James Siegel - Deceit

She kept nodding up and down, up and down, drinking in the news in big thirsty gulps.

“Can I see him?”

“I don’t know. I think he’s still out of it. You’d have to ask the doctor. Of course-since you’re family, maybe they…”

She didn’t wait for me to finish, went scurrying off after the first flash of hospital green, an ER nurse wheeling another patient into ICU.

I waited.

There were some magazines laid out on a small wooden table. A recent issue of Time , an ancient People missing half its cover-a newly married Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston ripped completely in half, leaving only Aniston with her left arm reaching oddly out into space. Someone must’ve wanted to set the record straight. I leafed through it without actually reading it.

I was doing something else.

Pushing an imaginary pencil from dot to dot to dot.

I’d say our deceased was black.

It was just a little odd-the timing… Someone called one of my deputies…

The car was already on fire. He said it was empty.

Willing to act in nontraditional formats.

I got ten hits. Ten fucking hits.

There’s the outline. Now look at it and say what it is.

Say it.

What are you drawing? she asked me, the pretty waitress who always seemed to give me and Jimmy an extra helping of flapjacks. Who sometimes tousled our hair and leaned over the table on both elbows so that we could smell her perfume-like the crushed flowers my mom put between the pages of books.

A whale , I said. An octopus. An elephant .

She laughed. An elephant here in the diner-whoops, I better call the zoo.

I smiled and laughed too, feeling my cheeks flush. Complicit in the whole thing, even though I wasn’t.

It’s hard to say what a kid knows or doesn’t-isn’t that what Bailey Kindlon found out?

Was it my first lie?

That she was just a waitress who’d picked us, out of all the kids in the diner, to bestow her special smiles on?

Why did my mom never come to breakfast at the Acropolis Diner?

Or did she-just once?

If I tried hard enough, I could remember.

The four of us sitting in a red booth-one unhappy family-only we weren’t that unhappy, not like we were going to be. Not yet. But wasn’t there a coolness as my mom handed her menu back to the waitress who’d taken our order-the waitress who asked me what I was drawing, what fabulous animal I was conjuring up this time? And me not understanding why my mom wasn’t smiling back at her, worshiping at the altar of her radiance like we did-Jimmy, Dad, and me?

I could remember something else, too.

My mom brusquely calling her over, this waitress- Lillian , her name tag said, like the flower, like a Lilly -after my pancakes had already arrived and I’d poured half a bottle of maple syrup over them. My mom suddenly pulling my plate away, just yanking it right from under me, and calling her over.

These pancakes are cold! How can you serve your customers cold food? It’s disgraceful-do you hear me! Disgraceful! You are a disgrace!

Doing what moms aren’t supposed to do, except when they get flowers, maybe, or are watching something sad on TV.

Crying.

Fat tears rolling down her cheeks as the diner went very quiet as if all the jukeboxes had suddenly shut off, and I learned that you couldn’t actually die of embarrassment.

After that morning, it was just Jimmy, Dad, and me.

Every Sunday, just the three of us.

Until he left.

And if I knew it wasn’t just the three of us-knew that it was the three of us plus one-I never whispered it out loud.

Not even when it became just the two of us.

I heard the sound of the ICU swing open, sniffed the faint odor of blood and alcohol.

A surgeon came striding out with the purposeful walk of the almighty who’s still got miracles to accomplish. He pulled off his mask, using it to wipe off the sheen of sweat that covered his brow.

It reminded me of something.

That other thing that needed to be checked out-the thing sitting out there on the ledge I needed to coax back in. The thing I was trying to remember when Nate tapped me on the shoulder and said: those science awards? I know why.

Sure.

Here’s my notes,” I said to him. “What seems to be the problem?”

I was in the office that had a stenciled Editorial on the door. He was crouched over his desk, looking as if he was half sleeping on it. He didn’t have bags under his eyes as much as fully packed valises.

“The abortion clinic-bombing doctor?” he said. “You said he took his residency in pediatrics at St. Alban’s, a hospital in Mizzolou, Missouri. That’s what it said in your article.”

“Yes?” Look calm, I coached myself, even a little affronted.

“A spokesman from St. Alban’s just called. Notwithstanding their obvious desire to separate themselves from a religious zealot and possible murderer, he swore on a stack of good Presbyterian Bibles they don’t offer residencies in pediatrics-certainly not in the years you mentioned. So we have an obvious problem here.”

“I don’t think I mentioned what years he served his residency.”

Good, just a touch of annoyance, as if he was keeping me from doing my real work, which was scratching out my next article and not answering for a minor inconsistency.

“No, I know you didn’t, Tom. But you mention his age-43. Which would pretty much tell you when he served his residency-give or take a year.”

“Okay. Well, maybe he took a little longer to become a doctor. I’m sorry-he didn’t tell me when he served his residency. I was kind of delighted he told me where. I mean, I think he tripped up a little telling me that-since the deal was anonymity or nothing.”

He had an unraveled paper clip clenched between his teeth. It was nearly bitten in half.

“Of course, now that you mention it,” I said, “he might’ve told me he served his residency at St. Alban’s to throw me off the scent. I probably should’ve left it out of the article.”

“You have your notes, Tom?”

“Right here.”

“Good.”

I leaned over and placed them on the desk, flipping the memo pad to the second page. “There,” I said, pointing to the name of the hospital. “See-that’s what he told me. St. Alban’s. Residency served. I probably should have pushed him on it-but, you know, I was kind of holding my breath that he’d told me even that much.”

He stared at my notes, running his finger across the ink like a blind man reading Braille.

“When did you interview him, Tom?”

“Oh… let’s see… uh-huh, March 5,” pointing to the date at the top of the page, the one I’d scrawled last night right after I’d interviewed the imaginary doctor in my head-Tom Valle, meet Dr. Anonymous-devolving my article into scrupulously ordered notes able to pass safely through the treacherous shoals of fact checkers, legal eagles, and increasingly suspicious editors.

“That’s odd, Tom.”

“Why?”

“March 5. You were in Florida on March 5. I remember because I turned 55 the day before, and you called to wish me happy birthday. You were in Boca Raton doing that piece on retirement communities. That was March 5, Tom-I’m positive. Didn’t you say you interviewed the doctor in Michigan?”

“Hey… what… what you’re asking me?”

“I’m asking you when you interviewed the doctor. We have a spokesman from St. Alban’s screaming about lawsuits and I need to know the facts. So again… when did you interview the doctor?”

“Well… lemme see… you know, it was more than once, of course. I talked to him on the phone, and then I met him in person in Michigan.”