She spent all of Thursday with Cal again, following him to meetings, and talking to key employees. She had a better sense of his organization and staff than she'd ever had before, and so far she still liked everything about it. She checked in with her office that afternoon, but nothing much was happening, and they had no idea what she was doing. She had told them that she had to go away to attend to family business.
“Would you like to come to dinner at the house tonight?” Cal asked as they wrapped up at six o'clock. Everyone else was gone, and she noticed that most people didn't work as late as they did in New York. It was never unusual to see people working till nine or ten o'clock in her office, and sometimes considerably later. But as Cal had pointed out to her from the first, the quality of life in California was considerably different. People seemed to care more about their health, their personal lives, their time off. And after work, they went home, or out to play tennis, or work out. It seemed a healthier, happier, more well-balanced existence. In New York, the people she met in the business world looked as though they existed under a flat rock, they were pale and tired and stressed, and most of the time looked frantic and unhealthy. This was certainly very different.
“I'd love to come to dinner, but I have to pick Steve up at nine,” she explained. “I don't want to screw up your dinner.” They exchanged a smile, they already had an easy, close, comfortable working relationship. After the time they'd spent on the road, and now here exploring the intricacies of his company, it was almost like being married.
“I was going to have dinner with the kids early anyway. Do you want me to drive you?”
“You don't have to do that. I'll take a cab, and we'll go back to the hotel and talk.” Cal had made an appointment for him at SF General for the next day, and another at the hospital he'd mentioned in Oakland. And she knew that Steve had called his friends at Stanford. He was going to have a busy day on Friday, while she went out to meet some important clients with Cal, he said he wanted her to meet them. Meanwhile, they had heard that day that his stock had gone up further. It had skyrocketed in the week it had been on the market. Everything was coming up roses for him, particularly if he could get Meredith to join his company.
“Why don't you come home with me, and I'll barbecue some hamburgers and hot dogs?” It was the other side of his life that always intrigued her, it was so out of sync with the business genius she saw in him, and the young high-tech tycoon that the rest of the world saw. The thought of him barbecuing in his backyard amused her.
“Okay, I'll come,” she agreed, “if you don't think your kids will mind.” She still remembered the cool reception she'd gotten from them on her earlier visit.
“They'll be fine,” he assured her. And they were, for the most part. Andy remembered her and shook her hand with a smile this time. He even remembered that her husband was a doctor. And Julie was cool to her, but politer this time, she even asked how their trip had gone, and told her that her father had brought her a really great sweater from Paris. Meredith didn't tell her that she had helped to pick it out, but she was secretly pleased that the child had liked it. Mary Ellen was still the only holdout. She looked irritated as soon as she saw Meredith get out of the car with her father, and disappeared upstairs to her room moments after. She came back downstairs again for dinner, but only long enough to pick at half a hamburger and then say that she had to go back up to do her homework. But she had looked startled, and not particularly pleased when Meredith mentioned that she'd met her mom in London. If anything, it seemed to make Mary Ellen more suspicious of her.
“She doesn't get along terribly well with her mother,” Cal explained after the kids left the table they'd set in the backyard. He and Meredith were drinking coffee by then, and the pleasant young housekeeper who took care of the kids as well had cleared the table. Cal said he'd had her for years and she was a godsend. “I think Charlotte feels some kind of rivalry with Mary Ellen, now that she's getting older, and she's hard on her. Mary Ellen just thinks she's mean. And she took it the hardest when Charlotte left. She was six then, and it wasn't easy for her.” Meredith felt sorry for the girl suddenly. Even though she wasn't particularly welcoming, or even polite at times, she had obviously suffered, and maybe as a result, she was suspicious of women. Charlotte didn't look like anyone's dream mother.
They talked about business again then and the children never reappeared. When Cal went for a swim, Meredith watched him. He had a long powerful body, and said he'd been on the swimming team in college. He looked a lot younger than his fifty-one years, and there was no denying that he was very attractive. But Meredith was anxious to see Steve, and when it was time for her to leave to pick him up, Cal called her a cab, and renewed his offer to take her. But Meredith insisted that she wanted to take a taxi, and Cal didn't want to force himself on them. They had a lot to talk about, and he didn't want to push it.
He invited them to dinner the following night, and Meredith accepted and told him that Steve was anxious to meet him. She didn't tell him why, that Steve was minimally nervous about him, because for the most part she thought Steve was teasing about it. But she did think it was important, for a variety of reasons, that Steve meet him. And she trusted Steve's insights and opinions. She suspected, and hoped, that the two men would like each other, and she respected each of them, though for different reasons.
When she met Steve at the gate, he came off in wrinkled khaki pants and a shirt that looked like it had never been ironed, and he was still wearing the clogs he wore at work. He had come straight from the hospital to the airport. And the old tweed jacket he'd brought had holes in both elbows. It was like watching a kid come home from boarding school, and wondering what he'd done with the decent clothes you'd sent with him.
“Why on earth did you bring that jacket?” she asked. She had hidden it, two years before, at the back of the hall closet. But no matter what she did with it, he always seemed to find it. And she'd never had the courage to just give it away. She'd done that with a favorite pair of pants of his once, and she'd never heard the end of it.
But she couldn't believe he had actually brought this relic to San Francisco.
“What's wrong with it?” He looked amazed by her question. “We're not going to a black tie dinner, are we?”
“No, but we're having dinner at Callan Dow's tomorrow night. I hope you brought another jacket.” It was the kind of conversation married people have, which to others always sounds so stupid.
“Don't worry about it. Guys understand these things. It has personality, and history.” He hated new clothes, and he could never understand why she thought his pants should be pressed. He spent so much of his life in wrinkled scrubs that to him, the rest was no different. He was immaculately clean, but everything he owned was always wrinkled.
“I think that little speech about personality and history means you didn't bring another jacket, right?”
“Correcto.” He grinned at her and leaned over to kiss her as they picked up his single bag, which felt like it had bricks in it.
“My God, what did you bring? A bowling ball?”
“No,” he grinned, “some reading.” He never went anywhere without a stack of new medical books he felt he had to read in order to stay current. In truth, it was all he cared about. Steve was a brilliant doctor, but no clothes horse. Unlike Cal, who was incomparable in his own field, but always looked impeccable and very elegant. The two men couldn't have been more different. “So how's it going? Anything new today?” Steve looked happy to be there, which pleased her.