The Pursuit of Alice Thrift (8 page)

“What a good idea,” said Leo. “Do you know any eligible missionaries you could introduce Alice to?”

“Don't be fresh with me,” said his mother.

“Actually, Alice has an admirer,” said Leo.

Everyone turned to me. I said, “Leo is exaggerating.”

“Leo thinks he's a creep,” said Leo.

“What does Alice think?” asked Rosemary.

I sighed. “This man's wife died a year ago and his pursuit, I think, is largely sexually motivated.”

Mrs. Morrisey huffed and muttered something to herself.

“I didn't mean that it was reciprocal or that I encouraged him. I was just trying to explain his attentions.”

“All men want the same thing,” said Mrs. Morrisey, “and that particular thing is not dinner-table conversation either.”

“You had thirteen children,” said Michael.

Mrs. Morrisey slapped her fork onto her place mat. “Leave the table!” she barked.

Leo laughed.

“You, too!”

“Ma! He's twenty-six years old. You can't ask a grown man to leave the table because he alludes to your having had carnal knowledge.”

“We have company,” murmured Rosemary, “and I'm sure it's very awkward for her to be in the middle of a family squabble.”

“My family fights every time I go home, and it's usually provoked by something I say. So don't worry about me.” I tried to affect the smile of a good guest. For added amenability, I said, “I don't think this chicken is dry at all.”

“This one was fresh. You lose a lot of the juices when you defrost a frozen bird.”

“My mother doesn't cook much,” I said. “Especially now that it's just the two of them at home.”

“How many sisters and brothers do you have?” asked Michael.

“One sister. Who lives in Seattle.”

“Is she married?” asked Mrs. Morrisey.

“Not yet,” I said.

“Can we get back to whatever it was we were talking about before Michael had his mouth washed out with soap?” asked Leo.

Marie—clearly the family mediator and diplomat—turned to me. “I think we were talking about the demands on you at work, and I was asking,
Is
it worth it? Is all the hard work and sleepless nights and—you said it yourself—the
panic
worth it for some kind of professional dream that might be unattainable?”

The most unexpected thing happened at that point: I felt like crying. I disguised the quaking of my lips by taking two long swallows of milk from my glass, then by blinking rapidly as if the problem were ophthalmologic.

“Are you okay?” Leo asked.

“I didn't mean—” began Marie.

“I must have been thinking about my grandmother,” I said.

“Of course you were,” said their mother. “But she's in Jesus' house now and free of pain, God rest her soul.”

Still, I was hoping to prove myself the kind of pleasant conversationalist who gets invited back. “Where does purgatory come in?” I asked. “I mean, under your afterlife guidelines, wouldn't she still be there?”

All the Frawleys were taking sips from their respective milk glasses or searching inside their potato skins for neglected morsels.

“Alice needs a weekend off,” said Leo.

9.
Née Mary Ciccarelli

I KNOW THAT SOME PEOPLE ARE EQUIPPED TO ANALYZE THEIR
failings and to pose leading questions such as “Did I do something wrong?” or “Are you upset?” to the silent person in the seat next to them, but I had neither the vocabulary nor the inclination. As the trolley car negotiated the twists and turns of Commonwealth Avenue, Leo kept his eyes shut until I heard him say, “Just to play devil's advocate for a minute . . .”

“About?”

“About your job. Whether you really have no aptitude for surgery, or whether it's your former A-pluses talking.”

I asked what that meant, and how did he know what my grades were?

“I'm guessing you're one of those people who moaned and groaned about how badly they did on their organic chemistry exam until it came back with a big red hundred and five on the top of the page because you got everything right including the extra-credit question.”

Calmly I said, “I'm the worst resident they've had since the legendary one in the eighties who was asked to leave even though he was engaged to the niece of the head of the hospital.”

Leo said, “You don't have to be asked to leave. You could decide for yourself.”

I said I didn't understand.

Leo coughed into his mittened hand. “Have you ever thought of dropping out of the program?”

Only ten times an hour and with every withering look and every truthful evaluation, I thought. “Not really,” I said. “I can't imagine giving up my goals for something as trivial as professional humiliation. When I start thinking about my shortcomings, I say, ‘You graduated second in your class in medical school. How can you be so bad? If you study harder you'll get better.' ”

“What about the fact that you feel like a failure every minute of the day?”

“I can improve,” I said. “It's still early in the year. It could all click into place tomorrow.”

“Doctors switch fields,” he said. “Surgeons go into anesthesiology. Internists become allergists. You earned your degree. No one would take that away from you.”

“No,” I said. “I'm no quitter.”

“I'm only being hypothetical,” Leo said. “I'm only thinking of you and what could make you a happier person.”

“In the short run,” I snapped.

“No,” said Leo. “In the long run.”

“I'm no quitter,” I repeated.

