The Carlton Club (10 page)

Mark didn’t know. It was too hard to make decisions in the midst of a busy residency, he told himself. Maybe it would get better. That’s what everyone said. It gets better.

So far it hadn’t.

And it had already destroyed one marriage.

Mark looked at the engraved invitation to the dress rehearsal party and checked his pocket calendar. He couldn’t go. He was on call. That meant he would be off the next night, opening night. He could go to the opening night performance.

Mark looked at the tickets. Two tickets.

Kathleen, he thought, smiling. She was reminding him to take a date.

Even about that, his need to see other women, Kathleen had been right.

Without her, knowing that she expected him to see other women, Mark stopped resisting the advances that had begun the day his wedding band came off.

All he could compare it to was high school. That was the last time he had dated. In a way it was similar. Except the signals were stronger, clearer, more specific now. These women wanted to sleep with him.

Apparently none of them viewed him as marriage material. Kathleen’s firm knowledge that recently divorced men make terrible husbands but enthusiastic lovers was shared by the women who approached him.

They wanted to have fun. They wanted to show him all the things he had missed while he was married. They had no illusions about falling in love. The ones who did, the ones who had secretly admired Mark for two years and who knew what kind of man he was, stayed away. Maybe in a year. When he was emotionally ready to try again.

Mark fell into the game easily. It was so simple. The stakes weren’t high. No one got hurt, and it didn’t jeopardize his relationship with Kathleen; it strengthened it. When she returned, before she returned, he would quit. Without regret.

Until her return Mark would play the game. It was a welcome escape from the problems that plagued him, an interesting, exciting diversion when the pressures became too great and the questions too unanswerable.

Mark rarely dated anyone more than three times.

Except for Gail.

Gail had made bold clear advances toward him since the first day of his internship. She saw his eighteen-carat gold wedding band and didn’t care. Gail knew the turnover rate in physician marriages was about fifty percent, and she wasn’t even particular about the marital status.

As head nurse in the coronary care unit, Gail knew a lot about reading cardiograms, interpreting arrhythmias and administering cardiac medications. Gail had been doing it for ten years.

Two weeks after Kathleen left, Gail called to Mark from across the CCU nurses’ station. She held a cardiogram tracing and wore an unmistakable frown.

“Mark, can you come here a minute?”

“Sure, what’s up?”

“Look at this tracing. PVCs or APCs? I’m not sure.”

Mark looked at the tracing briefly—it only took a moment—then looked at her with surprise.

“APCs, Gail,” he said. He couldn’t believe Gail would have any trouble making that determination.

“That’s what I thought. Thanks.” Her eyes didn’t leave his. “How are you doing, Mark?”

“I’m OK.”

“Just OK?”

“Better every day.”

Gail moved close to him and touched the belt that held up his loose white pants.

“No one is feeding you,” she purred, her hand lingering.

“Gail!” he said, removing her hand, but not leaving as he might have done before. He was a little intrigued. He had lost weight since Kathleen left. More weight. And he hadn’t seen anyone.

“What?” she asked, eyes sparkling, feigning innocent surprise.

“What?”

“Why don’t you come over for dinner?”

In Gail’s bed later that night, before they made love for the second time, she said, “I knew they were APCs.”

“What?”

“I just wanted to get your attention.”

“Under false pretenses?”

“Any way. Besides, you wanted me to.”

He answered her with a kiss.

Yes, he thought, I probably did.

Mark decided he would go to the opening night performance by himself. It would be wrong to take anyone to see Janet’s show. It would spoil it for him.

Mark also decided that he should let Janet know he would be there.

They hadn’t spoken since early January when she called to tell him he could come to pick up his half of the carefully packed boxes of memories. Mark dialed their old number. It had been disconnected. A live operator provided him with the new number. It had a prefix Mark didn’t recognize. It was a toll call. Janet had moved out of the city.

“Janet. It’s Mark,” he said quietly when she answered.

“Hello.” Her voice sounded calm.

“How are you?”

“Fine. Good.”

“Where are you living?”

“North of the city along the coast. I’m renting a small cottage. It’s part of a large estate,” she said with enthusiasm. She loved her new home and its private acres.

“Sounds nice.”

“It is.”

“How is the show?”

“Great, I think,” her voice softened. “It’s been wonderful. I have learned so much.”

“Different from Lincoln High and Omaha Community?”

“In every way.”

“I’m planning to come to opening night,” his voice trailed off as if he intended to add, if that’s all right with you?

“Good. Kathleen got tickets. I haven’t seen her at all. I thought she might come to some rehearsals.”

“She’s away until July.”

“Oh.” Oh!

“I’m coming alone, but I have two tickets so you’ll spot me instantly. I’ll be sitting next to the only empty seat in the house.”

“I don’t think I can see the audience.”

“Not Lincoln High, is it?”

