The Deep End (29 page)

The bell begins calling them back into the theater. Saved by the bell, Joanne thinks, knowing that she is past saving.

“I’ll call you,” Paul says quietly (so that his little Judy cannot hear?), leading the young blonde away without awkward introductions. Hasn’t he told little Judy how much he dislikes artificiality? Hasn’t he cautioned her about overapplying the blusher? Is it cream or powder? Joanne wonders, hoping it is cream.

“Are you all right?” Eve asks as the lobby slowly empties of people.

Joanne shakes her head.

“Do you want to leave?”

Joanne nods. If she tries to speak, she will break down. Stupid, stupid, stupid! she berates herself as Eve guides her outside into the night air.

“I never realized that Paul had such conventional tastes,” Eve says as they begin walking in the direction of the car, Eve’s arm through Joanne’s.

“She’s very pretty,” Joanne manages to squeak out.

“She’s very ordinary,” Eve corrects impatiently. “Wash her face, take away the blond hair and the big boobs, and what have you got? Actually,” Eve continues analytically, “you’ve got you, twenty years ago.”

Joanne stops walking, trying to digest what Eve has just said, deciding she can’t. “Was that an insult or a compliment?” she asks, genuinely puzzled by Eve’s comment.

Eve dismisses the question with a sudden burst of speed. “I’m just saying that you married an idiot.”

“I don’t think so,” Joanne tells her, stopping again.

“Will you quit stopping?! This is New York, for God’s sake. You can get mugged standing around on street corners arguing.”

“Paul is not an idiot,” Joanne repeats.

“Suit yourself. He’s your husband.”

“Yes, he is, and I feel funny having to defend him to you.”

“Then don’t,” Eve says simply. “I’m on your side, remember?”

“Are you?”

It is Eve’s turn to stop. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“We keep asking each other that lately.”

“So, what are you saying?”

Joanne resumes walking. “I’m not sure.”

“Look,” Eve tells her on the drive back to Long Island, “let’s not blow this thing out of proportion, okay? You saw your husband out with another woman. That’s bound to be a bit upsetting …”

“A
bit
upsetting?”

“Just don’t take it out on me,” Eve continues, ignoring the interruption. “It wasn’t my idea to go to the dumb play. You’re the one who insisted, who dragged me out of bed …”

“Eve, let’s please drop it.”

“I’m only trying to tell you not to let it get to you.”

“Why not?” Joanne demands, pulling the car over to the side of the road and slamming down on the brakes.
“Why shouldn’t I let it get to me? I love my husband. We’ll be married twenty years in October. I’m desperately hoping we’ll get back together. Why shouldn’t I go to pieces when I see him out with another woman? Why is everything that happens to me so damn inconsequential and everything that happens to you so earth-shatteringly important? Why is my pain somehow less valid than yours?”

“Joanne, let’s not get silly. Your life is not at stake.”

“Neither is yours!”

“Oh, really? You know that, do you?”

Joanne takes a deep breath. Somehow, she thinks, the conversation always reverts to Eve. “Yes,” Joanne says emphatically. “Yes, I do. Eve, how many doctors have you seen? Thirty? Forty?” Eve refuses to look at her. “You have seen every specialist in New York; you have had every test known to man. The only thing left for you to do is to check yourself into the Mayo Clinic and let them do all the tests over again. How many times do you need to be told that there is nothing wrong with you?”

“Don’t you dare tell me that there’s nothing wrong with me! I have pains all over my body!”

“That’s precisely the point. Nobody can pin any of your pains down. You have everything. Your ribs, your chest, your groin, your veins, your weight, your bowels, your skin, your hair, the mucus in your eyes and nose, your temperature, your eyes, your throat. Forgive me if I’ve left anything out. Eve, nobody falls apart over their entire body.” She stops, feeling Eve’s hatred emerging from her tightly clenched fists. “I’m not saying that something hasn’t happened to your system. You had a miscarriage, you lost a lot of blood. Your whole body rhythm has
been upset; there may be a chemical imbalance, I don’t know, I’m not a doctor …”

“You’re damn right …”

“But I do know that whatever has happened to your body is not fatal …”

“How do you know that?”

“All right, I don’t know it. Suppose it
is
fatal. Let’s suppose the worst. You have six months to live. What are you going to do about it?”

“What are you talking about? I don’t want to die!”

“Of course you don’t. And you’re not going to. All I’m trying to say is that if there
is
something fatally wrong with you, there’s not a whole lot that you can do about it except try to make the most of whatever time you have left. I don’t think that you’re going to die.
Nobody
thinks you’re going to die but you. Would it hurt so much to see a psychiatrist?”