RAY WAS WAITING
on the stoop when we returned, smoking a cigarette that he snuffed out as soon as I appeared. He was wearing a shiny black quilted parka and a black watch cap that did nothing but suggest
burglar
and call attention to his nose. He stood up and said, “I paged you, but you didn't answer.”

“I wasn't at the hospital.”

“You remember me, I'm sure,” said Leo.

“The nurse,” said Ray. “Of course. How ya doin'?”

I pointed to the streak of ash on the granite step behind him and asked if he'd been smoking.

“First time in a decade,” he said, “which I blame on some very disturbing news I received one hour ago.” He stared at Leo for several long seconds before adding, “It's kind of personal. I was hoping to talk to Alice in private.”

I said, “Leo's very easy to talk to. Much better than I am.”

“I hope no one died,” said Leo.

“Nothing like that,” said Ray. “It's closer to an emotional crisis—some facts that have come to light. And I didn't have any supper, so I was hoping Alice might keep me company while I grab some
nachos grande
and a beer.”

Leo checked with me. I nodded once reassuringly, and he trudged inside.

THERE WERE THRONGS
of well-dressed people at the bar, businessmen and -women, many drinking from martini glasses; many laughing in that brittle, automatic way that substitutes for meaningful discussion. “Straight ahead,” said Ray, steering me from behind, his hands on my shoulders, his body swaying as if I had agreed to lead a conga line. “The dining room's in the back,” he instructed.

When we were seated at a small, far-off table, and the dour hostess had left, Ray said, “No people skills. None. Would it have killed her to smile? And why Siberia? There's a dozen better tables.”

I said, “Don't make a fuss. It's quiet back here and we can talk. Let's just order.”

Ray was suddenly distracted and grinning at some new piece of sociology. He cocked his head toward a smart-looking twosome, smiling tentatively at each other over their menus. “I'd put money on the fact that they just met out front, he bought her a drink, they decided they had a little thing going on, and one of them said, ‘Wanna grab a bite?' ”

“You know that from merely looking at them?” I asked.

“Doesn't take that much,” said Ray. “No offense.”

“How do you know they're not married, or siblings, or coworkers having a tax-deductible dinner?”

He leaned over and asked, “Doc? Have you ever been to a bar before?”

I said, “Of course.”

“Has anyone ever approached you and asked if you'd like a drink?”

“Other than a waiter?”

Ray patted my hand. “I mean, has anyone ever flirted with you? Asked you to dance? Asked if you'd like to go someplace quiet and talk?”

I knew where this interview was leading: from not terribly personal queries to the carnal questionnaire—
if ever, when, with
whom, how did I like it,
and, worst of all,
how did I feel?

By way of answering, I opened my menu. Finally, when I looked up and saw he'd held the same stare of cross-examination, I tried, “Your bad news? Can we discuss that instead?”

He took a sip from his water glass, swallowed, bit his bottom lip. “Stop me at any point if this gets too uncomfortable for you. But my wife, Mary? She had a boyfriend.”

“When?”

“When we were married! For the whole time, in fact. Some guy she worked with.”

I said, “I never asked you what she did.”

“She was assistant manager of the Kinko's near Northeastern. But you're missing my point, which is that I'm devastated.”

I asked how he'd found out and he said, “From my former sister-in-law.”

“That doesn't sound right. Why would anyone besmirch the memory of her dead sister, especially after the fact?”

“Because it was eating away at her all these years—that Mary was cheating on me and thinking she was getting away with it.”

“But why now?”

“Because she has a big mouth and I was talking to her on the phone and I told her I'd met someone—actually I might've said I was in
love
with someone—and out came the whole ugly truth, which I think was her way of encouraging me to move on.”

I said, “Even if it is the truth, what does that change in the here and now?”

“Everything! I visit her grave and I go to church like clockwork. Do I continue in that vein—Mary the saint—or do I get to the bottom of what Bernadette told me?”

“This Bernadette's no friend of yours,” I said. “Why would you take anything she said at face value?”

Ray leaned toward me, his voice even. “Because it has the ring of truth.”

“Well, just forget about it,” I advised. “Order some food and a glass of beer and we'll change the subject.”

“I don't think you get it: This isn't some little piece of gossip that has no bearing on anything. This is a huge piece of news. Throughout my marriage, for the entire three years we were together—”

Now it was my turn to look up from my menu and stare. “Did you say three years?”

“We
knew
each other for three years. We were actually married for sixteen months, which I'd always looked back on as one long extended honeymoon.”

I said, “I guess I assumed—”

“Because of how shaken up I was? And how saddened I was for a whole year since her demise?”

I pointed out that sixteen months was hardly a lifetime, so if Mary
had
been cheating over the course of the entire marriage, it was a relatively short period of infidelity.

