Duby's Doctor (6 page)

“Debbie. It was her first day, too.”

“And, was she an easy pickup?” Mitchell
teased.

“Oh, yes. Very easy.”

“Uh-huh. And what did you do besides pick up
girls on your first day?”

Jean sighed. “I learned a lot of rules.” His
brow crinkled as he worked hard at remembering. “Put things back
where you found them. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.
Don’t hit people, even if it’s a accident. Share. Look both ways,
and hold hands, when you cross the street. Flush. A lot of
rules.”

Mitchell chuckled at the recitation. She
could well imagine the circumstances under which poor Sister
Elizabeth had been prompted to mention certain specific rules.

“Were you a good little Do Bee?” she
asked.

Jean looked startled. He focused on her,
rather than his window. “A good what?”

“Figure of speech,” said Mitchell. “Do Bees
are the good little bees, and Don’t Bees are the bad little bees.
It’s an old-timey nursery school thing. Don’t worry about it.
Sounds like you did okay.”

He nodded and looked back to the window.

“Hungry?” she asked.

“
Oui
. Can I take an extra sandwich
tomorrow?”

“No problem. How about Wendy’s tonight, huh?
You can have the salad bar. The who-o-o-ole salad bar.”

While Jean and Mitchell enjoyed a fast-food
feast, across town at the Averell mansion a glorious buffet
displayed silver, crystal, candles, and mind-boggling delicacies. A
hundred guests in lavish formal clothing carried gold-rimmed plates
mounded with exotic foods.

In one corner of the huge dining room, a
chamber music ensemble played Vivaldi.

Again and again, Kyle Averell introduced a
silver-haired, mustachioed Latin potentate to various guests. With
“His Excellency” on his right, Kyle navigated through the
gathering, keeping Carinne firmly anchored to his left side by his
steel-trap grip on her hand.

Carinne was striking in a glittering midnight
blue couture evening gown. Her upswept hairdo was spectacular, her
sapphire jewelry was dazzling, and her smile was perfect. That
smile never waxed nor waned, but remained precisely in place, and
definitely at odds with the pain behind her eyes.

Later in the evening, when Mitchell was
reading parenting magazines in bed and Jean stood painting at an
easel in his room, Carinne would be salsa dancing with the Latin
dignitary and maintaining her cover-girl smile. The chamber music
ensemble would have been supplanted by a twenty-piece dance band,
complete with conga drums and multi-lingual vocalist.

In the wee hours of the morning, when
Mitchell lay awake worrying about her huge responsibilities – the
largest of which was sleeping down the hall – Carinne would be on
the mansion’s front balcony beside her tuxedoed father, waving
hasta la vista
to a stream of departing limousines. In a
few minutes, the sapphire jewelry would be locked in her father’s
vault. In half an hour, Carinne would be locked in her personal
suite, dressing for bed and washing her smile away with her makeup.
Then she would sleep, but she would not bother to dream. Dreams
were worse than useless; they were guarantees of cruel
disillusionment and pain.

A few days later, in a schoolroom at St.
Luke’s Daycare, a dozen preschoolers finger-painted – mostly on the
fronts of their smocks, but also on broad sheets of newsprint
paper.

The walls of the schoolroom appeared to have
been recently painted as well, but not with fingers. A clean,
glossy yellow brightened the walls, accented by glossy white
moldings around the doors and the tall windows. The same shades of
yellow and white smudged Jean’s white tee shirt and khaki cargo
pants.

On a cork strip affixed to the wall, crayon
drawings of crude houses and stick-figure families were tacked side
by side across the width of the room. It was a narrow mural of
woozy triangles atop rickety-looking rectangles. Some were labeled
in childish scrawl, “My House” or “My Family.” The third drawing
from the end was almost as clear as a photograph. It depicted a
three-story condominium building with mansard roof and wrought iron
balconies, the shady grounds lush with umbrella trees, royal
poincianas blooming red, and ranks of banana plants. Despite the
high quality of the drawing, its label was written as awkwardly as
the rest. Tilting, uncertainly drawn letters spelled out,
“Mitchell’s House.”

