“You are in the wrong field,” she told Debbie. “You should have been a reporter.”
Lourdes greeted her the next morning with two sentences. “They aren’t going to operate on Kevin. Doug’s in his office.”
Meredith stood in the lobby, still emanating cold from outside. “What do you mean? Is he going to be all right?”
Lourdes lowered her voice a tad. “He’s not going to be all right. They aren’t going to do surgery because he’d likely die or be retarded.”
“Did Doug tell you this?” Meredith asked incredulously.
“No, Debbie. She called from home this morning and told me. Doug just said ‘Hard to know yet’ when I asked.”
“Damn.” Meredith told her. “I think I’d like to turn back around and head home, because I don’t know what to say to Doug.”
Lourdes nodded knowingly. “When bad things happen to people, their friends, family, and co-workers disappear. Everyone is afraid to deal, but it makes the victims feel like they did something to cause the accident.”
“Oh no! Not at all,” Meredith rushed to say. “I just don’t know what to say to him, that’s all.”
“Don’t say anything. Just show support by being there.”
Meredith realized for the first time that Lourdes was as much an outsider in the office as she was. She could never go to lunch with the gang because then one of them would have to stay back to cover the phones. She needed someone to sit at her desk each time she went to the bathroom. When she called in sick, everyone else had to spend an hour at the front desk, doing her job. On the whole, she did a good job. She was friendly and accurate with messages. She handled stress well. But once every few months she would come to work late and disheveled, or call in sick for three days in a row. Bingeing, people would whisper knowingly to each other. There’d been a string of incompetents before Lourdes came along, people who had screaming matches with family members on the telephone, or got every message wrong. Lourdes was not perfect, but it would be hard to find a superlative worker willing to do her job. She’d been there almost two years now.
“Yeah, you’re right. Thanks.” Meredith told her.
“Don’t mention it.”
Instead of going to her office, she walked straight to Doug’s. He sat hunched over his desk, shaven but gray, with red circles under his eyes. I can do this, she told herself.
“Hi Doug,” Meredith said quietly. “How are you doing?”
He looked up and nodded. “Fine. As fine as can be expected.”
“How’s Kevin?”
“He’s fine. He’s...” Doug paused and stood abruptly. Then he sat on the edge of his desk and opened his arms in a wordless gesture of hopelessness. Meredith stood silently, wondering if he wanted her to leave him alone. He tried again. “He’s okay. It’s hard to say, really. The doctors...” his voice cracked and he broke off, and started to cry. “He’s not okay. Not at all. And the doctors have given up on him. They say that operating to deal with the brain swelling would likely kill him and definitely leave him with a mental disability. But to trust the medicine alone to help him is...” he broke off completely and gave in to sobs.
Like lightning, Meredith's first thought was to hug him. Her second was to shut the door. Her third was to leave it open so that no one got the wrong idea. Leaving it open, Meredith moved toward Doug and gave him a hug. He clung to her like a drowning man, for what seemed like an endless length of time. To stem the panic that was rising from holding this gasping, heaving man in her arms, Meredith went over an itinerary of her day. Then she thought about the coat she had on and the damage it would suffer from his tears and other bodily fluids. She knew that dry cleaning would be an easy solution. She was struck by the realization that Doug was only four years older than her. She resisted patting him on his back and waited for him to disengage. As soon as he did, she got a box of tissues from his bookcase and handed it to him. He blew his nose and sank back into the chair behind his desk. Shaking his head, he told her, “I’m sorry. God.”
Meredith smiled. “Don’t worry. You needed to let it out. I’m glad I was here.”
Doug looked up at her. “I’m just a wreck. I don’t know what I’m going to do. And Marcia, she’s worse off than I am. They had to give her a sedative when they told us what his prognosis was. We just...our whole world revolves around Kevin. He’s got to be okay, despite what the doctors say. He’s just got to.”
“Why don’t you leave here and spend some time with Marcia? She must need you.”