“It would be a waste of time.”

“What else have you been doing with your time lately?”

“I am in
physical
pain!”

“Yes, but physical pain can have an emotional source. Nobody can tell the difference.”

“I can.”

“Then you’re the only person in the world with that ability.”

“Joanne, I am not the one who’s having a mental breakdown …”

“Nobody said that you were having a breakdown.”

“I’m not the one who’s imagining weird phone calls.”

Joanne takes several seconds to let this statement sink in. “I was wondering when you were going to get around to that,” she says, realizing this is true.

“I’m not the one whose husband left her after twenty years and feels she has to make up stories about a bunch of crazy phone calls to get attention.”

Joanne’s voice is quiet. “Is that really what you think I’ve been doing?”

Eve suddenly brings her hands to her face and bursts into tears. A second later, she flings her head back in an angry gasp, swallowing the cry, stuffing it back inside.

“Let it out,” Joanne urges softly, her own anger vanishing. “There’s so much rage in there, Eve. Let some of it out.”

Eve leans back against her seat. “Damn,” she mutters repeatedly. “Damn, damn, damn.” She looks at Joanne. “Why do you argue with me? You know I always go for the jugular.”

“You never have with me before.”

“You’ve never fought back before.”

“Maybe the phone calls
are
all in my mind,” Joanne admits after a long silence where neither friend looks at the other. “I really don’t know anymore. Tell you what,” she says, laughing despite herself, “I’ll see a psychiatrist if you’ll see one. We can even drive in together for our appointments. Make a night of it. Go to dinner and a movie. You might even get me to another horror movie. How does that sound?”

Eve does not laugh or even smile. “I don’t need a psychiatrist,” she says.

T
he phone is ringing.

“Dr. Gold’s office,” Joanne chirps into the receiver, smiling at a chunky young man who walks through the office door. “Be with you in a minute,” she whispers in his direction. “I’m sorry, Dr. Gold is all booked up for the next two months. The earliest appointment I can give you would be September twenty-first. Yes, I realize that doesn’t help you much now, but the best I can promise is to call you sooner if we have a cancellation. Yes, there are usually a few. Yes, I’ll try. In the meantime, I’ll put you down for the twenty-first of September at two-fifteen. May I have your name, please? Marsha Fisher? And your phone number? Yes, okay, I’ll call you sooner if anything comes up.” Joanne replaces the receiver and looks at the young man standing before her. He seems intimidated by the modest surroundings. “Can I help you?”

“I’m here to see Dr. Gold,” he mumbles, his chin against his chest. There is something familiar about his voice.

“Your name?” Joanne asks, feeling vaguely uneasy, glad that the room is full of people.

“Simon Loomis,” he tells her, and Joanne checks the appointment calendar.

At first she cannot find the name but then she locates it. “Your appointment isn’t until three o’clock,” she tells him, glancing at the wall clock behind her. “It’s not even two yet. You’re very early.”

“Nothing else to do,” he shrugs, his light brown hair falling into his deep-set eyes.

“Well, if you don’t mind waiting … there’s a restaurant downstairs if you feel like a cup of coffee.”

He lowers his small, tough frame into the room’s only empty chair which is located directly across from her desk. Joanne estimates his age at somewhere between eighteen and twenty-five and wonders why he doesn’t have a job, thinking that his attitude might have something to do with it. In his obvious uneasiness, he tends to make the people around him equally uneasy. At least, he seems to be having this effect on her. She begins sorting through the payments she has received in the afternoon mail, aware that the young man’s eyes are still on her. She looks up at him and smiles. The corners of his wide lips turn upward in a brief twitch. The rest of his unremarkable face remains impassive. “Have you been here before?” she asks, remembering that new patients are supposed to fill out a form. He shakes his head. “Here then.” She hands him the necessary paper. “It helps the doctor if you fill this out before he sees you.”

“What is it?” Simon Loomis moves warily toward her, his arm outstretched.

“Just some basic information we require. Childhood illnesses, any allergies to medications, things like that. Name, rank, serial number,” she adds, but he doesn’t laugh. “Here’s a pen.”

“Got my own,” he tells her, sitting back down, pulling a black ballpoint out of his shirt pocket. The young woman in the seat beside him lifts her elbow from the arm of her chair and places it in her lap.

