Robin Cook - Critical

"The honest one for sure."

"Actually, I never wanted to be a businesswoman, at least not until about five years ago."

"What did you want to be?"

"I wanted to be a doctor."

"No shit?" Chet questioned, as a wry, uncertain smile appeared on his face.

"No shit," Angela echoed. "And I was part of the herd. I was part of the ninety-eight percent you mentioned. I truly wanted to take care of and hopefully cure people. It might sound overly sappy, but I even had it in mind to bring medicine into the inner city like a kind of modern-day Dr. Livingstone."

"How come you didn't do it?"

"I did do it," Angela said. "I went the whole nine yards. I did a residency in internal medicine, got my boards, and opened a practice in Harlem."

Chet sat back and put his fork down. He was momentarily at a loss for words. He'd sensed from the moment he'd begun talking with Angela at the health club that there was something special about her, but he never would have guessed she was a doctor. The shocking news challenged his self-esteem, since being an M.D. and a high-level businesswoman certainly trumped his being only a doctor. But at the same time, the news fanned his interest in Angela.

"Are you surprised?" Angela asked. Chet looked as if a cannon had gone off next to him.

"I'm flabbergasted."

"Why?"

"I don't really know," Chet stammered.

"I'm surprised myself," Angela admitted. "But perhaps my motivations for medicine weren't quite as altruistic as I've always believed."

"Oh?" Chet voiced. He leaned forward. "Why not?"

"Part of the reason I wanted to go to medical school, and I suppose to take care of people, because that's generally what you do after you graduate, was to get back at my father."

"Really?"

"Really!" Angela repeated. In truth of fact, she was as surprised by her statement about her father as Chet was. It wasn't that the idea hadn't vaguely occurred to her in rare moments over the years, but rather because she'd never truly visited the issue.

"Forgive me if I'm being too personal," Chet said, readjusting himself in his seat. "Why would you want to get back at your father? For some reason, I guess I just assumed you experienced an idyllic childhood."

"In all outward appearances, it was," Angela said. She was again surprised at herself. As a private person, she was admitting things she'd admitted only to a few close girlfriends while in college. "And it was important for my father that it appeared that way. But our perfect little family had its secrets." Angela paused, unsure if she wanted to go on. "I hope I'm not boring you. Are you sure you want to hear this?"

"Oh, come on!" Chet complained. "I'm fascinated. And if it is a concern for you, I give you my word that whatever you feel comfortable telling me will go no further."

"I appreciate that," Angela said. She took a sip of wine, thought for a moment, and then said, "Regrettably, my father abused me, not in any sexual sense but rather in an emotional sense. Of course, I had no idea of this as a child. It was only after I'd matured to whatever degree I have. When I was very young, I was the apple of my father's eye. I remember it very well, and I was crazy about him. But with my father's guarded emotions and reliance on appearances, the cost for me, and for my mother, for that matter, was absolute, pet-like allegiance. As long as I was his little automaton darling doll, everything was picture-perfect. The problem was that I was slowly growing up, and the moment I expressed any autonomy by being my own person, he turned away from me and dropped small comments about me abandoning him, which made me feel horribly guilty. For a time, I tried desperately to please him, but invariably I'd disappoint him as my interests turned progressively away from home and more toward my friends and school. My poor mom, who had remained entirely allegiant, perhaps suffered the most, because he seemed to become bored with her and had the stereotypic midlife crisis, complete with affairs and alcohol. Of course, he never took responsibility. He blamed both my mother and myself for his need to act out, claiming no one cared about him. For some reason, which I'll never understand, my poor mom stayed with him until he divorced her for a younger woman."

"I'm sorry for you," Chet said. "It's tragic that people like your father can be their own worst enemies. Obviously, your father should have been proud of your accomplishments, not feel threatened by them. But how did this influence your wanting to go to medical school?"

"My father was a dentist, quite a successful and good one, actually, but he had in one of his rare flashes of honesty admitted he'd wanted to be a doctor but had been unable to get into medical school. To please him, back when I was only ten or eleven I told him I would go to medical school, which wasn't entirely a surprise, since one of my favorite child games was being a nurse or a doctor, which at the time I thought was the same thing."

"You were just being clairvoyant. Year by year, the two fields are coming closer and closer. The major difference now is nurses work harder and doctors are paid more."

Angela smiled but was preoccupied by her own story. She had never before expressed it even to herself quite so succinctly.

"So part of your motivation to go to medical school was to spite your father?" Chet asked.

"I think it was a part. It was like a personally rewarding way to get a kind of revenge. My getting an M.D. challenged him to the extent he skipped my graduation."

"I don't know if I can quite buy this theory in its entirety," Chet remarked.

"Why?"

"The fact that you subsequently did an internal-medicine residency, one of the most demanding, took a lot of commitment."

"I'm still not practicing."

"And why is that?"

"Actually, because my practice literally went bankrupt. I ran up a considerable debt because the Medicaid reimbursement was either slow or nonexistent, and the Medicare too low to cover the shortfall."

"Wow," Chet said. "My life in comparison with yours has been a walk in the park. As a child growing up, my most emotionally draining moment was when some older kids kicked in the face of my Halloween pumpkin. My folks are still together, my father came to every athletic event and graduation I ever had from kindergarten on up."

"With that kind of stable background, how come you're such a Casanova? I hope you don't mind me asking, especially since I don't know it's true. You seemed so at ease when you approached me last night, and your repartee seems so polished."

Chet laughed. "It's all an act. I'm always nervous on the inside and worried about being rejected. Calling me Casanova gives me more credit than I deserve. Casanova was successful; I'm usually not, although once I do go out with a woman a half a dozen times or so, I find myself yearning for the chase. Whether it represents a problem or not, I don't know. It started in medical school, when I had to work as well as go to school. I didn't have time for a real relationship, because a real relationship takes time." Chet shrugged. "So the seeds were planted back then."

"Well, that sounds honest."

"Honest, yes; admirable, probably not. I'd like to say I just haven't met the right woman, but I can't because I usually don't hang around long enough to find out."

"Have you ever had a long-term relationship?"

"Oh, yeah! Practically all the way through college. My girlfriend and I had plans for her to follow me to Chicago where I went to medical school, but at the last minute she ditched me for somebody here in New York."

"I'm sorry."

"All's fair in love and war."

"Maybe that episode affected you more than you give it credit for."

"Maybe," Chet said. Then, to change the subject back to her, he said, "You mentioned you were divorced. Do you want to talk about that?"