Даниэла Стил - Turning Point

It had been an adjustment for the staff at first, because it was so much bigger, but Stephanie said she loved working there now, and didn’t mind the drive down from her house. The working conditions were excellent. There were research facilities, a cancer hospital, a women’s specialty hospital, and a 183-bed children’s hospital. Every inch of the hospital was the most up-to-date possible, including a 207,000-square-foot outpatient building and a helipad. In Paris there was no hospital to compare to it, nor any that cost anything comparable to build. Stephanie said she felt lucky to work there. She was obviously proud as she showed them around, and Valérie watched her face carefully. She glowed when she talked about her work, and everyone in trauma and the ER knew her. It didn’t go unnoticed, and Valérie and Marie-Laure exchanged a look. She would be giving up a lot for Gabriel, her whole familiar world and status, as well as her marriage.

They had lunch at a bar and restaurant South of Market with a pool table, and when the men went to shoot pool while they waited for lunch, Valérie again thanked Stephanie for the tour and then gazed at her thoughtfully.

“Do you really think you can give all that up, a job you love that much, and be happy practicing in France? You need to think about that carefully,” Valérie said, concerned about her.

“What choice do I have?” Stephanie said. “If I want a life with Gabriel, I have to give this up.” Wendy was listening to the conversation and was worried about her too. She knew she couldn’t have given up her job for a man, and didn’t want to.

“It’s an enormous sacrifice,” Valérie reminded her, “and you’d better be very sure he’s going to leave his wife. You don’t want to give all this up and then find yourself sitting in an apartment while he spends Christmas with his wife and children, and tells you he can’t leave them yet. I know several women that has happened to. Right now he’s madly in love with you, and I’m not saying he isn’t going to get divorced, but when his wife asks him for half his savings, his pension, their summer house, and everything he has, it may be a different story. Living with her may not seem so bad. That’s what French men do. Americans get divorced. Sometimes French guys don’t, or damn few do.”

“And not all Americans do either. Jeff used every excuse in the book. It was always a year or two or three away. I didn’t have to give up anything to be with him, except my friends and my time. If I’d had to give up my job at Stanford, I’d have bailed a lot faster than I did. That would have been too much for me.”

“He says he’s going to take care of everything when he goes back, and call a lawyer.”

“Maybe you should wait and see if he does, before you make a move. And I don’t just mean your marriage. You trained for thirteen years for this job. You’d better be sure before you give it up.” Stephanie felt sick as she listened, and nodded. She knew her father would have said the same thing about her job at UCSF. But she didn’t want to lose Gabriel either. She felt torn. She was quiet when the men came back from playing pool and dug into the sandwiches they’d ordered. They were still talking about the medical facility they’d seen that morning.

“My poor hospital is going to look like nothing after that,” Tom said sadly. “But we do a good job anyway.” They had an excellent reputation and he liked working there. And they had built new additions too, just not on as grand a scale as UCSF, which was mammoth, or the new facility at SF General, which had government funds to use, and an enormous private donor.

They were scheduled to visit Alta Bates on Thursday, and Stanford on Friday, and then they were going to focus on emergency services operations thereafter, and drills similar to the one they’d participated in in Paris.

They had a lecture on terrorism, and another on natural disasters at the Emergency Operations Center that afternoon. An earthquake was the greatest potential threat to San Francisco, and the statistics and expected damage were terrifying if they had a big one.

Stephanie texted Andy after the lectures and told him they had a night meeting, and she went back to the hotel with Gabriel. He had hounded her all day, and she wanted to be with him too. She felt pulled by her responsibilities and her children, and her desire for him. She tried to explain it to Gabriel, but he was too hungry for her and their passion engulfed them as soon as they walked into the room. There was no time for conversation or reassurance, there was a sense of urgency now whenever they were together. It was starting to make her feel anxious. But after they made love, she was more relaxed and she tried not to think of the job and hospital she was giving up for him. There was too much to consider, too much to absorb. She didn’t even realize how worried her friends were about her, or how stressed she looked. And Gabriel didn’t see it either. All he saw was the woman he was so in love with, and wanted to take back to France, no matter what she had to give up to be with him.

She was exhausted when she went home that night, after arguing with Gabriel for an hour when he wanted her to stay.

The house was silent when she got home. Everyone was asleep. It was a relief not to have to talk to anyone. She felt peaceful in the silence.

—

They watched earthquake preparedness training films for all of the next day. And then a representative from the Fire Department explained NERT drills to them. They were Neighborhood Emergency Response Teams, which provided an ongoing framework for the city to deal with disasters, conduct rescue and medical triage, and transport victims to medical treatment facilities.

It gave them a break from on-site hospital tours, and they had the mayor’s reception for them that night at seven. Stephanie wanted to be home at five to get dressed.

“How are you getting there?” Bill asked Wendy as they left the Emergency Operations Center.

“I told Marie-Laure I’d get dressed with her at her hotel and we’d go together, so I don’t have to go back to Palo Alto. I think Paul is meeting us at City Hall. He’s having a drink with some woman he met the other night.” She smiled at Bill. Paul was the lovable bad boy in their midst now, and acted like a kid. It was a role Tom said he had played for twenty years, and had recently given up for more adult pursuits. But at thirty-four, Paul was a long way from there, and entitled to some fun.

“I’ll pick you and Marie-Laure up at the hotel,” Bill volunteered. He offered Gabriel a ride too, since Stephanie had to go with Andy. Bill could see that Gabriel was unhappy about it. He and Stephanie had argued about it that afternoon and she said there was nothing she could do. Her husband had seen the invitation and announced he was coming, and for now, they were still married, as far as he knew anyway. So she couldn’t tell Andy not to come. Gabriel said it would spoil the evening for him, which was a heavy weight on her.

Bill picked them up at the hotel at a quarter to seven. He and Gabriel were wearing suits, and Wendy and Marie-Laure were wearing short black cocktail dresses that showed off their figures. They were both pretty women.

They chatted on the way to City Hall, and Bill said he felt differently about the city having just seen the earthquake films. They reminded him of science fiction, but they were real. Some of the films were simulated, others were of real earthquakes in other parts of the world.

“I’m expecting the dome to fall in on us tonight,” he said and the others laughed.

“I wouldn’t like to be here in an earthquake,” Marie-Laure admitted, and Gabriel sat staring out the window, brooding, thinking about Stephanie arriving with Andy.