Deadly Beloved(20)

“I’ll see them as soon as they come in,” Julianne said.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Tiffany asked her. “You look pale.”

“I’m fine,” Julianne said.

Then she looked down and made herself concentrate on the lists of figures on health insurance premiums, which didn’t matter because, like most things in life, they could only get worse.





8.


AS SOON AS LIZA Verity came in from work she saw the red light blinking on her answering machine. There was something about the way it was blinking that made her not want to hear the message—although, God only knew, even Liza knew, answering machines didn’t have moods. Maybe it was just that she wasn’t in a very good mood herself. Sometimes Liza didn’t really mind the way things had turned out. Life seemed to be a matter of choices, and these were the choices she had made. Other times—now—Liza knew it was all wrong. She had graduated from Vassar, for God’s sake, and back in the days when it was an all-women’s college and just as hard to get into for girls as Harvard and Yale were for boys. Liza Verity, class of ’69. Women like her did not end up wearing a nurse’s uniform nine hours a day, not even as the heads of ICU wards. They didn’t end up saying “yes, doctor” and “no, doctor” to overgrown boys who had barely had the grades to make it into Penn State. They became doctors, or lawyers, or congresswomen, like Julianne. At the very least, they married rich men and lived splendidly somewhere in the Northeast Power Corridor and hired Martha Stewart herself to cater their daughters’ graduation parties. Liza threw herself down on her small couch and stretched out her legs. Her white uniform shoes were heavy and awkward. Her white uniform stockings reminded her of the silly things they used to wear when she was first in college, back when miniskirts and being mod were still in vogue. Liza remembered thinking, at the time, that there was no end to possibility. She would just go on and on and on, experiencing everything. She would never have to stop. She would never want to stop. She would never grow up or grow old or find herself in a two-bedroom ranch house on a quarter-acre plot in the worst residential section of Gladwyne, just plain stuck.

I should have done something serious to get myself stuck, Liza thought. I should have had an illegitimate baby or blown up a bank or been in a terrible accident or run through dozens of men.

The red light on the answering machine was still blinking and blinking. Liza stabbed at the play button and threw her head back against the couch, closing her eyes. Her uniform was made of some sort of synthetic material that was always too stiff and too sharp. When she had first been in nursing school, she had gone out of her way to get uniforms in real cotton and not minded the extra expense of having them starched and pressed at a laundry. Then the other women in her class had found out what she was doing and it had been impossible. They had all started out half sure that she was just some stinking rich bitch, coming in from Vassar and thinking she was better than everybody else. After they knew about the uniforms, they wouldn’t talk to her at all.

“Liza,” a voice said from the answering machine. “This is Courtney Hazelwood. Would you be available to do special duty work next week?”

Courtney Hazelwood was the head of the pediatrics nursing unit on the fourth floor. She was ten years younger than Liza, but she had gotten further faster, probably because she had no attitude problem. When Courtney Hazelwood said that nurses were serious professionals who deserved more money, more responsibility, and more status, she meant it.

“Liza.” It was a male voice this time. Pompous. Young. Insufferable. “This is Dr. Martinson. Could you call me as soon as possible about the Brevoric case? You forgot to make some notes on the file.”

Liza made a face at the machine. Dr. Martinson was barely thirty. He thought he was the next best thing to God, but he was always screwing up, and that was what this would turn out to be. Liza never forgot to make notes on the file. She was meticulous. Dr. Martinson, though, always forgot to make half the documentation he was supposed to. He was always in trouble with the administration about it, because they all had to be so careful with the legal ramifications of everything these days.

“Liza?”

Liza sat up a little straighter on the couch. The voice belonged to Julianne Corbett. Julianne never called anymore, not since the election. She had gotten to be too damned important to bother with Liza Verity. Of course, before the election, while she was campaigning, Julianne had been behaving like the best friend Liza would ever have in the world. Liza had organized a party so that Julianne could meet all the really important people in the nurses’ union  .