Butterfly (36 page)

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He winced. They all hated taking ER call. That messy business was usually relegated

to residents and doctors new to the staff. “How come, my friend?” he asked. “Don’t tell

me you need the money!”

No, Linda didn’t need the money. But she couldn’t tell this handsome orthopedic sur-

geon with a social life that read like
People
magazine just what her needs were. Namely, that

she needed to stay away from the loneliness that was haunting her house on the beach.

It seemed to lie in wait for her every night, that cold loneliness, hovering just on the

other side of her salt-weathered front door ready to engulf her the minute she walked in

and turned on the lights. It would rush at her in the same way the sounds of the eternal

waves rushed at her, and she’d find herself standing in the entryway, among her driftwood

and seagull sculptures, unable to move.

How could she tell this man, who had girlfriends galore and who went to parties every

night, that she was afraid of her own house?

Emergency Room call gave her an excuse to stay at the hospital and sleep in one of the

on-call rooms. It gave her something to do, kept her busy, worked her mind to the point

of exhaustion, so that she couldn’t think about anything else. Because St. Catherine’s was

located near the beach and on the Pacific Coast Highway, the Emergency Room of the

enormous medical complex handled more than a normal share of car accidents, surfing

mishaps, muggings, and knifings. Linda was kept on her toes, examining, diagnosing,

suturing, taking patients up to surgery. She drank copious amounts of strong black coffee,

ate stale Danishes from vending machines, and was losing weight. The OR greens hung

on her.

She felt José Mendoza studying her, but she ignored him. When he had first come to

St. Catherine’s three years ago, a hotshot sawbones whose patient list included famous

athletes and movie stars, José had put the make on the single and somewhat aloof Dr.

Markus. She had rebuffed him in a firm but friendly way. She had been a puzzle to him

then, and she was a puzzle to him now. Linda wasn’t married, he knew, and not dating

anyone, according to the hyperactive hospital grapevine. All she did, it seemed, was work.

“Can I give you some advice, my friend?” he said.

She looked at him. José Mendoza was one of those men whose sexuality was enhanced

by the drab, tacky operating-room duds. That, plus his sparky Latino charm, and it was

no wonder that most of the nursing staff was in love with him.

“Well!” drawled old Dr. Cane. “Would you look at that?”

Linda and José turned to the TV.

The screen showed Danny Mackay coming out of the residence of a former president

of the United States. A man who, to everyone’s surprise, had just endorsed Danny

Mackay as a presidential candidate. Danny was smiling and waving to the cameras, his

arm around his wife’s waist, a mob of reporters around them. It was the image of a man

determined to make it into the White House.

“Would you look at that,” said old Dr. Cane. “Who would’ve thought Mackay would

have gotten
his
backing? That’s sure to give the other runners in the race something to

think about!”

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Kathryn Harvey

“Think he’ll get the nomination in June?” José asked.

Dr. Cane got up from the desk and headed for the locker room. “Wouldn’t surprise me

a bit. The man’s practically becoming a national idol.”

“He is a smart man, too,” Dr. Mendoza said softly. “He’s doing everything except

coming out and calling himself the next John Kennedy.”

They stared at the TV for a few minutes. Finally, the other two doctors left the lounge,

and José and Linda were alone. He got up, turned off the TV, and looked at Linda. “How

is your patient? The young gangster?”

“He’s comatose, but liver and kidney functions are restored. I think he’ll be all right.”

José Mendoza regarded the woman on the sofa for a thoughtful moment, then he

drew up the chair from the dictating desk and sat in front of her, elbows on knees. “May

I talk to you, my friend?” he said quietly.

She smiled and reached up for the green paper bonnet that covered her hair. It felt

good to take it off and let the cool climate-controlled air blow over her perspiring fore-

head. She had put the bonnet on early that morning for surgery and hadn’t removed it

since. “What do you want to talk about?” she said, wadding up the hat and tossing it into

the waste basket.

“Why are you driving yourself so, my friend?”

She looked at him. Earnest and sincere eyes were gazing at her. “Why does any of us?”

she asked quietly. “With me it’s work. You drive yourself, too, in a different way.”

He nodded solemnly. “I do not dispute that. The last time I was in my house was last

weekend, when I needed my tennis racket. But at least my madness is recreational. You,

my friend, are filling up your hours with work. This is not good for you.”

She started to rise, but he stayed her gently with a hand. “Let me give you some

advice,” he said. “I have seen this before, what you are doing. Some people work them-

selves to death in order to forget something; others are trying to fill their lives with some-

thing. Others yet are running from something. But I tell you, my friend, this is no

solution.”

“And which are you?” she asked quietly.

He leaned away from her and gazed at the wall. “I was married once, back in the old

country. But she died. And when she went out of my life, the light went out of my life. So

now I surround myself with friends and I go to parties every night.” His eyes came back

to Linda. “But as I said, it is no solution.”

She returned his gaze. Through the closed door came sounds of a busy surgical suite:

gurneys rolling by, nurses calling orders, a voice paging softly over the PA system. Linda

thought of Barry Greene. He had called again, asking her out. She had hesitated, wanting

to go. But in the end she had declined, knowing that it could not lead to the bedroom. At

least not yet. Not until she had worked out her problem, with Butterfly’s help.

