'I'm not your patient.'
'Right. You were only masquerading as one.' He was silent, and then said, 'I believe you called me?'
'Yes. Yes, I did. I was wondering if you might be willing to meet with me-professionally, of course-'
'Of course.'
'-to talk about hanging and organ donation.'
'If only I had a dime for every time I've been asked to do that,' Dr.
Gallagher said. 'I'd be delighted to meet with you. Professionally, of course.'
'Of course,' I said, deflated. 'The catch is, I have to meet you fairly soon. My client's trial starts in two weeks.'
'Well, then, Ms. Bloom, I'll pick you up at seven.'
'Oh-you don't have to do that. I can meet you at the hospital.'
'Yes, but I really prefer to not eat the cafeteria Jell-O on my days off.'
'It's your day off?' He called me back on his day off? 'Well, we can do it some other time...'
'Didn't you just tell me this was something that needed to be done quickly?'
'Well,' I said. 'Yeah.'
'Then seven o'clock it is.'
'Excellent,' I said in my finest courtroom voice. 'I look forward to it.'
'Ms. Bloom.'
'Yes?'
I held my breath, waiting for him to lay down the parameters of this meeting. Do not expect this to be any more than it is on the surface: two professionals doing business. Do not forget that you could have asked any number of doctors, even ones who don't have eyes the color of a moonless night and an accent that tugs like a fishing hook. Do not delude yourself into pretending this is a real date.
'I don't know where you live.'
Whoever said that black makes you look thinner obviously did not have the same clothes that were hanging in my closet. First I tried on my favorite black pants, which were no longer my favorite because they only buttoned if I stopped breathing and didn't intend to sit at all during the meal. The black turtleneck that still had tags on it made me look like I had a double chin, and the black crochet shrug that had looked so cute in the catalog showed every inch of bra roll. Red, I thought. I'll be bold and make a statement. I tried on a crimson silk camisole, but the only statement
I seemed to be sending was Frederick's of Hollywood. I sifted through wraps and cardigans and shells and blazers, A-line skirts and pleated ones and cocktail dresses, tossing them off one by one onto the floor as Oliver hopped away in vain, trying not to get trapped underneath.
I tried on every single pair of trousers in my possession and decided that my ass was well on its way to being declared one of Saturn's moons. Then I marched myself to the bathroom mirror. 'Here's the thing,' I said to myself. 'You don't have to look like Jennifer Aniston to discuss the best way to execute someone.'
Although, I imagined, it probably helped.
Finally I decided on my favorite pair of jeans, and a flowing pale green tunic that I'd found for five dollars at an Asian boutique, so I always felt good about wearing it, even when I didn't look perfect. I twisted my hair up and stabbed it with a hair stick, hoping it looked artful and Grecian instead of just messy and out of time.
At exactly seven, the doorbell rang. I took one last look at myself in the mirror-the outfit clearly said casual, together, not trying too hard- and opened the door to find Dr. Gallagher wearing a coat and tie.
'I can change,' I said quickly. 'I didn't know we were going somewhere nice. Not that I wouldn't expect you to take me somewhere nice.
Or that you're taking me. I mean, I'm taking myself. And you're taking you. We're just going in the same car.'
'You look lovely,' he said. 'This is how I dress all the time.'
'On your day off?'
'Well, I am British,' he replied, an explanation; but he hooked his finger in his collar and slipped the tie from his shirt. He draped it over the inside knob of the front door.
'When I was in college and someone did that it meant-' I broke off, remembering what it did mean: don't enter, because your roommate is getting lucky. 'It meant that, um, you were busy studying for a test.'
'Really?' Dr. Gallagher said. 'How strange. At Oxford it meant your roommate was inside having sex.'
'Maybe we should go,' I said quickly, hoping he didn't notice that I was blushing fiercely, or that I lived alone with a rabbit, or that my hips were so big that they probably wouldn't fit into the seat of the little sports car he'd parked in my driveway.
He opened the car door for me and didn't turn the ignition until my seat belt was fastened. As he sped off, he cleared his throat. 'There's something I'd like to get out of the way before we go any further,' he said. 'I'm Christian.'
I stared at him. Was he some kind of fundamentalist who limited his extracurricular conversations to people of the same faith? Did he think that I harbored some secret desire to elope, and was he giving me the lay
Well, whatever. I'd been eating, sleeping, breathing religion with
Shay's case; I was even more sensitive now about religious tolerance than
I'd been before I took up this mantle. And if religion was so vitally important to Gallagher that he had to bring it up as the first point of conversation,
I could give as good as I got. 'I'm an atheist,' I said, 'but you might as well know right now that my father's a rabbi, and if you have a problem with that I'm sure I can find another physician to talk to me, and I'd really appreciate it if you didn't make a joke right now about
Jewish doctors.'
I exhaled.
'Well,' he said, and glanced at me. 'Perhaps you'd rather call me
Chris?'
I was pretty sure Emily Post wouldn't have covered this topic, but it seemed more discreet to wait until after we were served our main course to start talking about how to kill a man.
The restaurant was inside an old colonial home in Orford, with floorboards that rolled like the seas beneath my feet and a bustling kitchen off to one side. The hostess had a husky, mellifluous voice and greeted the doctor by name.
Christian.
The room we were sitting in had only six tables, covered with mismatched linen and dishes and glasses; candles burned in recycled wine bottles. On the wall were mirrors in every shape and size-my own personal version of the ninth circle of hell-but I hardly even noticed them.
Instead, I drank water and wine and pretended that I did not want to spoil my appetite by eating the freshly baked bread they'd served us along with dipping oil-or by talking about Shay's execution.
Christian smiled at me. 'I've always imagined one day I'd be forced to consider how one went about losing one's heart, but I must admit, I didn't think it would be quite so literal.'
The waiter arrived with our plates. The menu had been full of the most delectable cuisine: Vietnamese bouillabaisse, escargot tortellini, chorizo dumplings. Even the descriptions of the entrees made me salivate:
Handmade to order, fresh Italian parsley pasta filled with fresh artichoke hearts, roasted eggplant, a medley of cheeses, and sweet roasted red and yellow pepper, tossed with a sun-dried tomato cream sauce. Slices of boneless chicken lined with thin slices of prosciutto filled with fresh spinach, Asiago cheese, and sweet onion rolled and served with fresh fettuccine and a tomato marsala wine reduction. Boneless breast of duck roasted, thinly sliced, served with a sun-dried cherry sauce and a wild rice pancake.
In the wild hope that I might fool Christian into thinking my waist size was not what it seemed to be, I'd swallowed hard and ordered an appetizer.
I'd fervently wished that Christian would order the braised leg of lamb or the steak frites so that I could beg a taste, but when I explained I wasn't all that hungry (a colossal lie), he said an appetizer was all he really wanted, too.
'From what I imagine,' Christian said, 'the inmate would be hanged in such a way that the spine would be fractured at C2/C3, which would arrest all spontaneous respiration.'
