I don't even know most of his friends' addresses to notify them about the funeral. Maybe I should request, "In lieu of flowers, contributions to the Museum of Modern Art." "My behavior is my business," I say. "I'm not a performing dolphin; I act as I please." My words sound feeble even to myself. I try not to be so sensitive; at least I don't burst into tears the way I did in the early years of our relationship.
In our apartment Stash is silent, and it makes me sad to go to sleep without getting a chance to analyze every person we've bumped into that night. I picture the room getting blacker, beginning at the edges and gradually disappearing into a hole resembling a bathtub drain.
I'm shocked at how cute the clinic doctor is. He has brooding, vampire eyes and a strong smell of foreign aftershave. I'm glad I didn't go to the person Stash suggested. Even so, I'm nervous—I'm used to my family doctor, Dr. Henness, who is at least eighty years old. When I was eighteen and went for my college examination, he begged me not to get undressed. He never really seemed to remember my name, but at least he represented stability and some sort of security. With him, I knew there would never be anything wrong with me. But with this guy—Dr. Bartholdi—things are ominous right from the start. He sulks at his desk, jabbing something that lurks in the top drawer.
I assure him right off the bat that I'm not pregnant. I describe what's been happening to me. I want to prove to him that I'm not flaky; because of this, perhaps, my hands are rummaging wildly through my hair, I'm talking a mile a minute. I explain that I never take drugs, due to the fact that they don't make me feel good. Nor was I drunk on the recent occasions when I practically fainted.
But Dr. Bartholdi pays me no mind. In fact, he examines his fingernails while I talk. Then he makes me pull up my shirt. He presses his cold stethoscope against me. It's difficult, with such a handsome doctor, not to feel violated. I imagine marrying him, dutifully undergoing such examination nightly. Then I tell myself he's a medical person, not a human being.
I'm lying flat on my back on scratchy paper, waiting for the verdict, when Dr. Bartholdi tells me I can sit up and tuck in my shirt. He writes furiously on a pad: probably dialogue for some autobiographical best-seller he's working on. "Chapter 23: The Case of Eleanor T."
"Your blood pressure is low," he says. "Probably if you get up too quickly after you have a few drinks, you'll feel dizzy."
"I didn't have a few drinks," I say. "I didn't feel dizzy. I almost passed out on the street. If I hadn't lain down, I would have blacked out completely."
"You wouldn't believe how many people I treat in nightclubs. People faint all the time. Vasovagal syncope."
"Yeah?" I say. I wonder why Dr. Bartholdi would even bother to go to nightclubs, if he has to spend his whole evening treating hysterical fainters.
He sends me for a blood test, saying, "You can call me on Thursday for the results, but I don't think they'll tell us anything we don't know."
It gives me a certain satisfaction to get jabbed in the finger. I watch as one large, ruby dot of blood appears on my skin, miraculous as jewelry. I think of the dot of blood as full of life and motion and drama like the lives of the people around me. Microbes, corpuscles—who knows what deathly battles are fought all the time between white blood cells and alien invaders?
On the other hand, on the subway ride home, I do wish I had something more critical to tell Stash: that I have anemia, pleurisy, an electrolyte imbalance. I'd like to inform him that shortly I'll be reduced to life in a wheelchair, that I'm counting on him to push me across the street. I'm disappointed that Dr. Bartholdi dismissed me so abruptly, without even trying to get my phone number. I could have given him Daria's; that might have taken care of her for a while.
Stash isn't home, and after hours of waiting, at eight o'clock I fix myself some hamburger and blue cheese on an English muffin. I like ketchup. It's a good thing Stash isn't home, because I gleefully finish off a bottle. This would certainly drive him crazy. I take my plate to the bed, at the far end of the room, so that during my meal I can watch TV; there's a program on about how rich people make more money. This pastime takes up an entire life.
I'm annoyed at Stash, but by the eleven o'clock news, with the water shortage and the story about the sculptor who was murdered by junkies, I start to get worried. Andrew, our dog, waits patiently for him by the door: he's not even interested when I offer him a bit of hamburger.
I don't really want anything to happen to Stash, although I enjoy planning his funeral from time to time. A lot of things can occur in the city: muggings, shootings, women accosting him from the windows of limousines.
At twelve-thirty Stash walks in. "Where were you?" I say. "What's happened? Why didn't you call?" These are the very words I've resolved not to say.
"Daria," Stash says. "Her dog died."
"She has her own boyfriend!" I say.
"I had to go with her in the dog ambulance to the hospital," Stash says. "She was hysterical."
"The dog was twelve years old!" I shout, jumping up to empty ashtrays. "What was she hysterical about? Why didn't you call me?"
"She let the dog off the leash," Stash says. "It was her fault. Textron got attacked by an Akita. Straight to the jugular."
"We have a dog here," I say. "Tell me you're having an affair."
"There's nothing between Daria and me," Stash says.
"We've been friends for years and years. We used to hang out together."
"I paid for half of that Godzilla lighter for her birthday. I say. "She never even thanked me. What about me? I had to spend the day at the doctor's."
"What happened?" Stash says wearily. He opens the refrigerator and moves a jar of Mexican hot sauce to one side.
I imagine the hands on my wristwatch stopping, then turning backward. I see myself dressed in black, my face very white, a red rose clutched in one frozen hand. I change the red rose to a lavender one. "It was weird," I say. "He spent hours examining my breasts."
"What?" Stash says. "Report him! What do your breasts have to do with fainting?" I've gotten to him. He's indignant and furiously snatches a hunk of cheese from some hidden recess inside the fridge. I watch him sink his teeth into it; I want to tell him to use a knife, but I don't say it.
"He had to listen to my heart," I answer at last.
Stash poises over the cheese like a puma made nervous at a fresh kill. "So what did he say was wrong?" he says.
"Vasal-vascular syncope."
"Which means?"
"I faint in nightclubs," I say. "Or if I stand up too quickly. It's a common problem. Maybe he said something about a vagal-vasal system."
Stash shakes his head. "Why do you go to that crummy clinic? They don't know anything there."
"I'm a member," I say. "He was a doctor, with a medical degree from an accredited university."
"He said there was nothing wrong with you? But I saw you! Why didn't you go to my doctor, like I told you?"
"She should have put that dog to sleep long ago," I say. "It's cruel to keep a suffering animal alive."
Stash comes over to the bed where I'm sitting. "There's nothing between us, Eleanor, really," he says. He puts his arm around my shoulder. "Don't be jealous. She loved that dog. Now she's all alone. But we have each other." He strokes my hair, and with his free hand he takes a Tuscano cigar from the packet in his pocket. "Who was on Johnny Carson tonight?" he says. "Anybody good?"
I move to the edge of the bed, bend over, my head between my knees. My hair touches the floor. In my veins—some thin and twisty, others fat, ropy—I can feel my blood, thrown for a loop, struggling to flow uphill where only a second before it was flowing down.