The waiter removed the two plates wordlessly. In a lesser establishment, he might have commented on the amount of food still left on one of them: “Mademoiselle did not care for the scalloped potatoes? But they are a specialty of the chef!” Le Chanticleer, however, catered primarily to an older, monied crowd, which liked their women slim. Besides, he thought he remembered that face from a recent magazine ad. Models never ate potatoes. Or much else, in his experience.

Vivienne tried not to think of the scalloped potatoes. By now she was pretty good at steeling herself against food. But those potatoes had looked really delicious, Never mind, she thought. When I’m forty and worth twenty billion trillion dollars, I’ll eat all the potatoes I want, and it won’t matter. But she knew it would always matter, somehow.

Vivienne Laker was twenty-four years old and the envy of every woman in every room she entered. She was beautiful, of course, but it was the kind of beauty which owed as much to the character of its owner as it did to the wide-set green eyes, straight tip-tilted nose, and honey blond hair. It was the kind of beauty that, well-managed, could produce a mid-six-figure income,

“Charles, it’s nearly eleven. We really should go.” Vivienne smiled up at him a little tentatively. He hated when her work interfered with his social life, but she’d already warned him about her 8:00 a.m. photo session the next day. Vivienne took pride in arriving at the studio rested and on time. She felt it was the least she could do, for all that money.

Charles Spencer-Moore, fair-haired descendant of minor robber barons and chairman of the Spencer-Moore Investment Corporation, gazed at her with affection marred by the very slightest edge of irritation. He got to New York only twice a week; why couldn’t she arrange her schedule so she could stay out and party?

“Already? I thought we might have a drink at the Rainbow Room, dance a little, live dangerously.” He smiled, and she smiled back.

“No can do,” she said. “You know I’m a working girl.” With a dainty manicured fingertip she traced the line of his nose, ending at his upper lip, then traveled across to the corner of his mouth on the side that sort of tilted up so he looked like he was always smiling. He play-bit at it, and she whipped it away and they both laughed.

The waiter approached with dessert menus. Don’t know why I bother, thought the waiter. But of course he did know: as much as thirty percent on a good night.

Vivienne waved the little cards away while the waiter was still several steps from the table. “Don’t tempt me anymore!” she laughed. “You’ve already cost me about a thousand extra sit-ups tomorrow!”

“Some raspberries, perhaps?” asked the waiter smoothly. “Very light!”

“That’s what I love about New York,” said Vivienne. “Raspberries all year round!”

“But not always very good ones,” said Charles, still regretting the Rainbow Room.

“They probably make them in a lab, like lettuce,” said Vivienne. “What do they call it? Hydro-something?”

“Ponic,” said Charles.

“Lettuce oui, raspberries no,” said the waiter.

“These come from Morocco, land of eternal sunshine.”

“I did a photo assignment in Morocco once,” said Vivienne. “Rained for days. The photographer won some artsy award, and we all had colds for weeks.”

“No raspberries, thank you,” said Charles.

“Would you care for some coffee?”

“A double espresso,” said Charles.

“Charles, you shouldn’t,” said Viv.

“I know,” said Charles. “But I’m going to anyway.” He turned back to the waiter. “And a cappuccino for the lady. And the bill.”

Charles and Vivienne had been seeing each other for over a year now, but only recently had the relationship turned serious. She’d met him at a pivotal time in her life, when she’d just begun making really big money and was still working at feeling comfortable about it.

She’d grown up in a small town just outside Charlotte, North Carolina, in a caring, supportive family of modest means. Becoming a cheerleader and going steady with the football captain was the height of glamorous living. (She’d done both). Charles was part of an excitingly different world, and although Vivienne prided herself on her levelheadedness, she would have been the first to admit that he had dazzled her.

It had always been assumed that after high school, she’d attend the local college, then marry some nice young man and settle down. But halfway through her senior year, encouraged by several successful local modeling assignments, she’d had a long talk with her father. She wanted to try for the big time. Would he stake her to six months in New York? If she didn’t make it by then, she’d come home and matriculate.

He wasn’t happy. “You’ve got a good mind, honey,” he’d told her. “I hate to see you waste it.”

“Modeling careers are short,” she’d assured him. “I’ll go to college later on, I promise!”

It took nearly half a year and excellent college-board scores to convince him, but two days after graduation, Vivienne was on a plane to New York.

