Recessional: A Novel (53 page)

“Is it true that you can work on any dental object only if it comes to you from a dentist licensed to practice in Florida?”

“Right.”

“And permission must come in the form of a written prescription?”

“Look at the things on that table,” and when Andy did, he saw that each denture had attached to it by rubber band a clearly written prescription from an authorized dentist.

“And if I tried to slip you a denture to have a fallen porcelain facing glued back on—?”

“I could lose my license.”

“What would it cost me if I could have you glue my facing back on?”

“Three dollars, and two would be my profit.”

“What would you say if I told you that one of our women residents at the Palms was charged three hundred and twenty-five dollars?”

The technician said nothing, just lowered his head. A statement like the one Andy had just made summarized so accurately the problems of medical care not only in Florida but also throughout the United States that he could only shake his head in disgust. The honest workmen like himself getting pennies for performing an honest task, while the fancy operators earned hundreds of thousands. It was unfair and embittering.

“Who was this robber?”

“No,” Zorn protested. “I didn’t come here to complain about individuals. The system is what infuriates me.”

“Velenius,” the nurse blurted out. “I sent her there.”

The young man shook his head sorrowfully: “He’s a good man. He gives me a lot of work,” and he waved his right arm toward a bench containing three or four Velenius prescriptions. “He’s really a fine dentist. He doesn’t need to play tricks like that. I’m astonished.”

When Zorn deposited Nora at the Palms, he impetuously decided to double back and confront Dr. Velenius to see if Ms. Oliphant’s bill could be adjusted. He drove north along a tree-lined road that led him to the pleasant village of Royal Glade, where he had no difficulty in finding the offices of Dr. Mark Velenius.

Since the dentist was busy with a patient, Andy occupied himself with magazines taken from a hand-carved rack containing at least
two dozen journals. He picked a
Scientific American
, which carried a technical account of recent developments in solving the Alzheimer’s mystery and he became so deeply engaged in details about Chromosomes 21, 19 and 14 that he did not hear when the nurse at the telephone said: “Dr. Velenius can see you now, Dr. Zorn.”

“Did you call my name?”

“Yes. The doctor’s waiting.”

Andy entered a spacious room containing three different dental machines and decorated with expensively framed prints of Monet, Renoir and Pissarro. A muted sound system was playing Chopin.

“I’m told you’re the able new manager out at the Palms, one of the best retirement operations in Florida.”

“I work at it. And we do try to make improvements.” He hesitated, looked at the three paintings and said: “I see you too try to keep up to speed.”

“Yes, if some of my patients find a visit to that chair unpleasant, the least I can do is make the other surroundings agreeable. Chopin, do you cotton to him?”

“Like you, I find piano music soothing and delightful.”

“Now, what can I do for you?”

Zorn hesitated a moment, then looked straight at Velenius and said: “Could we talk about the bill that one of our residents, Ms. Oliphant, received this morning?”

Dr. Velenius did not flinch: “Oliphant? Was she that elderly woman with the broken plate?”

Andy noticed that the dentist had established right at the start that Ms. Oliphant was elderly and therefore in a special group: “Yes, she is elderly but in no way confused or unable to make her own decisions.”

“Not at all! I remember her as well keyed in. Knew what she wanted.”

“Her plate was not broken, Dr. Velenius. A porcelain facing had fallen off.”

“We classify all accidents as breaks. Emergencies. Sometimes catastrophes.”

“I’ve asked around, and they tell me it costs about three dollars to replace a facing. One dollar for materials, two for time and knowing the proper materials.”

Velenius smiled, stood very straight and said: “I suppose you
could say that about almost any human endeavor. Cost of materials three cents, cost of the accumulated wisdom and skill, three hundred dollars.”

“But you charged her three hundred and twenty-five dollars.”

Velenius betrayed neither surprise nor alarm: “Not excessive for all I did.”

“For example?”

“Dr. Zorn. I understand that you do not actually practice medicine? That you’re not licensed in Florida? That you’re serving as managerial director at the Palms?”

“Accurate in each detail.”

“I should think that you might be hesitant about inquiring into the practices of those of us who are licensed to work in Florida. You might, upon reflection, reconsider, and judge yourself to be just a bit out of bounds.”