Ray took a paper napkin from the dispenser and blew his nose. “I took my marriage vows very seriously and I'm a little surprised that you're taking Mary's side.”

I said I most certainly was
not
taking Mary's side. I was just trying to examine all facets of the situation. “Maybe she had no choice,” I offered. “Maybe it was sexual harassment.”

“Baloney! Sexual harassment. Mary was as tough as nails. No one messed with Mary if they didn't want a boot in the groin.”

Another mental adjustment was needed, this time from docile wife and mother of Ray's future children to extremely tough cookie. I asked how old Mary was when she passed away.

“Twenty-eight,” said Ray. “She liked older men. This guy, Patrick, from work? Would you believe fifty-two? She had a father thing, but I didn't care. If I had fifteen years on her and that's what she liked—hey, why not?”

A waitress was finally at our side. “I'm going to have the burger with Muenster and caramelized onions, no lettuce, no tomato,” said Ray. “And whatever you have on draft.”

A dozen breweries and seasonal batches were described before he heard the right name.

I said I'd have nothing now; maybe a piece of pie later.

“Nothing to drink?” asked the waitress.

“She's a doctor,” said Ray. “No drinking when she's on call.”

“We get a lot of doctors here,” said the waitress, and cocked her head in the direction of my hospital.

When she'd gone, I said, “I'm not on call. You don't have to make up excuses.”

“You know why I do that? I'm just so friggin' proud that you're a doctor. I guess I look for any occasion to announce it.”

If it weren't for his previously announced emotional distress, I might have said that I took exception to his use of the adjective
proud
—that it was a word for parents, for teachers, for mentors; for one's own self to admit in the privacy of one's head. “We've discussed this before,” I said, “but maybe I need to say it again: I'd prefer that you didn't lie.”

“Lie?” he repeated. “Because I tell the waitress you're on call? Isn't that true? Don't you work around the clock? Didn't you work all day today and aren't you going back there at dawn?”

“Pretty much,” I said.

“Okay. That's settled: no lie.” He smiled as the waitress delivered his frosted mug. “After the day I've had, you wouldn't believe how good this looks,” he said to her.

She said, “Okay, I'll bite. What kind of day did you have?”

“You tell her,” Ray prompted me.

“It's a personal matter—” I began.

“Concerning my former wife, who was unfaithful the entire time we were married. With a guy she worked with. Who we even double-dated with.”

“You didn't tell me that,” I said.

“He and his wife had us over for dinner once. The happy couple—him with his arm around her shoulders, nuzzling her hair and making jokes in bad taste about their empty nest, implying that they had sex whenever they felt like it, in every room.”

“Late wife or ex-wife?” asked the waitress.

“Late,” he said. “Car crash. Which until today I never even considered to be any kind of divine retribution.”

“Why would you,” I asked, “if you just found out tonight?”

“Maybe I had my suspicions,” said Ray.

The waitress took a step toward the kitchen. “I need to put your order in. Sorry.”

I
was sorry I hadn't pleaded fatigue and said good night at my door. I sat there, conversationally dry, ill-equipped to offer therapy of any kind. I tried to recall what my more psychologically astute fellow residents murmured at the bedsides of overwrought patients. “Is there anything I can do?” I heard myself ask.

“You mean it?”

I hadn't meant it. I had no idea what was on a menu of helpful things I could be recruited for. I said that as a doctor and someone who saw a lot of suffering and heard deathbed regrets—not true—I believed that the surviving spouse should forgive and forget.

“Except, Doc,” he said, “we're not talking about one mistake, one slip-up. We're talking about a wife screwing around every chance she got.”

I took a sip of water, then asked, “Were you ever unfaithful to her?”

“Never! Not once. And why would I? A middle-aged guy like me, nothing special to look at and not exactly a world-beater, who lucked into this relationship with a young and very hot lady.”

I asked him to explain that—“lucked into.” How had they met?

“At work,” he said.

“Yours or hers?”

“Mine. At the Topsfield Fair. I was at my booth, and along comes this
really
good-looking girl in leather pants. I mean, like, exceptionally good-looking—long dark hair, big brown eyes, suede boots that came up past her knees—and she asked me for napkins because there's horse dung and cow manure all over the place, and then she had to wash her hands and I let her use my hose, and then, out of gratitude, she bought a pound of chocolate walnut.”

“And how did that lead to your getting married?” I asked.

Ray said, “Give it a try, Doc. Take a stab at it.”

I said, “Did you ask her out on a date?”

“Eventually. But how did that come about?”

“Over a telephone?”

“Correct,” said Ray. “But who called who?”

“She called the phone number on the fudge box?”

He pantomimed something that seemed to mean switch it, flip it, turn that on its head.

“You're close: I asked her to write her phone number on her check when she paid for the fudge.”

“So you called her up and asked her for a date and she said yes?”