“Yeah. I will.” He turned away and looked at his desk. “I just need to organize some of this first.”
“Don’t stay too long,” Meredith told him. He was shuffling through papers and didn’t answer her as she left.
Doug didn’t leave the office until after one. In the interim, a steady stream of people paraded past her office to see Doug and give him their sympathy. Meredith was amazed by the apparent ease with which they faced him. She congratulated herself again on giving him a hug when he needed it.
Chapter Six
Sarah wanted to meet Ben.
“Let’s wait. It may never progress past the second date.”
“Well, where are you going on your next date? I’ll get a little table and just check him out. Maybe I’ll act surprised and come over to see you.”
“Please. You’re joking, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but I do want to meet him. In all the years I’ve known you, your first real date. I want to find out what kind of man Meredith Love has been holding out for.”
“He’s not my first date.”
“Oh yes he is.” Sarah was leaning against her kitchen counter. “Your face is all lit up. You’re glowing, Meredith.” She narrowed her eyes. “Have you had sex?”
Meredith flushed. “No.”
“Look at you. You’re blushing. Calm, cool Meredith has a crush on someone.” She smiled. “It’s great to see it. You’re turning into a sixteen-year-old. Turning pink when you say his name.”
“Bah.”
On their second date, a week after their first, Meredith and Ben took a four-hour cooking class at an Italian restaurant. The chef was a solid, short man with a shiny bald head. Ben and Meredith met at the restaurant on a Sunday morning at 11 a.m. Mostly, the chef cooked and the class watched, but assistants traveled among the small group, generously refilling wine glasses with wines selected for the dishes. As each course was finished, the group sat in the dining area and ate while the chef visited with the various tables. He told charming tales and advised on New Year’s Eve and Christmas dinner menus. By the time the dessert was served, tiramisu, Meredith was stuffed to the gills and completely drunk. Ben was fine.
They walked next door to a cafe and got some coffee. Then Ben asked her, “Have you ever taken the tram to the peak?” The tram was built by the Swiss and ran from the foothills to the crest of the Sandias. There was an overpriced restaurant on the top.
“Of course,” Meredith told him. She’d done it in her first year there and usually rode it down when she and Sarah hiked La Luz.
“I never have. Never had the time, or something. Anyway, I’ve wanted to. Do you feel like going? Now?”
The peak could be chilly in the summer. It was winter now, and not too far from sunset. Meredith pictured herself braced against the high winds, her teeth chattering uncontrollably. What the hell, I’m drunk anyway. “Okay.” She smiled.
The temperature was 19 degrees F. The tram operator told them that the wind-chill was below zero. The lights of the city were coming on. Meredith stood over Albuquerque shaking until Ben came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her. He nuzzled his face into her neck and said, “Mmm, you smell good.” Turning around, Meredith came face to face with his blue eyes. As he leaned in to kiss her, she smelled it.
“Your jacket smells like cigarette smoke,” she told him.
Ben unloosed her abruptly and took a step back. After reveling in their proximity, Meredith was taken aback by his
sudden movement away from her. She was trying to think of what she’d done wrong, when Ben asked, “Didn’t you know I smoke?”
“You mean you’re smokin’?” Meredith was trying to joke.
Ben was not in a mood to tease. “I know it’s filthy and disgusting.”
“No,” Meredith exclaimed, stepping toward him and closing the gap. “It’s not disgusting. It’s just unexpected. A doctor.” By the look on his face, she knew she’d said the wrong thing. She tried to cover it up by another joke. “I thought doctors weren’t allowed to smoke.”
Ben stepped back again and sat down on the ground. He seemed to have forgotten about the cold, Meredith noted. “I started when I was 12,” he began, and Meredith knew she was in for the long haul. She knelt down.
“Twelve? God, that’s really early and I want to hear all about it, but indoors where it’s warm.”