Beneath the wall-mounted, crayoned condo
drawing, Jean painted at an easel – the only full-size easel amidst
the room’s kindergarten furniture. The painting was a watercolor. A
portrait. It depicted a girl in a pink angora sweater. As if seen
through a misty haze, the girl sat cross-legged on a floor, reading
a book. Her face was hidden by her long hair, which fell in a
luminous cascade between herself and the world.

The pink angora sweater was Carinne’s
favorite. She had sweet memories of choosing it and purchasing it
at The Mayfair on a rare afternoon outing alone with Duby. On that
day, with no other hangers on, no other observers, the couple had
behaved as friends. Carinne forgot her fear of her father’s
irrational censure. Duby calculated the risks to his mission and
his person, decided the odds were good enough, and gave Carinne a
short afternoon’s near-normality, if not total happiness.

So, the day of the pink sweater had been a
day of laughter and teasing, sharing silly opinions and outrageous
observations, and receiving (and giving) honest compliments. It had
been, in fact, Duby’s offhand praise of the sweater that had
resulted in Carinne’s purchase of, and lasting preference for, pink
angora.

Carinne often put on the favorite sweater for
a cozy evening of reading on her sitting room floor, near the gas
fireplace. She read with her legs crossed Indian style, her book in
her lap, head on one hand, elbow on a knee, and screen of long hair
guarding her precarious privacy.

That is how she was reading when someone
knocked at her bedroom door, opened it, and entered without waiting
for a response. Heavy footsteps pounded through the bedroom and
into her sitting room. Kyle Averell’s shadow covered her as he
loomed over her bowed head.

“You’re not dressed,” her father said.

“I already told Rico,” she answered, looking
up. “I can’t go. I think I’m coming down with something.”

Averell knelt and placed a hand on her
forehead. He let his hand slip across her hair, gently, and down to
her shoulder. “You’ve been ‘coming down with something’ for months,
sweetheart. Still depressed about school?”

Carinne leaned into him, hopefully. “Can’t
Trish go in my place tonight, Daddy? Please?”

“Sh-h-h-h, now,” he soothed. “Trish is an
employee, sweetie. She’s not the beautiful young lady I’ve been
bragging about to His Excellency. Truthfully, I don’t think he
believes half of what I’ve said, even though I’ve yet to mention a
goodly number of your talents and virtues.”

She leaned back to look at Averell. “What
have you told him?”

Averell stroked her shoulder and allowed
pride to color his voice. “That you are pure and sparkling like a
clear mountain brook, more graceful than the sleekest swan,
prettier than a hundred movie starlets, and smarter than all His
Excellency’s generals.”

Carinne hugged him. “Oh, Daddy, you
didn’t.”

“Oh, Daddy, I did. And I wanted him to get to
know you better while he’s in the country this time, to prove I
wasn’t lying. But, not if you’re feeling unwell.”

Then the tone of his voice darkened just
enough to quicken Carinne’s heart rate.

“Maybe I should call Doctor Heinzman to come
over and take a look at you, eh?”

“No! No, I don’t want to see Doctor Heinzman,
please.” She disciplined herself to keep all fear out of her voice.
“If it’s really important to you, I’ll come. I’m feeling better
now.”

Averell set her away from him and moved to
leave, pleased with his work.

“That’s good,” he said. “Now, you get
yourself together and be prepared to entertain His Excellency. I’ll
see you downstairs in a little while.”

“Okay, Daddy.”

Averell blew her a kiss and left the
room.

Outside in the corridor, Rico was waiting
when Averell stepped out and closed Carinne’s bedroom door.

“Well?” Rico said.

“She’ll be along in a minute. And she will
please him.”

“That part should be easy. All she’d have to
do is take off her clothes.”

“Not tonight,” Averell said, without alarm.
“All in good time, Rico. I will say whom, and I will say when. This
is a bargain we can only make once. We want to be sure and use it
to our best advantage.”

Averell left Rico waiting outside Carinne’s
door and went downstairs to prepare for the evening.

At St. Luke’s Daycare it was late afternoon.
Parents were picking up the after-school-care children at the
classroom door. Jean waved goodbye as Debbie left with her
mother.

The door closed and only Jean remained.
Sister Elizabeth approached him.

“Jean, Doctor Oberon called and she is going
to be a little late today. Could you help me with something,
please, while we’re waiting for her?”

“
Oui
,
madame
.”

