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“It gets worse.” Max beamed at him, cheerful as always. “He said your mother’s coming to town tomorrow.”
Alex sat up. “My mother’s flying in for my birthday?”
“No,” Max said. “She’s flying in for a one-day seminar on the new laser technology. It just worked out that it’s your birthday.”
“Thank God.” Alex flopped back down on the pillow. “I thought she was going maternal on me.”
“She told Dad she wants to have lunch with you,” Max said. “Noon at the Hilton. Be on time, she’s speaking at one.” He picked up another beer from the floor and cracked it. “It’s a shame you’re still on duty. You could have one of these.”
“My mother,” Alex said to the ceiling. “An hour with my mother.”
“You’ve got an hour with my mother, too,” Max said after he’d taken another swig. “She wants to have a drink with you at four. She has surgery at one, so she figures she’ll be free by then.”
“I can stand an hour with your mother,” Alex said. “I think.”
“And I imagine Stella will be calling,” Max began.
“She already did.” Alex rubbed his hand over his eyes. “Breakfast tomorrow before she makes her rounds.”
Max winced. “Do you suppose she does everything in the morning because she’s the oldest?”
“No, she does everything in the morning because she’s a pain in the ass,” Alex said. “Even if she is my favorite relative.”
“Hey!” Max straightened in his chair. “What about me? I kept you from having to spend the entire evening justifying your lack of career to the old man. You owe me.”
“I have a career,” Alex said for the millionth time. “I’m a doctor.”
“Yeah, but you picked the wrong specialty,” Max said. “You have to pick upscale, not ER. They made me, now they’re going to make you. Cardiologist, oncologist, gynecologist—”
“No,” Alex said. “I like what I’m doing. Go away. I’m trying to sleep.”
A dark-haired little nurse poked her head in the door. “Hey, Alex, we need you. Accident coming in.” She disappeared again before he sat up.
Alex swung his feet around to the side of the bed and glared at Max. “If it hadn’t been for you, I could have had a whole fifteen minutes of unconsciousness.”
“That’s another thing,” Max said. “If you weren’t an ER specialist, she’d have called you Dr. Moore.”
The nurse poked her head back in. “Alex, let’s go. Oh, hi, Max. Didn’t see you there.” She frowned at him. “Get rid of that beer now.”
“Hi, Zandy.” Max lifted his beer to her. “You’re looking good.”
She was gone before he finished his sentence.
“The respect she has for you is awesome,” Alex said. “Must be because you’re not an ER specialist.”
“I dated her once,” Max said.
“That explains it.” Alex stood up and headed for the door. “Go away. I have to work.”
“Don’t forget tomorrow,” Max called after him. “Family day. The whole Farkle family.”
“Right,” Alex muttered under his breath as he strode down the green-tiled hall. “Dr. Farkle, and Dr. Farkle, and Dr. Farkle, and Dr. Farkle, and Dr. Farkle.”
“What?” Zandy asked him as she tried to catch up with him.
“Don’t ever go into the family business, Zan,” Alex said. “It’s hell being low man on the dynasty.”
“They trying to talk you out of the ER?” Zandy skipped a couple of times to keep up with him, her legs a good six inches shorter than his, so he slowed for her.
“Yep,” Alex said.
“Don’t do it.”
Alex looked down at her, surprised. “No?”
“No,” Zandy said. “You need this place. And it needs you. Ignore them. They’re all suits.”
Alex grinned at her. “Even Max?”
“Max is an ape,” Zandy said. “But you’re the good guy. Stay with us.”
“Well, I’m planning on it,” Alex began and then he heard the sirens and moved toward the doors, forgetting Zandy and Max and the whole Farkle family as he went to do what he loved best, saving lives on the run.
“YOU GOT a what?” Charity stood in the middle of Nina’s high-ceilinged apartment and stared at Fred, amazed.
“Charity, this is not just any dog.” Nina tensed, still doubtful herself about the wisdom of buying an animal for comfort. Charity wouldn’t buy a dog for comfort. She’d buy a red leather miniskirt at the boutique she managed, yank her long kinky red hair up on top of her head and tie it in a knot with a black stocking, and go out and find a new man. At least, that’s what she’d done the last time one of her relationships had pancaked on her, before she’d found Sean, her One True Love. Sean was actually her Twelfth True Love, but as Charity said, who was counting?
Since Nina’s chances of wearing a leather miniskirt were slim to none, she sighed and turned her attention back to Fred, sitting like a lump in the middle of her hardwood floor, looking up at her with bemused adoration. Fred was better than a leather miniskirt. He might not get her a new man, but he’d give her unconditional love. Fred was definitely better.