There was a commercial put out by some organization when Meredith was a teenager. Brooke Shields in all her beauty sat in front of a camera, describing a guy who had caught her eye from across the room at a party. He had the eyes, the physique, the smile. Then he lit a cigarette and for Brooke, all of his other good traits sizzled away.
Meredith sat with Ben at the overpriced restaurant on the peak, nursing a decaf coffee because they didn’t have herbal tea. She was waiting for Ben’s assets to sizzle. A smoker. The word brought to mind yellow fingernails, a hacking, rib-rattling cough. Cancer. None of these images fit the young man across from her with bright blue eyes ardently expressing his repulsion to his addiction. “I have given it up before. Before medical school. For two months.”
“So why did you start again?”
He shrugged, then confessed. “You’re going to think this is really stupid. They’re like a friend. I use them when I want to be alone. I look forward to times when I get to take one out and smoke it. They give me a chance to pull out of the crazy whirl of life and regroup.”
They sat in silence. Meredith was not insensitive to the fact that he had told her something very private and personal. Ben broke the silence. “If you want to break up with me, I understand.”
So their relationship was advanced enough for a break-up? That was a surprise to Meredith, who thought that at least a month had to go by before there was something to break. “No, I don’t want to stop seeing you,” she replied, unable to use his term herself. “We all have nasty habits.”
Ben tilted back in his chair and peered at her. “Oh yeah? What’s yours?” he leaned forward. “Do you smoke?” he asked, hopefully. She shook her head.
“Drugs?”
Meredith laughed. “No.”
“Drink?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact.”
He narrowed his eyes. “When was the last time you got raging drunk?”
“I’m drunk now.”
Ben was disgusted. “This is nothing. Tipsy, I’d call it.”
“Well, there were two times in college when I threw up from drinking. Once, in a cab.”
“Undergraduate?”
She nodded.
“Any heavy drinking in the last five years?”
Meredith shook her head.
Ben shook his. “Well, that’s just revolting. You have no bad habits.”
“It’s hard to figure out someone’s bad habits from two dates. Except, of course, when they’re the obvious ones.”
“So not only are you bad habit free, but you’re insulting my bad habit. That’s just grand.”
“I’ve got a bad habit!” Meredith argued, laughing in spite of herself.
“What is it?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Sure you can. Let’s hear it.”
“No.”
“Not fair!” Ben cried.
“It’s too embarrassing.”
“Meredith, I’m a Family Practice resident. There’s nothing you can say that I haven’t heard a hundred times.”
She shook her head.
“Not fair!” he cried again.
“Not on the second date.”
“When?”
“Later.”
“On our 25th wedding anniversary?”
His comment sent blood rushing to her cheeks. “Yes. When it’s too late for you to back out. You’ll be sagging all over and wrinkled up like a leathery prune from this climate. Then, even if my bad habit sends you into the arms of another woman, none will have you.”
“Oh, there’s always a woman who will take a doctor, even a dried up shriveled old smoker like me.”
Meredith frowned at this and Ben immediately jumped in with apologies. “Sorry. That was an asinine thing to say.” He frowned at himself and then took Meredith's hand across the table. “I don’t run,” he told her. “I like to see flaws in other people. It makes them more endearing.” He crinkled his eyes and Meredith felt her resolution weakening.
What a charmer, she thought. Better watch out for that.
“Right now, you’re perfect in my eyes. I feel like a clumsy oaf compared to you. I’d love to hear what it is that you’re afraid to tell me.” His thumb rubbed her wrist like a wishing stone. “I can take it.”
“Well,” Meredith looked around for nearby waiters. They were alone. “I fart a lot.”
Ben's mouth twisted violently to suppress a smile. “You fart a lot? That’s what you didn’t want to tell me?”
She nodded.
Ben got up and sat down next to her in the booth, threading his fingers through her hair. “I’m trying really hard not to laugh.”
“Just shut up.”
Ben put his face up to hers so that their noses were touching. “So virtuous,” he whispered. “It’s almost not real. And yet, here you are.”
“I’m not as virtuous as you think.”
