Medicine Men (2 page)

Molly’s own relationship with Raleigh Sanderson was lopsided. Odd. On the one hand, she felt that she knew him well, through Felicia; certainly he was a strong presence in her life. On the other hand, she had almost no personal contact with him at all. Two years ago, when Paul was killed, there had been a
great sheaf of flowers, gladioli (Molly disliked gladioli, but never mind; it was the thought), and a card, engraved
Dr. Raleigh Sanderson.
And, handwritten, “I’m very sorry for your loss.” That was really very kind, Molly thought, and at that time it occurred to her that Felicia must have talked a lot about her too. “Poor Molly, she’s all broken up, she’s just not herself …”

Well, by now she was herself again, or nearly; since early spring she had been extremely uncomfortable with what she assumed were allergies, or sinus problems—new to her, and seeming not to go away. However, the best way to deal with physical symptoms was to ignore them, Molly thought, and so she had, pretty much.

Now, at the party, anxious to impress Sandy with her general well-being (no matter what Felicia had said), she turned to him, taking up his remark about Swan’s. “It is a great source, though,” she agreed. “And so much fun to go there and eat oysters.”

“If you still dare eat oysters at all.” He grinned at her. “And I do.”

There followed a brief, boring, but animated discussion of purveyors of fresh fish, with Molly and Sandy smiling and nodding most amiably at each other, as though in the process of notable discoveries.

Actually, Molly’s allergies, or sinuses, or whatever, had lately taken the form of an extreme heaviness inside her head, and a general, overall physical lassitude. Frequent very sharp headaches, to which she was not generally given. Occasionally she would mention these symptoms to a friend, or even in a social group, although usually she did not make such complaints; often someone else would have initiated the conversation with his or her own symptoms. In any case, the invariable response would come: “Oh, this is the worst pollen season ever. The drought. The rains. The plants.”

Dr. Macklin, her internist, had said more or less all this himself,
interspersed with an account of his projected fall trip down the coast of Maine to Boston; “I can’t stand missing a New England fall,” he said, as he said every year. He did add that his own allergies had been at their worst this year, and he prescribed an antibiotic that had helped his wife (an actress, a red-haired beauty), also allergic, but that so far had had no good effect on Molly. In fact, it seemed to her that she felt somewhat worse.

And tonight she felt even worse than usual; she wondered if she could be allergic to some flower or flowering shrub in Felicia’s overflowing garden. Or to garlic? or fish, or wine? Or could this be some neurotic response to the presence of so many doctors? Molly smiled at this, aware that even Dr. Shapiro would find it unlikely. Excusing herself from the table, she went back into the house and into Felicia’s downstairs bathroom, where she found some Advil among a jungle of prescription pills, which, as a decent friend, she did not examine—and lipsticks and mascara, which she did.

Returning, coming back outside to the table, Molly thought that she might just casually mention her malaise—introducing it as a topic, so to speak. Taking advantage of the presence of so many doctors. But of course she did nothing of the sort.

“…  for real climbing, I just don’t think you can beat the Tetons,” she heard from the dark, gravelly voice of Sandy Sanderson.

And then, somewhat testily aggressive, Dave Jacobs: “Mont Blanc, in my book, is absolutely tops. The views, and the food—”

Sandy: “Oh well, if you climb for food—”

“Of course I don’t, but it helps.”

Felicia’s lovely voice broke in. “Oh honestly, you guys. Whoever wants to climb all those mountains, anyway? I’d much rather go to the beach, and just lie there. But then I’m basically lazy.”

“The beach is hell on your skin,” Sandy told her, as he must
have before, and Molly thought, Oh God, doctors! How does Felicia stand it? I don’t care what a great stud he is.

Her cold, and at times Molly decided that it could be just that, a pesky, lingering summer cold—in any case, whatever it was—was also affecting her hearing a little, she thought. It was hard to follow the general conversation, which seemed to have turned to the plight of Cuba:

“…  end the embargo …”

“…  punish that Commie Castro …”

“…  more AIDS coming in …”

“…  all could drown …”

Having her own strong views, Molly still found herself at some remove from the talk. She was almost relieved when Sandy, seated next to her, observed, “That’s some cold you have.”

“Well yes, I guess it is. I’m taking an antibiotic. I can’t remember the name—”

“That’s what’s making you feel bad,” Felicia told her. “Antibiotics. They really drag you out.”

