Morgan's Passing - Anne Tyler [3]
“You must be freezing,” Leon said.
“I’m all right, Leon.”
“It’s the adrenaline,” the doctor said absently. He came to a stop and gazed off across the parking lot, stroking his beard. “I seem to have lost my car,” he said.
Leon said, “Oh, God.”
“No, there it is. Never mind.”
His car was clearly a family man’s—snub-nosed, outdated, with a frayed red hair ribbon flying from the antenna and WASH THIS! written in the dust on one fender. Inside, there were schoolbooks and dirty socks and gym bloomers and rucked-up movie magazines. The doctor knelt on the front seat and swatted at the clutter in the rear until most of it had landed on the floor. Then he said, “There you go. You two sit in the back; you’ll be more comfortable.” He settled himself in front and started the engine, which had a whining, circular sound. Emily and Leon slid into the rear. Emily found a track shoe under her right knee, and she placed it on her lap, cupping the heel and toe in her fingers. “Now,” said the doctor. “Which hospital?”
Emily and Leon looked at each other.
“City? University? Hopkins?”
“Whatever’s the closest,” Leon said.
“But which have you reserved? Where’s your doctor?”
“We haven’t reserved anyplace,” Emily said, “and we don’t have a doctor.”
“I see.”
“Anywhere,” said Leon. “Just get her there.”
“Very well.”
The doctor maneuvered his car out of the parking space. He shifted gears with a grinding sound. Leon said, “I guess we should have attended to this earlier.”
“Yes, actually,” said the doctor. He braked and looked in both directions. Then he nosed the car into the stream of traffic on Farley Street. They were traveling through a new, raw section barely within the city limits—ranch houses, treeless lawns, another church, a shopping mall. “But I suppose you lead a footloose sort of life,” the doctor said.
“Footloose?”
“Carefree. Unattached,” he said. He patted all his pockets with one hand until he’d found a pack of Camels. He shook a cigarette free and lit it, which involved so much fumbling and cursing and clutching at dropped objects that it was a wonder the other drivers managed to stay clear of him. When he’d finally flicked his match out, he exhaled a great cloud of smoke and started coughing. The Pontiac wandered from lane to lane. He thumped his chest and said, “I suppose you just follow the fairs, am I correct? Just follow the festivities, stop wherever you find yourselves.”
“No, what happened was—”
“But I wish we could have brought along the puppets,” the doctor said. He turned onto a wider street. He was forced to slow down now, inching past furniture shops and carpet warehouses, trailing a mammouth Mayflower van that blocked all view of what lay ahead. “Are we coming to a traffic light?” he asked. “Is it red or green? I can’t see a thing. And what about their noses, the puppets’ noses? How’d you make the stepmother’s nose? Was it a carrot?”
“Excuse me?” Emily said. “Nose?” She didn’t seem to be concentrating. “I’m sorry,” she said. “There’s some kind of water all over everything.”
The doctor braked and looked in the rear-view mirror. His eyes met Leon’s. “Can’t you hurry?” Leon asked him.
“I am hurrying,” the doctor said.
He took another puff of his cigarette, pinching it between his thumb and forefinger. The air in the car grew blue and layered. Up ahead, the Mayflower van was trying to make a left turn. It would take all day, at this rate. “Honk,” Leon said. The doctor honked. Then he clamped his cigarette in his teeth and swung out into the right-hand lane, where a car coming up fast behind nearly slammed into them. Now horns were blowing everywhere. The doctor started humming. He pulled back into the left lane, set his left-turn signal blinking, and sped toward the next traffic light, which hung beside a swinging sign that read NO LEFT TURN. His cigarette had a long, trembly tube of ashes hanging from it. He tapped the ashes onto the floor, the steering wheel, his lap. “After the ball is o-ver,” he sang. He careened to the right again and cut across the apron of a Citgo station, took a