Chapter 3: Trajectory

Diane’s cell rang at 6:01.

“I’m in the lot down from the entrance,” Eric said.

“I’m on my way. Don’t move, but I’ll come out the emergency-room door. That’s closer.” Nobody minded people going out that way, even patients going out that way. If patients came in that way, they’d get mixed up with people asking for emergency care. Besides, the door into the rest of the hospital wasn’t obvious.

Eric didn’t move the car. He did get out and look for Diane. When he saw her coming, he went around the car to open her door.

“You made great time,” he said. He turned into traffic and headed towards the bridge. “I didn’t tell Sparky you were joining us. You’ll be a surprise at dinner.”

“That’s fine.” She was less sure that Valerie would even remember her, much less remember her fondly. Wasn’t she part of an experience where Valerie had been hurt? Still, Diane did want to see Valerie again, whether that desire was reciprocated or not.

He drove them into a large garage that looked to be part of the house. The door came down and Eric helped her out and opened a door with a key. That led to an entryway where he helped her off with her coat. They went through a door into the living room. Valerie was running downstairs.

“Daddy,” she yelled. She was halfway to them when she saw her. “Doctor!” Well, there was no doubt that Valerie was pleased to see her.

“No climbing on Dr. Thibault,” Eric said. Valerie managed to stop running, but she gave Diane a hug after walking the last two steps. Diane understood the restriction on climbing when Valerie left her. Eric lifted Valerie up and they exchanged rather sloppy kisses.

“Now, have you washed your hands?” Eric asked. Valerie showed her hands, clean and rather damp around the wrists. “Well, Daddy and Dr. Thibault have to have a chance to do likewise. Doctor, would you like to use that room?” He pointed to a small powder room with a toilet and wash basin. Diane realized that she need merely shut the door if she needed to relieve herself. She had used the hospital facilities quite recently, though, and she allowed Valerie to watch. Eric disappeared through another door.

Soon after he returned, Mrs. Grant came out and greeted her. If the news of her appearance had been kept from Valerie, it had not been kept from Mrs. Grant. The dining room was set with four places on a table that would have held more than a dozen. All the plates were on one side, and none were at the head of the table. Eric led her to a place which would have been to the right of the person sitting at the head of such a person had existed. After seating her, he sat himself next to her. Valerie came next with Mrs. Grant at the end.

The meal was apparently fancy in her honor. Eric couldn’t eat Beef Romanoff as an every-day occurrence. Maybe he did. Valerie, who complained about the asparagus tips, didn’t seem surprised at the main course.

After the meal, she had Valerie unbutton her shirt and lift her tee-shirt. The incision looked healthy with absolutely no sign of inflammation.

They all went to the church in the Rover. Eric was driving; she sat next to him, with Valerie behind him and Mrs. Grant behind her. Before he started the car, Eric inquired whether everybody was belted in. That seemed aimed at Valerie, and she answered in a bored voice as though she knew why her dad had asked. When Mrs. Grant said that she was, Diane answered, too. Okay, it was a little childish. On the other hand, she’d seen enough kids whose injuries from car crashes were worse because they hadn’t been wearing their seat belts that she would have been willing to go through the ritual every time she rode in a car to see one fewer.

The church parking lot was nearly empty, and Eric parked near a lighted door which looked busy. Once they were inside, Mrs. Grant took Valerie in one direction while Eric escorted her in another. That took them into the front of the sanctuary through a side door. When they went in, there were two men sitting there for every woman, maybe three. For the next several minutes, the people coming through that door had the same sex ratio. Eric had promised her that other people would come in work clothes, and most of them worked in suits if that were so. She did, however, see one uniformed policeman come in.

Then the sex ratio of the people entering changed to mostly women. One of the women coming in was Mrs. Grant. Eric moved over to give Mrs. Grant space, and that brought him awfully close to Diane. Their hips were touching, and she became very conscious of that. Eric put his arm across the back or the pew behind her. It wasn’t touching her, but she could feel how close it was. A man in a suit came in from a different door than the others had used. He walked to the front of the sanctuary, but not within the raised portion.