“Antibiotics do not make you sick,” Sandy insisted. “That’s just a myth.”

“I think it’s a myth that they don’t,” Felicia told him. “They make you feel terrible—you have to be sure to eat yogurt while you’re taking them, or some health food pills. Acidophilus. Of course doctors never tell you that.”

Across Molly’s mind at that moment flashed a news photo of Rwandans, fleeing, ravaged. Haitians. Hopeless millions. How could it matter what she was allergic to, including antibiotics? “I think we have to end the embargo on Cuba,” she said, more loudly than she had meant to.

“Of course we do. Those people are starving, that’s why they want to leave. We’ve got to end it, but will we?” Dave Jacobs had directed this toward Molly, agreeing with her. At which she was somewhat pleased; these were not attitudes that she would
expect from a successful, middle-class doctor. But still, his voice was so harsh, his teeth so large and aggressive. (And I am so hypercritical, Molly thought; it’s as though I resent other men for not being Paul. Being here instead of him.) She blew her nose hard into a Kleenex, and in the next instant realized that blood was running down her face, and onto her white silk shirt. Getting to her feet, she began to hurry toward the house, the bathroom.

She was followed by Felicia, who called to her, “I’ll bring you some ice.”

In Felicia’s warm, aromatic kitchen, which smelled of every possible spice, and fruit and coffee and sweets—having removed the stained shirt in the bathroom and put on the soft pink, too-large sweater that Felicia offered—Molly began to run cold water through the shirt.

She wiped at her nose: no more blood.

“Just leave it here to soak,” Felicia told her. “I’ll hang it up tomorrow.”

“Thanks. You know, I think I’ll just go on home now. I’ll be okay but I don’t really feel all that great.”

Molly’s small but rather grand apartment, with its views of the bay, and the bridge, and Marin, was just a couple of blocks up the hill from Felicia’s pretty little house—both being in the neighborhood called Cow Hollow, which is above the Marina and below Pacific Heights, and is where in earlier, simpler (pre-Earthquake) pastoral times, cows used to roam at large. Molly had moved into her place shortly after Paul’s death: she wanted not to stay where they had lived together, on Russian Hill—and she suddenly had all that funny money, the insurance. New freedom of choice. And the idea of being in walking distance of Felicia was nice.

“Oh sure,” Felicia was saying. “I’ll do good nights for you, and we’ll talk tomorrow. You sure you’ll be okay?”

But just then a loud voice announced, “I’ll take you home.”

Turning, Molly saw the strong white teeth, smooth bald
head, and the handsome, authoritative face of Dr. David Jacobs.

“No,” she told him. “Really. I just live up the hill a couple of blocks. I’ll walk. I’d rather, actually.”

She began to put out her hand, to say good night, but instead he took her arm and began to guide her toward the door. “You need a doctor,” he said.

He had spoken jokingly, but did he mean it? Were nose-bleeds a bad symptom, of something serious?

“Honestly,” she told him, “I’ll be perfectly okay.”

He gripped her arm more firmly. “You don’t know, you may need me.” He grinned.

There seemed no way to escape him without a minor scene, and Molly never made even those minor scenes. And so she did not now, only murmuring, “You could just drop me off and then come on back here.” And, to Felicia, “I certainly didn’t mean to break up your party.”

The two women lightly kissed, and Molly thanked Felicia for the party; they exchanged smiles that promised further talk.

Dave Jacobs had parked about two blocks from Felicia’s house (“No space,” he explained unnecessarily; parking in that neighborhood was terrible), making him farther still from Molly’s. She reflected that she could as easily and more quickly have walked in the time the short drive required for the fairly battered old Camaro he drove. Molly found it sympathetic; it seemed such an undoctorly car. But he apologized. “My wife’s car,” he said. “For some reason she really liked it, and I haven’t been able to get rid of it. A combination of sentiment and thrift, I guess.”

Moved by both the sentiment and the honesty, Molly at that moment liked him a little better.

In the car he asked her, “Do you have many nosebleeds?”

“Oh no, not really.” Actually she had had several in the past few months.

“Come on, how many?”

“Oh, maybe two or three.”

“And how long have you had that cold?”

“Oh, it seems like all spring. I think it must be an allergy or something.”

“Could be. You should see a good ENT man, no point putting up with that kind of discomfort.”

“This is where I live,” Molly told him. “You can just let me off here. Really.”

