Mr Peanut - Adam Ross [106]
It was an event he recalled vividly. It was in Bay View’s pathology lab, his brother Richard giving Susan the tour of the hospital, where they’d hired her as a lab technician, their third addition to the staff in a month. He’d just come out of a routine appendectomy, and yet he felt anointed by the procedure’s efficiency, with the sense of order restored, the same tidiness and rectitude he felt when he changed his car’s oil and slammed the hood shut. He was naked under his scrubs—how he liked to work—and this contributed a kind of bedtime calm and comfort, a distinct libidinal alertness as he strolled the halls pendulant and free. He always felt most manly after scrubbing out.
Sheppard walked into pathology—Susan’s back was to him—and when she turned, Richard introduced her. Afterward, he reassembled her features in his mind: the strong, slender hand; the curly auburn hair; the golden brown complexion; the freckling across her cheeks and nose, so distinct it seemed tribal. He had to do all this after their introduction because the initial sight of her had somehow obliterated it.
“I hope you like being busy,” he’d told her.
“I do, Dr. Sheppard.”
“We start bright and early.”
“The bus from Rocky River’s always on time.”
“No car?” Richard said.
“I thought I got one when I was hired,” she joked.
They all laughed. Even Richard was smitten.
“Rocky River?” Sheppard said. “Where?”
“Fifty-nine oh three.”
“I’m only a block down.”
“We could take the bus together,” she said.
“I was thinking I’d drive.”
“Careful, Sam,” said Richard. “This is a nice girl. She still lives with her parents.”
“If Dr. Sheppard wants to drive the bus,” she said, “that’s fine by me.”
She talked like a movie starlet, Sheppard thought in his office later. And she was as pretty as one. She, of course, could be forgiven for the former. He put his feet up on his desk, his hands behind his head, and stared at the ceiling. Usually, he took a quick nap between his morning surgeries and lunch, but now he was wide awake. Before, with other women, he might simply be thankful that life had once again become interesting, but this was different.
You’ll see her tomorrow, he told himself.
She was waiting for him in his red MG the very next morning.
Sheppard came into the garage and there she was, sitting in the passenger seat as if she’d been there all night, so confident she didn’t even look up. It stopped him, cold and amazed, for a second, her presence genie-granted even before he’d made the wish. He’d decided on his blue pinstripe suit this morning, and for some reason he stopped and touched his tie, looking down at his chest and smiling to himself; then, collected, he walked over and opened the driver’s door. She looked at him, again with a directness that silenced any questions and nullified small talk, a gaze that he found wonderful and unsettling to return. He started the car, backed out of the garage, and drove to the hospital uncharacteristically slowly, though not once during the whole ride did they speak. The car was dying to climb out of third, and when he downshifted before a stop he could feel each of the gear box’s grooves. Once the light changed he accelerated gingerly, as if he were driving on ice. In the parking lot, she said, “Thank you, Dr. Sheppard,” and then waited; instinctively, he hurried around to open the door for her—something he never did for Marilyn.
He held the hospital door open for her as well, and she walked to the lab without saying as much as good-bye.
If he saw Susan today, whether in the halls or the cafeteria, he knew they wouldn’t speak. He was as certain of this as he was that she’d be waiting in his car the next morning.
She was, her hands crossed over her lap. He didn’t hesitate this time and again they didn’t speak; speak and something might change. It was mid-May, spectacular spring weather, the dogwoods sneezing, cherry trees flowering like cotton candy, the redbuds like newly popped corn, various colors humming like Susan