The Baby Doctors

But as he scribbled a couple of prescriptions and handed them to her, he doubted that she would follow through.

CHAPTER FOUR

ELIZABETH WANTED to scream. Walking through Safeway with her mother and her daughter was more irritation than anyone should have to tolerate. Lucy was acting like the princess she thought she was. And Pearl, her mother, was the snoopy old Queen Mother.

Which would make her, Elizabeth, the queen, except that no one ever treated her like one. She set a bottle of champagne in the cart.

“I thought you weren’t drinking anymore,” Pearl said. “You fallen off the wagon?”

“Champagne doesn’t count.”

“Booze is booze,” Pearl pronounced.

Lucy, who had gone off in her own direction as soon as they walked through the door, reappeared with a six-pack of socks. “Can I buy these?”

“Do you mean, can I buy them?” Elizabeth asked.

“If you can afford champagne,” Pearl said mildly, “I would think you could afford socks.”

“That’s not the point.” Elizabeth said, but no one was listening.

“Thank you, Grandma,” Lucy said.

“You’re welcome.”

There were days Elizabeth reflected, when everything Pearl said seemed like some sort of attack. Matt always said she was overly sensitive when it came to her mother. But Matt had always idealized Pearl. Once she’d asked him, only half joking, if Pearl was the real reason they got married. Pearl was the mother he’d never had. Pearl wasn’t weird and eccentric like Sarah’s mother. Pearl was sweet and kind and baked cookies. Right. Sweet and kind to everyone but me. Pearl would have preferred a daughter like Sarah. Pearl would have loved to talk about her daughter the doctor.

“Who’s Sarah?” Lucy asked as though she’d just read Elizabeth’s mind.

“Sarah who?” Elizabeth picked up a heart-shaped box of candy and stuck it in the cart for George, the guy she’d been seeing lately. Giving was as good as receiving. Kind of.

“Those will all be on sale next week,” Pearl said. “Fifty percent off.”

“Next week’s too late for Valentine’s,” Elizabeth said. George treated her like a queen. The way Matt used to. Before they were married.

“Dad was talking on the phone to some woman called Sarah,” Lucy said. “Who is she?”

“Lucy, I don’t know every woman your father talks to. Maybe it was a patient.”

“He said she was an old friend.”

Elizabeth looked at her daughter. “Sarah Benedict?”

“How would I know?” Lucy said irritably. “They were talking for ages. And Dad was laughing.”

“Sarah Benedict’s back,” Pearl said. “I had to see her mother for this little thing on my nose.” She turned her face to Elizabeth. “See? That little rough patch. Precancerous legion.”

“Lesion,” Lucy said.

Pearl beamed. “How did I get to have such a smart granddaughter?”

“I take after my dad,” Lucy said.

Elizabeth eyed the champagne. Typical of Sarah to breeze into town and not call. “Sarah and your dad grew up together,” she told Lucy. “Then she went off to medical school and married this doctor and they traveled all over the place. Then he got killed.”

“Your mother broke them up,” Pearl told Lucy. “Your dad and Sarah.”

“I did not.” Elizabeth glared at Pearl. “What kind of thing is that to say to your granddaughter?”

“I’m not a child,” Lucy said.

“I’m just stating the truth,” Pearl said. “Your dad and Sarah were joined at the hip.”

“Gee, thanks, Mom.” She followed Pearl, wearing a snappy red pantsuit and a heart-shaped broach, down the paper-goods aisle, waited while her mother debated between Angel Soft and Dream Puff. “Lucy, go pick up some milk and let’s get out of here.”

“He’s taking her out for a Frugals,” Lucy said.

“Good for him,” Elizabeth said, although the idea of Matt and Sarah being a twosome again made her feel weird. Still, maybe it would be good for Matt to get a life instead of working all the time. He looked like hell these days. Like he hadn’t seen sunshine for ten years or something.

When she told George that her ex-husband was a doctor, George figured she must have all kinds of money. A doctor’s wife, he kept saying. And then she had to explain Matt didn’t make a whole bunch of money, not that he couldn’t, just that he chose to work at the ends of the earth. What she hadn’t told George was that Matt also drove a truck. An old truck that didn’t even have a decent stereo system.

They continued their procession down the aisles. Next stop: jams and jellies. Lucy had disappeared again and Pearl was holding a jar in each hand and studying them as though she was about to take a test. Elizabeth couldn’t help resenting how Pearl always took Lucy’s side and Lucy always took Matthew’s side and Matthew acted as though she, Elizabeth, never had an important thought in her life. That was the good thing about George. He made her feel interesting. And smart.

Unlike Pearl, who was now yammering on about Sarah Benedict and how smart she’d always been and what was she doing back in Port Hamilton when she could live anywhere in the world and wasn’t it rude of Elizabeth not to even give her a call to welcome her home?

Elizabeth ignored her. Sarah didn’t need a welcome-home party. She had Matt. Sarah had always had Matt. One night after they’d been making out down at the spit, steaming up the windows of Matt’s old truck, she’d asked him about Sarah.

“You’re not two-timing with her, or anything?” And he’d laughed. “Oh, Sarah’s my friend,” he’d said. “We tell each other everything.”

“So you’ll tell her about us?” she’d asked.

“Of course,” he’d said.

And maybe he had. But you certainly couldn’t tell from the way Sarah acted. Still, she and Sarah had never been close. Sarah always made her feel dumb. And it felt uncomfortable being around Matt and Sarah, the way they were always laughing and joking, finishing each other’s sentences. It was like they had their own secret world and nobody else knew their special language.

Overhead the music turned into a Rod Stewart song. Suddenly tears started flowing down Elizabeth’s face. That’s what I want. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.

AS SARAH WALKED OUT of Ming Dynasty with a container of mu shu pork, she ran into Curt Hudelson.

“Loaded with chemicals.” Curt tapped his finger against the take-out carton and slowly shook his head. “You need to toss it.”

“No way,” Sarah said. “My philosophy allows me a few guilty pleasures.”

“Sorry if I annoyed your mother the other day,” he said. “Medical establishment and all that. It’s rather like trying to move a dinosaur.”

“I wouldn’t call Rose a dinosaur,” Sarah said, slightly offended on her mother’s behalf. “Set in her ways about some things, but then she hasn’t had much exposure to alternative forms of practice.”

Curt smiled. “Yes, well, I encounter that resistance all the time. Even with my own family. Debbi knows quite well what works, yet if I’m not constantly reinforcing it, she’ll slip right back into going to the doctor for every little thing. Her asthma is a case in point. She knows how to control it but insists on carrying that bloody inhaler.”