Three months later, she booked her first job, and she never looked back. Her face and her figure made it all so easy. She liked to think her winning personality and inherent intelligence had something to do with it too, but she knew better. She’d since met too many stupid, nasty, wildly successful women. Still, though she was grateful for her looks, she was determined not to live by that alone.

She looked at Charles, solemnly drinking his forbidden brew, and her heart swelled with love . . . or something like it. Of course, she was right to marry him, despite the difference in their ages. Of course, she’d made the right decision.

She stirred her cappuccino, mixing the cinnamon into the hot coffee the way Charles was always telling her not to, and thought about the fund-raiser where they’d first met. Marcella, owner of the model agency through which Vivienne worked, liked her “girls” to be seen around town. She’d arranged for invitations for Vivienne and another model Vivienne barely knew, borrowed what Vivienne thought were horrendously expensive designer gowns, and sent them off to the black-tie affair at the Pierre, much as Cinderella’s godmother had done. And just like Cinderella, Vivienne had met her prince.

He’d been seated on the dais, a golden boy among the gray beards. After dinner, when people began to move around the silver-and-white ballroom, he’d come up and introduced himself, and she’d realized he was older than she’d thought, nearly forty.

Everything about him seemed to glitter: his pale golden hair, his expensive yet understated jewelry, his eyes. She’d felt so out-of-place there, but he was obviously relaxed and comfortable. And in his company, suddenly she was too.

After that night, he’d pursued her relentlessly, and yes, he’d dazzled her. But it wasn’t just the gifts and the expensive dinners; she could buy such things for herself. Rather, it was the world to which he introduced her, a world of Palm Beach estates and oceangoing yachts and people you read about in the newspapers. It was exciting. And Charles’s attentions were so flattering.

“You’re very quiet suddenly,” said Charles, breaking in on her thoughts. She started slightly and grinned at him.

“I’m thinking about you.”

“Good,” he said with a smile and turned away to deal with the bill.

The first time they’d made love, Vivienne thought she would faint. Aside from the usual high school gropings, her only sexual experiences had been with her football-captain “steady”: illicit, frightening moments in his car and once in the team locker room. Charles was a revelation. Now, nearly a year and a half later, the excitement of their lovemaking was undimmed.

Undimmed despite the doubts that now and then arose. Was she really comfortable with Charles’s rather conventional tastes and ideas? Did she really like being the “junior member,” always being advised and taught - and judged? Did he love the person she was, or only the person he was turning her into?

Overthink, she told herself, stealing a look at his perfect profile as he reached for the small white espresso cup. Everyone has doubts before marriage; it’s only natural. She’d been right to ignore hers and say yes when he’d proposed to her that rainy night in Southampton. Living with Charles would be bliss, wouldn’t it? And he’d said he didn’t mind her continuing to model; in fact he was proud of her career. He was proud of her. He loved her. Didn’t he?

Charles put down his cup and reached into his pocket.

“Viv, I’d like you to see my doctor.” He handed her a small white card. Engraved, of course. The lettering was small and elegant. Dr. Brian Arnold. An address in the East Sixties. A telephone number.

“Your doctor? What on earth for?”

“For a blood test. You know, marriage license, blood test. ‘I do, I do . . .’“

Charles chuckled. I hate that chuckle, Vivienne thought. It’s so self-satisfied.

“Okay,” she said, putting the card in her purse.

“Call him tomorrow and make an appointment,” he said.

“Charles, the wedding’s not for five months.”

“Call him tomorrow.”

She looked up, caught by the tone of his voice. Harsh. Determined. A little scary. His eyes, the set of his face, matched this new voice. Who is this man? she thought.

Suddenly his face softened, and he smiled. “Sorry, darling, didn’t mean to get heavy about it. It’s just . . . well, do it for me, will you?”

Vivienne smiled too. Who is this man indeed! “If it means that much to you, I’ll call as soon as I get to the studio,” she said.

“Good girl. And now I’ve got a little surprise for you.”

From his jacket pocket, he took a small, slim package wrapped in dark gold paper and tied with a thin red velvet ribbon. “I was going to save it for after you’d seen the good doctor, but now that you’ve promised . . .”

For a moment Vivienne was aware of a vague disquiet, but distracted by the gift, she brushed it aside and pulled off the wrapping.

Charles laughed at her enthusiasm. “I love unwrapping presents,” she said, “I love the sound the paper makes.”

Then her eyes grew big as she drew from the box a long, thin, beautifully made chain of gold on which hung a diamond of two blue-bright carats. “My God,” she said.