“My Beano Girl.”
“Is that how you deal with a confidence? Making fun?”
“I’m sorry,” he told her. He sat back and got serious. “I’m blown away that you trusted me enough to tell me your vice. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Meredith said, feeling slightly resentful. She wasn’t sure how he’d managed to wrangle her secret out of her.
“You’re awesome,” he told her. She leaned in and hugged him. “Farts and all.”
“Thank you,” she said. “Now can we never speak of this conversation again?”
She stayed over that night at Ben's apartment. They made love in his bed, which was layered in flannel sheets and white down comforter. Ben smoked in the patio outside his bedroom door, leaving the door cracked so he could come inside and chat between puffs. She sat, wrapped in bed linens that smelled of laundry detergent, enjoying what she thought must be the type of situation that most women experienced all the time. She loved the disorganization of his home, half sophisticate and half college student. “This is it,” she told herself. “This is life.”
She woke feeling slightly ill from the memory of her revelation, like she’d gotten drunk and thrown up on Ben. Then Ben was leaning over her, all sleepy and smiling eyes, telling her good morning and kissing her.
After some discussion, they drove to work together, Meredith wearing yesterday’s clothes with one of Ben's sweaters hanging off her narrow shoulders. They made plans to have dinner that evening at Meredith's house, where Mendra was subsisting on a bowl of dry cat food.
“I’m on Anesthesiology,” he told her. “I’ll easily be out by five, probably earlier. I’ll just go down to the Residents’ Room and do paperwork. Come on down when you’re ready. Or page me. Remember the number?” In the doorway of her building, he leaned in to kiss her and she backed away.
“Not here,” she told him. “Everyone will see.”
He looked at her strangely, then shrugged. “Okay. See ya.” He took off, loping toward the hospital.
Doug was in his office again, looking like death warmed over. With effort, Meredith shifted herself into gear to deal with her boss’ grief. Since the crying jag in her arms, he’d been scrupulously “just fine” ar
ound her. Meredith worried that he’d sensed her own discomfort and was getting his support from more caring people at Family Practice. Resolutely, she stood and walked over to Doug's office. In just ten days, he was noticeably thinner. His skin was pale with dark welts under his eyes. He was showered and shaven, though. Pushing himself through the routines while his world crumbled away underneath him.
“How’s Kevin today?” She asked from the doorway. She was never sure if Doug wanted to talk about Kevin or not. In case it looked like she was prying, she stood ready to back out of his office.
“He’s doing okay. His eyelids flickered eleven times yesterday and once this morning.” He sighed. Meredith eased farther into his office and sat. “They’re pumping him full of fluids. It’s distorting him. Making him difficult to recognize.”
“That must be hard,” Meredith stated.
For an instant, Doug's face contorted into an ugly expression of grief, then he righted himself. “Everyone here has been so wonderful. The support has helped. When Kevin’s better I’m going to bring him by to tell everyone thank you.”
Meredith kept the sympathetic look on her face, but she was incredulous. Did Doug really think that Kevin was coming out of this? “Everyone would love to see him,” she said.
“He’s shy. He’s not going to want to come. But he will.” Doug finally looked relaxed. Meredith realized that talking about Kevin being well was all Doug had left. “He’ll be thrilled to come thank you. Did you know he has a terrific crush on you?”
“On me? No!”
“Oh yeah. He asked me if I thought you would marry him if he got a good education.”
Meredith started to laugh, releasing the mild hysteria that had been building up in her. Tears came to her eyes and she worried that if she started to cry she wouldn’t be able to stop. She put her hands behind her back and pinched herself to fight off the tears.
Doug was laughing too. “He’s always been a careful planner. He figures out what he wants, then does what he needs to do to get it.” His eyes clouded suddenly. “That’s what he’s doing now. He’s figuring it all out. Then he’ll gather together his resources and get well.” Meredith’s laughing abruptly seized. She nodded, hoping Doug was right.
Searching For Meredith Love Page 9
