Mary Clark - The Shadow of Your Smile

That possibility speeding her even more, she stuffed her mother’s black pearls and earrings into her handbag and remembered to check the back door to see that it was bolted. Grabbing a coat, she darted out of her apartment, ran down the hallway, and rushed out of the town house.

“Monica.”

At the sound of the familiar voice she whirled around.

It was Scott Alterman.

He was standing on the sidewalk clearly waiting for her. “It’s cold,” he said. “Let me help you put your coat on. You’re beautiful, Monica. Even more beautiful than I remembered.”

Monica pulled her coat away as he tried to take it from her. “Scott, you’ve got to understand something,” she said, her voice unsteady from the combination of shock and dismay she felt at his presence. “We’re not only finished. We never began. You drove me out of Boston. You are not going to drive me out of New York.”

A cab with the available light glowing on its roof was passing. She raised her hand in a futile gesture to stop it.

“I’ll drive you, Monica. My car is here.”

“Scott, leave me alone!” Monica turned and ran down the street, wishing she had not at the last minute chosen to wear high heels. When she reached First Avenue, she glanced back over her shoulder. Scott had not tried to follow her. He was standing there, his hands in the pockets of the all-weather coat she was sure had been custom-made, his tall, straight body illuminated by the streetlight.

It was five minutes before she could find an empty cab and it was twenty past eight before she was on her way up in the elevator to Ryan’s apartment on West End Avenue. Reassured by the doorman that Dr. Jenner and his friends had not left yet, Monica tried to calm herself down, but could not overcome her dread at what might be coming her way now that Scott had reappeared.

Scott’s wife, Joy, had been her best friend from their first day in kindergarten together. They had been like sisters, and as an only child, being so often included in Joy’s family activities had given Monica a sense of extended family that had become even more important after her mother’s death when she was only ten years old.

Joy had been the one who constantly visited Monica’s father at the nursing home in Boston. She and Scott were with him when he died while I was taking final exams, Monica thought. She and Scott helped me make funeral arrangements. Because he’s a lawyer, Scott took on settling Dad’s affairs. But why in the name of God did he become obsessed with me? Joy blames me, but I know I never for one second encouraged him.

It’s like that old joke, “My wife ran off with my best friend and I miss him.” Scott destroyed my friendship with Joy and I miss her terribly. Now if he’s moved to New York to be near me, what can I do? A restraining order, if it comes to that?

She realized that the slow, creaking elevator had stopped on the ninth floor and the door was open. She managed to step out before the door closed again. I’m lucky I’m not on the way back down to the lobby, she thought. Resolutely she tried to put Scott out of her mind as she scanned the apartment numbers. Ryan had told her that he was in 9E. This way, she decided, and turned left.

The door of the apartment opened the instant she put her finger on the bell. Ryan Jenner’s welcoming smile immediately lifted her spirits. He interrupted her apology. “Listen, I’ve been kicking myself for not getting your cell phone number. Don’t worry. I called the restaurant and we pushed the reservation back an hour.”

Anything else he might have said was drowned out by the enthusiastic welcoming cries of her Georgetown colleagues. Seeing them again, Monica realized how much she still missed the companionship she had enjoyed in Georgetown. It was eight years of my life, she thought as she hugged her friends. We worked hard those years, but there sure were a lot of good times.

She knew two of the eight visitors, Natalie Kramer and Genine Westervelt, very well. Genine had just opened her private practice as a plastic surgeon in D.C. Natalie was an emergency room doctor. I know them better than I know Ryan, Monica thought, as she settled down in a chair with a glass of wine. He was three years ahead of me, and I never had a class with him, and from a distance he always seemed so reserved. Even now, except when he’s wearing scrubs or a white jacket, anytime I run into him he’s got a suit and tie on. Tonight, in a corduroy shirt and jeans sitting cross-legged on the floor, a beer in his hand, he looked totally relaxed and was obviously enjoying himself.

She looked at him thoughtfully. His specialty is brain injury. I wonder what his opinion would be if he saw Michael O’Keefe’s CAT scans. Should I ask him to take a look at them before I meet with the priest about that supposed miracle? Maybe I will, she decided.

She glanced around instinctively, hoping to get some overall sense of Ryan Jenner from his surroundings. The room was surprisingly formal, with matching couches in a patterned blue fabric, an antique armoire, side tables with elaborate crystal lamps, occasional chairs in blue and cream, and an antique blue and maroon carpet.

“Ryan, this is a lovely apartment,” Genine was saying. “You could put my whole place in this living room. And that’s the way it’s going to be until I’m off the hook with school loans. By then I’ll need to be performing do-it-yourself plastic surgery on my own face.”

“Or replacing my own knee,” Ira Easton chipped in. “Between Lynn and me, our school loans are matched only by our annual malpractice insurance premiums.”

I don’t have school loans, Monica thought, but I don’t have much else. Dad was sick for so long that I’m lucky to be okay financially.

“First of all,” Ryan Jenner was saying. “This is not my apartment. It’s my aunt’s, and everything in it except my toothbrush is hers. She never leaves Florida, and sooner or later she’s going to put it on the market. However, in the meantime she invited me to live in it if I keep up with the maintenance expenses, so here we are. I am paying off school loans, too.”

“Now we all feel better,” Seth Green told him. “Let’s go. I’m hungry.”

An hour later in the restaurant, the talk turned from the cost of malpractice insurance to the difficulty their various hospitals were having in expanding because of the problems with fund-raising. Ryan had arranged the seating so that he was next to Monica. “I don’t know whether you heard,” he said quietly, “but the money Greenwich has been promised for the pediatric wing may not come through. The Gannon Foundation is claiming reduced income and intends to renege on their pledge.”

“Ryan, we need that wing,” Monica protested.

“I heard today there’s talk of having some people meet with the Gannons and try to get them to change their minds,” Ryan said. “No one’s been more persuasive about the pediatric needs at Greenwich than you. You should be there.”

“I’ll make sure I am,” Monica said hotly. “That guy Greg Gannon always has his face in the Sunday Times as a major-league philanthropist. My dad was a research consultant at a Gannon lab in Boston for a few years before he died. It was the patents on the orthopedic parts that gave the Gannons their money. He said they collected zillions of dollars over the life of the patents. They pledged fifteen million to the hospital. Now let them pay up.”

Wrapped in a bathrobe, Rosalie Garcia woke her sleeping husband up at six A.M. on Monday. “Tony, the baby has a fever. He’s caught my cold.”

Tony struggled to open his eyes. The night before, he had driven a couple to a wedding in Connecticut, and then waited to drive them home, which meant he’d had three hours’ sleep. But as what Rosalie was saying sank in, he was instantly awake. Tossing back the covers, he rushed into the tiny second bedroom of their walk-up apartment on East Fourth Street. A sleepy Carlos, his face flushed, ignoring his bottle, was fretfully moving around the crib. With a gentle hand, Tony touched his son’s forehead and confirmed that it was unnaturally warm.