Charity didn’t see it that way. “You move out of that mansion on Lehigh Terrace and into this apartment in this Victorian hovel, on the third floor of this Victorian hovel, and there’s not even an elevator—”
“If you wouldn’t wear four-inch heels, two flights of stairs would not be a problem,” Nina murmured.
“—but that’s not bad enough, you’ve got to get a dog.” Charity blinked down at Fred. “That is a dog, isn’t it?”
Fred stood up, turned his back on her and walked away across the floor, his butt swaying majestically.
“Charity, I need Fred,” Nina said. “I feel better already. He has personality.”
Charity nodded. “That’s what I smell. His personality.”
“I didn’t want to give him a bath right away.” Nina watched Fred as he explored the living room, stopping to investigate her fig tree. “Don’t even think about it, Fred,” she warned him. Then she said to Charity, “I wanted him to feel at home first. He’s only been here an hour, but I had to call you right away. I knew you’d want to meet him.”
“If he’s been here an hour, he’s seen home.” Charity surveyed the apartment with disgust. “How you could move from your place to this…”
“I didn’t move from my place, I moved from Guy’s place.” Nina followed Charity’s eyes around the room, caressing the oak wainscoting and the tiny beige print wallpaper, the veneer fireplace and the fat ruby-upholstered couch and lopsided chair. “This is my place, the first place I’ve ever had that’s all mine. I loved it the first time I saw it. I’ve been here a month now, and I feel more at home than I did after sixteen years in that mausoleum of Guy’s.” The thought of Guy made her shake her head. “We should never have gotten married. We didn’t want any of the same things. I never wanted that house on Lehigh Terrace. He never wanted a dog.” Fred began to move again, and Nina felt the tension ease out of her shoulders as she watched the miscellaneous collection of independent canine parts that was Fred move past her on his way to the couch. “I always wanted a dog. And now I have Fred.”
Fred sniffed the couch again. He’d sniffed it several times since he’d arrived, but now he made a decision. His haunches quivered and tensed as he crouched, and then with a mighty leap he flung himself onto the overstuffed cushions, hanging there for a long moment, a triumph of hope over biology, only to slide slowly back to the floor and land with a soft thud as his butt failed to achieve lift-off.
He took it pretty well, considering.
Charity looked at her as if she were demented. “And you’re going to run up and down the stairs twenty-six times a night to water this animal, right? And what about during the day? You work, for God’s sake. I can just see Jessica’s face if you bring Fred into the office.” She shook her head, and her red ringlets bounced as they swung back and forth. “You’re nuts. I love you, but you’re nuts. Your divorce was just final, you’ve only been an editor for six months so there’s that stress and you’re settling into a new place. Why bring another headache into your life?”
Nina sighed and sat down. “Speaking of headaches, Jessica gave me a new book to work on. It’s worse than the last one.”
Charity looked disgusted. “Is she trying to bankrupt that press? She needs to publish something with some oomph in it.”
“No, she’s doing what her daddy did before her.” Nina watched Fred waddle over to them, the couch humiliation evidently forgotten. “She’s trying to keep the tradition going.”
Charity nodded. “Right into the toilet. She might as well call it the Boring Press.”
Nina closed her eyes. “I know it. The whole place is going to fold, and I’ll be out of work, and Jessica will kill herself because she’s brought the family institution to ruin. And I don’t know how to save it, so that depresses me. And I love this place, but it was lonely, and I was coming home so down about work and Jessica, and I just needed something warm to cheer me up.” She took a deep breath. “And that’s Fred. He’s already cheered me up. Just having him around cheers me up.”
Charity watched Fred as his chin sank closer to the floor. “I can see how he’d do that. Peppy little fellow.”
Nina ignored her. “And I have a plan for watering him. Come here.” She walked to the big window next to her couch and shoved up the heavy old windowpane. “See?”
Charity followed her, and Nina gestured to the black metal fire escape outside.
“The fire escape is only about a foot down from the window.” Nina stuck her head out. “This is the third floor, and the back is all fenced-in, and the gate is always closed except on trash day. So I’m going to train Fred to use the fire escape.” She pulled her head back in. “Isn’t that great?”
Charity nodded, and then patted her arm. “That’s great, Neen. It really is.”
“Don’t feel sorry for me.” Nina folded her arms across her stomach. “I’ve got everything I wanted. I was the one who left Guy, remember? I was the one who got fed up with the high life and living for his career. And it was the right thing to do. I love this apartment, and I love my job. It’s just—I get lonely.”
“I know.” Charity nodded. “It’s okay. I know.”
