LITMIR.BIZ

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though since more than half the country couldn’t make a living wage, how all this buying would take place with no money was a mystery. I pulled myself away from these morbid cultural reflections and began to look for Tom.

      I was amazed to actually see him. He’d made it. I’m tall, but Tom is taller still and it’s relatively easy for us to find each other in a crowd. Tom was standing with a small group of men, listening.

      Tom’s ability to listen continued to move me—his tall figure bent toward whoever was speaking, giving them his full attention. Even though I was too far away to see him distinctly, I knew his clear blue eyes would be focused in thought behind his wire-rimmed glasses. The skin at the corner of his eyes was permanently crinkled from that intent look. His sandy hair, graying a little at the temples, was too long and fell forward over his forehead when he bent his head. Tom’s gaze was total—he was never, like many doctors, or academics for that matter, obviously mentally elsewhere. He was more like a cop in this. He was always present. And his look made you (or at least made me) want to trust him and tell him everything, a trait I’d found uncomfortable a couple of times already. I felt the rush of pleasure I always have when I see him. I wondered if I would continue to feel it.

      I approached the group quietly and slipped my arm through Tom’s. He gave it a squeeze and continued listening. I glanced over at him and noticed his bow tie appeared to have been tied by a monkey. An inept monkey.

      The man holding forth in the group could only be an administrator. He was so smooth he appeared to have been lacquered. He was short and his baby smooth, pale face, immaculate hair, and buffed nails positively glistened in the glare from the bare bulbs strung over our heads. His bow tie, I noticed, was perfectly symmetrical. Of course, he probably slept in formal wear and therefore had a lot of practice tying the tie. He looked remarkably like Fred Astaire; I hoped he didn’t dance.

      “The additional beds will not ever be a financial drain—they are a wonderful source of revenue,” he was saying with that palms up, ‘trust me and buy this Edsel’ gesture that dishonest car salesmen have. His speech was audibly italicized.

      “But why are there nineteen operating rooms? The original plans we saw called for forty,” said an older man with a completely gray head, his stoop and his tired eyes labeling him a surgeon. His tone wasn’t hostile, but it was not a tone I’d like used to me. It conveyed very clearly that he knew he’d been lied to, he was being lied to now, and he expected to be lied to again in the future. It was both weary and contemptuous.

      “I’m sure the hospital planning committee took all the departments’ needs into account,” said Fred the Administrator, doing a little administrative two-step. I was wrong. He did dance. He looked around the circle, making excellent eye contact. The gray-haired doctor gave an audible groan.

      I looked around the group as well, since I couldn’t quite make out what they were talking about. Next to Fred the Administrator was the tired doctor, then another older man, this one heavy-set and running to fat in the stomach area. This is not the physique that men’s formal wear flatters. His cummerbund looked like it was a large bandage around his middle, keeping his stomach from exploding. Despite his weight, his carriage was very erect, almost stiff. This rigidity extended to his face. His lips were pursed so tightly they were white and his eyes behind his authoritative black eyeglass frames stared straight at Fred. He was probably struggling to hold on to some very choice words.

      And holding on to the rigid guy’s arm was a stunning young woman, easy half to a third of his age. A trophy wife? Her long blond hair flowed like a veil down her back, nearly reaching the hem of her tiny little black skirt. Below the skirt, tanned, slim legs led gracefully to high-heeled sandals. Her spaghetti strap top revealed she was thin, way too thin in that anorexic fashion model way that’s come back into style to encourage girls like Kelly toward depression and eating disorders. I know it threatened me and I’m supposed to be a grown-up. I sighed. She was exactly the kind of woman, well, girl, really, who had always made me feel like I was a hundred-foot-tall freak. She was none too subtly pulling on the rigid guy’s arm, trying to move him away from the circle. He was plainly having none of it. The fact that he wasn’t budging, and that none of the other men appeared to be drooling over her, was revealing. Despite the empty phrases the administrator was rolling off his tongue with practiced ease, the docs were very nervous about this construction project.

      I thought I’d make the lacquered administrator nervous instead.

      “What progress are you making on opening an adult trauma center?” I asked, loud enough to be heard over the cocktail party noise and, if truth be told, even a little louder than necessary.

      What people call ‘an embarrassed silence’ ensued. But only briefly.

      The lacquered administrator was more than a match for my pushy question and me. He made a move worthy of Fred Astaire in his suave Top Hat film and made his escape without even looking at me, let alone answering my question. He turned gracefully and glanced across the room, and then he swiveled back and made little depreciating ‘sorry about this’ and ‘need to see about that’ murmurs all accompanied by backwards motion and hand-waving. He was gone in the twinkling of an eye.

      Tom and then other men looked at each other and frowned. Then by mutual consent they gave up and the group dispersed. Tom turned to me.

      “Was that one of the lower-level administrators?” I asked, having never seen him before.

      “There’s no one lower than Mandel Griffiths,” Tom said dryly.

      “So no progress on a trauma center?” I asked.

      “We need that here. There’s no doubt,” Tom said seriously. “But adult trauma centers are very expensive and you see what kind of compassionate, visionary leadership we have to deal with.” Tom nodded his head in the direction Mandel Griffith had taken when he’d danced away. “I’d say the odds were slim, but the community pressure is getting to them.”

      Good, I thought. Now I’ll definitely look for that website.

      “Did Kelly get to your house all right?” he asked, obviously wanting to talk about anything other than Mandel Griffiths, the lowly administrator, and his complete lack of vision and compassion. Of course, Kelly would not have been my choice as a new topic of conversation.

      I steered him toward the bar that was set up along the wall on the far side of the room while I pondered how best to answer the question.

      Honesty, I thought, stick to honesty.

      “She was late, but she made it finally. I really don’t think she likes having to come over when you’re out, Tom. It makes her feel like you think she’s a baby.” Somebody had to tell him and Kelly wasn’t having much success.

      Tom stopped walking and disengaged his arm from mine.

      “She’s a young girl and this is the city.” He even stuck his chin out.

      He’d actually used those same words when we’d talked yesterday about Kelly’s coming over. Did I say Tom listened? I take it back. Where his daughter is concerned, he’s just as thick as any other father. Maybe more so as he was a new custodial father. I started to argue and then stopped. Not with a hundred over-dressed people surrounding us all carrying hard hats. It was not the time for this conversation.

      “Come on,” I said, taking his hand. “I’m thirsty.”

      He came along reluctantly, but loosened up a little as I played surreptitiously with his fingers. He greeted friends and made brief introductions along the way as we struggled through the crowd to get two watered-down drinks. As I weaved my way through the crowd, saying hello six or seven times to people I would never remember, my mind was on Kelly and Tom. Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll tell him that how he raises Kelly is his business, but no more leaning on Carol, Giles and me. Right. I knew I sounded like Scarlett O’Hara.

      We finally obtained our drinks and escaped from the crush close to the bar. We wandered around and joined a small crowd clustered in front of some sketches of what the final building would look like. The proposed outside wasn’t too bad as it was

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