“Yes, I would if I presumed to criticize your dental skills or the medical work you did on one of my residents. But when an elderly woman, as you accurately describe her, is most grievously overcharged for a mere gluing on of a facing—”

“You’re forgetting the adjusting to make the new face fit accurately with the lower teeth, the careful checking of the overall bite, the probing to see if the gums are still firm, the half-dozen other things a careful dentist does.”

“You think it justified a three-hundred-and-twenty-five-dollar charge?”

Velenius rose and moved toward the door, where he waited stiffly: “Dr. Zorn, it ill behooves a man who practically lost his license in Chicago for near malpractice to come here to Florida and lecture real professionals who are performing their duties in proper fashion. This interview is ended.”

“Not quite. You preyed upon an elderly woman on the assumption that she would soon be gone anyway, and that you might as well grab her money as allow someone else to get it.”

Now Velenius flushed, and only with steely control did he refrain from punching Zorn. Velenius would never admit, even to himself, that he felt free to charge wealthy old people whatever he could get from them, but that was the way he practiced, and he knew it. To hear an upstart who had fled a shady reputation in Chicago—local medical circles had been gossiping about Zorn since New Year’s, when he arrived—was intolerable. So after practically throwing Zorn
out of his office, the young dentist dictated a long memorandum to his secretary regarding the unprofessional behavior of Dr. Andy Zorn of the Palms, a physician unlicensed in Florida, who had fled malpractice accusations in Illinois.

While Dr. Zorn was dealing with a multitude of managerial matters—the most critical being the threat posed by Hasslebrook, the burial of Buzz Bixby and a possible fallout after the quarrel with the dentist, he was also surrendering his authority to move Betsy Cawthorn out of the Palms. She refused to go, and her obstinacy was supported by Andy’s closest associates. Quietly, one by one, Miss Foxworth, Ken Krenek and Nora advised him against a decision he had announced without adequate study.

But the most surprising veto came from Betsy’s father, who wrote from Chattanooga:

Dear Andy
,

I was flabbergasted when Betsy told me over the phone that you had decided it was time for her to leave your place and come back to Chattanooga. This is dreadfully wrong advice and I hope you will not act upon it
.

You cannot appreciate Betsy’s condition when she was up here. I suspect she was actually close to death, either from wasting away or by her own hand. You and Yancey saved her, and just in time
.

Zembright and I judge she needs at least another year with you and Yancey. Her condition when I last saw her in your place was what it ought to be, and I fear that if she came back here without your support, she might wither. Please reconsider
.

Oliver Cawthorn

When Andy was forced to acknowledge that his order to send Betsy home could not be enforced, he faced a curious emotional dilemma. On the one hand he felt some irritation because she had outmaneuvered him. And this kept him from being generous in his relations with her, for he now saw her as aggressive, willful and devious, all of which, because of her deep attachment to him, she was.

On the other hand, when Yancey kept inviting him to join Betsy at tennis, he leaped enthusiastically at the suggestion, as if there were
perfect harmony between them. Dressed for the game in new twill shorts and a chic polo shirt bearing the logo of a famous French tennis star of decades back, he had to admit, when he looked at himself in a mirror, that he was quite presentable—perhaps even attractive.

Whenever he appeared on the court both Yanceys and Betsy greeted him with warmth, and as he stood beside Betsy every resident who passed the court stopped to give encouragement and voice their approval. “You make a handsome couple out there” was the most common remark, but others commented on how vastly improved Betsy was—“soon you’ll be able to drop the cane” was Mr. Mallory’s prediction.

It was Ella Yancey, however, who made the most telling remark, for sitting on the sidelines as the others rallied she said: “You really look like the perfect doubles pair.” Long after the tennis sessions were over, Zorn heard this echoing in his brain, adding to the cacophony of his conflicting thoughts about Betsy.

The only person at the Palms who was aware of the waiting game that Betsy was playing was Nurse Nora because of her motherly interest. Miss Foxworth saw Betsy as a renter of one of the expensive apartments. Ken Krenek saw her as a young woman who needed additional rehabilitation in Florida’s salubrious climate. The Yanceys saw her as a stubborn but courageous young person whose father was prepared to pay them additional funds to cater to her wishes.

