“Then you didn’t get it?” Michael blurted. It was the question he’d been trying to ask since Thomas’ phone call. Wayne and Thomas had been together for almost seven years and it seemed inconceivable that Thomas wasn’t testing positive.
Thomas was looking at the frothing sea and didn’t answer.
Michael grabbed his sleeve. “Tell me you didn’t get it!”
Thomas turned slowly and the look in his eyes gave Michael his answer. It was Michael who turned away this time. “I’m so sorry,” he muttered.
“I’m responding to treatment,” Thomas said calmly. A long, silent minute passed between them. “I can’t worry about myself now. Wayne needs me.” He kicked some sand. “Wayne doesn’t know about me and he doesn’t need to know.”
“I’m not so sure…” Michael started.
“No. He doesn’t need guilt thrown in with all the other miseries. No one deserves to die feeling guilty. It’s my call and I say no.”
Michael forced a smile. “When you get to Ashland I want you to see my doctor friend. He runs a hospice care home where Wayne can get some group support. Dr. Ives…Donald. Wonderful, caring man…and he’s gay.” Michael pushed a slip of paper into Thomas’ pocket. “Promise me.”
Thomas nodded. “Thanks.” His head was turned down the beach toward Wayne, who was now slumping in the big wooden chair. The two men hurried down to him.
“Hey, guys,” Wayne said, glassy-eyed. “I keep lookin’ out there at all them pink an’ orange clouds an’ the ocean with that gold, silvery thing on it, tryin’ to see something beautiful. But it ain’t. It’s ugly. It’s just an ugly, stupid piece o’ shit. I guess I shoulda looked harder years ago, because now it’s too late and I can’t see it.” He paused. “I just need a reason, guys, you know? A little, teeny, tiny reason. Is that too goddamned much to ask?”
Day 12
Tuesday
Austin, Texas
The Gyttings-Lindstrom campus was intentionally designed to overwhelm. On approach, visitors were funneled between massive granite structures, Research and Development on the right and Production to the left, connected by a third-floor mezzanine above. This framed the administration building’s 60-foot-tall, tinted glass façade squarely in the backdrop, a stately image, more opulent than the capitols of many small countries.
It was here in this airy courtyard that the company called an 8:30 am news conference, early for newspeople who often worked late into the evenings. Because of this, only about two-dozen reporters, cameramen and print photographers attended. A manageable number.
Gyttings began exactly at 8:30 by introducing himself; then, stepping aside, introduced Dr. Vrynos as the head of the independent MRI research team contracted to investigate the cause of the Manzanita accident.
Gill stepped to the podium clutching the coffee-stained napkin upon which Sara had scribbled notes during breakfast. She’d made five essential points, numbered and circled and circled again:
1. Use as few words as possible.
2. Be THE folksy, nerdy, science brainiac whose honesty and intelligence are beyond reproach.
3. Yeah, your consultant fee is coming from Gyttings-Lindstrom, but the research will remain unimpeachably, incorruptibly independent of any influence from the company.
4. Present your credentials for this assignment without implicating yourself as having any foreknowledge of the potential for an accident such as this.
5. Get the hell off stage as fast as you can.
“Is that all?” Gill had said, shrugging sarcastically. “Nothing else you want me to cover? I mean we still have five minutes ‘till I have to explain this to the American people…maybe I could prepare a little something on ribonucleic acid degradation …”
“You can handle it,” Sara had said, her eyes laughing. You nerd!
“I suppose. Except for number four. It’s like a riddle: I’m an expert in this field because I saw it happen before…but don’t get the idea I could – or should - have predicted that it would happen again.”
Sara pondered this a moment. “Good point. Then let’s skip any mention of Deverson. Just generalize about your college career…emphasize your exposure to early MRI development…”
“Great,” Gill said. “How ‘bout you do it.”
“C’mon, Gill. We’ve been over this. There can be only one chief – one head of research – and that’s you! That’s what you do, for god’s sake. I’m just a salesman.”
