Даниэла Стил - Turning Point

They were a boisterous group, talking and laughing in English and French, and Valérie asked Stephanie quietly how things were going with her unraveling marriage.

“Tense,” Stephanie said, as she sat holding Gabriel’s hand.

“Have you told him anything since you got back?”

“We agree that it’s not working. I’ll talk to him about it after you all leave. I didn’t want to rock the boat too much while you’re here. I’m sticking to that plan.”

Someone mentioned the mayor’s reception then, and they were excited about it. Stephanie used the opportunity to warn Gabriel that Andy was coming, and he was instantly upset.

“How did that happen? Did you invite him?” He was shocked.

“Of course not. He saw the invitation and grabbed it before I could stop him, and he insisted he wants to come. I don’t know why this time, he never does. We’ll just have to get through it and be discreet.” Gabriel looked ruffled for a few minutes and then got drawn into conversation with the others and forgot about it. Tom told them about the trick Valérie had played on him, pretending she’d found a thong under the bed, when it was her own. “I nearly had a heart attack,” he said, and she laughed. She was playful and naughty and sexy and he loved that about her too, as well as her serious, sensitive, loving, and smart side. She had all the qualities he’d ever dreamed of and never found in one woman.

“How are things working out with your situation?” Bill asked Wendy discreetly and she smiled.

“Done. I ended it when I got back.” He looked surprised.

“I didn’t think you’d do that, or not for a while. Married men are hard to get away from.”

“It was time. It was long overdue, in fact, and I finally realized it. I’d been making a fool of myself for the last two or three years,” she admitted.

“Welcome to the human race. I made an ass of myself for five, hating my ex-wife when we never should have been together in the first place. Some things take longer than others to get over. I’m proud of you,” he said and they high-fived.

Valérie told the group then that Marie-Laure had had dinner with Captain Bruno Perliot twice in the last two weeks since they left. She looked embarrassed and shy, but pleased.

“He’s very nice” was all she would say about him, but the American team were happy to hear it. He had seemed like a good man.

“Hopefully, we won’t provide as much excitement as you gave us,” Bill said solemnly, thinking of the school attack. “Just a lot of information, paperwork, and tours. The most dangerous location is at the hospital where I work tomorrow. Our patients shoot each other regularly if they haven’t finished the job on the street.” He insisted it was true. “The most challenging part of our job is dodging stray bullets while they kill each other and we try to save their lives. It’s an interesting segment of society.” He was joking but not entirely, and handguns were more common in the States than in France. “Very Wild West,” Marie-Laure commented and they laughed.

They walked down Market Street to the Ferry Building afterward, through the food markets there, and then they walked along the Embarcadero by the bay. There were a lot of tourists. They walked far enough so they could see Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge. Then they took cabs back to the hotel, and Tom and Valérie went to get his car. They left each other at five o’clock. Tom and Valérie went home to Oakland, and Stephanie went to the hotel with Gabriel, and they went up to his room. Marie-Laure, Wendy, and Bill had a drink at the bar, and Paul went back to the Clift, where he had liked the look of the girls the night before. He was doing fine without Tom as his guide, and just needed occasional advice about where to go.

Stephanie left Gabriel at eight o’clock, since she’d been gone all day, although he asked her again to stay at the hotel with him. He was persistent, but she said she had to see her boys. She wanted him to meet them, but not when Andy was around. She was going to try and arrange it sometime during his stay.

Andy had just put the boys to bed when she got home and she kissed them goodnight. They were already half asleep and had had a good day at their grandmother’s.

“You got some sun today,” Andy commented.

“We walked along the Embarcadero for miles. They want to see all the sights,” she said blandly.

“Did you have fun?”

“They’re a good group. You’ll meet them on Wednesday.” He nodded and didn’t comment. She read the papers they’d been sent by the DEM, and she was looking forward to seeing SF General with Bill. She hadn’t been there in quite a while and heard wonderful things about their new facility. She was happy to be doing all of it with Gabriel. He texted her four times that night, and she had to tell him to stop, and then turned off her phone.

On Tuesday, they were going to be touring UCSF, with Stephanie as their guide. And suddenly, thinking about it made her sad. If she moved to France with Gabriel, she would be leaving UCSF soon. It was going to be like leaving home. The thought of giving up her job frightened her. Who would she be without her role at UCSF? It would be like losing a limb. And what if she didn’t find a good job as a foreigner in France? There was so much to think about. She had nightmares about it that night.

Chapter Sixteen

The administrative setup of San Francisco’s emergency services was complicated but no more so than the elaborate system in France. Each country had their own way of dividing up vital services and deciding who should run them. In San Francisco, the Department of Emergency Management, the DEM, was responsible for planning, preparedness, communication, response, and recovery for daily emergencies and major disasters like the “multiple casualty incident” at the lycée in Paris. The DEM was the bridge between the public and first responders, and provided all the key coordination with city departments. It was originally known as the Office of Emergency Services, and other branches of emergency communications had merged with it, all under the umbrella of the DEM, which was run by an executive director and three deputy directors. When necessary, the DEM brought the Emergency Operations Center into action to support field operations and provide public information, among other functions. They had their own deputy director.

The DEM building was on Turk Street in the Tenderloin among the derelicts and drug addicts, not far from where the French team was staying in Union Square.

Marie-Laure, Paul, and Gabriel arrived together by cab at the DEM. Valérie came with Tom, and the American team met them there. Two out of three of the deputy directors had come. The executive director welcomed the French representatives and congratulated them on their handling of the lycée shooting, which had been a tragedy but could have been even worse, as the professionals knew, despite the rabble-rousing of the press and Jacqueline Moutier.

They discussed it for a few minutes, and each of the deputy directors spoke, explaining how the system of first responders worked, and what systems were in place for a major natural disaster like an earthquake, or a terrorist attack. Everything had been thought through with great care, equipment was state of the art, their approach was constantly updated, and manpower was strong. It was an efficient department and the French were impressed. It was a remarkably smooth operation that had been impeccably implemented. They also explained how the various hospitals in the Bay Area were used, and how triage was determined and by whom. They were scheduled to see the four most important hospitals in the next few weeks, as well as the Saint Francis Burn Center, which was a very important facility and had been crucial in the recent hotel fire in January.