My Soul to Keep (15 page)

“I don’t think that would be a good idea. At all.”

“It’s weird that we look so much alike. Do you think that’s why he’s doing this? Did you make him mad or something?”

“Well, yeah, I did make him mad.” A slight understatement, but she was better off not knowing the whole story. “I don’t think that’s why he’s picking on you. I think he’s picking on you because he’s sick, and men who are sick like he is tend to stick to one physical type.”

She sipped her coffee and stared at the parking lot as a motorcycle buzzed by. “Didn’t someone marry, like, Ted Bundy?”

“I think so, yeah. After he was convicted.”

“But before he was executed, I take it.”

“I don’t think they got much of a honeymoon.”

“Yeah, and like Eva Braun?” she said, her face animating. “Didn’t she marry Hitler and then kill herself, like, ten minutes later?”

“Wouldn’t you have shot yourself too?”

“I thought it was poison.”

“I think that was the Goebbels. They poisoned their children with cyanide. All six of them. Can you imagine?”

“Weirdos.”

I laughed. I liked Molly Larken. I mentally put John Mulvaney on my skin-him-alive-next-time-I-see-him list. “So what are you going to do?”

“Move. Disappear. I’ve already changed my phone number and e-mail address.”

“I’m sorry. It’s not fair that you have to do that.”

“Hey, it’s a free country.”

“As long as you’re in jail.”

“Makes you proud to be an American, doesn’t it?”

She stood up and tossed her empty cup into the garbage, then tucked the twisted piece of paper into her pocket.

She dug around in her bag, pulled out a business card, and turned it over to write something on the back. She handed me the card and shook my hand.

“It was nice to meet you, Dr. Foster. You’re pretty cool for a professor. Maybe I’ll take one of your classes.”

I groaned. “Don’t take my class. You’ll just be bored. But I would like to see your art sometime.”

“I’m not working on anything now, but I’ve got some stuff in storage you might like.” She pointed at the card. “My new e-mail’s on the back. You already have my phone number.”

“Right.”

She turned to walk away.

“Good luck,” I said. “Keep in touch.”

She looked back and waved. Then she was gone.

I bought myself another iced tea and sat down to make phone calls. I called my father who, lucky for me, was in surgery. I talked to his office manager, Janet, who chided me for being so hard to reach.

Janet has a knack for scolding me and yet still managing to sound perky and nurturing. My father would have been sued out of the medical
profession years ago, I’m convinced, if it weren’t for her. The patients love Janet. My father they tolerate because he’s so good. He’s got a perfect surgeon’s personality—works too hard, has no hobbies, no social life, unbelievably rigid personal habits. You can count on a guy like that to show up on time and concentrate on what he’s doing. You’ll never catch him making careless mistakes or bantering with the anesthesiologist.

I checked my voice mail at the office and was relieved to hear that Harold had returned my call. I called him back and caught him in his office.

“Helene tells me you’re in a bit of a snit about your review.”

“I don’t know if I’d say
snit. Pickle
, maybe.
Frenzy
, surely.
Snit
sounds so … snippy.”

“Snit, snip. It’s all the same to me.”

“It’s more like a panic, truthfully. I mean, I know it’s months away, and I’m pretty confident going into it …”

“ ‘Pretty confident’ don’t feed the bulldog, Dr. Foster. Let’s aim a little higher, shall we?”

“Well, that’s why I called,” I said sarcastically.

“
Now
you sound snippy.”

“Snippy, snitty, what difference does it make? My career’s flapping in the wind, and you’re commenting on my temperament?”

“Your temperament could use some improvement. And the wind—why, the wind will soon die down, and when you look around, you will see how far it has carried you. Why don’t we get together Thursday? I’ll take you to lunch.”

“When and where?”

“You’re one of those sushi people, aren’t you? Maybe that new place over on—”

“Inwood? I love that place. Twelve thirty?”

“Perfect.”

“What should I bring?”

“Just a pen and paper, your brilliant mind, and a reasonably good attitude.”

