,
the slow roll of her heavy breasts, the spill of shadow between her
legs. The teacher brought the picture back to me and told me I should
think about art school. I rolled the drawing into a cylinder and
smiled shyly and left.