Janet always found him in the audience. Sometimes she watched him while she performed as if performing just for him.

“No,” she said idly, thinking. Then she said, “Are you really going alone?”

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you take Leslie? I really want her to see the show. I don’t know if she’ll go on her own.”

“I’d be happy to take her,” Mark said immediately. Leslie would not invade his privacy. She would be there for the same reason that he was. Because of Janet. For Janet.

“Why don’t you call her now? I know she’s home because we just spoke. I spent most of the time trying to convince her to go to opening night. I think she wants to.”

“I’ll call her. What’s her number?”

Janet gave it to him.

Before he hung up, Janet said quickly, as if she had to say it quickly or not at all, “Why don’t you and Leslie come backstage afterward? I’ll leave your names with the stage manager.”

At work, Mark and Leslie called each other, paged each other, spoke over the phone frequently:

“Mark, I’m in the ER. This man is a lot sicker than advertised. Can you come down?”

“Leslie, it’s time for you to go home. I have to be here all night. Give me the rest of your scut list and leave.”

“Mark, Mr. Simpson just died.”

“Leslie, the team is making cafeteria rounds in five minutes. Meet us there.”

At the hospital, any time day or night, Mark and Leslie talked on the phone. Effortlessly. At the hospital. But as Mark dialed Leslie’s home phone number he felt strange. He didn’t know a Leslie with a home phone number, a Leslie outside the hospital.

Leslie probably knew every detail of his failed marriage. She almost certainly knew about Janet’s meeting with Kathleen. Leslie knew Kathleen because she had taken care of Kathleen’s mother. There was little doubt that Leslie knew a great deal about Mark’s personal life, but she never mentioned it.

With this phone call, a call suggested by Janet because of tickets arranged by Kathleen, Mark was admitting that Leslie knew all about him.

“Hello?”

“Leslie. It’s Mark.” He never identified himself when he called her at work. She knew his voice. But now he almost said, It’s Mark Collinsworth.

“Hi.”

“I just talked to Janet, and we decided that you and I should go to the opening night performance and then meet her backstage afterward.” Mark stopped, a little out of breath. This was ridiculous! At work, he didn’t run out of breath when he gave her much longer orders—“Leslie, draw two blood cultures, three if you can, Gram stain the urine and sputum, hang a sed rate, get cardiology to see him stat, then, as soon as that’s cooking—before, if it starts to take too much time—let’s start him on naf and gent.”

“You have tickets?” Leslie had just called the theater. The show was sold out.

“Good ones. Kathleen’s away but she arranged for tickets,” he said. Why not just admit to everything? They both knew Leslie knew about the audition, Kathleen, everything. It was easier. It just felt strange.

“I’d like to go. It’s April thirtieth, isn’t it?” Only a week away.

“Right. And the next day I leave San Francisco General and return to University Hospital. As your resident on the heme-onc service I think.”

“Yes.”

“How’s the service?” he asked.

Leslie told him in great detail about Jean Watson. By the time they hung up, after a typical at work conversation, they were both surprised and a little disoriented to find themselves in their own apartments instead of in the hospital.

Mark and Leslie had dinner, a light pre-theater soup and sandwich at the restaurant designed precisely for such a meal,
Le Souçon
, located directly across from Union Square Theater on Geary.

“You look pretty dazzling,” Mark said finally, in a proud older brother tone.

Leslie wore a black dress with sheer sleeves, tapered waist and slightly flared skirt. It was looser than the last time she had worn it. Every part of her was thinner, thin. Except her breasts. They were still full and round and ample, a sharp contrast of softness against her boney ribcage.

Leslie had piled her chestnut curls on top of her head, secured, barely, with a large gold barrette. She accented her eyes with mascara and a suggestion of blue eye shadow and touched her full lips with soft pink lipstick.

So do you look dazzling, Leslie thought. Mark in a dark suit.

“Well, it’s a different look than all white with stethoscope bulges and iodine stains,” she murmured.

“You look very nice,” he repeated.

Over dinner, Leslie asked, “Are you excited about next year?”

“Next year?”

“Being an R-
3
! It should be much nicer.”

The R-
3
schedule was better. Consultant services, less night call, no scut work.

“Yes, it should be,” Mark said, distantly, then fell silent.

Leslie was taken aback. She had never seen this before, but she recognized it because Janet had described it so well.

“Sorry,” he said recovering quickly, recognizing what had happened. I’m trying, Kathleen, he thought. I’m learning.

“Mark,” Leslie began slowly. “If someone told you right now that you could never be a doctor in the United States—you know, some legislative decision banning all Marks from practicing—what would you do?”

Leslie watched his reaction and knew that Janet had been right all the time. Mark didn’t want to be a doctor. Just the hypothetical question, the thought of not practicing medicine, made him smile, transported him somewhere else, to a happier place.

