The Pursuit of Alice Thrift (12 page)

I could have said, “Beans and franks and a video.” I could have said, “No comment,” or, “None of your business.” But she was stretched out beside me, still sniffling, still wearing black, and building monuments to sixty-two years of mother-daughter candor. So I said, “I'll probably make sandwiches and buy a bottle of wine, and then, if all goes well, I'll lower the Murphy bed.”

“For what?”

“For what normal, sexually active people do on a bed.”

She sat up. “Please tell me you're joking, Alice.”

I said no, of course not. When did I ever joke? And why did the suggestion of me having sex render her flabbergasted?

She inhaled and exhaled as if exercising great forbearance. “Believe me, I'm not objecting to the sex. Far from it. I'd put myself up against the most broad-minded parents in this entire country. What I'm reacting to is ‘First we have dinner and then we have intercourse.' It just sounds so passionless. So . . . autistic.”

I said I wished she'd stop throwing medical terms around. As for passion, hadn't she just spent the last half hour bragging about her active dislike for my father, precoitally?

“Your
father
was a graduate student at Wharton! Your intended partner sells granular fudge out of the trunk of his car. I just don't see it. Is it convenience? Or desperation? Or—you won't like this one bit—pity?”

I climbed over her and returned to the closet. After much pointless clanging of hangers I called out, “You may think you're as broad-minded as anyone in America, but you won't acknowledge Julie's girlfriends, and you think I can't date someone unless he has diplomas framed in his office.”

“Does he
have
an office?”

“Probably.”

“Did he go to college?”

“It hasn't come up.”

After another silence she asked, “Are you attracted to this Ray?”

The only acceptable answer was yes, so I said it: Yes, I was attracted to Ray. Pity had no role here, at least not on my side. He'd been very attentive and gentlemanly. There had been no pressure. Well, maybe he'd asked for a kiss after the round-trip to New Jersey, but that was hardly worth reporting since most people kiss as casually as I might order a pizza. But I'd been thinking things over. Ray was a normal man with healthy needs. Now it was my turn to signal that I was a mature adult, and ahead of me was the hurdle that mature adults have to jump.

She crossed to the closet and wrapped her arms around me. “Nana and I went round and round on this for years. ‘Has she or hasn't she? Will she or won't she?' She was sure that somewhere along the line, at some frat party or junior year abroad, you lost your virginity. But not me. I always maintained that, if it had happened, I'd know. And now you've told me, in advance. On one hand, I'm depressed over your choice of partners. On the other hand, I'm thrilled that you're confiding in me now.”

I said, “Actually, Nana was right. I had sex once in college; at summer camp, actually.”

“With a man?”

I said yes, a counselor at Tattaho.

“Voluntarily?”

“Of course voluntarily. He paddled across the lake in a canoe, and we sat on the dock for a while and reviewed our sexual options, and then we found a spot behind the infirmary and we did it.”

“And then what?”

“We discarded the used condom in the dining hall Dumpster, and I went back to my bunk.”

“I meant, were you in love? Was this a romance? Was it everything you hoped it would be? Did you keep in touch after camp?”

I said no, none of the above. I hadn't enjoyed it, so I hadn't seen any reason to repeat the experience.

“Till now?”

I stopped what I was doing—stuffing the overflow of dirty clothes into my bulging laundry bag—to wonder aloud, “Have you ever thought about how in every country, no matter how remote, in every culture, every religion, and every climate, people copulate? Since time immemorial, men and women—without classes or manuals, without anatomical diagrams or scented candles—have sought out partners for sex. I find it quite fascinating, and I think if it's so natural to every species, then I shouldn't have dismissed it out of hand.”

“I see,” said my mother. “So this upcoming date of yours is more or less an anthropology experiment?”

“Is that so terrible? I mean, isn't everything?”

She looked away, plucked another tissue from my bedside box.

“I thought you'd be happy that I was thinking about something that could be categorized as interpersonal,” I said.

She didn't answer. Her shoulders sagged; her glance wandered back to the highlighted pages.

I tried to think of a topic that would cheer her up. “My new building has a laundry room,” I tried. “And a health club with a juice bar.”

“Which means what?” she snapped. “More venues for your research?”

Would I ever do anything right? Intercourse was wrong. Virginity was wrong. Socializing with a man below my station was wrong. I couldn't please my mother; surely couldn't measure up to a dead nonagenarian as confidante and bosom buddy.

I said, “I'm very tired. Maybe we should call it quits for the day.”