“Put it on,” said Charles.

Slowly she unclasped the chain and put it around her neck. The diamond hung in the deep décolletage of her black designer evening dress. Charles, eyes hot, leaned over and pressed his lips to the diamond, and then to the flesh on each side of it.

Flushing with embarrassment, Vivienne tried to draw back, but Charles’s arms went around her, holding her still.

“Charles, please,” she said, torn between her embarrassment and rising desire.

What must people think of me? she thought. A model and an older man and a diamond and a kiss like this?

At last Charles lifted his head, “You’re mine,” he said. “You belong to me.” He looked around the room challengingly, and several people turned away.

“I’ve always known I’d marry a woman like you. You’re perfect. And you’ll be perfect for me.” He looked into her eyes with ruthless determination. “You’re mine,” he repeated. “And everyone else can go to hell.”

Like all doctors, Harris grieved to lose a patient. It happened, sure. Even in his custom-made suit and imported shoes, a doctor is not God. But some losses cut more deeply than others, losses which, on reflection, one feels might have been prevented. If only . . . if only . . .

This case, Harris felt, was a case in point. There was stupidity here . . . greed . . . and something else, something Harris did not understand. And did not like one little bit.

He studied the two people in front of him, the woman in the cheap straight-backed hospital chair, the sick man in the bed. Harris had learned a lot about James Abbott in the last week, and what he’d learned confused him. Abbott just didn’t seem the type to make a stupid decision. CEO of a well-known electronics corporation which under his leadership had grown into a profitable multinational giant, Abbott had a reputation for both brilliance and caution. So why would a savvy, wealthy, non-risk-taker decide to tear himself off the machine that was keeping him alive and drag himself across the world to an unknown hospital in Spain?

“I wish you’d change your mind, Jim,” Harris told him, not for the first time.

Abbott gave him a weak smile. “Trust me,” he said. “It’ll be okay.” He turned his head away and closed his eyes, effectively ending the conversation.

Harris sighed and turned to Michelle Abbott. “May I speak with you outside?”

She nodded and followed him out of the flower-filled private room and down the corridor to the patients’ lounge. It was empty; Michelle seated herself in a chair facing the picture window, and Harris closed the door behind them, determined to have it out at last.

He sat down across from her and studied the tall, intelligent-looking Belgian woman. Surely she knew the risks she and her husband were taking. It made no sense. Nothing made any sense.

“Mrs. Abbott,” he said gently, “your husband is dying.”

“I know that,” she said with a touch of asperity. “That’s why we’re doing this.”

“Don’t you understand? He’s dying right now! His nitrogen urea is going up all the time. If you move him. . . .”

Mrs. Abbott was silent.

“We’ll get a kidney here,” Harris told her. “Just hang on a little longer and I’m sure we’ll get a match.”

“From whom?” Mrs. Abbott challenged. “How soon? And what about hepatitis? AIDS? Rejection?”

“Even a brother might give you rejection problems.”

“Not this brother.”

Harris rubbed his temples. He was tired. Saving a man’s life was hard enough; doing it against the man’s will was exhausting.

“I won’t even mention the cost of transporting your husband to this private hospital in Spain,” he said at last. “I assume you know the cost and can live with it. Anyway, that’s not my concern. What I find totally bewildering is how you and your husband, people smart enough to understand the risks involved, can take the enormous chance of pulling a dying man off dialysis and moving him anywhere, let alone out of the country.”

“It’s the only place the surgery can be done,” she replied. Her eyes refused to meet his. “Jim’s brother says so, his doctor says so . . .”

“His doctor,” said Harris evenly, “has an ego problem. And your husband has no brother.”

He’d taken Abbott’s patient file from the office just for this meeting. Now he pushed the buff folder toward Mrs. Abbott. “Dr. Fox, your internist, forwarded Jim’s medical records to me. Records that go back to 1975, when he first became Fox’s patient. He never mentioned a brother.”

Mrs. Abbott colored slightly but didn’t take the folder. “They’ve . . . they’ve been estranged, I guess you could say, for a long time. They’ve only recently renewed . . . contact.”

“So estranged he doesn’t even list him on a medical form?”

“Maybe the nurse forgot to write it in. Oh, what does it matter?” The words were delivered softly, yet with force. “That’s the only place and he’s the only doctor, so there’s no choice.”

Harris watched her carefully. “Why?” he asked. “Why is there no choice?”