Propitiously (or perhaps not) there was a parking space just in front of Molly’s building, into which he slid the car, then came around for her before she could let herself out.

“And now,” he said, with a flash of all those teeth, “you can ask me in and give me a brandy. Return for all that good medical advice.”

“I’m not even sure I have any brandy,” she murmured, though she did know: Paul had liked a good brandy after dinner, and the bottle of cognac had come along with everything else when she moved—although she remembered a fleeting temptation just to throw it out.

She was tempted now to throw David Jacobs out, so to speak—to tell him that she was tired, he would have to go. Southern training as usual prevailed, however, and moments later they were seated across from each other in her living room, he with a brandy and Molly with a glass of orange juice.

“I suppose you’re strong on vitamin C,” he remarked aggressively.

“Actually I am. And of course you’re not,” she said as she thought, Is this a quarrel?
already?

“Well, I don’t think it can hurt you much.” The grin. “And God knows Pauling was a brilliant fellow.” He looked around, dismissing Linus Pauling, and vitamins. “Great place you have here. I’m really impressed.”

Molly started to explain, as she sometimes did: I had all this insurance money, Paul bought it almost as a joke to help his younger brother, I’ve never lived in such a fancy place. But she stopped herself, and only said, “Thanks, I like it here.” She
added, “I just bought it a couple of years ago when my husband died.”

“That was really smart.” He stared at her with faintly too much interest. “I should have done that,” he said. “I thought of it. Moved out when Martha died, I mean. But I didn’t, and there I am with all that stuff. Reminding me.”

Molly heard such genuine feeling in his voice that she was moved: he had truly loved his wife, and he missed her. And she probably was fairly young to die, these days, Molly thought. She put Dave’s age as late fifties, early sixties. But then, Paul had been barely forty. She asked Dave, “Where do you live?”

“Mill Valley. Down in the woods. I’m used to the darkness, but when I see views like these, I wonder.”

Molly suddenly, uncontrollably began to sneeze. She sneezed once, twice, three times, four. She couldn’t stop. At the same time, she tried to smile and to signal with her free hand that she was all right. And then she stopped.

He asked, “You do that often?”

She lied, “No. I must be sort of tired.” The truth was, she was very tired indeed. Standing up, she said to him, “I’m sorry, but I think I have to go to bed now. But thanks for driving me home.”

He quickly got up too. “Maybe we could have dinner sometime.” An awkward smile; he was probably unused to asking women to dinner.

“That would be nice.” She spoke without enthusiasm, she knew, but she smiled as though she had meant it.

“And watch that cold,” he cautioned on the way out, once more in control. “Call me if you need the name of a good ENT man.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

Since he had always laid nurses, Dr. Raleigh Sanderson felt that laying nurses did not count; it did not constitute infidelity to Felicia, his official (and unofficial) lady. And “lay” is the word that he would have used for his encounters with nurses. “Fuck” in his mind was a dirty word; making love was what he and Felicia did—although sometimes they fucked, dirtily, on a sweaty afternoon. What Raleigh used to do with Connie, his wife, he thought of as simply that, as “doing it.” But he laid nurses; Sandy did not think of himself as “getting laid,” even though more often than not these days it was he who lay down, allowing the bouncy nurse to bring him to climax with her hands or her mouth, or both. He much disliked the vulgar, graphic expressions for these activities. Even “oral sex” was too explicit for Sandy.

Like so many people, Sandy was convinced that his sexual drives were exceptionally strong. As proof of such strength, he cited (to himself; he was not given to even semi-public boasting) the extreme and compelling arousal that he often experienced at the end of a successful operation, and almost all his operations were successful; his record was world-renowned. His skill was indeed quite fantastic; sometimes Sandy himself was amazed at
what went on beneath his hands, the incredible speed and precision with which his fingers moved, all racing toward the instant at which he knew: This heart is all right now, I’ve repaired (or replaced) the valve, I’ve saved it. Of course he could not know absolutely for days or weeks, even months, that the heart was really functioning on its own. Still, there was always the moment when, within his own heart, he
knew
, and he lived for that moment, that peak. Further recovery on the part of the patient was anticlimactic, and basically uninteresting to Sandy. It was boring to have to keep seeing those patients again and again, listening to their parade of minor symptoms, their major gratitude. But the operations themselves—they thrilled him still. No other word for it, he was thrilled. It was thrilling work that he did.