“I’d go back to school. Get a graduate degree in English. Teach English. Write maybe.”

Mark’s answer came quickly, confidently. He had thought about it. He knew what he would do. He knew what he wanted to do.

“That’s what my father does. Both my parents actually.”

“Really?”

“Yes. My mother is a journalist. Always writing. My father is a professor of English at the University of Washington.” Leslie watched Mark’s face, then added seriously, carefully, “I know my father would accept you in a minute as a grad student in his department. I know he would.”

Mark started to say something then stopped. His expression changed and he shrugged.

“Just a pipe dream, Leslie. Maybe next life.”

“This is the only life you can count on having, Mark,” she said swiftly, surprising both of them by her urgency.

He smiled. A brotherly smile. A little sad. Then he asked, “What would you do? If no more Leslies could practice?”

“I don’t know,” she answered. It was a lie. Leslie knew exactly what she would do. She would pull up stakes and move to the nearest country that allowed Leslies to practice. No matter where it was.

But she couldn’t tell Mark that.

Oh Mark, she thought. Don’t do this to yourself! It’s hard enough if you want to be doing it. But if you don’t even
want
it. The thought of going through an internship and residency, knowing that you didn’t want to be a doctor, that your dreams lay somewhere else, made Leslie very sad.

Now she knew that what Janet had said was true. It had probably destroyed his marriage, and it was probably, slowly, insidiously, destroying him. He hated what he was doing, and he wouldn’t talk about it. He wouldn’t even admit it.

Mark was the best doctor Leslie knew. The best.

The words Janet hated. Mark hated what he was doing, but he was driven to continue and driven to be the best.

“
Hey,
Leslie! What are you thinking?”

“I was thinking about you,” she said honestly, looking into the dark eyes that made her tremble deep inside. “I was worrying about you.”

“Don’t worry about me,” he said. “Come on, it’s time to go to the theater.”

Leslie and Mark watched
Joanna
from the best seats in the theater. The seats had been handpicked by Kathleen who knew the acoustics, the lighting and the best view of the stage. Leslie didn’t look at Mark. She didn’t dare. She was afraid of the emotion she might see in his eyes—regret, pride, love, sadness—as he watched the magic and magnificence of Janet’s performance.

Janet was magnificent. The entire production was magnificent, obviously destined to be the stunning success Ross MacMillan knew
Joanna
could be.

Mark and Leslie stood in the foyer of the theater during intermission. They were surrounded by the excited, enthusiastic chatter of the delighted theater patrons, but Mark was silent, somber in the midst of gaiety.

“Is this too hard for you, Mark? We could leave,” Leslie said finally.

“The only hard part,” he said honestly, “is thinking about the four years that she didn’t perform, the years she gave it up because I needed to have her at home.”

“It’s where she wanted to be,” Leslie said. Unlike you, she thought, you’re not where you want to be.

“Except I wasn’t there. Not the way I should have been. I wasted four years of her life. I deprived her of doing what she loves.”

“I’m sure Janet doesn’t resent it,” Leslie knew that Janet didn’t resent it.

“I resent it for her,” Mark said. Then he stopped abruptly and frowned slightly.

Out of the corner of his eye, as the door to the theater personnel area opened and shut, Mark caught a fleeting glimpse of a woman who looked like Kathleen.

I’m ready for her to come back now, he thought, knowing they still had over two months left to go.

After the performance, after the standing ovations for Janet and then the entire company, Leslie and Mark went backstage.

They didn’t stay long; Janet was surrounded. They couldn’t get near her. Leslie waved, smiled and shrugged, indicating that it was impossible to traverse the crowded area. Mark smiled and held Janet’s gaze for a brief, awkward moment.

Janet returned the smile, then looked away. She was happy he had come, and she was relieved when she saw him leave.

She couldn’t see him, talk to him, without aching, and he couldn’t see her either.

Mark and Leslie drove to Leslie’s apartment in silence. Mark walked her to the door.

“Thanks, Mark,” she said.

“You’re welcome. See you at eight
A.M.
for rounds.”

Kathleen was in the theater, but she had no idea that Mark might have seen her. She had been in and out of town, pacing between Hawaii and Atherton, Bermuda and Atherton, New York and Atherton. She was restless about being away too long even though nothing would happen, and restless about being at home, waiting for the time to pass, not trusting herself not to call him.

Kathleen couldn’t miss the opening night performance of
Joanna
. Ever since Ross MacMillan, her good friend and sometimes lover, had invited her to be on the Board of Union Square Theater, Kathleen had devoted long energetic hours to it.

Two years ago, Ross and Kathleen hatched the idea of opening a “Broadway” musical on Geary. They worked hard, convincing the board, finding backers, reading script after script until they found
Joanna
and, then, finally, assembling the perfect company.

Joanna
was their baby.

Kathleen wasn’t going to miss opening night.