"What in God's name is the Waardenburg Syndrome?" Joanna asked impatiently. Carlton's response suggested he'd not been listening to what she'd been saying. She'd just finished describing the shock she and Deborah had had in discovering the two cloned children.
"Waardenburg Syndrome is a developmental abnormality,' Carlton said. "It's characterized by white forelock, congenital sensorineural hearing loss, dystopia canthorum, and heterochromic irises."
Joanna glanced at Deborah for a moment. Deborah rolled her eyes indicating she had the same reaction. It was as if Carlton was on another planet.
"Carlton, listen!" Joanna said, trying to be patient. "We're not on hospital rounds like you've described to me in the past. We're not grading you, so you don't have to spout off with this medical minutia. It's the forest that's important, not the tree."
"I thought you'd want to know what this doctor you've described has," Carlton said. "It's a hereditary condition involving the migration of auditory cells from the neural crest. It's no wonder the cloned kids have it. His legitimate kids would have it, too."
"Are you trying to suggest that these kids we've described aren't clones?" Joanna questioned.
"No, they're probably clones," Carlton said. "With the normal genetic shuffling that would occur in a normally fertilized egg, there would be variable penetration, even of dominant genes. The kids wouldn't look exactly the same. There'd be significant variation of the same characteristics."
"Are you trying to be abstruse on purpose?" Joanna demanded.
"No, I'm trying to help."
"But you still think these children are clones, am I right?" Deborah chimed in.
"Absolutely, from how you've described them," Carlton admitted.
"Doesn't that shock you?" Joanna questioned. "We're not talking about fruit flies or even sheep. We're talking about cloning human beings."
"To tell you the truth I'm not all that surprised," Carlton admitted. He sat forward again. "As far as I'm concerned it was just a matter of time. Once Dolly was cloned, I thought human cloning would happen eventually, and it would happen in the kind of environment you've described: a non-university-based infertility clinic. Many of the infertility guys, particularly the mavericks have been bantering around about cloning and threatening to do it since Dolly was announced."
"I'm shocked to hear you say that," Joanna stated.
Before Carlton could respond, his pager went off. After looking down at the LCD display, he scraped back his chair. "Let me make this call. I'll be right back!"
Both Joanna and Deborah watched him wend his way through the mass of empty tables toward one of the wall phones.
"Your analogy about the forest and the trees is marvelously apropos," Deborah commented.
Joanna nodded. "By his own admission he's so isolated in here. With his mind cluttered up with trivia like Waardenburg Syndrome, it's no wonder he hasn't the inclination to think about what's going on in the world or about ethics. He's taking this cloning in stride."
"He wasn't even all that incensed about what we told him concerning the Nicaraguans," Deborah said. "Or even about you for that matter."
Joanna nodded reluctantly. Carlton had not been particularly empathetic. When they'd first arrived, Joanna had been concerned about his feelings and had made it a point to apologize for not having called during the three days she'd been in Boston. Although Carlton had been gracious about the lack of contact, Joanna had still felt guilty about asking him for a favor, but that feeling had passed with Carlton's lack of reaction to her fears.
The women had decided it best if they told Carlton the whole story from the egg donation onward. He'd listened with rapt attention and without interrupting until they got to the part where they got jobs at the Wingate with assumed names and disguises.
"Wait a second!" Carlton had asked. He'd looked at Deborah. "Is that why you bleached your hair, and you're wearing that wild, skimpy dress?"
"I hadn't thought you'd noticed," Deborah had said, resulting in a suppressed chortle from Carlton as if not having noticed would have been impossible. At that point Joanna had asked Carlton what he thought of her disguise. To Joanna's chagrin he'd asked, "What disguise?"
The only part of the whole story that had truly captured Carlton's interest was the egg quandary. When he learned the reputed numbers of eggs involved, his response, like Deborah's, was to suspect that the Wingate had developed a successful ovarian tissue culture technique along with the ability to maturate extremely immature oocytes. He had told the women that such an advance would be an exciting scientific development.
When the women had revealed that the reason they were there was to get an ultrasound on Joanna for fear she'd been shorn of one of her ovaries, he'd agreed to see what he could do and had made some calls. The fact that he'd not had more of an emotional reaction was a surprise to both women.
"I don't want to speak out of school," Deborah said as she and Joanna watched Carlton talking on the phone. "But I'm even gladder now than I was before that you're not still engaged to that man."
"You're not speaking out of school," Joanna assured her.
Carlton finished his conversation, hung up the phone and started back. As he approached, he flashed a thumbs-up sign. "It's a go!" he said, reaching the table. He made it a point not to sit down. "That was one of the radiology residents who is on call. She's arranged to do the ultrasound."
"When?" Deborah asked.
"Right now!" Carlton said. "The machine's all fired up and ready to rumble."
The two women got to their feet and gathered their belongings.
"I've never had an ultrasound," Joanna said. "Is this going to be an ordeal? I'm sure I don't have to remind either one of you, I hate needles."
"You're not going to mind it at all," Carlton assured her. "There are no needles involved. The worst part is the gel, but that's only because it's a bit messy. The good part is that it is water-soluble."
They crowded into the elevator and rose up to the radiology floor. Carlton held the door to allow them to exit and pointed in the proper direction down the hall. After making a series of turns in the mazelike department, they came to the ultrasound unit. The waiting room was deserted. A janitor with a power buffer was doing the floor.
"Should I wait out here?" Deborah questioned.
"No, not at all," Carlton said. "The more the merrier."
He led them back behind the check-in desk into a hall with numerous doors lining both sides. Each door opened into a separate, unoccupied, and darkened ultrasound unit. The women followed Carlton almost to the hall's end where a light spilled out from one of the side rooms.
Inside, a woman in a short white coat stood up and introduced herself before Carlton could do the honors. Her name was Dr. Shirley Oaks. She had bobbed hair not too dissimilar from Joanna's both in style and color. In contrast to Carlton she was sympathetic about the potentially missing ovary and said so.
Joanna thanked her but then cast a concerned look at Carlton. She'd urged him to be as discreet as possible.
"I didn't tell the whole story," Carlton said in his defense. "But I had to say what we were looking for."
"Nor do I want to know the whole story," Shirley said. She patted the ultrasound couch to encourage Joanna to climb onto it. She'd covered it with fresh paper from a roll of paper at the head. "We've got to be expeditious about this," she added. "I've got another procedure I was about to do, plus I could get called away for an emergency at any moment."
Joanna started to comply but Shirley restrained her. "It might make it considerably easier if you slip off your skirt and unbutton your blouse."
"Sure," Joanna said.