My Favorite Midlife Crisis (42 page)

“You didn’t,” I accused.

“
Moi
? Didn’t what?”

“Oh, Fleur, you had no right.”

“Right, shmight, sometimes the world turns on its axis, sometimes you have to give it a little push. She’ll thank me.”

“She’ll kill you,” I said. But what was the use. And maybe Fleur had the right idea. Nudge fate if fate didn’t nudge you toward happiness. And it was comforting to think that, in spite of her frustration with The Plan, Fleur still believed you could manipulate the universe.

“Actually, once she gets over the initial shock, which will not take long, I assure you, she’ll kiss my toes in gratitude. I mean for godssakes, look at him. Is that not yummy? I’d forgotten how yummy he is. All those leftovers on Lovingmatch have dulled my palate.”

Lee was indisputably attractive. Tall and lean, but with brawny sculptor’s arms that flexed muscle beneath the same black turtleneck he’d worn the August day he met Kat at his own show. Maybe he’d pulled it out for luck. Maybe he had twenty black turtlenecks lined up in his closet because he knew they turned him into delectable.

“You keep an eye on Summer and I’ll do the Kat play-by-play,” Fleur said.

Summer was engaged in who could even imagine what kind of conversation with a woman sporting a pierced nose and pink hair. Then she spotted Lee. You could tell from the jerk of her head.

“Six feet...five feet…closer…closer…forget Summer, look, look, Kat is about to turn around.” Fleur fanned herself with her program. My legs melted with sympathetic weakness for Kat. “Touchdown. Oh, nice. Very nice,” Fleur commented as Kat looked up, registered astonishment, pleasure, swayed gently, and finally placed one hand on her neck in an unconscious gesture of delight. Lee bent down to kiss her cheek, then nudged her hand away as he slid his lips down into the hollow of her neck and buried them there. Kat, face flushed, eyes glistening, stroked his dark hair.

“Did you see that?” Fleur fanned a hurricane force wind.

“Beautiful. But I can’t wait for the credits. I’ll miss my train.”

“No, not yet.” She craned her neck. “What happened to Summer? Did you see her face when Lee kissed Kat? All pinched up as if she was about to have a tantrum.” Fleur searched the room. “Where the hell did she disappear to?”

“Well, she’s either tearing up the ladies’ room or she decided to take the high road and get out of here before she ruined her mother’s big night by making a scene.” I found a spot for my empty wine glass. “I’ve really got to get going.”

Fleur swiveled to stare at the reunited couple, who were holding hands and gazing goofily into each other’s eyes. “You can’t leave now.”

“I’ve got to go. Take notes. It will make a nice entry in the scrapbook for the grandchildren.”

In fact, Summer did take the high road. Charles Street at an ungodly speed. She’d parked her Beamer three cars in front of my Lexus. I arrived just in time to see the plaid headband duck and disappear into the interior and hear the door make a rather crude lower-class slam for a $60,000 door. I wasted a minute watching Summer maneuver out and, just as I turned my ignition key, she floored that Big Bavarian and took off up Charles Street, jumping the red light at the Washington Monument, zooming pedal to the metal probably all the way to Roland Park.

Poor Kat,
I thought,
she’ll have hell to pay.

Chapter 44

Oh, Doctor, you look scads better than the last time you sat in this chair.” Marco, Fortune’s makeup artist, sketched a coral line to amplify my less than naturally luscious lips. He backed up to appraise his handiwork. “Some hinky
l’affaire de la
heart, as I recall. But you’re positively glowing. I take it you two are back together?”

“Well,
I’m
back together,” I said.

He tossed his shaved head and hooted. “No wonder Fortune loves you.”

Actually, I wasn’t sure how much Fortune loved me. I noticed she stopped at the makeup chair across the room to hug the other guest, a former porno star who was pushing her new diet book. “Ate herself out of a job,” Marco snickered. “Debby Does Dairy Queen. Gained seventy pounds. Can you imagine? With all that fucking horizontal exercise? Then she claimed to have invented this diet. Some diet. She’s been to the loo three times in fifteen minutes.” He made a retching sound behind his hand. “What goes down must come up. Oh, here comes Fortune.”