“Awful, awful, good one…”
In the end they decided Gill would go onstage wearing a tiny wireless earpiece, through which Sara, in an office nearby watching on a TV monitor, might give him prompts.
As Gill headed to the podium, Sara whispered: “Whatever you do, don’t look down.” He immediately glanced down and stumbled, knocking his glasses slightly askew.
“Perfect,” Sara purred.
Gill tapped on each of the six microphones on the podium, causing a squeal of feedback. “These things on?” he said.
“Okay, I’m Dr. Gilbert Vrynos, Ph.D. Columbia, Anatomical Mapping.”
“Nerd it up, Gill,” Sara cooed into her microphone.
“What? Okay, I’ve begun assembling a research team of highly qualified scientists and technicians who have extensive experience working with prototypical imaging hardware and software.”
“Better,” Sara giggled.
“This is essentially a one-off deal. I’ve insisted that neither I nor anyone on my team has had, nor intends to have any professional affiliation with Gyttings-Lindstrom.” He adjusted his glasses, then leaned on both elbows over the microphones, looking slightly awkward.
“Good body language,” Sara observed.
“Make no mistake about our independence and freedom to let the facts speak for themselves. This is what we scientists do.” He gave one, sharp nod of his head. “Questions?”
“No questions, Gill! They already have everything they need in the press packet.”
Gill shrugged and pointed to a reporter in the audience. “Yes?”
“Do you have any theories about what happened to Constance McCormack?”
“Too early.” Gill pointed at another reporter.
“How badly is your company being hit by a downturn in MRI usage?”
“Not my company. Can’t answer business questions. The lady in front?”
“Why Eugene, Oregon?”
“State of the art facility. Test beds in place. We can start immediately. Gentleman in the back?”
“Won’t your experiments be dangerous?”
“Not really. Remember, in Manzanita a woman vanished and the technician was injured, but they weren’t prepared for any danger. We, however, know to take precautions. If there’s anything remotely dangerous about conducting these experiments, I’ll cancel the whole damn thing and go public; you can take my word on it! Yeah, you in the front row.”
“Would you, as a patient, go into one of these machines?”
Gill frowned. They want folksy, eh? He stabbed his finger at the air and said: “Tell you what. Give us a week to hash this out. If you need an MRI…and there are many instances where MRI is the best – sometimes only – appropriate imaging technology…well, if you must have one, don’t worry, been doing thousands a day for a two decades now without a hitch. It’s probably safe. But if it’s not pressing…”
This elicited a general groan from the G-L executives behind the podium.
“If it’s not pressing, then wait for our results. You’re doctor will tell you when it’s safe. If there’s one thing in this world you can count on, it’s that your doctor…” Gill stabbed his finger out toward the audience… “will cover his ass!”
Suddenly Chalmais burst into the office, swearing so fast it was hard to distinguish the words. “Sara, goddamnit, get him off! He’s blowing it!”
“Relax,” Sara advised calmly, pointing at the TV screen. “ Look at him…he’s the Will Rogers of medical technologies. Even your boss is smiling.”
After the way he handled the press, Sara felt confident Gill could navigate around Gyttings and his staff. She was, however, not so confident Gill could handle Marcy, who expected him home the following day for an important banquet at the Revella in downtown Fresno. Marcy was the squeaky wheel. She had the power to cut his Achilles’ tendon, to tripwire this deal in full stride. Marcy knew how to exploit Gill’s inherent indecisiveness, his weakness, the reason Sara had walked out on him back at Davis, back when she was just a sophomore.
“You’re not going to have a problem with the little woman, are you?” Sara asked bluntly from the back seat of the big black Mercedes.
“I don’t…know,” he said slowly as he negotiated the congested I-35 to 111 interchange.
Sara leaned forward, got right next to his ear, and said: “You just told 25 reporters you were going to lead this team. Do you expect me to believe you’re balking, that you might just go back to that meatpacking slaughterhouse dump and forget the whole damn thing?” She leaned back, pretending to be disgusted with him. “We agreed: No whining!”
“I don’t know,” he repeated thoughtfully, intentionally trying to sound whiney.