“I’m forty,” Nina said. “I know this is the prime of my life, I know this is when life begins, I’ve read all the articles, but I’m forty and I’m alone and—”
“I know.” Charity put her arms around her and held her tight. “I know. You’re going to be okay.”
Nina nodded against her friend’s shoulder. “I just wanted somebody to talk to at night and cuddle and watch old movies with. You know? So I got Fred.”
Fred waddled back toward them.
“Well, it’s a start.” Charity let go of Nina and looked at Fred. “What kind of dog is Fred?”
“Part basset, part beagle, part manic-depressive.” Nina frowned down at him. “Fred, could you cheer up, please? Look at what a great place you’ve landed in.”
“Yeah, and the best is yet to come,” Charity told him. “Wait till you see the fire escape she has for you.”
Fred sighed and lumbered on, and they watched him cross the room, his toenails clicking on the hardwood, before Nina said to Charity. “I just need one little favor.”
Charity nodded. “Sure.”
“Could you baby-sit Fred for me while I go out and buy a leash and food? I’d take Fred, but he sticks his head out the car window, and the wind blows up his nose and makes him sneeze, and the dog snot flies back in the car.” Nina looked at Fred with love. “It’s pretty disgusting.”
“I can imagine.” Charity picked up her purple suede bomber jacket. “No, I will not baby-sit this mutt for you. He looks like he’s going to end it all at any minute, and I don’t want to be responsible if he throws himself off the fire escape.” She looked down at Fred with resignation. “Make a list. I’ll go get him what he needs. Do they make uppers for dogs?”
“He’s not really depressed,” Nina told her as she went to find a pad of paper to make the list. “He’s just deep. He has deep thoughts.”
“Right. Deep thoughts.” Charity shook her head again. “Make that list. And while you’re at it, add Amaretto and ice cream to it.”
Nina stopped her search for paper. Amaretto milk shakes could mean only one thing: a My-Life-Is-In-Trauma party. And with Charity, who ran her life as efficiently as she ran the boutique, trauma could mean only one thing. “Not Sean, too?”
Charity nodded. “Sean, too. How do I do it? How can I live in a city full of men and always pick the rats?”
Nina searched for something comforting to say. “Well, they’re not always rats.”
“Oh, yeah?” Charity folded her arms. “Name the one who wasn’t.”
“Well…” Nina searched her memory. “Of course, I didn’t know you for all of them—”
“Twelve of them,” Charity said. “Twelve guys since I was sixteen, twelve significant guys since I was sixteen, twelve guys in twenty-two years, and I can’t come up with a winner.”
“You’re sure it’s over?” Nina tried to find a bright side. “Maybe he’s just having second thoughts because you’re both getting so serious. Maybe—”
“I caught him in bed with his secretary,” Charity said. “I don’t think she was taking dictation. Not with what she had in her hand.”
“Oh.” Nina wrote down Amaretto and ice cream on the list. Amaretto milk shakes might not be the healthiest way to get over a life trauma, but it was Charity’s way. Come to think of it, she could use one, herself. “Get chocolate syrup, too,” she told Charity. “Let’s go for the whole enchilada.”
While Charity went shopping, Nina and Fred practiced on the fire escape.
“Come on, you can do this,” Nina coaxed him, and together they climbed in and out over the low polished wood windowsill.
Fred was not crazy about the metal staircase, so Nina spread out a rag rug so he’d land on something soft.
On the other hand, he loved the leap from the window.
“Try not to overshoot,” Nina warned him, but the fire escape was wide, and Fred was not aerodynamic, so after an hour, Nina was content that Fred would not be plummeting to his death from overexuberance.
She was also sure it was time for Fred to see some grass. “It’s a shame you’re not a cat. I could just get a litter box,” she told him as she coaxed him down the two flights of fire escape with a piece of ham.
Fred whined a little as he eased himself down to the second floor.
“Shh.” Nina glanced in the closed window of the second-floor apartment. “I don’t know this guy yet. He keeps strange hours. Be very, very quiet here, Fred. We want the neighbors to love you.”
Fred shut up and eased himself down another step.
“I love you, Fred,” Nina whispered as she backed down the metal stairs. “You’re the best.”
By the time Charity came back, Fred had done the fire escape twice and was philosophical about it. “We’ll take walks, too,” Nina promised him. “But this is going to work.”
“He can do it?” Charity walked back into the room after putting the ice cream in the freezer and shook her head, amazed. “I wasn’t gone that long.”
“Fred is very intelligent,” Nina told her. “Watch.” She opened the window. “Here you go, Fred. Born free.”
Fred scrambled onto the box Nina had put by the window to aid his exit. He turned to look once over his shoulder, and Nina nodded.