“It’s a stretch, that third one.”

“It’s what we all love about you, my dear. See you then.”

I dialed Liz. “Any developments?”

“We’re about to take Christine in for her first round of tests.”

“What kind of tests?”

“Some chest x-ray thing. I don’t know.”

“They didn’t explain it to you?”

“They did, but I heard from Tony DeStefano in the middle of it and had to step out. Andy and the boys are fine.”

I felt the breath leave my lungs. “What happened?”

“It was what I thought. They landed safely but couldn’t get through because of the weather.”

“They’re okay, though, right?”

“They’re fine. They’re playing soccer and eating tamales.”

“Earl strikes again. Did you talk to them?”

“Andy and the boys were sleeping when he called. Tony said to tell you his wife was making spaghetti. He said you’d be jealous.”

“Jenny’s spaghetti is sublime. I think it’s his mom’s recipe. Like, from Italy—one generation removed. I practically pass out every time I have it, it’s so good.”

“They’re in good hands, then.”

“Very good hands. How’s Christine?”

“Scared.”

“Will it be invasive? There’s no, like, dye or anything?”

“I don’t think so. Besides, she already has the IV. They should be able to use that, right? She’s just so little …”

“What time does she go?”

“They’re on their way up.”

I looked at my watch. I could beat the traffic if I left now. “Be there in ten.”

I threw out the rest of my iced tea and stood to go just as the Chanel chick stepped out onto the sidewalk. She was a magazine ad—perfect makeup, heavy but tasteful jewelry, Chanel head to toe. Just the right shade of coral painted onto her sneer. She even had the pose down.
One foot delicately pointed forward, ankles crossed, as she reached into her quilted bag for her cigarette case.

The one flaw in her otherwise exquisitely crafted image was that she had this huge, cartoonish helmet of stiff, fake-blond, beauty-pageant hair. I was positive that if I stood downwind, I’d be smothered in Chanel No. 5 and Final Net fumes.

She looked me up and down with barely concealed disgust. As her eyes followed me to the truck, I felt my hostility rise up, take over my brain, and tackle what few weak instincts of proper social conduct I possess. It’s an old reflex, one I’m not proud of, certainly. But honestly, I couldn’t help myself.

I yanked open the door to my truck and slid onto the hot vinyl seat. As the engine coughed to life, I slammed the door, backed out of my space, and cranked down my window.

I waved gaily to her. “Love the hair!” I shouted. “Hope you win!”

As her jaw dropped and her face flushed to a lovely shade of magenta, I drove away sporting my first genuine smile in days.

Sometimes you have to create your own victories.

I
T’S TEN MINUTES FROM
Starbucks to Children’s Medical Center. But if you have bad traffic luck, which of course I do, the drive stretches quickly into an obstacle course of orange-and-white-striped barricades and stalled vehicles. You end up waiting in long, snaky lines of steaming SUVs with their hoods up and with steaming drivers inside them talking on cell phones.

The congestion today was even worse than usual—worse than I’d ever seen it, in fact. The epic traffic was surely part of some well-deserved reprimand from Jesus, but I didn’t mind, honestly. Even in Dallas traffic in high afternoon sun with Stone Age air conditioning. Forty-five minutes after I three-point-landed my beauty-pageant joke, I pulled into the parking garage at Children’s, sweating like a barn animal but still crowing with guilty satisfaction.

I had just missed Liz and Christine, so I had to track them down in radiology. Children’s Medical Center is part of the Parkland system—a sprawling hive of buildings with byzantine signage and a maze of multicolored stripes painted on hallway floors. The stripes are supposed to serve as directional indicators but instead meld into a Daedalean mess that eventually leads you all the way to nowhere.

Three nurses’ stations, two missed turns, and one wrong elevator later, I was standing in the radiology hallway, just outside the reception window, trying to con the guard-dog nurse into letting me in. His name was Patrick, and he was wearing pink scrubs and black eyeliner.

“Name of patient?”

“Christine Zocci.”