“Reverend Patterson.” Eric whispered. She thought she’d seen him visit Valerie.

“A hearty welcome to all,” Rev. Patterson said. “That goes double for those of you who don’t have children in the pageant.” Eric reached over and squeezed her hand. She supposed she was sort of covered by Rev. Patterson’s last sentence, but she felt his hand warm hers, especially as Eric didn’t let go. “For those of you in back, I know that is the normal place for sitting in church, but I promise that I’m not going to preach a sermon. You’ll find it easier to see the kids, and possible to hear them, if you sit farther forward. Let the show begin.”

Rev. Patterson sat down in the first pew.

One boy came in from the left, and a boy and girl came in from the right. The first boy turned out to be the innkeeper dealing with Joseph and Mary. He could be heard easily, probably could be heard in the back. She and Eric were in the fourth pew, and she couldn’t hear Joseph at all. Mary didn’t have any lines.

Mary and Joseph went up behind the railing to a prepared manger scene. Then shepherds came in to sit around a fire they brought with them. It consisted of several sticks and a flashlight. When they were sitting down on the floor, and invisible from where Diane was sitting, Eric hugged her with the arm in back of her. She looked at him, but he was watching the door. The angels came in through it. There were five of them, and Valerie looked very good in her wings. One who was much bigger than the others, had a speaking part.

Then the angels went off and the shepherds went to the manger. When the wise men came in singing “We Three Kings,” Mrs. Grant went back through the door. She soon returned with Valerie. Eric and Diane moved over to give Valerie room, and they ended up with their hips pressed together. Altogether, despite her embarrassed guesses at what people sitting behind them might see of their closeness, it was quite the most exciting experience of watching a Christmas pageant in her entire life.

Afterwards, there was tea, Kool Aid, and cookies. Her identity, according to Eric, was: “Dr. Thibault was responsible for Valerie’s care during her recent hospitalization.” She met the policeman, who was father to both the innkeeper and Mary.

“I’m glad you were here,” she said. “I was embarrassed to come in hospital whites.”

“Well, every time the kids see me in uniform, they want to look at my gun. I have to lock it in the trunk. Except for the weather, I could come naked for all the adults care. You only see your own kid.”

“Well, I saw both of yours, and I heard your son.” Then Eric led her and the other two away. Eric went into the garage of his house to let Valerie and Mrs. Grant off. He didn’t reopen the garage door until the door into the house was closed.

“Now,” Eric said, “I can get you to your place easily. Traffic on the bridge is light this time of the night, especially going in.”

“Fine, but could you take me to the hospital instead? I left my car there.”

“You mean that, if I pick you up one place and leave you off the other, then you and the car are at different places? Y’know, I once a got into MIT partly by a high score on the College Boards. I don’t know when I lost those IQ points.”

“It isn’t that serious,” she said. “I know where I left the car, and you didn’t ask yourself that question.”

“Yeah, but I’ve got addicted to saying good night to you in the entryway of your apartment.” Well, he had enjoyed those kisses, too.

“We’ll have to find somewhere else to do it.” When she had directed him to the right lot, she was zipping her parka down while looking for her Toyota. The zipper didn’t go very far in this position, but it would be enough. When she spotted her car, she told him to stop. Then they both unbuckled their seat belts and turned towards each other.

Their lips met, and hers tingled. Their tongues met, and her whole body tingled. His hand found her breast, and she stopped thinking to feel. Eric’s other hand was at the back of her head holding her in the kiss. Not that she was trying to escape. The heat spread from her breast down to the pit of her stomach. Her legs squirmed in the seat as if they were trying to widen. The car was cold, but her face was hot. The feelings went on forever, but they had been kissing for only an instant when the light shone in the back window. They jerked apart.

