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dresses. Kathleen’s was a floral print, too bright, overwhelming her light coloring—but she had made it herself; she liked that dress. Miriam wore a black linen sheath, loose-fitting, which she hoped concealed her breasts. Eliza’s dress was a faded blue chambray from some past and plumper time of her life; it rather hung about her, giving her a look that was both lost and provocative.
    All day, every day, Kathleen talked, almost nonstop. Now, with no transition from her cursing of Dr. Branner, she began to talk about Lawry, who had recently moved down to Los Angeles. “His card said ‘See you soon,’ ” she said. “
Soon
could very well mean this weekend, couldn’t it? I’d better bake some bread, and I’ll get some beef and make a stew. Lawry really loves my bread, and that good stew.”
    Miriam and Eliza did not exchange looks, but each felt the other’s reaction; it was sadly clear to both of them that Lawry did not love Kathleen, that he had probably moved down to Los Angeles to get away from her. Their feelings, Eliza’s and Miriam’s, were often similar; for Kathleen they both felt a combination of affection and annoyance—she talked so much—and fear; Eliza and Miriam were both women who would do a great deal to avoid anger, a scene.
    “Tomorrow night I’ll bake some bread and wash my hair,” said Kathleen.
    “You want the things from the cath lab now?” asked Miriam, stretching and yawning.
    “What? Oh, sure, you might as well.” Kathleen sighed, feeling interrupted. And then, as Miriam ambled out, shemuttered to Eliza, “Honestly, she’s half asleep. I don’t know what she does at night.”
    “Insomnia, maybe.” Eliza was made nervous by Kathleen’s reactions to Miriam. Kathleen was an army brat, her father a master sergeant who lived in Fort Bragg, North Carolina; supposedly, statedly, she was in rebellion against army attitudes, and Southern ones, but about Miriam she could be small-minded, mean.
    “More likely chasing around the joints on Fillmore Street,” snorted Kathleen. “Honestly, the belle of the Amazon.”
    Eliza had understood for some time that Kathleen was jealous of Miriam, jealous of the fact that many men were after Miriam, phoning her, following her on the street. Eliza even pointed this out to Miriam, trying to explain some of Kathleen’s anger. But Miriam could not accept that theory: a white girl, with an apartment, and a car, too—jealous of
her?
Somebody’s got to be kidding.
    “Oh, it’s so hot,” said Eliza then, and she went over to the window to stand with Kathleen and observe the street, and the hospital across the way.
    Dr. Branner was standing on the steps talking to someone in a lab coat—an intern, or a research fellow. It was true that he was vain, Eliza thought, but who would not be? A man looking like that, at his age (fifty—fifty-five?). He was tall and thin, with thick white hair, a year-round tan (he sailed) and startling light green eyes. Sea eyes, Eliza thought, from some remote northern sea. He was married, very rich and said to be promiscuous. A few of his affairs were notorious, had involved “socially prominent” and beautiful young women.
    “I wonder who he’s crawling into bed with now,” mused Kathleen. “I’m sure he’s too much of a snob for nurses.”
    “I wouldn’t”—Eliza began, and then she changed the end of her sentence—“have any idea,” she finished, having realized with horror that she had been about to say: I wouldn’t mind.
    •  •  •
    An important fact about that office was that almost nothing was actually done in it. The walls were covered with books containing loose-leafed data on patients who had had some form of heart surgery. And at intervals patients came back for checkups, and more data was added to the files. Or they died: an additional fact. Sometimes a doctor or a research fellow would come to the door, first cautiously knocking (everyone was a little afraid of Kathleen), and