“Why don’t you let me take you out to dinner,” José Mendoza said. “We can talk

about it.”

She looked into his sincere dark eyes and smiled. “I’ll be all right, José,” she said qui-

etly. “Thanks for caring.”

Puzzled, he watched her go.

21

Texas: 1963

“Manuel nearly killed me this time! You’ve gotta help me, Rachel!”

The words in Carmelita’s desperate letter echoed over and over in Beverly’s mind as

she sped along the highway in her blue Corvair, crossing from New Mexico into Texas,

with the Tornadoes singing “Telstar” on the radio.

It had been five years since Carmelita’s letters had stopped coming. And then all of a

sudden, last week, an envelope had come to the diner, addressed to Rachel Dwyer. “We

had a bad fight,” Carmelita had written. “Manuel tried to kill me. I can’t live like this any

more, Rachel. You and I once promised to help each other if we were in trouble. I hope

this letter gets to you because I’m in real trouble now.”

Beverly had left the diner in the care of Ann Hastings and was now once again speed-

ing across the vastness of Texas. For the first time in nine years.

Change was in the air. She could feel it. The world seemed to be moving faster and

faster. The Russians had sent a man into space, everyone was dancing the twist, and bomb

shelters were a national obsession. It seemed to Beverly that the world had arrived at a

brink, as if the way of life that America had known for so long was about to alter sud-

denly, drastically, forever.

If asked to be specific, she would not have been able to do so. It was simply something

she felt but could not see or touch. There were the signs for everyone to see: riots were

increasing among oppressed Southern Negroes; folk singers were emerging from the

Beatnik fringe and gaining public popularity; even the movies were changing, with every-

one going mad for spies and secret agents. And Beverly seemed to see it all, as she gazed

out at the flat Texas desert, against the formidable backdrop of a mushroom cloud.

Was that what was causing the change? The Bomb? The ever-increasing threat from

across the ocean?

What, she wondered as “Telstar” ended and the Beach Boys launched into “Surfin’

U.S.A.,” had happened to the innocent, insular way of life of the last decade? And if this

was only a threshold, as her intuition was whispering, then what lay beyond?

Whatever it was, whatever kind of future lay just over the horizon, Beverly knew one

thing for certain: that she was going to be rich.

Earlier this year Eddie had rewarded Beverly with 10 percent interest in his company.

With fourteen Royal Burger stands raking in profits, Beverly was beginning to receive

handsome dividends. And when she had decided that her savings account wasn’t growing

as fast as she would like, she had taken Eddie’s advice and bought one of the new tract

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Kathryn Harvey

houses out in Encino. She didn’t live in it; she rented it out to a family. Already the value

of the house was going up; the San Fernando Valley was undergoing a building boom. So

she withdrew more of her savings and put down payments on two more little houses,

renting them immediately. The three Valley houses were, at this moment, as she was

whisking across the Pecos River, bringing in a positive cash flow. Beverly planned next to

raise her sights to the new houses in the Tarzana hills, which were being built with views

and swimming pools. They were selling for twenty thousand now; in ten years, Eddie

guaranteed, they would be worth ten times that much.

However, Beverly continued to be careful with her money. When Eddie had tried to

urge her into buying securities and bonds, she had held fast to her bank account. She

could see that the San Fernando Valley was a boomtown; her own common sense told her

that those investments were going to grow. But she shied away from the chancier gambles

that Eddie and Laverne were getting into. And, by the same token, while Eddie and his

wife had moved into a fancy new home, Beverly continued to live in the tiny apartment

on Cherokee. Every dollar that she put away was a dollar for the future.

The blue Corvair that she now drove through the town of Sonora had not been new

when Beverly bought it, and she had gotten it out of necessity rather than for conven-

ience. As the regional manager for Royal Burgers, she was required to travel around

Southern California and check up on the stores. Royal Burgers were up to fifteen cents

apiece now; jalapeño fries, twelve cents. Quality control was essential for continued suc-

cess. And Beverly wanted very much to be successful.

On this warm November morning, Beverly followed the same route to San Antonio

that she and Danny had taken eleven years earlier. She was following it on purpose. The

journey was like a bitter tonic. Each mile she covered injected new strength into her soul.

As the west fell behind her and the Hill Country of Central Texas drew nearer she felt her

body become invigorated with purpose. She saw familiar landmarks, she filled her eyes

with sights that had thrilled an ignorant fourteen-year-old Rachel Dwyer, in love with

Danny Mackay, racing toward her destruction. Beverly clutched the steering wheel and

forced herself to remember those days of long ago; she kept the memory alive, she kept

the anger and taste for revenge alive.
“You said you’re a man who’s going places,”
she had said

to Danny the night he had thrown her out of his car.
“Well…I’ll be richer and more pow-

erful than you.”

The Beach Boys faded as a radio commercial came on. And then the San Antonio dee-

jay reported the local news. “President John Kennedy, on a mission to smooth over a bitter

fight between a Democratic bloc led by Governor John Connally and a liberal coalition

headed by Senator Ralph Yarborough, has arrived in Houston today as part of a non-polit-

ical tour of Texas. The president was met by cheering crowds as he drove by in his custom-

made blue Lincoln limousine. He had requested that the protective plastic bubble be