But she never did approach, just walked past me with a cool smile and the slightest wave, like her fingers were tickling the air.

In front of the camera, though, she was her buoyant self. Standing center stage in her six feet four caftanned glory, she whipped the audience into a frenzy with the announcement that she was here and now
personally
restamping the ticket that empowered them to take charge of their lives. Then, seamlessly, she led the porno queen through her diet, which sounded like an awful lot of root vegetables to me.

I had the second half all to myself. When she introduced me exuberantly as her very own Dr. Diva, I must have winced because she said, “Look how appalled she is, audience. Listen, ladies, a diva is any woman on top of her game, that’s all. And isn’t Dr. Gwyn one of those?” Loud applause. “Now tell us what we have to do to keep ourselves fit and healthy for the next twelve months and forever.”

After I ran through my list of medical New Year’s resolutions, she said, “Now, catch us up on the Clinic. The last time you were here, you described how all these women were going to be without health care when their local hospital shut down. Tell us what’s going on in the moment.”

So I spoke of the Clinic, of the desperate need for it, how a colleague and I had come up with an expanded version for everyone in the area, but how, in spite of our best efforts, lack of funding ended that plan. By the time I’d finished, voice breaking, she’d taken my hand.

“No money for such a worthy project? Do you think that’s fair, audience?”

Unanimous “Nooo.”

“Well,” leaning forward for that intimate
pas de deux
with the lens that has made her the most popular woman on television, “neither do these people. Here’s what some of Dr. Gwyn’s supporters have to say. First, one of her patients.”

As the screen behind us filled with a huge image, Fortune whispered to me, “Don’t try to talk to her. She’s prerecorded.”

Dear Lord, it was Freesia Odum, decked out in a very stylish sweater set, granddaughter squirming in her lap. “Dr. Berke,” Ms. Odum said into her close-up, “hello from Baltimore. You’ve been there for me when I had no medical insurance and no way of paying for a doctor and I just want to say we know how hard you’ve been working on the Clinic and we’re praying for you. God bless you and God bless you, Fortune.”

Before I had time to process that, Fortune said to me, “And now a colleague, Daniel Rosetti, MD, a respected geriatrician, has something to say directly to you.”

Dan materialized on the screen, smiling a quirky, semi-amused, semi-embarrassed smile. He’d been filmed in his office. Behind him, I could see the photo of little Chrissy on her mother’s lap.

“Hi Gwyn, hi Fortune,” he said with his easy grace. “This Clinic is a life-giving project. It worked once and it should be given the chance to work again. We’re all proud of what Gwyneth Berke has given to the community throughout her medical career and we’re hoping she’ll get that Clinic up and running soon.” He waved a salute to the camera. “We’re here for you, Gwyn.”

“There’s a lot of love out there,” Fortune said when the screen went to black. “You doing okay?”

“Just in shock,” I said, tethered to reality only by Fortune’s warm hand clasping my chill one and the scent of her sandalwood perfume. I was still not quite getting it, not quite putting the pieces together.

She pulled me to my feet and towed me with her as she strode to the edge of the stage like some elegant, exotic giraffe to the watering hole. “So what do you think, audience? Don’t those people in that neglected community deserve a break?”

“Yesssssss.”

“Doesn’t Dr. Gwyn deserve to realize her dream?”

The audience was on its feet and cheering. She hollered over them, “I couldn’t agree more. So let’s do something about it. Let’s take charge of this. And to kick things off, I’d like to present to you, Dr. Gwyn, my personal check for….one!....million!....dollars!”

She handed me a huge facsimile of a check for one-plus-six-sweet-zeros signed by Fortune Simms.

Although I tried with every Scandinavian gene in my chromosome set to choke them back, the tears spilled. As Fortune whipped out tissues from her always-present box, I blubbered and dribbled and honked. In front of millions of viewers. But what the hell. I was a diva, I could get away with histrionics.

Afterwards, backstage, she swept me into the cocoon of her caftan, saying, “You had no idea? Really? That sweetheart Dan Rosetti didn’t spill the beans?” She released me to arm’s length. “I’ll tell you, woman, I almost gave it away when I saw you in the makeup chair. I had to really keep my distance because I thought you’d read it in my face.”