But Mrs. Abbott was silent, studying the veneer of the coffee table.

Dr. Harris sighed. He’d never spoken against another doctor, not even to other doctors, and Lord knew he’d seen enough, one time, or another. He was about to ruin his perfect record, and he hated doing it.

“Talmidge’s hospital, Mrs. Abbott. How much do you really know about it?” He paused. “I’ve been doing a little research. It’s a small, wealthy hospital, yes. A well-equipped one, presumably. Supposedly they have done this sort of thing before, though they’re known primarily for their cosmetic face lifts, things like that.”

For a moment he hesitated, gazing at her clear, smooth face; it occurred to him fleetingly that she looked a good deal younger than Abbott. Yet her manner was mature, controlled. Perhaps she had had firsthand experience of Talmidge’s skill. Well, that sort of thing was different.

“They are by no means a major hospital with major resources,” he continued. “And transplants require major resources, believe me. The staff is unknown. It’s in a foreign country.”

Michelle Abbott’s eyes laughed sardonically at him, and he suddenly felt slightly ridiculous. She was a European and no doubt thought him insular. But he truly believed that American medicine was second to none. And there was the issue of Talmidge himself. . . .

“It’s been over five years since your husband lost a kidney to cancer,” said Harris. “Yet Dr. Talmidge tells me he doesn’t intend to use antirejection drugs. In fact, he says that’s part of his reason for insisting that the procedure take place at his hospital.”

Harris put down the papers he’d forgotten he was holding, and looked at her steadily. “Do you know the seriousness of that decision?” he asked.

“You can’t use those drugs after cancer.”

Who told her to say that? Harris wondered. “No, you can’t,” he agreed aloud. “Not for a year or so. But it’s been five years. There’s no problem with using them now.”

“But there’s no need for them,” Mrs. Abbott said.

“There’s always a need for them, except in those rare cases in which the donor is . . .”

“Jim doesn’t need them,” Mrs. Abbott repeated, interrupting him. “Dr. Talmidge has discovered a new way of doing things.”

“Too bad he hasn’t shared it with the rest of the world,” Harris said sarcastically, then immediately regretted it. “Look, I know you want the best for Jim,” he told her. “So do I. And frankly, there have been some serious questions about Dr. Talmidge in the past. There are good reasons he’s never served on the staff of any hospital but his own. Whatever he’s promised to do, whatever miracles he claims to perform . . . please, Mrs. Abbott, I urge you to reconsider.”

Mrs. Abbott gathered up her handbag and gloves. She regarded the doctor with a peculiar expression of sympathy.

“I’m sorry, Doctor. I’ve arranged to fly him to Spain tonight. It really is the only way. And Dr. Talmidge is the only one who can do . . . what has to be done. In his way, he’s a genius. But you Americans, you could never accept what he does. You are innocent, morally naive. It doesn’t surprise me that he had to leave America to do his work. To help people like my husband and myself. Yes, me also, Doctor.”

Michelle Abbott stood up. The sunlight, filtering through the curtain-covered windows behind the desk, played softly across her lovely face. “I am fifty-seven years old,” she said. “Five years older than my husband.”

Startled, Dr. Harris started to rise too. But she was gone.

 

Eric maneuvered himself and his tray through the lunchtime crush in the hospital cafeteria, one eye on the big clock that always reminded him of his high school gym back in Brooklyn, site of his many basketball victories. One such victory had been bought at the cost of a broken nose. His mother had cried, but Eric had always thought his conventionally handsome features boring; he’d been secretly pleased at the Belmondo look, a sort of vulnerable masculinity, which had resulted.

Not the tallest on the team at just under six feet, Eric had had, instead, the advantage of speed. Now, as he dodged around a slow-moving nurse, neatly sidestepped a misplaced chair, and swiveled to avoid a jostling elbow, he could hear the crowd cheering: Go, Rose!

From a Brooklyn gym to a Manhattan hospital is not far geographically, but for Eric it had been a long, hard journey.

Cheated of his own dream of medical school by unyielding financial pressures, his father had felt fortunate to have managed to complete a pharmacology degree at night school. Financing his son’s medical career was beyond him. But Eric’s mother, an intelligent woman who regretted her own lack of educational opportunities, encouraged Eric’s early interest in science; it was she who’d first raised the subject of medical school.

