Даниэла Стил - Turning Point

Things had suddenly come clear to her that whether or not Jeff saw her didn’t seem of great importance to him. He enjoyed their Wednesday nights, and her company, but a month without her was no big deal to him, even though it was to her. And yet, whenever she had questioned the relationship and tried to get out of it in the past six years, he had talked her into staying. Was she merely a convenience to him, sex he had to make no effort for? Did he even love her? But even if he did, it felt like a dead end. Six years later, he was still going on vacations with his wife. It was obvious that there was no future in it for her, except as an affair he was having on the side, which was exactly who she’d never wanted to be in his life. She looked at herself in the mirror as she got ready for bed, and asked herself if that was what she wanted, someone who cared so little for her, and offered her no future. Year by year she was giving up the chance to have children. It was a high price to pay for sex every Wednesday night, no matter how handsome, impressive, and successful her lover was.

The next morning Jeff kissed her lightly on the lips before he left, thanked her for a wonderful evening, a good meal, and a great bottle of wine. He ran a hand across her bottom and said he’d see her sometime that week, if he had time to drop by. He knew she’d be waiting for him as she always did. They had one more Wednesday before she left for Paris, and she hated herself for making it so easy for him.

That morning, she told the head of the hospital that she would be going to Paris, to represent Stanford Medical Center’s trauma unit in the exchange, and she walked back to her office with a heavy heart. There was no hiding from the fact of how little she meant to Jeff. The truth cut through her like a knife.

Chapter Five

The four trauma doctors from San Francisco had been told to meet at the Starbucks in the international departure terminal at the airport, after they checked in. They were leaving on a Sunday.

Bill Browning was the first to arrive. He was an early riser and always punctual. He called Alex and Pip on the way to the airport. It was late afternoon for them and they had just come home from playing in the park. They knew he was going to be in Paris for a month, and he was taking the Eurostar to see them that weekend. In five days, he would be with them. He couldn’t wait, and they sounded excited about seeing him too. Their mother had agreed to let him see them for four weekends in a row, and even send them to Paris for one of them, when she and Rupert were going to Spain for a few days. When he left Paris, Bill wouldn’t see them again until the summer, so Athena agreed to accommodate him this time. The war between them was over and had been since she married Rupert, and Bill was a responsible, caring father, so she had no objection to his spending time with the children. It was almost as if their marriage had never happened. They no longer had anything in common, the only link between them was the girls.

He ordered a grande cappuccino, and stood watching for the others. He had looked all of them up on Google and had seen their pictures. Their credentials were impressive, they had all gone to important medical schools, and done their residencies at the best hospitals. They were equally matched in terms of their reputations and skills and where they practiced, at four of the finest medical centers in the Bay Area. There wasn’t a weak link in the group. They were relatively close in age, with Stephanie being the youngest at thirty-five, and Tom Wylie the oldest at forty-three, and Wendy and Bill himself in between. Their profiles didn’t say whether they were married or single, and it didn’t matter to Bill. He noticed that Stephanie was very pretty with long blond hair and big blue eyes. She had a very American appearance, and a bright smile with perfect teeth. She looked like the girl next door, all grown up with a medical degree.

Wendy Jones appeared to be petite in the photograph, she had a smoldering sexy quality to her, blue eyes and hair as dark as his own. She was striking and beautiful, but he thought her eyes seemed sad. She wasn’t smiling, and didn’t look like a happy person. She seemed as though she had the cares of the world on her shoulders, but he was impressed that she had graduated cum laude from Harvard. He got the impression from her bio and photograph that she was one of those physicians who took herself very seriously. He’d done his residency at Stanford, where she worked now, so they had that in common.

Wendy arrived within five minutes of Bill. She didn’t notice him at first, and was drinking a short nonfat latte with vanilla and cinnamon as she glanced around. Their eyes met and Bill smiled. She was as slim and petite as he had expected her to be, and appeared younger than thirty-seven. Her hair was long and she was wearing it in a neat ponytail. She was traveling in jeans, a black sweater, and a parka, and was carrying a tote bag full of medical journals she intended to catch up on during the flight. It was eleven hours to Paris, so she had her computer in the bag too. She didn’t like to waste time being idle. Neither did Bill, but he wanted to watch a movie and catch up on his sleep. He had been on call for two nights in a row, and hadn’t bothered to shave for the trip. His outfit was much the same as Wendy’s, jeans, heavy black sweater, black down jacket, and running shoes. They looked like twins as they greeted each other and smiled.

“Exciting trip, isn’t it?” he said warmly, nursing his cappuccino, and his smile lit up his eyes. “I’m really looking forward to it. I have two daughters in London, this gives me a chance to see them before the summer. Their mother’s British so they live over there. I promised to take them to Euro Disney in Paris when they come to France.” He chatted easily as they waited for the two others to arrive. “I’ve been trying to read up on the emergency services structure in France,” he added. “It’s incredibly confusing. They divide all their services by ‘zone’ geographically, at the local, department, and national level. It’s all under the direction of the Ministry of the Interior. Our division of power is a lot simpler.” She nodded and had been reading about it too.

—

Stephanie had had a hard time leaving the boys. They hadn’t been upset about her trip until then, but Andy looked so distressed that they picked up the signal from him, and started to cry before she left the house. She spent ten minutes trying to console them, although she was already late to meet the others before their flight.

Andy had hardly spoken to her since she told him she was going, and he was chilly when he said goodbye and she hugged him. He didn’t kiss her, and stood in the doorway looking stone-faced with a crying child on either side of him. He didn’t do anything to make the departure easier for her, and didn’t console his sons until she left. He wanted his wife to see what it looked like when you abandoned your family for a month to run off to France, on a program he thought she never should have accepted as a married woman with two children. She had tried to reason with him again before she left, to no avail.

“I’m not going to join the Folies Bergère, for Chrissake. I’m going on a work mission with a bunch of doctors.”

“You can do things like that when the kids are in college,” he said sternly. He made it clear that he hadn’t forgiven her for going, and she wondered if he ever would, but it was so unreasonable in her opinion that she didn’t want to enter into his games, or argue the point with him again. The following weekend, he was planning to take the boys skiing in Tahoe, and putting them in ski school. She would have liked to go with them, but probably would have been on call anyway.