The Touch

He heard the phone ring up front at Co

"Hello."

"Nothing there, Alan." It was Jack Fisher, the radiologist. "A little fibrocystic disease, but no mass, no calcifications, no vascular changes."

"And you checked the axilla like I asked you?"

"Clean. Both sides. Clean."

Alan didn't speak. Couldn't speak.

"Okay, Alan?"

"Yeah. Yeah, sure, Jack. And thanks a lot for squeezing her in. I really appreciate it."

"Anytime. Sometimes the only way to handle these kooks is to humor them."

"Kook?"

"Yeah. The Westin lady. She was going on and on to anyone who'd listen about how you had 'the healing touch.' How she'd had a tumor there for the past month and with a single touch you made it disappear." He laughed. "Every time I think I've heard it all, somebody comes up with a new one."

Alan managed to get off the phone with a modicum of grace, then slumped into his chair and sat staring at the grain in the oak paneling on the opposite wall.

Henrietta Westin now had a left breast that felt normal and showed clean on xeromammography. But that hadn't been the case two hours ago.

He sighed and stood up. No use worrying about it. She wasn't going to lose her breast or her life, that was the important thing. When he had more time he'd try to figure it out. Right now it was time for a bite to eat and then into the afternoon session.

The phone rang again. It was a patient line this time. He hadn't signed out to the answering service yet so he picked it up.

It was Mrs. Andersen and she was sobbing. Something about Sonja. About her ear.

Oh, Christ! Just what he needed now.

"What's wrong?" he asked. "Is she still in pain?"

"No!" the woman wailed. "She can hear out of her right ear again! She can hear!"

"How do I look?"

Alan snapped back to the here and now. He had made it through the afternoon hours without committing any medical negligence, but now that he was home, his mind was constantly tugged toward Sonja Andersen and Henrietta Westin.

He looked up. Gi

"Then how come I always have to ask?"

"Because you always look great. You should know that."

"A girl likes to be told sometimes."

For perhaps the hundredth time this year—the first time was New Year's Eve—Alan promised to be more attentive to Gi

He would be more attentive and he would be less self-absorbed. Soon. But tonight was certainly a special case, especially after what had happened today.

Gi

"You're not eating?" he asked as she continued to buzz around the kitchen.

She shook her head. "No time. Why do you think I'm dressed up? Tonight's the Guild meeting and I've got to give a progress report on the fashion show."

"I thought the Guild met on Thursday nights."

"Tonight's a special meeting because of the fashion show on Sunday. I told you about it."

"Right. You did. Sorry. Just wanted to talk."

Gi

"Sit," he said, pointing to the chair opposite him.

"Oh, I can't, honey. Josie and Terri are going to be here any minute to pick me up. Can't you tell me quick?"

"I don't think so."

"Give it a try." She sat down across from him.

"Okay. Something weird happened in the office today."

"Mrs. Ellsworth paid her bill?"

Alan almost laughed. "No. Weirder."

Gi

"I don't know if it is or not." He took a deep breath. This wasn't going to be easy. "Somehow, some way, I… I cured two people of incurable illnesses today."

After a short pause, Gi

"Neither do I. You see—"

There was a honk from outside in the driveway. Gi

"That's Josie. I've got to go." She came around the table and gave Alan a quick kiss. "We'll talk about it later tonight, okay?"

Alan managed to smile. "Sure."

And then her coat was on and she was out the door.

He jabbed his fork into the shrimp salad and began to eat. Maybe it was just as well. Both he and Gi

And maybe she'd be right.

He swallowed a mouthful of shrimp, put the fork down, and leaned back. He wasn't hungry; he was just eating so he wouldn't get hungry later.

What right did he have to think he had anything to do with Sonja regaining her hearing or with the disappearance of the lump in Henrietta Westin's breast? Thinking yourself some sort of magical healer was the road to big trouble.

Yet certain facts persisted and he couldn't wish them away: Sonja Andersen's deafness had been verified time and again by audiometry, and now she could hear; Mrs. Westin had found the breast mass herself and he had confirmed its presence, yet it was gone now.

Something was up.

And in each case the turning point seemed to be his touch.

There was no sane explanation here.

With a growl of frustration, disgust, and bafflement, Alan threw down his napkin and headed out to make late rounds at the hospital.

Alan turned toward his office on the way back from the hospital. Tony DeMarco had left a message with the answering service that he wanted to see him—a fortunate coincidence, because Alan wanted to talk to Tony. He had a job for him.

On the way, he found he was hungry and looked for a place to eat. He almost pulled into a downtown sandwich shop but turned away when he remembered that he had treated the owner a number of times for various venereal diseases… and the owner made the sandwiches. He decided instead on Memison's, where he ordered a fish di

As he pulled into his parking lot of the free-standing building he half-owned, he saw that the lights were still on in the law office. Tony answered Alan's knock.

"Ay! Alan! C'mon in."

Alan smiled at the man who was perhaps his closest friend, his partner in the office building they shared, and whom he hardly ever saw. Shorter than Alan, with close-cropped dark hair and a mustache, Tony was still whipcord lean as only an unmarried chain-smoker could be at his age.

"Just finished up some dictation and was about to call it a day. Drink?"

"Yeah. I could use one."

Tony handed Alan a glass with two fingers of Dewar's, neat. "Brooklyn," he said, lifting his glass.

"And a new Ebbets Field," Alan said, lifting his.

"And the return of da Bums."

They both drank and Alan let it burn down the back of his throat. Oh, that was good. He looked around the lavishly appointed office. He and Tony had both come a long way from their roots in Brooklyn—only a few miles on the map, but income and prestigewise they had traveled light-years.