She moved around the party. Marty Howard caught up with her for a moment.“Thank you for coming. If you ever have any time, Sister, we’d love for you to read. It’s not just books we need, but magazines and newspapers. It’s often hard for the blind to keep up with current things.”
“I never thought of that. I could read for an hour to two. Let’s see how I do.”
“I’ll call Monday and we can check calendars.”
As Marty moved away, Dalton Hill joined her.“The hunting has been very good. I’m glad I joined.”
“Me, too.” Sister noticed he wore an English school tie, quite expensive. “Beautiful tie.”
“Eton.” He blushed slightly. “Actually, I didn’t attend Eton. I went to St. Andrews College, Aurora, but I liked the thin Eton blue diagonal stripe.”
“I can see why. I heard you purchased the Cleveland bay.”
“Yes. I’m going to have my two hunters brought down from Hamilton, too.” He named the town where his horses were boarding. “I want to hunt as much as I can. One of the great things about teaching is I can set my schedule, so I have arranged all my classes to be in the late afternoon.”
“Perfect.” She paused, then addressed him. “Dr. Hill—”
“Do call me Dalton. I’m trying to downplay the doctor,” he interrupted, a conspiratorial note in his voice. “I really don’t want to hear about someone’s gallbladder.”
“I promise never to discuss mine.” She smiled. “In Canada certain drugs are available that aren’t available here, am I right?”
“Not hard drugs, of course, but yes. Canada’s laws are more patient-oriented. Forgive me a bit of national pride, but in the United States, Master, everything is driven by profit, by the huge pharmaceutical companies.”
“Call me Sister. But surely those mega companies—and not all of them are American, I mean the Germans and the Swiss have giant pharmaceutical companies, all those companies do business in Canada.”
“They do, but we have them more in check. The whole point is to heal the patient. If you can’t heal the patient, then you make him or her as comfortable as possible; it’s cruel to deny a suffering person relief.”
“What about performance drugs? Not drugs for illness, but drugs to enhance performance?”
“Sexual performance?” His eyebrows rose.
“Now there’s the elixir of life as well as profit,” she wryly exclaimed. “I wasn’t thinking of that, but let’s include it. I was thinking along the lines of drugs to retard aging, and yes, I would be the first in line.”
“No need.”
“Dalton, thank you. You’re fibbing, but it falls sweetly upon the ear.” She smiled broadly. “I was thinking of anti-aging drugs and athletic-performance drugs. Guess I was remembering that fabulous runner, Ben Johnson, the Canadian sprinter who set a record for the hundred-meter dash at the 1987 World Championships, and won the Gold Medal at the 1988 Olympics, and then forfeited it when he admitted to steroid use.”
“Athletes are far beyond that. The coaches, the team doctors—everyone is more sophisticated now, and the drugs are more sophisticated, too.”
“And some of these drugs are legal in your country?”
“Not steroids.”
“Do you condone their use?”
Hesitating, he replied,“There is no way any professional athlete can make a living, can hold down his or her job, without chemical help. I find nothing wrong in trying to advance human performance. The caveat is abuse. Aspirin is a drug. Caffeine is as well. Bodybuilders routinely drink a cup of coffee before working out. Actually, I find your country’s drug laws backward, repressive, opening a wide door for crime.”
She sighed deeply.“I’m afraid you are right.”
“The entrenched interests here, meaning those people making tax-free billions, have churches and politicians on their side. It’s hypocritical. It’s shocking. It’s big business.”
“Prohibition on a higher plane.” She sighed again.
“Exactly.” His lips compressed. Then he relaxed. “I apologize. Being an endocrinologist, I study human chemistry. We really can improve performance with drugs. We really can retard aging. And we really can begin to solve the riddles of some dreadful degenerative diseases with stem cell research.” He threw up his hands. “I cannot for the life of me understand why any human being would deny a cure for Parkinson’s to another, and yet that’s exactly what’s happening.”
“For many people, these are complex moral issues.”
“There’s nothing moral in watching a human being die by inches.”
“I agree, Dalton, I totally agree. But I am one lone woman in Virginia without one ounce of political clout.”
“You can vote, and you are a master. Masters are members of Parliament in training.” He was warm to her now. “Same skills.”
“Perhaps they are.”
“Why did you ask me about drugs?”
“Oh, Ben and I were talking about the university basketball team. One thing led to another. And then you said you wanted to shy away from being called a doctor. I thought I’d better ask while I could, especially about the aging stuff.” She laughed as she evaded telling the truth.
“I’ll tell you what. If you come to my office, I’ll pull blood, run an EKG, do a few other tests. I can tell you, with accuracy, the true age of your body. Not your years but the true age of your body. In fact, you’d be a fascinating subject. Without the tests, I’d hazard a guess that internally you are between fortyfive and fifty. You have never abused alcohol, drugs, or smoked. Am I correct?”
“You are.”
“Come see me.”
“I shall. I appreciate the offer.”
“You’d be doing me a favor.” He paused a moment. “I believe, no, Iknowwe can live longer, stronger lives than we imagine. Aging must be recast in our minds as a slow disease that can be fought. I can envision a day when men can live to be a hundred and fifty with full productive lives.”
“Women?” she asked slyly.
“Ah.” He smiled. “A hundred seventy-five.”
“Right answer. Can you envision a future where a woman can run the hundred-yard dash, well, I guess it’s a hundred meters now, in nine seconds?”
“Yes. And a man will do it in seven and a half.”
“Are you being sexist?”
“No. Men really are faster. Yes, the fastest woman in the world will be faster than eighty percent of the men but, at the top, the men are faster. That’s the real difference in professional tennis. It’s not upper-body muscle, which people focus on, it’s speed. Men can return shots that women can’t. So if a woman plays a man, she’s not used to her ‘winners’ being fired back that fast.”
“Never thought of that.”
“In your favor, women have much more endurance, and, this I can’t quantify scientifically, but also much more emotional strength.”
She studied his earnest features.“Perhaps. But there’s so much we can never know accurately because our concepts of male and female are formed in a rigid cultural grid. Even scientific research reflects unconscious bias.”
“I agree. It does.” He noticed a pretty woman talking to Marty Howard.
“That’s Rebecca Baldwin, Tedi Bancroft’s grandniece. Thirty-one, I should say. Used to hunt, but she went back to school to get her doctorate in architectural history. Lovely girl. Allow me to introduce you.”
After Sister performed this service, she smiled to herself at how Dalton’s demeanor changed in the presence of a pretty woman. Ah yes, though he was an endocrinologist, his hormones pumped just like in the rest of us.
She found Gray, whispered in his ear.“You are so handsome. I have no idea what I’m doing, but I’m having fun.”
He slipped his arm around her waist for a moment, inhaling her fragrance, her hair.“I’m walking on air. And I do want to take you to a proper dinner. Let’s go Sunday. And sometime, too, let’s go up to the Kennedy Center. I have season seats, box seats, for the opera. Do you like the opera?”