Mr Peanut - Adam Ross [128]
“This one’s so compromised,” Chappie said, “what we really need to do is swap it out with part of a pulmonary.”
“Where do you get that?”
“Donors,” he said. “Cadavers. Unfortunately we’ve had problems with rejections.”
When they brought the woman off the pump, Chappie watched her EKG and said, “Let’s see if this motor will run.”
The woman died on the table.
When he picked Susan up at her apartment, he was too tired to tell her anything about his day. All he wanted was to go to sleep. But Susan was hungry, and he could tell by the outfit she had on that she was ready to be taken out. Chappie had recommended a place in Santa Monica—Ernie’s, on Barnard Way—and it was a wonderful call. They sat outside with a view of the pier, the carousel’s organ sounding its plaintive notes over the glassed ocean, the distant Ferris wheel appearing to Sheppard like a dilated eye. Still, he struggled to shake himself out of his inner quiet and remoteness, the lingering detachment brought on by the hours of surgery and the night before. Out of discomfort, perhaps, Susan launched into a story about her superior, the woman who ran the pathology lab. And even while Sheppard’s attention wandered, it occurred to him that she always established someone at work as her enemy, who from the get-go was determined to limit her potential and make her life impossible—at Bay View this was Tricia—so that when she did finally leave, or was fired, she’d bear no personal responsibility at all.
“Did you hear me?” she said.
“I’m sorry,” he said, placing his hand over the back of hers. Though that too was like an act, a pantomime of intimacy. “I’m exhausted.” He took her fingers and looked at the bloodstone ring he’d given her, the green flecked lightly with red.
“Sam,” she said. “In your letters, you kept mentioning something you wanted to tell me when you came out here.”
“I know,” he said. All certainty suddenly seemed to have fled.
“Are you going to tell me?”
“I am,” he said. “But I’ve just arrived.”
She looked puzzled.
“What I mean,” he said, “is that I’d like for us just to be for a few days—to be us. Let me get my feet on the ground.”
“But you’ll tell me?” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “Of course.”
Dinner lifted his spirits and Marilyn was far, far away. After leaving the restaurant, they drove north along the Pacific Coast Highway toward the Palisades, then east past Will Rogers Park. Occasionally Susan leaned over and kissed him or ran her hand up and down his thigh, and his indifference and remoteness dissolved, and once again it was obvious that they had to get somewhere fast, that his attraction to this woman was an ever-burning thing, and upon returning to Michael’s house—it was late now, past ten, and no one met them at the door when he unlocked it—he hurried her to his room. And afterward, as they lay there together, she whispered, “I’ve dreamed this before.”
Then she fell asleep, starting to snore so loudly that it made him sit up. And then he began to think. Another night of sleeplessness would kill him tomorrow. But he was thirsty from too much wine and wandered into the kitchen. Standing at the sink, he downed two glasses of water and was about to turn off the light when Michael appeared. With his hands pressed into the pockets of his robe, he looked at Sheppard grimly and nodded toward the guest room. “Is she in there?”
“Susan? Yes.”
Michael raised his shoulders and let them fall. “What are you doing, Sam?”
Sheppard said nothing.
“Let me put it like this: What are you doing in my house? There are kids here, for Christ’s sake. We’re Marilyn’s friends on top of that. How could you put us in this position?”
“I don’t want you to say anything.”
Michael tapped his forehead. “Sam, that’s the point.”
“Well, I’m sorry then.”
“Are you and Marilyn divorcing?”
Sheppard shrugged.
“You should.”
“Michael, please—”
“Please nothing. You’re behaving pathologically.”
“I think we’ve both had our pathological moments.”
Michael stepped closer and whispered, “You’re out of line. And you need to have your fucking head examined. I’m serious.