She raised her head and shook off the burden of my company. “I'm not giving up. Who knows when we'll talk again. I mean
really
talk, like this, meaningfully. I don't have to like every choice you make—Nana certainly didn't when it came to me. Now we'll finish packing like the excellent team that we are, and we'll drive these boxes across the street and toast a new beginning. I brought a bottle of champagne.” She smiled brightly. “We'll do a few loads of laundry, and you'll share with me your anxieties about next Saturday night.”

I said, “Saturday night?”

“Your date! Your housewarming
à deux
!”

I said, “I'd have to consider that date provisional because I haven't heard from him in several weeks.”

She held up her hand in protest. “I refuse to be discouraged. You didn't invite Ray for dinner and sex because he's
Ray.
You invited him because he represents manhood, a physical tool. So if it's simply a matter of joining hands with a partner and jumping over a hurdle—there's plenty of fish in that sea.”

I nodded and tried to look amenable. But I noticed that in the face of her eagerness to banish Ray and to substitute another token, I felt a tug of loyalty. Hadn't I promised to contact him when I got my phone? How clear it seemed now: Rapprochement was
my
responsibility,
my
move. I had interpreted his silence as lack of interest. But maybe he was sick and didn't have health insurance; maybe his office never forwarded my card. He could be sitting by the telephone or his wife's headstone, gift-wrapped penuche at the ready, waiting for my call.

Was my mother right? Was I ill-equipped to rescue primitive people from loneliness?

The time had come to find out.

15.
Advanced Social Outreach

MY MOTHER HAD BROUGHT A TAPE MEASURE, SCISSORS, AND
shelf paper, insisting that she'd raised me to line drawers and refresh them with sachets. Since she was willing to do the fitting and cutting, I left her to the task while I swiped surfaces of the already immaculate kitchen. Feathering my nest made her cheerful, as if it symbolized a fresh start and social potential. Soon she moved from lining drawers to inspecting kitchen cabinets, marveling aloud at the remarkable cleanliness of the former tenant. I refrained from mentioning that Dr. Richard A. Gale, whose name was still on my buzzer, whose next of kin had left me his pot holders, refrigerator magnets, spices, and U. of Michigan shower curtain, had died on the premises from a broken heart.

I approached the Murphy bed, probably Exhibit A in the coroner's inquest, fearing that the fumigators had overlooked its hidden planes and squalid sheets. Holding my breath, I pulled the mattress down to horizontal. “How wonderful!” my mother exclaimed at the sight of the brand-new plastic-encased mattress, pale aqua and silver, labeled “extra firm.”

“See? I'm all set. A bed, two chairs, two tray tables.”

She countered with, “Bookcase, bureau, coffee table, night-stand, vanity, television, stereo . . . I hardly know where to begin.”

I led her to the closet and showed her the white wire baskets that slid in and out on tracks. Similarly, built-in bookshelves, designed by a thoughtful architect who knew studious doctors would be the sole tenants. Wouldn't these built-ins do? And I could stick the journals in the linen closet, where my modest supply of sheets and towels left plenty of space.

“If it's the money, I'll buy you what you need. And when I get home I'm going through Nana's apartment and seeing what pieces would fit in here. My God! You don't even have a couch! Or a desk!”

“Can we change the subject?” I asked.

“What was the big impetus to move, especially if it's only across the street? You got along fine with your roommate, didn't you?”

I said yes, I did. Leo had been an excellent roommate, but I wanted my privacy and—even though he was too polite to have asked me to leave—I sensed the timing was right.

“Because of the probation?”

I said yes. The probation. Precisely.

It was a trick question, maternal lie detection. She pounced. “Explain to me why you'd invite more upheaval at the time you were being put under the microscope at work. I'd think you'd need a shoulder to cry on and a set of strong arms to take out the garbage.”

She'd met Leo only once, but of course she would have memorized his musculature. I said, “Leo has a new girlfriend.”

“So?”

“She was staying over every night.”

After a few long seconds of reflection she came up with, “Were they very loud?”

I said, “Loud? Not at all. She slipped in after eleven and I never heard a thing.”

Upon further meditation she asked, “Was she paying her share of the rent?”

I said no, of course not. We weren't operating a guest house. Girlfriends and boyfriends stayed free.

“I wonder if I'm hearing the truth,” she mused. “I wish there was an electronic readout of your thoughts like the headlines in Times Square.”

