Amie Barrodale - You Are Having a Good Time

“It’s Kitty.”

“I generally take this time to prepare.”

“Well, this won’t take any time at all. I’m calling to ask a favor. I understand things went well with Debbie, and I want to thank you, by the way. But the reason for my call is, my husband and I are in Stockholm just now and I wanted to have his secretary send you a check. So, just your best mailing address.”

“Sure.” He gave his address at the office. Then he couldn’t help showing off. He said, “As it happens, I’ll be in Stockholm next month for an IHS meeting. I’ll be speaking. How’s the weather? Should I bring a coat?”

“Oh, hooray! We can meet. Debbie said you were wonderful, but I don’t think you really know a person until you spend some time one-on-one.”

“Well, that’s nice to hear — about Debbie. My impression was that Debbie was feeling ambivalent about her treatment.”

“Ah,” she said. “I’m sorry to run on you, that’s my other line.”

* * *

The IHS meeting was held at a modern conference hotel outside Stockholm. The lobby was full of excited young doctors and pharmaceutical representatives, many of whom already wore their lanyard badges.

Dr. Sheppard made it through the lobby with a few handshakes. He had submitted a paper for presentation, but it had been accepted for the congress. What that meant was that he was not asked to speak before five hundred colleagues but to compress his research to fit a poster, which he would hang among a thousand others and present to a panel of three evaluators. Ordinarily, researchers of his stature responded to congress selection by sending a nurse or a research assistant to the meeting.

The congress looked like a high school science fair. Cloth panels with pushpins in their upper-left-hand corners snaked through the room, and youngsters nervously hung their work. Dr. Sheppard had trouble hanging his poster. He struggled with it.

“Need some help?”

He looked up at the woman who had her hand on his poster.

“Kitty. Kitty Summer. In the flesh. I’m so pleased to meet you, Dr. Sheppard.”

Mrs. Summer was more attractive than her daughter. She was greyhound-thin, and she wore patent heels, a slim-waisted skirt suit, and a short string of extraordinarily large pearls. He pinned the corner of his poster and stepped back.

“Oscar Sheppard.”

“This is my husband, Stephen.” She gestured to a pudgy man in tweed. “We owe Dr. Sheppard money, Stephen. Dr. Sheppard, do you have a minute? Good. Let’s feed you. You look hungry.”

* * *

Mrs. Summer got the waiter with a look. She said, “Stoli, one rock, and my husband will have the chicken sandwich.”

“And a side of mayo?” Stephen said.

“And a side of mayo — please bring it in a ramekin.”

Dr. Sheppard ordered a white wine spritzer and the raw vegetable appetizer. Over their drinks, the Summers asked Dr. Sheppard questions about his flight, his wife, his books, and his appointment at Columbia. He told them about Isabel and their shared practice. He explained that she didn’t like the big meetings or travel, and he praised Debbie’s intelligence.

“I think our sessions are going very well.”

“Oh, she says you’re marvelous. Of course, she doesn’t show any improvement, as far as I can tell, but these things take time, one supposes.”

“Yes, she’s just barely started on the medication.”

“Barely started.” Kitty snorted.

“Generally speaking, it takes a month for the brain to—”

“Ah.”

The waiter put Stephen’s sandwich and mayonnaise in front of him. Mrs. Summer took two Ziploc bags out of her purse. She put the bread in one, and the lettuce and tomato in the other. She put both bags back into her purse, picked up a knife, dipped the tip of it into the mayonnaise, dotted the chicken, and put the knife back down precisely.

“How long are you in town?” she asked.

“Till Sunday.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. We could have had you over for dinner, but at least you’ll have time to go to the baths. Have you been yet? I don’t really go in for museums. Do you? What do you go in for?”

Dr. Sheppard told Mrs. Summer about some of his hobbies. He worked out three times a week, he explained, and he was devoted to daily meditation. Kitty loved horses. While they talked about her prize-winning dressage, her husband ate. When he choked on a bit of his chicken, Mrs. Summer gave him a glass of water. “It’s the mayonnaise,” she explained to Dr. Sheppard.

“At home, I have my riding. But this year, during Stephen’s appointment, I’ve decided I’m taking time off. So today, for example, I did a little shopping.”

“Appointment?”

“Stephen is a diplomat,” Mrs. Summer said.

“Ambassador Summer?”

“Head ass-kisser Summer,” Stephen said. “My wife fundraised for the last campaign, and this is the reward.”

“Well, it must be nice.”

“Hmph. I spend half my day managing the Dunleavys.”

“Stephen is talking about our caretakers in St. Louis. They’re a charming couple, but they’ve never really been in service. I called last week asking them to take a bag of mine out of storage and mail it to Debbie, and they behaved as if it was a great inconvenience.”

“They haven’t met Kitty yet,” Stephen said to Dr. Sheppard, and raised his eyebrows. It seemed like he was issuing a friendly warning.

Dr. Sheppard changed the subject. “Does your daughter mind you being away for a year?”

“Are you putting us on the couch, Dr. Sheppard?” Mrs. Summer laughed. Stephen smiled politely. Mrs. Summer said, “I think she’s glad. She has the opinion that I control her life.”

“She never mentioned that.”

“She wouldn’t. She’s too cunning.” She stopped herself and then said, “When Debbie moved to New York, I came up and helped her get settled. We looked at apartments together, and when we found one she liked — emphasis on she liked , that girl, well, we’re the ones who made her that way — we bought furniture. I didn’t think about it when she didn’t thank me because children tend to expect you to do that kind of thing, but three years later she called me blind drunk and told me that I was crazy and I’d ruined her life because I bought her three sets of kitchenware. Of course, the parents are always to blame. I’m boring you?”

“No.”

“You think it’s odd that Stephen is eating boiled chicken. I’m sorry, it’s his diet.”

“No, I understand. But can I ask, why do you have the bags?”

“My baggies? You pay for the lettuce and tomato and bread whether you eat it or not, so I take it and put it in the fridge for Tove. Dr. Sheppard? While we’re on the subject of diet and exercise, I think it’s important that Debbie doesn’t know we’ve met. Stephen, you agree. She would regard it as a betrayal. I bought her kitchen supplies and she still hasn’t forgiven me.”

* * *

Back in the office, Debbie brought him a small cake from Dean & DeLuca. He worried about normalizing this kind of behavior. He watched as she sliced the cake in half, and he let her serve him a slice, but he took only a very small bite and then put it down.

“How was your weekend?” Debbie asked.

“It was all right.”

“You look like shit, no offense. What did you do?”

Dr. Sheppard looked at his telephone. He righted his prescription pad so that it was in line with his blotter and said, “I went to New Haven.”

“Oh, why?”

“I had my thirty-year reunion.”

“Did you drink too much?”

“Very funny.”

Debbie took small bites of her cake. She ate daintily, but without any shame. His gaze drifted toward her thighs, which were spread out flat on the armchair, and looked like elephant trunks.