“I don't believe it. You know her?”
“She was my best pal in college. We were roommates. I love her more than any other friend I've ever had,” she said quietly. “I don't see her enough, but whenever we can get together it's all still there. It's amazing, no matter what happens to either of us, nothing ever changes. She's a remarkable woman.”
“Wow! I'm impressed.” He couldn't help saying it, and he meant it. “I know that sounds dumb, but it always amazes me that someone knows people like that, that they hang out with them, that they sit around and eat pizza and drink coffee like the rest of us, and wash their hair and wear pajamas. It's pretty hard to think of them as real people.”
“She's suffered a lot from that. I gather she's getting divorced again. I think it would be impossible to have a normal life with the kind of pressures she lives with. She married a really nice guy when we got out of college, her high school sweetheart, but within a year, she hit it big, she had a gold record and a career, and I think it just blew her marriage. Poor Bobby Joe didn't know what hit him, and neither did Tanny. She married a real shit after that, her manager, and he ripped her off, predictably, and was pretty abusive to her. I think it was fairly typical for the milieu, but it was miserable for her. And three years ago she married some guy in L.A., I think he's a developer. I thought it was going to work, but now they're breaking up, and he won't let her take his kids to Wyoming, as planned, so she had this cabin at a dude ranch, and she asked me to go with her.” She made it all sound so ordinary that it amused him.
“Lucky you!” he said, and meant it. “What fun!”
“Yeah, seeing Tanny will be fun more than anything. Neither of us are that crazy about horses,” she laughed. “Actually, all I want to do is sleep for the whole week.”
“It might do you good,” he said, looking at her with concern, and then he looked at her oddly. “You're all right, Zoe, aren't you? You've been looking tired, and I know you weren't feeling great last week. I think you're really pushing.” He said it very gently, and what he said touched her deeply. She was so used to taking care of other people, that when anyone took care of her it surprised her.
“I'm fine. Honestly,” she said, but she wondered what he had seen. She wondered suddenly if she looked ill. She was tired, but she didn't look any different to herself when she looked in the mirror. She had no sores, no other signs. There were no indications that she had AIDS, and she knew there might not be for a long time, or there could be a lot of them at any moment. And her greatest risk was from infection. But she knew what she had to do to protect herself, and she was being careful. “You're sweet to ask,” she said, and was surprised when he reached across the table and took her hand. She hadn't expected him to do that.
“I care about you. I want to help you, but most of the time you're pretty stubborn.” The way he said it made her look into his eyes. They were dark brown, and infinitely gentle.
“Thank you, Sam…” Feeling a wave of emotion wash over her, she looked away from him, and then took away her hand a moment later. She knew more than ever that she couldn't let her guard down. No matter how kind and appealing he was, she couldn't let herself do it.
It had been so easy with Dick, when she went out with him. They were just friends, and if they took it a little further than that once in a while, there was no harm done. She had no illusions about how he felt about her. He just wanted a comfortable companion from time to time, someone to go to the theater with him, or the symphony, or the ballet, or an expensive dinner. But he wanted nothing more from her than she wanted to give. In fact, if she'd given him more than that, it would have scared him. Dick knew exactly how far he wanted to go with her, and he was always careful to keep his distance. And although she would have liked a serious relationship with someone, there hadn't really been anyone who'd appealed to her that way in years, and it was easier to avoid the cheap imitations. And now that her whole life had changed, it was such bad luck to discover that Sam Warner might have once been important to her. She had never realized how deep he was, how kind, how compassionate, how in tune with what she was doing. She had just thought of him as a good doctor, a good friend. And now she found that there was more to him, and to what she felt for him, and she had no right to explore it further. The door to that part of her life was closed forever. What could she possibly give anyone now? A few months? A few years? Even if it were five or ten, it wouldn't be fair to them. And through it all, there was always the remote but potential risk of illness for them. She had lived through all of that with Adam. She couldn't do that to anyone. And she had no intention of doing it to Sam. There was not a chance in the world that she was going to let him come any closer to her. They were colleagues and friends, and nothing more, and she absolutely would not let him come beyond her limits, and he sensed that. It made him sad as they left the restaurant. As much as he liked her, he could sense that she was pulling back from him. He didn't know why, but he didn't like it, and he sensed correctly that there was nothing he could do about it.
He looked at her for a long moment as they sat in his car outside the restaurant. “I had a great time tonight,” he said honestly, and she nodded.
“So did I, Sam.”
“And I want you to have a good time in Wyoming,” he said as he looked into her eyes, and she felt as though she could feel his thoughts and she didn't want to. She didn't want him to open his heart to her, or ask her to open hers, or worse yet have to tell him why she couldn't. As far as she was concerned, no one had the right to know that.
“Thank you for covering for me,” she said, and meant it. It was a relief to talk about their work and not their feelings. She sensed easily that she was on dangerous ground with him, and as she looked at him in his tweed jacket and gray turtleneck, she forced herself not to feel any attraction to him, but it wasn't easy.
“You know I'll cover for you anytime,” he said, still not starting the car. There was something he wanted to say to her, and he wasn't sure how to do it. “I want to talk to you when you come back,” he said, and she didn't dare ask him why. She was suddenly afraid that after all this time he was suddenly going to press her. It wasn't fair that it should happen now. It was just too bad they hadn't discovered their attraction for each other sooner. She had been completely blind to what he felt before, and even to the fact that he was actually very attractive. “I think some of what we said tonight deserves a little more conversation,” he said, sounding very definite and a little daunting.
“I'm not sure that's such a good idea,” she said quietly, slowly looking up at him. There was a lifetime of sorrows in her eyes, and it took all the strength he had not to put his arms around her, but he knew that for now at least it was not what she wanted. “There are some things best left unsaid, Sam.”
“I don't agree with you,” he said, his eyes boring into hers, begging her to listen. “You're a brave woman. I've seen you look death in the eye and defy it many times. You can't be cowardly about your own life.” It seemed odd to her that he should say that, and for a moment she panicked about what he was thinking. But she knew that he couldn't have discovered her secret. The lab results had had no name and had been numbered.
“I don't think I am cowardly about my own life,” she said sadly. “I've made some choices that are right for me, not out of cowardice, but out of wisdom.”
“That's bullshit,” he said, leaning frighteningly close to her, and she turned away from him and looked out the window.