Tales of the City 01 - Tales of the City

much longer?” DeDe asked, hating herself for sounding apologetic.
    “What?” This chinless Bryman School graduate was plainly irked that her reading had been interrupted. “Uh … the doctor will be with you in a moment.” She brightened a little, holding up the paper and pointing to a serial on the back page. “Have you read this today?”
    DeDe stiffened. “I don’t read that.”
    “Ah … c’mon!”
    “I don’t. It’s nothing but trash. A friend of mine almost sued him once.”
    “Far out. Have you ever …” She cut off the sentence and covered the newspaper with an IUD catalogue, just as a door swung open next to her booth.
    DeDe looked up to see a lean, blond man in a blue oxford-cloth shirt, chino pants and a white cotton jacket. He reminded her instantly of Ashley Wilkes.
    “Ms. Day?”
    That was one point in his favor. She hadn’t explained her marital status on the telephone. She had said simply that she was “a friend of Binky’s,” sounding as quaintly furtive as a flapper approaching a speakeasy.
    “Yes,” she said colorlessly, extending her hand.
    Obviously sensing her discomfort, he led her out of the waiting room and into the room with the stirrups.
    “Any nausea recently?” he asked softly, going about his work.
    “A little. Not much. Sometimes when I smell cigarette smoke.”
    “Any foods bother you?”
    “Some.”
    “Like?”
    “Sweet and sour pork.”
    He chuckled. “But half an hour later you feel fine again.”
    That was not funny. She froze him out … or as much as she could in that position.
    “Have you felt tired lately?”
    She shook her head.
    “How’s Binky?”
    “What?”
    “Binky. I haven’t seen her since the film festival.”
    “She … I guess she’s fine.” It enraged her that anyone could talk about Binky Gruen at a time like this.
    When he was done, he came away from the sink with a smile on his smooth, Arrow collar face. “It’s yours, if you want it.”
    “What?”
    “ The baby. There’s no point in waiting for the urinalysis. You’re going to be a mother, Mrs. Day.”
    She wondered later if some automatic defense mechanism had dulled her response to the announcement. Most women, surely, would not have chosen that particular moment to dwell on the luminous blue pools of their doctor’s eyes.
    She warmed to him after that, freed from embarrassment by his loose-limbed easiness, his toothy, prep-school smile. She could trust him, she felt. Baby or no baby. She was certain that he sensed the delicacy of the situation.
    “When you make up your mind,” he said, “give me a call. In the meantime, take these.” He winked at her. “They’re pink and blue. It’s a subtle propaganda campaign.”
    He said good-bye to her in the waiting room, turning to the receptionist as DeDe headed for the door.
    “Through with the paper?”
    She nodded, handing him the Chronicle.
    He opened the newspaper to the same page that had occupied the receptionist. A slow smile crept over his face, and he began to shake his head.
    “Sick,” said the doctor. “Really sick.”

The Diagnosis
    S TUPEFIED, FRANNIE STARED AT HER DAUGHTER.
    “God, DeDe! Are you sure?”
    DeDe nodded, fighting back the tears. “I talked to him this morning.”
    “And … he’s sure?”
    “Yes.”
    “Dear God.” She clutched at the trellis in the morning room, as if to support herself. “Why didn’t … we know before? Why didn’t he tell us?”
    “He wasn’t sure, Mother.”
    Frannie’s voice grew strident. “Wasn’t sure? Who gave him the right to play God? Don’t we have a right to know?”
    “Mother …”
    Frannie turned away from her daughter, hiding her face. She fidgeted with a pot of yellow spider mums. “Did the doctor … did he say how long he has?”
    “Six months,” said DeDe softly.
    “Will he … be uncomfortable?”
    “No. Not until the end, anyway.” Her voice cracked. Her mother had begun to cry. “Please don’t, Mother. He’s awfully old. The vet says it was time.”
    “Where is he now?”
    “On the terrace.”
    Frannie left the morning room, brushing the tears from her eyes.
    Out on the terrace, she knelt by the chaise lounge where Faust lay sleeping.
    “Poor baby,” she said, stroking the dog’s graying muzzle. “Poor, sweet baby.”
    Later that day, Frannie poked morosely at her cheese soufflé and raised her voice over the noontime din at the Cow Hollow Inn.
    “I said … I hope I can prepare myself for it.”
    “Of course