But Nora, watching the two young people shadowboxing like fighters afraid to make significant moves in an important fight, grew impatient with what she properly called “their stupidity,” so she waited for an opportunity to make a move of her own. Finding Andy alone in his office one day, she went in, sat on the edge of his desk and asked boldly, “Wouldn’t it be good for our girl Betsy if you—”

“She’s not a girl, Nora. She’s a grown woman.”

“That makes my question even more appropriate. Wouldn’t it be a good thing to do to invite her to lunch and maybe a movie?”

“Not a bad idea to help her gain confidence. Why don’t you take the afternoon off and give her a whirl?”

“Andy! You don’t get it! Now that it’s clear she’s going to spend a while longer with us,
you
ought to take her out to show her there are no hard feelings.”

“Do you think so?”

“I don’t think it, I know it.
You
take the afternoon off.”

“I’m not so sure. Things haven’t been…well, totally comfortable between us recently.”

“But she is here, and she deserves decent treatment. Now, pick up the phone while I watch, and make the call.”

Fortunately Betsy was in her apartment. With some hesitancy Andy said: “Nora has just pointed out that I have no appointments this afternoon, and I wondered if you might be free to have lunch with me at some restaurant near here.”

Betsy, unsuccessfully trying to mask the joy with which she heard this invitation, said: “Doctor, that would be delightful, where?”

“I haven’t a clue—but I was thinking of someplace small where we could talk.”

She was careful about presenting him with options because she felt it was important that he make the decision: “There’s some great Chinese food in these parts, but they tell me Vietnamese is lighter and tastier. There’s a German restaurant that’s supposed to be first-class, but the food is too heavy if you want to play tennis later.” Then she said: “My bridge partners tell me that a small place, not pretentious at all, the Captain’s Table, has great seafood.”

“Let’s give it a try,” he said enthusiastically and they drove to a Tampa waterfront bistro. The walls of its three rather small rooms were adorned with deep-sea fishing gear such as oars and nets and pilot’s wheels, but the dominant features were the taxidermist’s treatment of swordfish, dolphins and, in the room Betsy had chosen, a huge shark with a monstrous jaw filled, it seemed, with two extra sets of lethal teeth.

They ordered the house noontime special, a bowl of Louisiana gumbo, a platter consisting of three kinds of broiled fish and a baked potato in its crisp jacket. Each table was decorated with bottles of condiments ranging from a blistering hot sauce prepared from peppers to a mild Worcestershire-style mix imported from England. It was a Lucullan feast.

“What’s this?” Andy asked the waitress about an unusual side dish and she said: “Dirty rice.”

“What’s in it besides this discolored rice?” and she explained: “Chicken giblets, maybe a touch of crab meat, maybe pieces of fish, and broth. It’s big in New Orleans.”

“Delicious.”

“And for dessert you get a piece of Key lime pie.”

As he polished off this extremely tasty lunch, Andy said: “If the German lunch is any heavier than this, God help the Krauts,” and Betsy replied with a twinkle in her eye: “You didn’t have to eat it all. Anyway, at your weight you can afford a big meal now and then, especially with all the tennis you’re playing.”

As she said this she noticed that because their banquette was rather narrow his right hand was close to hers on the table, so without being in any way aggressive or forward, she allowed her hand to rest near his, and as they leaned back to sip their coffee, their hands met and each felt an electric thrill. Looking straight ahead, Betsy used her free hand to trace tiny grooves in the wonderful oaken tabletop, decades old and scrubbed so often that the softer wood between the ridges had worn away, leaving an almost satiny surface. “This is quite beautiful,” she said, but her full attention was riveted on their hands.

As they started to leave the restaurant they saw on the wall near the cash register a poster from one of the Tampa movie theaters announcing a special showing of an Anthony Hopkins film, and she cried spontaneously and with no ulterior purpose: “I hear that’s a marvelous movie. He’s such a strong actor, always full of surprises.” Andy said quickly: “Let’s go,” and they drove to the movie.