Dr. Elizabeth Rosen’s office was on the ground floor, overlooking an expanse of green lawn and, just outside the window, a gardenia tree. Sharlie sat in a wheelchair next to Brian, twisting her hands in her lap. They were icy cold. Shaking hands with the psychiatrist a moment ago, she had been ashamed of her clammy fingers in Dr. Rosen’s strong, warm ones.
They sat in silence as the doctor leafed through the file on her desk. The pages fell, crackling. Each time, the sound startled Sharlie. How was it possible to feel so benumbed and yet raw enough so that a whisper or a minute gesture made her want to leap up screaming from the wheelchair? A highly strung slab of concrete, perhaps?
“Charlotte,” Dr. Rosen said. A statement, not a question. Sharlie wondered if she were required to respond, but the doctor looked up at her and smiled. “Lovely name.”
“Thank you,” Sharlie said with her cement lips.
“We all call her Sharlie,” Brian offered. Sharlie felt something now, a prick of resentment, which was quickly swallowed up in a distracting reverie about her name—perhaps it would be pleasant to be a Charlotte—Sharlie was a little girl’s name, which was okay if you never made it to forty—but a middle-aged Sharlie? No maturity, no dignity, like their one-time chauffeur, the balding, paunchy Sonny—if he’d used his actual name, Frederick, maybe it would have been tougher for Walter to fire him. Maybe if Sharlie were a Charlotte, she’d feel more authoritative…
She started, realizing that Dr. Rosen’s eyes were fixed on her. “It’s always tense the first time,” the doctor said quietly.
“We’ve never been to a psychiatrist before,” Brian said, then laughed at the sound of his words.
Dr. Rosen watched the two pairs of eyes reach for each other and hold, dark-gray eyes lost in blue. She waited, reluctant to disturb the mysterious, intense communion. After a while she said, “Tell me your plans.”
Brian blinked and said, “We’re going to get married.”
“We hope,” Sharlie murmured.
“For sure,” Brian said flatly.
Sharlie dropped her eyes.
“Do you want the transplant?” Dr. Rosen asked.
Sharlie waited for Brian to answer, but the doctor’s green eyes were trained on her. Finally Sharlie said, “Sort of.” Brian made a soft sound of dismay.
“Most people in your situation feel ambivalent,” Dr. Rosen said.
Sharlie smiled. Oh, that’s what you call this sensation? And all the time I thought it was terror.
“But basically she’s positive about it,” Brian said, then turned to Sharlie. “Aren’t you?”
Sharlie nodded, but so halfheartedly that Brian looked stricken.
“We don’t expect anybody to jump up on the operating table and say, ‘Take me, I’m yours,’” the psychiatrist said.
“But she has to want it.”
“There are always doubts.”
Dr. Rosen and Brian stared at Sharlie expectantly. Her eyes looked trapped.
“I don’t think I want to say anything,” she choked.
“What do you think would happen to you if you went ahead and had the transplant?” Dr. Rosen asked.
Sharlie felt as if her words were coming from somewhere far away, muffled perhaps by the sensation of thick stone encasing her thoughts. “People do strange things afterward—run around naked, attack the nurses. Nice, gentle people.”
“Oh, Sharlie,” Brian said.
“She’s right,” Dr. Rosen interjected. Sharlie and Brian stared at her, Sharlie with gratitude and Brian surprised. “But post-operative psychosis can usually be avoided with therapy. That’s one of the reasons you’re here. Also let me reassure you that oftentimes that kind of bizarre reaction is a response to the drugs. It disappears within a few days.”
Brian looked at Sharlie. “You wouldn’t attack anybody.”
Sharlie looked unconvinced, and Dr. Rosen continued, “Probably not. More often a man who receives a young girl’s heart will become temporarily impotent. Things like that. Donor identification.”
Sharlie’s face tensed, and Dr. Rosen prodded, “You’ve been thinking about that?”
“Not every waking moment,” Sharlie replied. They all laughed, and Sharlie felt her cement shroud crack a bit.
“What about the people who can’t hack it?” Brian asked.
“We’ve made some mistakes,” she answered.
Sharlie said, “I couldn’t bear not handling it. All those other people waiting …”
“That’s not your responsibility,” Dr. Rosen said firmly. “We make the final judgment, and most of the time we guess right.”
“It’s only an operation,” Brian said. “I mean, of course it’s more complex, but do you go through this for kidneys?”
Dr. Rosen smiled. “Just think about the mythology, the language. ‘You’ve stolen my kidney’? ‘You’ve got to have kidney’?”
