The Doctor's Wife (17 page)

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Authors: Elizabeth Brundage

BOOK: The Doctor's Wife
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“Well, good. Glad to hear it. I happened to read something of yours the other day. I was at my therapist’s.”
 
 
“Really?”
A therapist, huh?
 
 
“He’s a very erudite fellow.”
 
 
“Your therapist?”
 
 
“
Massage
therapist, actually—very erudite indeed. He’s got
Playboy
and the
Christian Science Monitor
cohabitating on the table—I couldn’t live without the man. Anyway, I started flipping through a journal of some sort and saw your name.”
 
 
The journal was an esoteric little magazine published by a couple of aging hippies in Colorado. They’d printed an article she’d written on late-term abortion. “You mean you weren’t reading
Playboy
? I’m impressed.”
 
 
He smiled at her. “Truth is, I’d already seen that particular issue. Never seen so many fake tits in my life. Disappointing, actually, but then perfect women bore me.”
 
 
He had succeeded in completely flustering her. She stood there and said nothing and waited for him to go on.
 
 
“Anyway, I read the entire article, which for me is quite a feat. I’m not much of a reader—I don’t ever finish anything, truthfully, I have the attention span of a mosquito—but, really, I was quite enthralled, even though, as I said, I know nothing about medical ethics and the issue, for me, is somewhat”—he paused—“difficult.” He glanced at her again. “The abortion stuff. I’m not”—he coughed—“really sure how I feel about it.” He smiled meekly. “But you. I can see you’re somebody with strong feelings.”
 
 
“Well, yes, about certain things it’s true, I have strong feelings.” She paused for a moment. “I have strong feelings about magazines like
Playboy,
for example.”
 
 
He looked at her carefully. “You’re very interesting, aren’t you, Annie Knowles?”
 
 
“I don’t know what gave you that impression.” She smiled. “You’re the one with the interesting life, Mr. Haas.”
 
 
His face flushed crimson. “You of all people shouldn’t believe what you read in the papers.”
 
 
“It’s all true, I presume?”
 
 
“You know those journalists, they love to make up stories. But that’s your department, isn’t it?”
 
 
“It always helps to have a couple of interesting characters. You know, people with passion and substance.” She smiled at him and his eyes danced around her face.
 
 
“What do you say we have a race, a little friendly competition among colleagues?”
 
 
“A race? You’re kidding?”
 
 
“Just for fun.”
 
 
“Okay.” Racing Simon Haas was the
last
thing she felt like doing, but she didn’t want to seem like a poor sport. It was important that he liked her, that they became friends. “All right, what stroke?”
 
 
“Freestyle, up and back.” He slid down into the water and pulled on his goggles. Even though he was wet, she could smell his aftershave, a murky sandalwood. “Hey, Claudia,” he called out to the lifeguard, “come over here a minute.”
 
 
Claudia took her time walking over, giving them the opportunity to scrutinize her incredible body. Annie had overheard two of the male professors talking about her in less than professional terms. “Pool’s closed in three minutes, Professor Haas,” the girl said. “Team practice.”
 
 
“We’ll only be a minute. Come over here, we need a referee.” He grabbed her ankles with authority, making the girl stand near the edge of the pool. If it had been her, Annie would have been annoyed, but Claudia seemed unruffled.
 
 
“Okay, okay, get ready,” Claudia said, yawning.
 
 
Simon smiled at Annie. “Go ahead, Claudia, put your lips together and blow.”
 
 
Claudia tugged on her whistle awkwardly. “On your mark.”
 
 
Simon turned, his mouth wet and serious. Annie tried to concentrate, but her head was jumbled now with girlish thoughts, and then the whistle blew, and she was already behind. She hadn’t raced anyone since college, and it came to her that she didn’t miss it. Even in college she’d hated it. It had been her father who’d insisted she stay with it, and she had because she was that kind of daughter, she did what her father told her.
 
 
Simon’s feet slipped out of sight and she knew she had already lost. She turned, shot back after him, but it was too late. She suddenly felt enervated, flailing through the water like a blind whale.
 
 
“You weren’t concentrating,” he said when she’d reached the wall.
 
 
It took her a moment to catch her breath. She looked at his face, unable to mold hers into an amiable expression. “I’ve never been very competitive,” she told him.
 
 
“You’re feverishly competitive, Ms. Knowles.” He smiled, moving closer. “You could have won, we both know that.” He climbed out of the pool. “See you around, Professor.”
 
 
He walked across the tiles, slapping five with Claudia before entering the men’s locker room. Annie shivered in the water. Maybe he was right: maybe she hadn’t been concentrating, maybe she’d psyched herself out. Even worse, maybe she hadn’t wanted to win. If she had won, she thought perversely, it might have turned him off.
 
 
Disgusted with herself, she swam five furious laps, ignoring Claudia’s obnoxious whistle, then got out, apologizing profusely.
 
 
“Hey, Professor Knowles,” Claudia said with a knowing smirk. “Better luck next time.”
 
