“So what are you going to do?”
“Play hardball.” Donald paused, took a sip of wine. “One of the execs I deal with no doubt knows I’m on the case, and he might be inclined to convince his colleagues to pay the claim. If he doesn’t, I have a backup plan—Dr. Schellenger, a friend of mine at Lancaster Urological Group. He went through a similar case with another insurance company in North Carolina when he was working at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Hospital. In his case, the insurance company wanted them to go through a bunch of bullshit and Peter strongly advised his patient to go ahead with the procedure and damn the insurance company. The patient was financially strapped and decided to stick it out. Four months later the cancer metastasized to his lower back and his lymph nodes. By the time the surgery was approved, his medical costs ran triple—probably even quadruple—what it would have been had the insurance company originally accepted the claim.”
“So his patient lived?”
“Oh yes,” Donald said. He was almost finished with the casserole, which he’d wolfed down. “It had quickly turned to stage four testicular cancer, nonseminoma, and had affected much of the lymph nodes and the nerves in the patient’s lower back. Peter’s patient went through three surgeries and two heavy trials of chemotherapy and was out of work for over a year. It was rough going, but he made it.”
“So you’re bringing Peter to your meeting with Red Rose?” Michelle didn’t know how Donald put up with the suits he had to deal with. She would have lost her mind.
“Yes. Peter took over the case and I think with him on board, Michael’s surgery will have a good chance of being approved. It just shouldn’t have to be this way, you know? If a doctor makes a quality diagnosis, he or she shouldn’t be second guessed by a guy in a three-piece suit who doesn’t know a thing about medicine or anatomy for that matter, a guy who, I might add, is more interested in preserving the corporate bottom line.”
Michelle took a sip of wine. “Yeah, well, welcome to Corporate America.”
Donald finished his wine, his gaze distant and far away. “Corporate America. What a scam.”
Michelle looked down at her plate. She felt a trifle embarrassed. She always did when talking about work with Donald. She admired him greatly—as a person, a lover, a physician. To be able to do something that improved and saved people’s lives… that was something to be proud of. It was something to be honored. She wished her work touched people’s lives. She’d read an essay by somebody, she thought it was Ray Bradbury, who said there were only two noble professions in the world: the physician, who heals the body; and the artist, who heals the soul. Might as well add the lawyer who could save the body and soul from a lawsuit, and the accountant who could save you from the IRS come tax time.
“Yeah, it is a scam,” she said, the words coming effortlessly. “And I apologize for having to stoop down to their level, but somebody’s got to do it.” She rose from the table and began collecting the dishes.
Donald looked up, the expression on his face indicating he’d said the wrong thing again. “Hey, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
Michelle laughed. “You didn’t say the wrong thing. Really. You need to stop apologizing for ranting about corporate dolts. I do it enough myself.”
Donald chuckled and they embraced. “Well… I am sorry. Sometimes I feel bad that you have to conform to corporate standards to make a living.”
“I’m glad you realize I’m not like them,” she said, her eyes closed as they hugged. She felt his strong arms encircle her waist. “I could never be like them.”
“No,” he said, pulling away and looking into her eyes. “That’s why I love you.”
They kissed.
Just as the kiss was getting hot, she broke it. “Let me finish the table and then—”
“Forget the dishes,” he said, kissing her again, pulling her close.
She let him.
They left the dishes on the table, and on the kitchen counter, and went into the bedroom.
CHAPTER THREE
THE MUSIC AT the Lone Star Saloon near the El Paso Airport was loud and Michelle wasn’t paying attention to the conversation going on at her table. She looked around for the waitress, hoping to catch her attention. She was two tables over, flirting with a pair of guys who looked like they were in college. Michelle sighed and turned back to the table, trying to feign some semblance of interest in the conversation but finding it hard to do. Here it was, nine-thirty p.m. and her co-workers were still talking about work.
“If Goodman wasn’t such a goddamn bastard we could get moving on this credit issue and—”
“—I told her the price increase will reflect that in the table. What you have to do is run the Stock Transaction file and—”
“—four hundred thousand dollars in missing inventory? I mean, how can you have that much missing at your main plant?”
Michelle took a sip of her drink, listening to the Trace Adkins song playing over the sound system. It was April 30, almost four weeks since she’d started her job at Corporate Financial Consultants and those four weeks had been good. They had gone by in a whirlwind. The first week had been nerve-wracking and exciting at the same time; meeting her co-workers, settling into her cubicle, attending company orientation, sitting in on strategy meetings on the latest projects, learning the layout of the building, getting used to the daily commute. It was exciting and thrilling and she loved every minute of it.
Within three days she was knee-deep in her first project; assisting a Data Base Administrator in rewriting some SQL code for a data warehouse. She did most of the work at the office, only stopping in at the client’s office in Adamstown twice to do some manual tweaks on their server. She spent another two weeks working on the layout and design of a technical manual, and she sat in on some meetings for this latest project, which she learned would take her to El Paso, Texas, where she’d be the main architect for the project—design, plan, write, and develop an online and printed technical document for a powerful Human Resources software system. Sam Greenberg presented the project to her a little over a week ago late one afternoon, visiting her in her cubical. “You think you’re up for your first jaunt outside the state?”
“Absolutely!” she’d said.
The work thus far had been pleasing; the paychecks even better. She was getting acclimated quite well, was getting home by five-thirty, five forty-five at the latest, and that was enough time to prepare a light meal. Sometimes Donald beat her home and he prepared dinner. She’d splurged on her first pay check and treated them to a nice restaurant in town and a play at the Fulton Opera House. She’d gone out the following day—Saturday—and gone shopping at the Park City Mall, buying a few new outfits and some new shoes. Then she’d had her car washed and detailed. It felt good to have some money left over after the bills were paid. She was going to look forward to this new job. The SQL stuff she could do without, but she was learning a good overview of Corporate Financial Consultants and the clients they dealt with. And the clients they had on their roster were impressive indeed.
One afternoon Sam Greenberg took her on a tour of the data center in the building. “We keep all our client information on a rack of servers located at our Corporate Headquarters in California,” he said. “These servers,” he indicated a row of racks where IBM Servers resided, “hold local data and run local jobs. Our IT guys work closely with the Corporate IT Team in California. This is not only a climate controlled room, but this section of the building is built to withstand severe weather and earthquakes. There’s a backup generator that is switched on the minute power on the main switch is lost. Last summer, this particular grid lost power due to a lightning strike but we didn’t miss a beat. The generator did its thing and we kept right on ticking.”