“In my heart of hearts, I want to get to the heart of the matter,” Sharlie said.
“Yes,” Dr. Rosen nodded. “It’s quite a burden. Sometimes an exhausted heart patient is just too worn out. Unless there’s a compelling reason to withstand the stress.”
Brian smiled at Sharlie, stretching his hands out, palms up. Here I am. Compelling enough? He turned to Dr. Rosen. “When do you think she’ll get off the pot?” He looked startled. “I mean, out of the hop … hospital. Damn.” Brian wasn’t used to muddling his words.
Sharlie grinned at him now. Shit or get off the pot, huh? Well, she could hardly blame him for feeling that way. Dr. Rosen had put it together, too, and shot her a quick glance. Sharlie’s cement cracked again, shuddered, and fell away, crumbling into nothing.
“I’m sorry, Bri,” she said. “I want it, but I’m so scared.” Tears spilled down her cheeks, and Dr. Rosen saw Brian’s eyes begin to water, too.
“All right,” the doctor said softly. “Tell me about your donor. Who’s it going to be?”
Sharlie began to talk, choking through the tears at first, about Margaret Mead and Dorothy Hamill and Charles Manson and the Reverend Jim Jones and all the others, dead and alive, wonderful and dreadful, the parade that strutted and stomped and danced and hunched across the sterile air above her hospital bed. Her words tumbled out uninterrupted until at last she came to a halt, suddenly crushingly tired. Dr. Rosen stood up. She reached a hand across her desk and held Brian’s briefly, then Sharlie’s.
“All right, then, Sharlie. Or would you like me to call you Charlotte?”
Sharlie hesitated and then nodded shyly.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Charlotte. And Brian, thank you for coming.”
Brian pushed Sharlie to the elevator in her wheelchair. They had been silent, but now Brian said, “Well, Charlotte, what did you think?”
“Oh, shut up,” she whispered.
“Why not, if you like it better?”
“It sounds ridiculous coming from you. Charlotte’s my … my stage name.”
A nurse in the elevator shot them a curious look, and they moved out onto the eighth floor.
“Now look,” Sharlie said, dismayed. “She thinks I’m a star.”
“Why not? You’re in California.”
“You say ‘why not’ more than anybody I ever met.” Sharlie said as he pushed her into her room.
“Why … oh, shit,” Brian said. Sharlie got out of the wheelchair, walked the few steps to her bed, and climbed in with Brian lifting her by the arms. Then she settled back against her pillows, gave him a weak smile, and fell instantly asleep.
He pulled a chair over next to her bed and sat down. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her skin seemed pasty. Even while she was asleep, her breathing came in short little puffs. Brian took her hand and stared down at the slender fingers. So he said “why not” a lot. Well, at this very moment there were nothing but why’s in his head.
Sharlie gasped a little in her sleep, and Brian glanced at her anxiously, feeling his body stiffen. He averted his eyes from her mouth, open slack against the pillow. She seemed like a stranger, and all at once he felt a rushing sensation inside his head, screaming sirens. Out. Let me out. Of this room, this love, this life that was attached inside him like a dying fetus, clinging to his intestines. Where was his own life, all the pieces that were his? His work, his clients, his crazy, hectic days in court, his fierce dialogues with Barbara, his tennis games with the vital, energetic Susan? All squeezed into some dark, musty corner of himself to make room for this disease of hers, this remorseless struggle that allowed no distractions. Her disease was his disease, her battle his battle, her pain his pain. Out!
He released her cold fingers and dropped his head into his hands. Double contradictory shame—self disgust at the panicked impulse to abandon Sharlie, and the more shadowy repulsion at his inability to flee, a certainty that his identity had become so intertwined with this tenuous life on the white bed that he could no longer free himself and stand alone.
He sat bent over his hands until self-loathing became a numbed exhaustion. Then he looked up at the sleeping figure again. She was breathing more easily now, with faint color under the pale cheeks. She stirred in her sleep, and he watched the outline of her legs slide apart under the sheet. He found himself remembering the last time they’d been together in his apartment. He’d felt the urgency of her body, arching toward him. Was she dreaming now, her legs open like that? He wanted her. Even now, in this sterile room with her so close to death. He wanted to be inside her, as far into the center of her as he could thrust himself. He wanted to reach out and touch her breasts as she lay there.
Feeling the sudden, hot obstruction between his legs, he thought, Christ, maybe Sharlie’s right. I am a necrophiliac.