“Your eyes are like melting gumdrops,
Your teeth are like grains of rice,
You’re pigeon-toed and cross-eyed,
And I think you’re horribly nice.”
SO SANG THE YOUNG MAN STANDING IN FRONT OF Cherry and Grey’s table, serenading them with a banjo. They and the other diners winced but applauded. The troubador hitched up his pants and strolled to the next table. Striking a chord, he started to declaim, “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears—It was brillig in the slithey tove—”
“This Stage Door is the craziest restaurant I’ve ever been to,” Cherry said to Grey, laughing. “Crazy even for Greenwich Village.”
The walls were whitewashed brick, the tables and chairs were painted variously, red, blue, and yellow. Paintings by local artists hung on one wall. Another wall was covered with photographs of actors. A mammoth jukebox was stocked with folk song, jazz, and foreign records. The young waiters and waitresses were dressed as famous characters from well-known plays. Old-time movies were shown at nine and midnight.
“It certainly is a Village-y place.” Grey smiled back at Cherry. “The food is pretty good, though.”
They had enjoyed bowls of chilled soup, then footlong hot dogs—“enough to kill us,” Grey said. Now they were working on a huge, spectacular sundae, called the Kitchen Sink, shared between them. They knew better than to assault their stomachs like this and both took pleasure in breaking all the sensible rules, for once.
A fat, foreign man at the next table had been listening to the banjo singer, and now cried out, “Very goo’! Very ni’! Non che mala!” The visitor burst into song himself, an operatic aria, rising to his feet and gesturing grandly.
He had a fine baritone, and was very much the opera star. So much so that the young singing waiters and waitresses who worked there “between theater jobs” looked jealous. A passing young waitress sniffed and muttered, “A vulture for culture.” Everybody listened, then applauded the fat man. He bowed, perspiring, and sat down.
“That’s all the crazy stuff I can stand for one evening,” Grey said. “It will do me for several weeks. Shall we go?”
A sing-along session, with banjo and washboard accompaniment, was starting as Grey and Cherry left the restaurant.
The street was dark and quiet. They walked along twisting, picturesque alleys, to the tree-shadowed paths of Washington Square Park. Here on a summer’s night men sat playing chess by moonlight, and couples looked deep into each other’s eyes and ate ice cream on a stick. Families brought their children to hear college students in blue jeans sing folk songs and play guitars around the fountain.
“Pleasant here,” Grey said. “Care to sit down?”
They searched for two seats together on the well-populated benches, found them, and settled down near the shadow-dappled buildings of New York University. The young doctor asked Cherry how she liked working in Dr. Fairall’s office—for three doctors.
“Well, there’s a good part and a not so bad part, a different part—” Cherry explained that she missed the intensive bedside care she had given in hospital wards and private duty cases. “I’m accustomed to nursing my patients every day—watching them gradually get well. But in the office I usually see a patient just a few times.”
Some did come back often for a course of treatments. Most patients came only occasionally for an annual checkup, or to have the doctor examine them if they were not feeling well. Then they went home, and the nurse would not see them again for a while. Cherry knew she would read their medical follow-up, for the doctors wrote notes on these developments in the patients’ case histories. She would talk to the patients on the phone, answer their questions about such things as diet and prescribed treatment.
She did value a nursing role in which she assisted with the thorough examination of patients. To this end, Cherry as office nurse was prepared to do some laboratory work—blood count, urinalysis, G.L. series (gastrointestinal)—if Dr. Fairall had not employed a laboratory technician. When the doctor performed minor surgery in the office, Cherry would sterilize the instruments, and work alongside the doctor as surgical nurse. She was entrusted with giving patients certain treatments, oral medication, injections, following the doctor’s orders. Besides, Cherry had a special responsibility and this was “the best part”—patient contact, which meant giving emotional support and teaching good health habits.
“I love meeting dozens of people every day,” she said to Grey. “Such variety! Some days my job is more psychology than medicine.”
“Yes, that’s true. As a doctor, I’m fascinated by the medical variety in private practice,” Grey Russell said.