I might have indulged her by asking, What do you think I'm not telling you? But I couldn't bear another evocation of Nana and her emotional talents. I looked at my watch. It was only three-fifteen. She had promised to spend the day getting me settled, buying dishes, buying bath mats and pillow shams and cute imported baskets, all to get my new home shipshape in a Martha Stewart vision of what a bachelorette's studio could be. I said, “Mom? Do you need to stay any longer? I mean, I'm unpacked. I don't think there's anything left to do.”

She answered with a squeal of exasperation. “Why do I bother? Why did I think we'd reward ourselves with a delicious dinner after the work was done? Why do I persist in thinking I'll reach you?”

I said weakly, “You've reached me. Definitely. I think we've covered a lot of ground today and I'm definitely beginning to feel my feet slipping into Nana's shoes.”

“Is spending time with me so unpleasant that you couldn't bear another—what time is it anyway?—five or six hours of my company? I pictured we'd shop, stop for a break, have a cappuccino, then come back here, shower, dress for dinner, call a cab, have a wonderful meal and a delicious bottle of wine. Most children would be grateful. Even if they were faking it they'd go along with the plan as a way of thanking said mother for her time and effort. Especially if she'd already made the reservations.”

I knew she was right but I couldn't travel the distance between what she was asking and what I could bear. I asked, “If we went out for dinner, would we have to talk about feelings and men and sex?”

“I think it's good for you, the desensitizing, so those subjects won't seem alien and uncomfortable. So soon enough I can ask, ‘What's new?' and you'll know what I'm
really
getting at.”

I said, “You want me to be more responsive, or nicer, but if you listened to me you'd know I'm too scientific for that. Every minute of the day I'm dealing with life-and-death matters. My career is on the line. I don't have time for trivial things like which member of the opposite sex has crossed my field of vision or who has slept in my bed.”

“I suppose that's true,” she murmured. “I suppose we could talk about life and death and war and peace.” With visible effort, she reset her features, signaling that another one of life's lessons was bubbling to the surface. “Alice,” she began, “when one is engaged in conversation with people, one can't be blunt unless that person specifically asks for bluntness. You have to be diplomatic. If your mother is visiting and you've had enough, you could say that you felt as if you were coming down with something. Or that you had made other plans—as much as you'd love nothing more than dinner out—so could you take a rain check.”

I said, “I don't lie.”

“I'm not asking you to lie. I'm teaching you about
white
lies. Which is what you say when you don't want people's feelings to be hurt.”

I told her I understood what she was saying: Do unto others, et cetera. But I wasn't proficient at censoring the blunt sentences that my brain transmitted to my mouth.

“Is there anyone besides me you can practice with?” she asked. “Because I'm not letting myself get aggravated. I'm giving you your space. I'm going to find a hotel room and spend the night and walk the Freedom Trail in the morning without letting this exchange ruin my Boston holiday. I'm also going to forget that you asked me to leave the way you'd hang up on a telemarketer.”

I said, “You don't have to worry. I practice diplomacy all the time with patients. A doctor can't just walk into the hospital room and say, ‘Looks bad. Couldn't be worse. Do you have your affairs in order?' The one time I did that, the family asked that I be taken off the case.”

“That's a relief,” said my mother. “That shows you have a feedback mechanism. But I'm worried about this”—she swept the room with an outstretched arm—“your living alone. Not even a roommate with whom you can practice your social skills.”

I said I was well on my way to improving my skills. Leo, who was renowned for his empathy, had provided a very good foundation.

“Was?”
she repeated. “Past tense? Can't you still be friends?”

I said, “Yes, certainly. Leo and I intend to meet for lunch in the cafeteria just as we always did, and he'll help me improve my personality.”

It felt dishonest and artificial to let the suggestion stand that Leo and I would carry on as friends, or even that interns got a lunch hour, but wasn't that the whole point of a white lie? To make the listener comfortable at the expense of truth?

IT SEEMED ODD
to be entering the cafeteria in blue jeans and a pullover without a white coat and without a figurative stopwatch ticking in my head. Sunday nights were brightly lit and bustling here; fewer house staff but more visitors. The salad bar was at its weekend best, which meant Parker House rolls instead of commercial sliced white, and mint jelly in paper thimbles at no extra charge.

In an act of extreme social outreach I placed my clam chowder and American chop suey at the opposite end of a long table where a person, a male doctor of near-retirement age, was already seated. I knew this was a collegial thing to do; doctors slid their trays onto tables without being invited and introduced themselves with ease. Perhaps at some point in my professional future this tablemate might nod pleasantly when his subspecialty intersected with mine. He was holding a paper napkin to his tie as he ate the other featured soup, Scotch broth. “How are you this evening?” he asked.

