“I don’t think there was any bleeding. But she had cramps.”
“Did she see her obstetrician?”
“He just told her to take it easy.”
“I see. When did you last have sexual intercourse?”
It’s stupid, but I became aware of Kurt’s eyes on me. Of all the ridiculous things to get defensive about at a time like this. “A while,” I said. “Probably a month. Can I see her?”
Kurt stayed out in the waiting room while I went in to see Kate.
She looked pale, circles under her eyes. Looked sad. She was hooked up to a couple of IVs, one with blood and one with clear fluid, and a cardiac monitor and a fetal monitor.
“Baby,” I said. I put a hand on her forehead, stroked her face, her hair. “How are you feeling?”
“Tired. I almost passed out. There was blood everywhere.”
I nodded. “They said you’re going to be okay. The baby’s going to be okay.”
“There was a surgeon in here who said I have to stay here for a while.”
“Just a couple of days.”
“I’m going to have to stay in bed until I deliver.”
“I know. But you’re okay, and the baby’s okay.”
“I guess that means I’m taking an early pregnancy leave.”
“The foundation will get by without you.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” She smiled a little, an attempt at a joke.
“I’m sorry I had my cell phone turned off. The restaurant made me do it, but I should have left it on anyway. Or called you with the number of the restaurant.”
“It’s okay. I called Claudia, but she’s in New York, and I called Sally and Amy, and I couldn’t reach either one of them, and then I was about to call an ambulance, but then Kurt called, thank God.”
“Thank God.”
“What a good friend that guy is, huh?”
No better friend, he’d said. No worse enemy.
I nodded but didn’t reply.
42
I spent the night in Kate’s hospital room on a couch. In the morning, aching all over and exhausted, I drove home, retrieved some things she wanted, and brought them to the hospital. Not until noon did I get to work.
I found a message on my cell phone from Jim Letasky, but when I called him back, there was no answer on his cell or at his office. I called Festino and asked him to locate Letasky for me. Festino said Letasky was out of the building at a presentation but wanted to talk to me about something important.
When I got into the office, I checked my e-mail while listening to my voice mail on speaker, and I was surprised to hear a message from Kurt.
“Hey,” he said. “Let me know the latest on Kate, man, okay?”
Now I felt really weird, totally conflicted, about Kurt. I owed him in a big way for taking Kate to the hospital, but that didn’t change how I felt about him, fundamentally, or what I knew I had to do. He had to leave the company. But I was beginning to feel that he deserved better than my going behind his back again to get him fired. At the very least, he deserved to hear it from me face-to-face. Scanlon hadn’t called back, and I doubt he’d seriously “looked into” firing Kurt.
So I decided to tell Kurt, man-to-man, that he had to leave Entronics. I’d help him find a good job somewhere else. But his career at Entronics was over.
As I picked up the phone to call Kurt, the phone rang.
“How’s she doing?” Kurt said.
“Better. Still on fluids.”
“I shouldn’t have yelled at you about not answering your cell,” he said.
“No, you’re right. I shouldn’t have turned it off. Screw protocol. And Kurt-I never thanked you.”
“No need.”
“Well, thanks, man. I owe you one.”
“You keeping score?”
Every chance I got I went on the Internet and researched placenta previa. Some of the websites made it seem like not a big deal. Some of them made it sound awfully dire. I didn’t know which one to believe.
Letasky appeared in my doorway, dressed in a suit and tie.
“You have your browser open?”
“Yeah?”
“Go to the City of Atlanta website.”
I typed in the web address.
“Now go to Departments, and then Procurement. Got it?”
“What is it, Jim? You gonna torture me?”
“No, I want you to see it. You see ‘Aviation RFPs/Bids’?”
It came up on the screen: The deal I once thought was ours. In red letters it said APPARENT LOW BIDDER AIRVIEW SYSTEMS CORPORATION and CONTRACT AWARD PENDING. The contact name was Lorna Evers.
My stomach sank. “Crap. You mean those bastards let us take them to dinner, and all the while this was up on their website?”
“Just appeared this morning.”
I sank down in my chair. “Shit. We needed this. I thought we had it.”
“You didn’t have a chance,” Letasky said. “We didn’t have a chance. The fix was in.”
The fix was in. Every salesman’s favorite complaint. That along with They never return my calls. “You have no idea how badly we needed this. So is this it? The deal’s done?”
“Officially and formally it’s tentative. ‘Under consideration,’ meaning it just requires sign-off at the highest levels. But yeah, it looks like it’s done.”
“We tried,” I said. “Tried our best.”
“Not always good enough,” Letasky said.
An e-mail popped up in my in-box from Dick Hardy. The subject line was: ATLANTA. The message contained one word: “Well?”
I e-mailed back, “Still working it. Not optimistic.”
On his way out of the office, Letasky stopped for a few seconds and turned back. “Oh, listen. Trevor invited me to play basketball with him on Thursday nights, and if Gail lets me, I’ll probably do it.”
“Okay,” I said, not sure what he was getting at.
“I just wanted you to know. It’s not like I’m choosing up sides or anything.”
“Sides? Trevor’s my second-line manager. We’re not on opposite sides.”
“Okay.” Letasky nodded, humoring me. “It’s just that-well, you know, maybe it’s none of my business, and maybe I should keep my mouth shut, being new and all. But, well, did anyone ever tell you that Trevor sometimes…says stuff about you?”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Not always very nice. Kinda bad-mouths you, sometimes. He says you can be ruthless-that you do stuff to your rivals.”
I shook my head, smiled sadly.
“I just thought you should know,” he said.
“Well, that’s too bad. But I appreciate your telling me.”
After Letasky had left, I stared for a long time at the City of Atlanta website. Then I picked up the phone and called Kurt.
“I need your help,” I said. Dear God, I thought, now you’re really mucking things up. “Just one more time.”
43
At the hospital that night we got the word that Kate was okay to go home in the morning. Which worked for me, because I was in serious need of a chiropractor after spending the nights on the soft couch in her room. I told Kate I wanted to hire a private nurse to help her out at home, since she was supposed to get out of bed as little as possible, but she told me I was being ridiculous, she didn’t need a nurse.
She looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “Susie wants to visit. You know, make sure I’m okay.”
I nodded. “Good. I don’t want you home alone.”
“She’s flying over from Nantucket.” Craig and Susie had taken a house in Nantucket for August and September, as usual.
“It’ll be nice to see Susie and Ethan again,” I said. I’d enjoy seeing Ethan, in fact. “Craig, not so much.” Christ, I thought, wasn’t there some legal limit on the number of times I had to see Craig?
“Craig isn’t coming. He’s back in L.A. She’s bringing Ethan. It really would be good for Ethan to spend more time with you.”