“What more could you possibly want? They’re paying you $35,000 a week…you’re getting face recognition on national television. You’ll never have to set foot on that hamburger ranch again.” She laced her fingers behind her neck and settled into the soft leather, smiling inwardly. “I did tell you it was going to be like this, didn’t I.” It wasn’t a question.
“I guess I just…miss…being with you,” he said, fumbling badly for a good way to say what he was feeling.
Her first instinct was to pretend she hadn’t heard it. With less than 20 minutes to catch her plane, she certainly didn’t need this kind of distraction. But her mind involuntarily flashed back to the last afternoon they’d spent together, to the afternoon sunlight angling into the room, the sound of his breath, blissfully asleep, the faint smell of their commingled sweat. She would never have played the intimacy card unsolicited, but now that he’d put it on the table she could not ignore the strategic importance of creating some distance between Gill and Marcy. How to do it, though, without sounding like an unscrupulous, opportunistic…
“I wish you weren’t leaving.” Gill interrupted, letting her off the hook. “This is your baby. Me, I’m just making it up as I go.”
“And you’re doing a super job.” She slipped a manila folder between the seatbacks. “But just in case you feel you need more help, I’ve written out an agenda, a list of all the things that need to happen, along with a few suggestions...”
“Kinda thick,” Gill complained.
“This is no time to skimp on thoroughness,” she quipped. “Which leads me to ask…what are you going to do about your family?”
Gill laughed. “I was already making my plans the minute Gyttings agreed to our terms. Don’t worry about me. You’re the one with the challenge ahead.
You’ve got to get us those lab notes.”
She climbed out of the Mercedes at passenger loading, came around to the driver’s door, opened it and knelt beside him. They locked eyes. She slipped her hand behind his neck and kissed him on the mouth. It was an innocent enough kiss, but she could tell how deeply and broadly it traveled through him. “See you soon,” she whispered. Perfect
Sara landed in Sacramento after dark, rented a red Mustang convertible and tromped the accelerator out across the width of the San Joaquin Valley. She reached the little town of Sommers at 9 p.m., checked into a Victorian-ish bed and breakfast called the Crane’s Song which caught her eye because of a wooden sign out front chiseled into the shape of a crane, swinging gently on two chains above the portico.
As Sara undressed for bed she thought about the sweet old woman she’d known for almost two decades. Blind. Haunted by fantasies of her husband’s ghost. Committed to a mental hospital for her own protection. Or at least that’s the story Sara got from Veronica Deverson, whom she’d telephoned a week ago.
“I’d like to go out and see…” Sara had asked.
“That won’t be possible,” Veronica had interrupted.
“I’m going to be in the ar…”
“I’m sorry!” She’d snapped and Sara let it go. I don’t need your damn permission.
The four poster bed squeaked noisily as she squirmed to get comfortable. “Stupid,” she chastised herself for not having retrieved the notes years ago. She should have stayed in touch with Adel, tried to help her. Adel’s daughters had sent her off to that place, Westend Sanitarium, a virtual prisoner. But what could I have possibly done about it? Adel’s children wielded all the legal authority.
And what if one of Deverson’s daughters had found the notes, moved them somewhere, burned them? Her contract with Gyttings-Lindstrom was dependent on delivering that data. She toyed with the idea of faking it. Too complicated…not possible.
Pale shadows played on the wall opposite her headboard; the moon dancing with leaves and branches in a light breeze. “I should have at least tried to make contact,” she sighed. Three years since the professor’s funeral. “Adel, I’ve just been so busy…Shortly after Mark’s funeral, I changed jobs. You understand. I moved to Boston. It was a hectic, frenetic time.” Hectic…frenetic…hectic…frenetic…
The services were held at the Covell Funeral Home up on Eighth Street, outdoors, 80 chairs arranged in a fan shape culminating at the coffin, which remained closed and of course empty.