Joanne returns to her work. The phone rings; she picks it up. “Dr. Gold’s office.” Again she feels the boy’s eyes on her. “Yes, Renee. When did that happen? Okay, let me check his appointment book. Okay, how about tomorrow at one o’clock? I’ll squeeze you in quickly and he can have a look. Okay, bye-bye.” Joanne looks back at Simon Loomis. He is still staring at her. “Do you need help with any of the questions?” she asks. He shakes his head. The pen remains unopened in his hand.

Ronald Gold comes out of his office followed by a young girl of fourteen with tears in her eyes, her face dotted with bits of cotton. “Sorry I hurt you, darling,” he is saying, a comforting arm around the girl’s shoulder. “You forgive me?” The girl smiles through her tears. “Give Andrea another appointment for six weeks from now. She’ll be fine, Mrs. Armstrong,” he says to the anxious woman who has risen out of her chair by the window and now stands protectively beside her daughter. “What can I tell you? Puberty! The pits! We all live through it.” He points to Joanne. “We went to school together,” he says. “Her skin was a mess, you wouldn’t have believed. In fact, she was my inspiration to get into this line of work. Now look how beautifully she turned out. That’s one reason I hired her. How you doing?” he asks, winking at Joanne.

“Renee Wheeler called. She has some sort of boil …”

“Yuchh, boils, I hate ’em,” Ronald Gold exclaims and young Andrea Armstrong bursts out laughing.

“I told her to come in tomorrow at around one.”

“Not to see me! I don’t want to see any yucky boils.” Now Andrea’s mother is also laughing. “You want to hear a joke?” the doctor asks, seeing the sullen boy across from Joanne and moving to include him in the select group. “A priest, a minister, and a rabbi are discussing when life begins, and the priest says that life begins at the moment of conception. The minister says, I beg your pardon, but life begins at the moment of birth, and the rabbi says, excuse me, but you’re both wrong. Life begins when the children leave home and the dog dies.” Joanne laughs out loud. “That’s the other reason I hired her,” Ronald Gold says quickly. “Who’s next?”

“Susan Dotson.”

“Susan Dotson, my favorite!” the doctor exclaims as a snarling, overweight teenager walks past him, eyes rolling. “She’s crazy about me,” Ronald Gold whispers and follows the girl into one of the small examination rooms off the main reception area as Andrea Armstrong and her mother depart.

“Is he always like that?” Simon Loomis asks, pushing his chair back against the wall so that its front legs are off the floor.

“Always,” Joanne answers as the phone rings again. “Dr. Gold’s office. Hi, Eve! How was the test? … Oh, God, that sounds awful. Did it make you gag? … What did the doctor say? … Again? Why? I mean, if he didn’t see anything the first time and it made you sick … I know, but why put yourself through it again especially if he doesn’t think it’s necessary? … Well, no, of course you have to do what you think is best. Okay, I’ll speak to you later. Try and get some rest. I’ll call you when I get home.” She hangs up the phone, feeling as helpless and depressed as
she always does lately when she speaks to Eve, and looks back at where Simon Loomis is sitting.

His chair is empty. Joanne takes a quick glance around the office. The boy is definitely gone. Maybe he decided he didn’t want to wait after all, she thinks, glad that he is gone, wondering whether he will return. She didn’t like the way he looked at her, and there was something about his voice that spooked her. She is being silly, she immediately chastises herself, trying to concentrate on the invoices in front of her.

It has been a quiet week, she reflects, idly rearranging the papers on her desk. Her brother, Warren, called Sunday to see how she was doing. Paul phoned that same afternoon for the identical reason. He was friendly and warm, making no mention of having seen her the previous night. He also said nothing about seeing her again before visitors’ day at camp. This morning she received three letters from Lulu. She has yet to hear anything from Robin, though Lulu reports that her sister seems to be having a good time. Perhaps Paul has received a letter; perhaps she could call him …

She puts her hand on the telephone, mentally rehearsing her opening lines—Hi, Paul, I thought you’d be interested to know we finally got some mail—about to lift the receiver when it rings. “Hello, Dr. Gold’s office,” she says quickly, listening to another request for an appointment. “I’m sorry, but Dr. Gold is fully booked for the next two months. The earliest appointment I could give you would be September twenty-first. Yes, okay then, thank you.” She replaces the receiver, deciding against phoning Paul, and tries, once again, to concentrate on the accounts in front of her. But now she sees Paul in the empty chair
before her, sees a young blonde lean over to whisper in his ear, hears Warren asking her, as he asked on Sunday, how long does this go on, Joanne?