“Why don’t you go somewhere else?” came from a loudspeaker on the car behind them. It was apparently hospital security, though she couldn’t see very well against the spotlight. Eric opened his window, and she opened her door to go to her car.

Eric called, “The doctor is getting her car.” The spotlight followed her as she walked to the car. She got in and drove away. It was a fairly small car and looked fragile. He didn’t want Diane driving a fragile car.

That wasn’t the current problem, though. Eric stayed where he was. A rentacop walked up to his side of the car.

“ID?” the guy asked. He handed the guy his driver’s license. The guy looked at it and handed it back. “That was a doctor?” he asked.

“Sure. She’s a resident at the hospital.”

“She has a right to park here. You don’t. Look, nobody’s complaining about what you were doing. It’s where you were doing it.”

“Well,” he said, “I drove her back to pick up her car.”

“Buddy, you were in this spot for twenty minutes.”

“It didn’t seem that long.”

“Twenty minutes when they called it in,” the rentacop said. “Well, why don’t you go wherever you’re going?” So Eric headed out to the bridge.

While he was on the bridge, his cell sounded Diane’s ring tone. When he could get to a parking space on the Sausalito side, he called her.

“Sorry,” he said “I was on the bridge.”

“You mean, ‘Daddy was driving’?”

“I was driving. I don’t feel at all like your daddy. I feel more like I was in high school again.”

“Yeah, that was sort of immature, but I still can’t figure where we should have been.” They should have been in his bed, their marriage bed. Still, she would never marry him. She had her future ahead of her, and he would be a piss-poor future.

“The rentacop claimed we had been there twenty minutes,” he said. “Didn’t seem like that long to me.”

“Nor to me ... How old are you, anyway?”

“Thirty-nine, but not for long. The big four-oh comes up in February.”

“You only have eleven years on me,” Diane said. “Somehow, when I think of a CEO, I think of a much older man.”

“Well, I’m about to be an old man, as I said. Being CEO never impressed me. I’ve been CEO of Dendarii since it began. I was president and chairman of the board before we could afford to pay me a salary, and mine was the first salary we paid. Now, if you start in the mailroom of a big, old firm and work your way up, then being a CEO might be impressive. A few bucks and filling out a form will get you a corporation. You can give yourself any title you want.”

“Well, your company is more than that.”

“Maybe so,” he said, “but that’s built-a-company bragging rights. There are no CEO bragging rights involved. When you get out of this residency thing, you might want to go solo. If so, there are professional corporations. You, yourself, might be a CEO this time next year.”

“My brother wouldn’t think it was the same.” She said it as though it were less.

“It’s not. You’re a doctor. You’ll put the sheep-skin on the wall. You don’t hear any doctor telling you that he is president of Dr. Smith’s professional corporation any more than he hangs his high-school diploma on the wall. You emphasize the higher honors.”

“Well,” Diane said, “I’ve kept you long enough. I just wanted to know that you got out okay.” She closed the call. He had kept her long enough, with her early schedule. Still, he would have enjoyed talking longer. Kissing in the car and now wanting to chat about nothing on the phone -- he was regressing back to high school. She was a pediatrician; maybe she could treat him when he got back to his second childhood. He started the car and drove home.

Diane was surprisingly happy when she lay back and waited for sleep to take her. Those expensive meals in fancy restaurants had been delightful, but the best part of them had been Eric. Tonight, she had been sitting next to him and holding his hand. That had been better yet. The good-night kiss had been lovely, too, even if it had been interrupted and even if she wanted more.

What she couldn’t figure out was what Eric wanted. He wanted her, clearly. Still, she didn’t think that it was natural to introduce your future paramour to the other members of your church congregation. Sure, Valerie had been pleased, and Valerie’s pleasure was way up there on Eric’s priority list, but still ... If they were going to revert to high-school behavior, didn’t San Francisco movie theaters have balconies? It would have been more suitable to make out in a theater balcony than to hold hands in a church sanctuary, and probably it would have scandalized fewer people.