The winter sky shone a bright bluish-white, clear, pale, the air crisp at about 45 Degrees. Balmy compared to Boston - where Sara had been just seven hours earlier. The faint scent of something burning drifted through the cemetery. Not woodsmoke, a slightly different smell. Somewhere, many miles upwind, a farmer was burning off his fields. She smiled at the familiarity of it.
Sara paused behind the last row, scanning, counting heads. Only thirty, mostly students and ex-students, the department day janitor, the head groundskeeper, three or four faculty colleagues. A sad turnout, but no surprise.
Dr. Markland Deverson had always been a quirky, eccentric man. A stereotypical absent-minded professor. And a bad dresser. Always the double-pocket, short-sleeve shirts, the same cornball tweed jacket with the goofy elbow patches, the baggy, dark, pleated pants. A walking cliché. Once, Sara recalled, Deverson had been so preoccupied with an experiment that he’d gone an entire day without tying his shoes. He never much fit in, tended to shun university functions. An outsider. But he was occasionally brilliant, published often, a damn good biochem teacher, so the administrators tolerated him.
But perhaps more curious than the professor’s life was his death – rather the presumption of his death - exactly seven years ago to the day. The coffin, a simple, dark-stained pine box with black hardware, lay empty save a few personal effects the widow Adel had placed inside. There were no remains to bury because nothing remained of Mark Deverson. No one had ever seen the man after the fire that destroyed his laboratory. Police forensics teams had sifted through the charred rubble for a full week, never finding conclusive proof the old professor had actually been inside at the time of the fire.
Some said the 66-year-old professor ran off with a lab assistant named Rebecca, a woman 24 years his junior. He’d simply bailed out of his life, wife and a mountain of debt. But the people who knew him didn’t buy it. Maybe Deverson could have left his wife, but never his work. Not willingly.
Then she saw him, as she knew she would. It had been six years since she’d moved out of Gill’s little student apartment up on A Street. After that they’d been cordial, but not friendly.
She watched as he worked through the short line past Deverson’s three daughters, all in black, veiled. Michelle was handing out the announcements, ‘In Loving Memory of…’ printed in gold. The years had been good to him, Sara thought. A tall man, but as always, slightly hunched-over, his posture a result of bending over lab tables. A handsome man, still slender, with a prominent, Roman nose, subtl
e hints of premature gray peppered into his coarse black sideburns.
“Gilbert Vrynos,” she called out loudly, waving an arm, neglecting the solemnity of the occasion.
Gill turned to the familiar voice. She wore a dark wool pantsuit, expensive, very business-like, too loose-fitting to tell what lay beneath. Was she still the slim, athletic girl he’d last seen more than a decade ago? So much had changed since then. She was 35 now, he knew without counting.
She wore her brownish-blond hair short with an outward curve at her jawline, framing her sculptured face, the narrow chin, small, slightly asymmetrical nose. She had three dimples when she smiled her wide, genuine smile, the left corner of her mouth curling up. Sometimes she bit her lip when she smiled, but not now. God how he loved to just look at her. Just look at her!
They embraced and held on an extra moment, he, clinging to the concave between her shoulder blades, her smallish breasts pressed warmly into him.
They did the small talk. You look great. So do you. You’re not wearing contacts. I got the Lasik. Over the years they’d e-mailed from time-to-time and did not need much catching up. He in Ohio, she in Massachusetts. She did not ask about his wife and babies, nor did he mention them. She sat down, grabbed his arm and playfully yanked him into the adjacent chair. “See the three old-timers front left? Regents of the UC.”
“Really? You know them?”
“Kind of. And recognize that guy? The stocky guy with the red curly hair?”
Gill nodded. “Wilson Galtrup, the kid who took Deverson’s grad assistantship after you bailed.
“Right. He’s hot shit now, assistant director of High Magnetic Field Research at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.”
“Really!” Gill was genuinely impressed. “They have the world’s most powerful Spectrometer up there. An unheard of 400 Tesla.” He was just a frosh when I left Davis. Barely knew him.”
“He was Deverson’s last grad assistant,” she continued, “went on to get a doctorate from Cal Tech, I think. He says he went to Davis because of Deverson.”
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