Eric worked hard for the scholarships that had taken him through eight years of schooling, realizing that high grades were the only way to finance his studies. He’d regretted not being tall enough for a college basketball scholarship; giving up the physical competition of his high school years had been tough.

For most doctors, the demands of the three or four years of required hospital residency are highly stressful. But for Eric, finally free of the part-time jobs that had plagued him from his teens right through medical school, concentrating his energies on medicine had been a big improvement.

Twelve minutes to two, he noted, tilting his tray to pivot sharply around a clump of interns. Just time to gulp down a sandwich and cup of . . .

“Dr. Rose! Over here! Do you suppose you could spare me a moment?”

Was that really Dr. John Harris, chief of the transplant unit, signaling to him from a nearby table? Surely Harris’s question was rhetorical; to refuse a medical word with Harris was not only unthinkable politically, it was like refusing to discuss religion with the pope. Eric executed a neat forty-five-degree lunge around the condiment counter and jogged down the court toward the table at which Harris sat in splendid isolation.

He’d often scrubbed in with Harris as part of his training, and he enjoyed it. Though Harris was demanding and rather formidable, he was smart as hell; Eric had learned a lot from him. Still, he had no illusions that it was his brilliant medical opinions Harris wanted. What have I done now? he wondered.

He slid into the proffered chair, carefully removing his commercially pickled pickle from his commercially custardized custard pie.

“You were in the ER the night they brought in the guy with the kidney, weren’t you? The corned beef is fatty.”

“The guy without the kidney, you mean? Yeah, that was me.”

The corned beef was fatty.

“Did he seem like a nut case to you, Rose? Suicidal? Eager to make his wife a rich widow? The pie is lousy.”

“Actually, Dr. Harris, he was rather under the weather at the time, as I recall. He kept reassuring me that he could pay for his treatment. His wife, now, she was something else. So sure she could get a kidney from his brother. I hear she did, too. Probably removed it herself.”

The pie was lousy.

“He’s checked out.”

Eric lowered his fork. “He was your patient, wasn’t he?” he said. “I’m sorry.”

Harris sighed. “No, Rose. He checked out of the hospital. His brother lives in Spain, of all places, and wouldn’t come back here for the operation. Very strange. The man was practically dead, yet his wife pulled him off dialysis and flew him there last night. Well, maybe I’d do the same for a kidney if I didn’t have one, but it’s unconscionably risky.”

“It does seem strange,” Eric agreed. “Someone who cares enough about you to donate a kidney but makes you travel to Spain for it.”

Harris looked at Eric meditatively. “Ever hear the name Benjamin Talmidge? No? Well, you’re too young. It seems this Spanish Talmidge is the same Talmidge I went to medical school with, years ago. A nasty piece of work then. And now . . . I just don’t know what to think. Or rather, I do, and it scares me silly.”

Eric stared, fascinated. Harris had never spoken to him like this before. Harris had never spoken like this to anyone at the hospital before.

“You’re interested in cell regeneration, aren’t you?” Harris continued. “Did some independent research on it at one point, I recall.”

“Recall,” my left eyebrow, thought Eric in some surprise. The old man’s been checking me out.

Eric’s interest in cell regeneration went way back to his undergraduate years. He’d found the implications of even the early research very exciting. These days there seemed to be a constant flow of discoveries involving the applications of DNA research to the detection and treatment of disease. He often wished he had time to keep up with them all.

“I’d like you to look up the stuff Ben Talmidge published in the Lancet,” Harris told him. “Early seventies, it would have been. See what you think.”

“I’m afraid . . . I don’t exactly understand, Dr. Harris.”

“Of course you don’t,” Harris replied impatiently. “That’s why I’d like to know how it strikes you. Is it really possible, do you think? I’d like the opinion of a young mind. Oh yes, and bear in mind that Talmidge doesn’t plan to use antirejection drugs.”

“With the kidney, you mean? But that’s impossible!”

“Apparently not. At least. . . . Well, you tell me.” Harris studied the interior of his cup as though searching for clues, then took a small experimental sip. “The coffee is . . .”

“Please,” said Eric. “Leave me something!”

“No, no,” Harris smiled. “It’s good. The coffee’s terrific! Of course, the rest of your lunch is a nutritional disaster.”

Eric grinned, prying up the plastic top.

“Two o’clock,” Harris announced, stretching and rising. “I’m due in the OR.”

Eric’s smile froze. He was due on A Ward at two o’clock for rounds. He put the top back on his coffee for later. Damn.