The elevator moved down slowly. Perhaps this was in deference to those who should be spared anything that might rattle or jar. Or it could be that the prolonged ride was provided as a special courtesy, a mercy for those who needed a suspended state where adjustment, assimilations, could be made, where preparations could be formulated and decisions made. In this intervening time, fate could be embraced or refused, or simply stared in the face. Reprieves could be given, stunned acknowledgments made, the foot made firm, the eyes hardened, and the heart prepared.
The elevator stopped at the fourth floor and two chatty and cheerful women got on. Dempsey let out an aggrieved sigh and pulled her tote bag closer to her stomach. Doctor Norstar had told them to return—yet again—to the third floor of St. Vincent’s clinic for yet another round of blood work. The lab had—yet again—confused the tests. The results sent over in Dempsey’s name were obviously not hers.
“But why can’t they be my tests?” Dempsey had asked.
“Not possible.” The doctor had shaken her head.
“But my T-cells have gone up and down, up and down from the beginning.”
“Not like this. Take my word for it. I don’t know what this person was having blood work for, but it wasn’t for any virus or any infection. I’ll tell you that. Everything is completely normal. I want you to have more good days than bad days, but this…. Well, it just plain shouldn’t have your name on it. You have to go back. Sorry. Truly.”
“But they made this mistake the last time I—”
“I know. The switch is obviously persisting. I talked to Flocene and she’s going to follow through herself, step by step, so the correction can he made. Think of the other guy—the one who might be given your results.”
“True. But I’m the one who has to sit for—”
“Not this time. Go straight to the third floor. Flocene’s expecting you. You’re next. I still have some pull.”
“But how can they keep making the same—”
“Guess. Just guess.” Doctor Norstar moved her head a little closer to Dempsey and simply kept looking at her, not moving. There was, under each eye, a downward crease, formed, it would seem, by the color draining from the eye itself. The eyes were able to hold their stare now only because they seemed too tired to close.
Dempsey pulled back in her chair and shook her head. When she spoke, her voice was quiet, “It’s dangerous getting everything all mixed up like this.”
“Tell me.” Doctor Norstar stood up. “You going with her?” she asked Johnny.
“No. He’s not going with me,” Dempsey said. “I should certainly know the way by this time.”
“I’m going with her,” Johnny said. “Just for the fun of it.”
When the elevator doors opened onto the lobby, Dempsey cut past the two women and went quickly toward the entrance. Johnny, equally unmindful of etiquette, stepped off in front of the women and caught up with Dempsey. She was already at the heavy glass door and was reaching out for the handle. Johnny’s hand started toward the door, but he stopped. Patiently he stood there and waited until Dempsey had opened the door. She went through first and held it open for him. He considered saying thank you but said instead, “Will you marry me?” Dempsey neither slowed nor quickened her pace as she headed down the street toward the corner, nor did she look at Johnny.
She let her knee knock rhythmically against the tote bag, each step sending it out ahead of her as if to clear the way for her approach. This meant she was thinking.
5.
“I want to go with you. I really do. I like Winnie.” Johnny and Dempsey had come out of the clinic onto Seventh Avenue. Dempsey was pressing the wide Band-Aid stuck across the crook of her arm, checking for any blood that might seep through. None came. She moved her bag to her other hand and pulled down the sleeve of her shirt. The bag kept bumping against her side. Johnny reached over and helped with the sleeve, fussing a little at the wrist to make the task seem more difficult than it was.
“Maybe you like Winnie,” Dempsey said, “but you hate her paintings.”
“I don’t hate her paintings.”
“You scorn them.”
“I don’t scorn them.”
“You dismiss them.”
“Maybe we should go home.”
“Why home when you’re panting to see Winnie’s paintings?”
“They took a lot of your blood.”
“Of course they took a lot of my blood.” She laughed. “Didn’t you know? Bloodletting is back. They’ve realized that what most people need is a good healthy loss of blood. But they can’t come right out and say it. Sounds too medieval. So what they do is say they’ve got to take all these tests. So you go and they take blood. Then they take more blood. But they’re not testing for anything. They’re bloodletting, good old-fashioned bloodletting. Maybe this is a trial for the cure but they can’t admit it’s an experiment. So they invent test after test after test. Take the blood. Take more blood. Then more. Don’t stop. They’re not testing for anything. It’s a cover, that’s all. I wasn’t tested just now. That was a bloodletting session, nothing more. And nothing less. And see what it did for me? When have I felt better? When have I looked better? Bloodletting. It’s back. Maybe this time it’s here to stay.”
“I still think we should go home.”
“No. Winnie’s waiting. And I actually feel like I’m in stunning good health. But you have to promise me. No leeches. No matter what. In the end, they’ll probably want to apply leeches. Promise you won’t let them.”
Johnny persisted, “If you don’t show up, Winnie will understand.”
“You don’t know Winnie. And besides, the walk will do you good. You’ve been sitting like a slug most of the day.”
“We’ll start and then see how far you feel like going. Okay?”
“Fine with me. If I fall in a heap, we take a taxi. There’s money in my purse if I’m not responding to external stimuli.”
When they got to the corner, Johnny put the knitting bag under his left arm. Never could he bring himself to carry a shopping bag or any other receptacle by the handles, the tote bag included. To him, a bag with handles was too much like a purse. The tote was an enlarged purse. And he could not walk down the street carrying a purse. Held against him, the tote was just a bag, like a grocery bag. He could carry a grocery bag. If he held a tote bag this way, he was allowed to carry it. But only if he held it this way.
They stepped down from the curb, then back up again as an ambulance came tweeting and hawking along Twelfth Street. It hesitated at Seventh, at the red light, then swung in a wide arc to the Emergency entrance on the far side of the avenue, almost down to Eleventh. Now the traffic light changed and they’d have to wait.
Johnny was tempted to ask Dempsey if she’d heard him when he’d asked her to marry him, but he knew he’d better not. Of course she’d heard. One thing he’d learned was never to repeat a question. There was no need. Dempsey would answer when she knew the answer. If she didn’t say anything, it was because she was in the process of finding out what it was she wanted to say. Sometimes this would take a few minutes, other times it might take a few days. But sooner or later she would answer. Seldom did she ask for clarifications. It was Johnny’s impression that she would prefer to do the clarifying herself, asking and answering subsidiary questions in the privacy of her own mind, like a mathematician working her way step by step through an equation, keeping silent until the deed was done and the problem solved.