“Social?”

I decided to try to charm him. “Yes.”

He narrowed one eye at me.

“I mean, I guess she’s pretty social. Why?”

A level of disdain I did not realize was humanly possible clouded his already dark expression. Someone should introduce him to the Chanel beauty contestant. They could share makeup.

He glared. “Security number. Social Security number.”

I stubbornly maintained eye contact. He did have lovely green eyes—Irish eyes, set off by freckled skin and a shock of black hair, which had been waxed into a sharp center peak. He didn’t need the liner at all, really.

“Oh. Well, I don’t know her Social. I mean, I’m just the aunt.”

“Aunt?”

“Yes. You know—like related to her parents? She’s my …” I couldn’t think. Cousin?

“Niece.”

“Right. That’s it. My niece.” I have become quite an accomplished liar in recent years—an unexpected benefit of the Peter Terry debacle. I’m not proud of it, mind you, but it does come in handy occasionally. I was off my game today, though. No rhythm. Rhythm is everything in lying.

He pursed his lips and looked me up and down, then picked up the phone, punched a button, and waited a second, all the while keeping a sharp eye on me. I straightened my shoulders, copied Chanel’s beauty-pageant stance, and shot him a big Miss Texas smile.

He turned his back to me and murmured something into the phone, then replaced the receiver and raised one eyebrow at me.

“They’re expecting a friend, not an aunt.”

“That’s me. I’m the friend.”

“A male friend.”

I felt a surge of alarm. Was David on his way? I still hadn’t gotten a pedicure!

“Did they give you a name?”

“I believe his name is Dylan Foster.”

“That’s me! I’m Dylan Foster.”

He crossed his arms. “
Doctor
Dylan Foster.”

“I
am
Doctor Dylan Foster.”

The other eyebrow went up. “Really, now?”

“Yes, really now.”

“Do you have your hospital ID with you,
Doctor
Foster?” He emphasized the
doctor
with palpable disdain.

“Um, no. I mean … I don’t work at this hospital.”

A raised eyebrow.

“It’s just that, well, I’m not that kind of doctor.”

“A veterinarian, perhaps? Or maybe you just play one on TV?”

I resisted the urge to sock him in the stomach. “Psychologist. I’m the family’s psychologist.”

“I thought you said you were the child’s aunt.”

“Well … that too. I’m the aunt, the psychologist, and the friend. I multitask.”

“So … the man part?”

I wanted to point out that he was the one with the gender confusion, not me, but it seemed unwise.

“Maybe it was just an assumption the nurse made?” I suggested. “I mean, it happens to me all the time.”

He looked me over. “Really now?”

“On paper. It happens on paper. Gender-neutral name.”

He sighed and held out his hand. “ID?”

I handed him my driver’s license and a copy of my American Psychological Association membership card, hoping he wouldn’t notice that both were expired.

He sniffed and handed them back to me, walked wordlessly away from his desk, and opened the door between the hallway and the sacrosanct area into which unauthorized personnel like me were not allowed to pass.

On the other side of the door was a waiting room occupied by a few sick children and their exhausted parents. I scanned the room but didn’t see Christine or Liz. Patrick strode past the wilted families and tapped on the glass between the waiting room and the nurses’ station.
The frosted pane slipped open an inch, and my escort whispered for a moment to the person behind the window.

The window slid shut, and someone opened the door into the radiology unit. I waved a thank-you to Patrick, but he’d already turned on his heel and left, a vague sense of contempt wafting out behind him.

I followed the radiology tech (purple scrubs, orange hair, black roots, no eyeliner) into the holy of holies—a warren of curtained booths where patients changed into gowns and waited to be called for their procedures. I could hear Christine wailing as soon as I stepped into the hallway. I followed the sound and pushed back the curtain.

Liz was holding her and rocking in a fruitless attempt to settle her down. Christine was having none of it. She kept trying to push her way off Liz’s lap, fighting with all the kick she’d shown the paramedics that first night at my house. Poor guy was probably still limping.