 
The locker room was crowded now with the girls from the crew team changing into their suits. They moved swiftly in their borrowed spaces, their manufactured cubicles of privacy, trying not to look at one another but looking just the same, always turning away with some mock gesture of humility. Annie walked to the showers naked, trying not to feel self-conscious. It was hard not to feel exposed under the harsh fluorescent lights, and every time she passed a mirror all she saw were flaws. Compared to the girls in the locker room she looked old. Frustrated with herself, she dressed quickly and hurried out to the parking lot. It had begun to rain. She spotted Simon Haas across the lot, closing the trunk of a vintage black Porsche. He nodded to her, his face ruddy with good health. She smiled and waved, then hurried into her wagon and started the engine, tuning in NPR. A moment later he was knocking on her window.
 
 
“I’m sorry to bother you again.”
 
 
“You’re not bothering me.”
 
 
“Do you think you could give me a jump?”
 
 
“What a thrilling proposition.” She smiled a little wickedly. “Unfortunately, my husband keeps the cables in his car.”
 
 
“You wouldn’t know what to do with a pair of jumper cables, would you?”
 
 
“I’m very resourceful under pressure.”
 
 
“I’ll bet you are.” He squinted around the parking lot, looking for somebody else.
 
 
“I could drive you home if you want.”
 
 
“I don’t want to put you out. I’m out on Crooked Lake.”
 
 
“It’s no trouble.” She gave him a reassuring smile. “Get in.”
 
 
She shoved a stack of library books off the passenger seat and onto the floor, into the ever-present pile of trash: old napkins, fast-food receptacles, gum wrappers, Popsicle sticks, wrecked and twisted toys. “I’m sorry about this mess,” she said.
It’s only my life.
 
 
“Oh, I’m used to a good pile of shit. I feel right at home, actually.” He grinned, climbing in and making himself comfortable. His boots, she noticed, were untied, caked with mud, reminding her of Henry. The children’s schedule rushed through her head: Christina would be meeting them at the bus; Henry had his violin lesson at five o’clock with Mrs. Keller, his saturnine teacher, who came to the house.
 
 
“That’s quite a car you drive,” she said.
 
 
“It’s a hell of a car.”
 
 
“What’s wrong with it?”
 
 
“A rather sensitive disposition,” he said. “Moody is a better word. Very pretty but not very practical. Most pretty things aren’t, as it turns out. I take it you’re of the practical sort, hence the Volvo?”
 
 
“You mean very practical but not very pretty?”
 
 
“No, that’s not what I mean.”
 
 
“It’s true, actually.”
 
 
“I mean the car. You drive safe. You’re a careful person.”
 
 
She smiled. “Boring, isn’t it?”
 
 
“There are worse dilemmas.”
 
 
“It happened when I had kids,” she told him, biting into an apple.
 
 
“Like this bolt of lightning and suddenly I’m my mother.” She backed out of her spot onto the driveway and drove down to the main road. The rain fell hard on the windshield and she switched her wipers on.
 
 
“At least you’re not wearing galoshes like my mother. Remember those? Galoshes,” he repeated. “What a delicious word.”
 
 
“You’re thinking
goulash.
Maybe you’re hungry.”
 
 
“I’m always hungry.” He smiled at her. “But not for goulash.”
 
 
“Does your wife make you goulash?”
 
 
“No, my wife does not make me goulash. She makes substantial wholesome meals for people I don’t know. Things like roast pork and sweet potatoes.”
 
 
“People you don’t know?”
 
 
“She’s active in her church.”
 
 
“That’s nice.”
 
 
“She’s incredibly devout, my wife. Her father was religious. Catholic. Very intense. I thought she’d grow out of it, but it’s gotten worse. Much worse. She’s gotten involved with one of those New Age churches out in High Meadow. You know, they all sit around grooving about Jesus.”
 
 
“People don’t generally grow out of their devotion.”
 
 
“I’ve come to that conclusion.”
 
 
“That must be hard, being someone like you.” Her voice trailed off awkwardly. She felt herself blushing.
 
 
“Married to someone like her,” he finished her sentence. “It’s a fucking pain in the ass. Take the next left, I’ll show you a shortcut.”
 
 
Annie turned down a dirt road that ran along the lake. The rain had made it muddy, and the trees hung down heavily, brushing the roof of the car.
 
 
“I looked you up in the handbook,” he said. “I didn’t know you went to Smith.”
 
 
“A predictable choice after Miss Porter’s.” She saw that the name didn’t register. “A boarding school for girls. In Connecticut.”
 
 
“Oh, well.”
 
 
“My parents were very into that sort of thing while they were off gallivanting.”
 
 
“Gallivanting, what a concept.”
 
 
“I was a bit of a rebel, actually.”
 
 
“Ah yes, little Annie, baking hash brownies and reading Marx.”
 
 
She laughed because it was true. “Well, I have to admit I didn’t really get Marx. I hail from a long line of guileless capitalists. I can remember throwing that little red book out the window.”
 

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