“Honestly, I was dumfounded. Overwhelmed. How do I thank you?” I asked. I was smiling so hard my cheeks hurt.

“By doing the work. Listen, I’m just glad I have the resources to help out. That’s what we’re here for, right, you and I? Isn’t that why we do what we do?”

Gut instinct told me she meant it. I think Fleur was wrong about Fortune. She may be a marketing genius, but she’s not a marketing machine. Too much heart.

Speaking of that noted critic, Fleur phoned me on my cell phone as I was cabbing across Manhattan to Penn Station, so excited for me I thought she was going to spring through the phone to give me a hug. After she flooded me with congratulations, she said, “Listen, we’ve got a bitch of an ice storm back here. There’s no way you’re going to be able to get yourself home in that pantywaist car of yours. I’ve got access to a four-wheel drive and I’ll pick you up at the station. Don’t argue with me, Gwyneth. I saw the state you’re in, falling apart in living color. You’d be in no shape to drive even if your car was a Hummer.”

We chugged into an icy Baltimore four hours later. The conductor called, “Watch your step, watch your step, it’s slippery out there,” and there was Fleur making her cautious way across the platform in her Republican ranch mink coat, open wide to fold me in.

As we climbed the station steps, she spouted questions like a bubble machine, ending with, “Can you relax now that you’ve got money for the Clinic? Can you take a break before you charge headlong into putting this thing together?” She tightened her grip on my arm as I began to slide. “Fucking ice. Come on, let’s get you home. We’ll pour you a nice glass of wine or maybe five. Believe me, the weather will look a lot better through rosé colored glasses.”

I thought the “we” in “we’ll pour” was just Fleur being her royal self. But no, leaning against his SUV, which was parked, motor running, under the overhang in the ten-minute loading zone, Harry Galligan raised a welcoming hand. Then he fished in the front seat and pulled out a bouquet of flowers. Not supermarket flowers, either.

“Harry,” I said, “you heard about the Clinic?” Good old Harry. Harry cared. Harry was there for me. Which didn’t add up. Confused, I looked from him to an owl-eyed Fleur, then back. “What are you doing here, Harry?”

“I’m the four-wheel drive.” He handed over the bouquet.

“Tulips in January. Thank you.” I tried to smile but my lips wouldn’t stretch.

“Rare flowers for a rare woman.”

“Ahh, how sweet.”

“Well, I can’t take credit for the line. It’s Fleur’s.” And he reached over and squeezed her hand.

He also tossed my suitcase into the back and held the rear door open for me so I knew where I stood. Sat. Fleur slid into the front passenger seat with a proprietary casualness. And it got better as we drove home. I was mostly out of it, but I still had sufficient brain activity to notice we had something going on here. An arm pat from him, some shoulder-to-shoulder contact that strained the seat belts, and, uh-huh, her hand glided over to rest on his knee.

“You okay back there?” Harry asked. “I can turn up the heat. Don’t want those tulips to freeze.”

“No, I’m fine. They’re fine. They’ll survive.”

He said to Fleur, “How about you? Are you okay, hon?” Not the Baltimore hon-to-everyone, either; hon as in honey—as in voice as syrupy as.

And Fleur, who had never been cold a day in her life, who had an internal generator that could heat a small city, answered, “Actually, you know my neck is cold. Stupid of me, I forgot to bring a scarf,” as if she weren’t wearing a mink coat with a collar.

I figured she wanted his arm around her which, on those slippery roads, would probably kill us all. But Harry, bless him, gave her one better. First, he turned the heat up and then in a neat single-handed maneuver, stripped off his muffler and draped it around her neck.

A muffler is not a jacket, but close enough. Kat would be so pleased.

Chapter 45

Fleur Talbot is a woman to whom nothing is secret, nothing is sacred—someone who thinks privacy is one more pinko-wacko item on the liberal agenda or, on odd days, a quirky reactionary notion stashed next to the right to bear arms. This is a person with no qualms about asking the color of your true love’s pubic hair. That Fleur kept her budding romance with Harry under wraps for a month is as close to a miracle as I’m going to get outside of Lourdes.