“Aren’t you fascinated by seeing people from all walks of life?” Cherry asked. “And some of Dr. Fairall’s theatrical people—! Have you ever treated Al Jenkins? I swear he’s made of rubber. You should have seen him clowning in the treatment room. He talked doubletalk to me for a good five minutes before I caught on.”
“Oh, yes, good old Alfalfa Jenkins,” Grey said, and grinned. “He was in and out of the hospital with his faulty heart when I was a resident physician there. Well! Here we sit on a Sunday evening talking shop. Shall we walk a little more? What are you giggling about?”
“I just happened to think of old Dr. Lamb and the way he goes stamping around, roaring, ‘Where’s my what-chamacallit? Nurse! Who’s been cleaning my private office and mislaid my whatchamacallit?’” Cherry laughed.
“He’s a fine doctor, though,” Grey said, laughing. “Come on. Let’s walk off that Kitchen Sink sundae.” They strolled back across the park, then past the great, sculptured Washington Arch.
Grey and Cherry emerged onto lower Fifth Avenue with its skyscraper apartment buildings and elegant hotels. People dined at an attractive sidewalk cafe, sheltered by hedges and awnings; uniformed captains and waiters bustled to serve them.
“Slightly different from where we were,” Grey said with a chuckle.
Cherry looked at the diners, then stared. “Grey! See that table where the captain is just bringing that flaming dessert?—or whatever it is. See the woman there?”
“Yes, I see a woman and a man. Incidentally, she’s middle-aged—but he’s only about thirty.”
“Isn’t she our medical secretary, Mrs. Irene Wick?” The reddish-haired, milky-skinned man with Mrs. Wick—now who was he? Cherry was sure she had seen him in the doctor’s office.
Grey and Cherry slowed their stroll to a stop. He pretended to search for something in his jacket pocket, murmuring, “Yes, it is Irene Wick. Beautiful outfit she’s wearing. Who’s that with her?”
Cherry was busy noticing Mrs. Wick’s expensive flower-laden hat, and the numerous silver platters that a waiter had just removed from their table. What an elaborate dinner. But why? Surely not a romance? The cold, bored look on Mrs. Wick’s face was not romantic.
Then she recognized the man. He was Bally, the salesman. The one from whom Mrs. Wick bought most of the three doctors’ medications and supplies. Playing favorites? But Mrs. Wick had said Bally’s prices were lower, for the same items and quality, than the prices of the salesmen from other supply houses. Mrs. Wick had distinctly said she saved money for her employers by buying chiefly from Bally.
Just the same, Cherry thought, it looked odd for Irene to be accepting such an expensive dinner from Bally. As if Bally were rewarding her for throwing her employer’s purchases his way. Cherry said as much to Grey Russell, as they walked on.
“I agree with you,” he said, “except that ‘business entertaining’ is commonplace. Bally earns a commission on every sale he makes. Our medical secretary, who buys supplies for three physicians and our laboratory, is a valuable customer. If Bally wants to provide Irene with an incentive to buy from him instead of from his competitors—well, it’s legal.”
“I can’t help feeling she’s trading on her position in Dr. Fairall’s office,” Cherry said.
“Sure she is,” Grey said. “Still, it’s just a dinner. Call it Bally’s expression of thanks, or good will.”
“It isn’t strictly ethical of her to accept,” Cherry insisted.
“Right. It’s a small matter, though. I imagine Bill Fairall wouldn’t mind.” Grey sounded bored. He said in a livelier tone, “I had an idea during dinner about Henry J.”
Cherry was glad to change the subject to something more pleasant.
“Instead of driving a taxi all night,” the young doctor said, “why couldn’t Henry J. be one of the waiter-entertainers at the Stage Door? If he’d want to, that is. He’d have better hours and be able to give Leslie and the baby more help. He’d probably earn more, too.”
“And have more fun at his work,” Cherry said.
“I know some of the people who operate the restaurant,” Grey said. “They’re always looking for talented young people. No sooner do they train a boy or a girl to wait on tables, than he or she leaves for a job in a play or with a touring company.”
“We’ll ask Henry J.,” Cherry said. “What do you suppose the J. stands for?”
Grey laughed. “Some awful name, probably. I’ll bet we never find out.”