“Not great,” I answered.

His smile froze. “Is someone sick? A family member?”

I said, “No, sorry. I'm not a visitor. I work here.”

“House staff?” he asked.

“Intern, surgery.”

“My condolences,” he said. He nodded at the chair next to him. “Why don't you slide down here so I don't have to shout.”

As I approached, he rose, offered his right hand for me to shake, murmured a few syllables that must have been his name, then said, “Would you care to tell me why you're not great?”

“I did something apparently unforgivable in the OR, and now I'm on probation for two months.”

He returned to his soup, spreading a new paper napkin against his tie. “You must be the intern who fell asleep holding the retractor,” he said calmly. “I
did
hear about that.”

“From Dr. Hastings?”

He said, “I don't remember from whom.”

“I'm a scandal,” I said, “but of the most boring and occupational kind.”

He picked up his spoon, hesitated over the soup, put the utensil down again. “Would you mind a little advice from a veteran of many medical skirmishes, not to mention blunders?”

I said, “Quit? Switch to something more humane? Do research? Join the army? Do physicals for an insurance company?”

“No, it's only this: Put this mistake behind you. If you dwell on it and rage against Dr. Hastings, it's only going to keep it alive and gnawing at your insides.”

I said, “This was war. He started it, and it's not up to me to call a truce. If it were criminal to harass and degrade another human being, he'd be in jail.”

He said quietly, “I like an outspoken dinner companion, but one should be careful talking about a colleague in a public space.”

“Are you his friend?” I asked.

“We all know Charlie Hastings.
Friend?
I wouldn't go that far.”

“I have nothing to lose. He hates me. He tried to get me fired. He didn't, but I'm on probation and will probably make a horrible mistake tomorrow, and that'll be the end of me.”

He smiled. “Would you care to tell me your name?”

I asked why.

“Not for any nefarious purpose. Just good manners.”

Sprinkling oyster crackers onto my chowder, I said, “I'm the hopeless Alice Thrift.”

“Pleased to meet you, Dr. Thrift.”

I asked what kind of a doctor he was. “I started out in surgery,” he said.

“And what are you now?”

“Still, after all these years, after all the headlines about our shrinking numbers and our malpractice muddles—OB.”

I said, “I've always found it a little peculiar when men choose OB. Of course I was delivered by a male obstetrician, but now, today, it seems odd that a man would devote himself to anatomical parts he didn't possess without any hope of ever experiencing any of the sensations associated with them.”

He didn't answer right away. After a few resolute bites of his chef's salad, he said, “I chose OB because, for the most part, it's a joyous field. Ninety-seven percent of the time the outcome is a healthy baby and a happy family. Women come to me to deliver their babies because I'm good at it, because I know my stuff even if I don't possess a uterus or a cervix, and I stick around no matter how long it takes their babies to be born. I should note that in some fields—mine, for instance—being there, i.e., compassion, is just as important as skill.”

I said, “Well, I seem to have neither.”

He said, “I can't speak to your surgical skills, but I'd probably agree that your small talk could use some . . . thawing.”

I said, “Believe me, I know that all too well. My mother thinks I have Asperger's Syndrome. Maybe I should switch to pathology, where the cadavers don't care about small talk.”

He said, “I know you meant that as a joke, but pathology is a very rewarding field. Path reports are the backbone of what I do.”

I asked if he knew Meredith—what was her last name?—the midwife? He smiled what I took to be a faint, ironic smile and said, “Of course. Everyone knows Meredith. A force to be reckoned with.”

“She's my former roommate's girlfriend,” I told him. “Do you know Leo Frawley? He was my roommate until today.”

He stirred his soup slowly, in circles around the rim. “And what happened today?”

“I moved.”

“Suddenly?”

“An apartment came up”—I gestured in the direction of the towers—“so I grabbed it.”

“Lucky. Most of my residents recount tales of the legendary waiting list.”

“It's only a studio,” I said. “Most people want at least a one-bedroom. Besides—this one is stigmatized. Its former tenant died there and wasn't found for a while.”

“Who?” he asked sharply.

I said his name was Richard Gale, but that's all I knew.

“Not one of mine, thank God. But still, horrible news . . . tragic . . . such a waste.”

I asked him to repeat his name.