“In here, please.” She led Jean into another
room and turned on the light. She turned to face him. “Jean, I’m
sorry to have to tell you, but Fergie has died.”

Sadness transformed his innocent face.
“Fergie! But I saw her this afternoon. She was fine.”

Sister Elizabeth nodded and placed a soft
hand on his forearm. “Sometimes death is unexpected; sudden. But
there it is. Fergie is gone. Will you help me move the aquarium to
the storeroom?”

Jean moved to the far end of the room, where
a filter gurgled on a 30-gallon aquarium. A fishy form floated
belly-up on the surface. Jean looked upon the tank with great
concern.

“Poor Fergie,” he said, gazing on the
floating corpse. “Sister Elizabeth, isn’t there anything we can
do?”

“I suppose you and I could give her a
funeral.”

Moments later, Sister Elizabeth and Jean
stood solemnly on either side of a toilet bowl in one of St. Luke’s
bathrooms. Sister Elizabeth’s Bible was open to the passage she had
been reading.

“Is there anything you’d like to add,
Jean?”

“She was a terrific swimmer.”

“Amen.” Sister Elizabeth pressed the lever
and sounds of flushing reverberated off the tiled walls.

That night in Mitchell’s condominium, Jean
was reading
Fun With Dick and Jane
aloud to Mitchell as
they sat on opposite ends of her sofa.

“See Spot run,” he read. “Run, Spot, run.
Look, Dick. Look at Spot run. Look, look, look.” He looked up at
her. “Do you ever do that,
Michel
?”

“Do what?”

“Look. Do you ever just ... just look.”

“Oh, like, stop and smell the roses?”

“I mean, really see things. And people.
Fishes.”

“I guess nobody ever does enough of that,”
Mitchell said. She watched him turn his attention back toward the
book, but he didn’t continue reading. “Johnny?”

“
Oui
.”

“Did something ... happen? Today?”

Jean looked up at her again, and the sadness
in his face alarmed her.

“Fergie died,” he said. “This afternoon I saw
her. She was fine. But tonight she is dead. And, it’s already hard
to remember exactly how she looked. I never knew it was so
important. Looking.”

“My gosh, that’s horrible! She died at the
Daycare? Today?” Mitchell tensed, ready to cross the distance
between them and comfort him if necessary. “Geez, what
happened?”

“We had a funeral and flushed her,” Jean
said. “Rest in peace, Fergie Fish.” He shook his head and looked
somber.

Then, he smiled and winked at Mitchell.

From the other end of the sofa, Mitchell
pelted him with throw pillows. “Don’t you ever do that to me
again!” she shrieked. “Never do that again! You could give a person
a heart attack. ‘Fergie died today.’ Geez. Go to your room!”

Jean got up to leave, but not before tossing
a pillow back at Mitchell and laughing.

Mitchell tried very hard not to laugh.

An hour later, when Mitchell entered his room
with milk and cookies, Jean was painting. A watercolor of a girl,
the same nameless girl Mitchell had seen before, was taking shape
on the canvas. Pastel springtime colors suffused the image: a girl
sitting in a flower garden, surrounded by a half-dozen or more
white rabbits. The girl’s face was obscured as she nuzzled the
bunny cradled in her arms. Bunnies played in the tall grass and
among the flowers. Still others climbed toward her lap.

As often happened, Mitchell felt and
suppressed a jolt of heartache, pondering the likely reasons for
Jean’s obsession with the girl in the paintings. The girl he
insisted he had seen only in his sleep.

“You really should talk to someone about your
dreams, Johnny.”

“I don’t remember them.”

She set the milk and cookies on his dresser
and sat down on his bed, watching him stand before his easel,
skillfully blending and shaping the watercolors on the canvas.

“Head injuries are weird things,” she said.
“Parts of the brain don’t function like they used to – or maybe
they do, but some connection is broken. Look at your exercises,
your drawings, some other things. It’s like your body remembers
things your mind can’t. Like when you knew what an apple looked
like, but you didn’t know the word any more. Like this girl in the
dreams. You know what she looks like.”

“
Oui
.”

“But, who is she? What is her name?”

Jean looked at Mitchell, at the painting, at
the other paintings around the room – all the same girl in
different poses. He looked back to Mitchell, straining for some
word, but nothing came out.