"I agree," Claire Young said.
Another uncomfortable silence followed until Steve broke it: "What about you two?" he asked, looking across the table at Angela and David. "How are you finding Bartlet? Are you enjoying yourselves?"
David and Angela exchanged glances. David spoke first: "I'm enjoying it immensely," he said. "I love the town, and since I'm already part of CMV I don't have to worry about medical politics. I walked into a big practice, maybe a little too big. I've got more oncology patients than I'd anticipated and more than I'd like."
"What's oncology?" Nancy Yansen asked.
Kevin gave his wife an irritated look of disbelief. "Cancer," he said disdainfully. "Jesus, Nance, you know that."
"Sorry," Nancy said with equal irritation.
"How many oncology patients do you have?" Steve asked.
David closed his eyes and thought for a moment. "Let's see," he said. "I've got John Tarlow with leukemia. He's in the hospital right now. I've got Mary Ann Schiller with ovarian cancer. I've got Jonathan Eakins with prostatic cancer. I've got Donald Anderson who they thought had pancreatic cancer but who ended up with a benign adenoma."
"I recognize that name," Trent said. "That patient had a Whipple procedure."
"Thanks for telling us," Gayle said sarcastically.
"That's only four patients," Steve said.
"There's more," David said. "I've also got Sandra Hascher with melanoma and Marjorie Kleber with breast cancer."
"I'm impressed you've committed them all to memory," Claire Young said.
"It's easy," David said. "I remember them because I've befriended them all. I see them on a regular basis because they have a lot of medical problems, which is hardly surprising considering the amount of treatment they've undergone."
"Well, what's the problem?" Claire asked.
"The problem is that now that I've befriended them and accepted responsibility for their care, I'm worried they'll die of their illness and I'll feel responsible."
"I know exactly what he means," Steve said. "I don't understand how anybody can go into oncology. God bless them. Half the reason I went into OB was because it's generally a happy specialty."
"Ditto for ophthalmology," Kevin said.
"I disagree," Angela said. "I can understand very well why people go into oncology. It has to be rewarding because people with potentially terminal illnesses have great needs. With a lot of other specialties you never truly know if you have helped your patients or not. There's never a question with oncology."
"I know Marjorie Kleber quite well," Gayle Yarborough said. "Both TJ and my middle, Chandler, had her as their teacher. She's a marvelous woman. She had this creative way to get the kids interested in spelling with tiny plastic airplanes moving across a wall chart."
"I enjoy seeing her every time she conies in for an appointment," David admitted.
"How's your job?" Nancy Yansen asked Angela.
"Couldn't be better," Angela said. "Dr. Wadley, the chief of the department, has become a true mentor. The equipment is state-of-the-art. We're busy but not buried. We're doing between five hundred and a thousand biopsies a month, which is respectable. We see interesting pathology because Bartlet Hospital is acting as a tertiary care center. We even have a viral lab which I didn't expect. So all in all it's quite challenging."
"Have you had any run-ins with Charles Kelley yet?" Kevin asked David.
"Not at all," David said with surprise. "We've gotten along fine. In fact just this week I met with Kelley and the CMV quality management director from Burlington. They were both complimentary about the responses patients had given on forms asking them to evaluate care and satisfaction."
"Ha!" Kevin laughed scornfully. "Quality management is a piece of cake. Wait until you have your utilization review. It usually takes two or three months. Let me know what you think of Charles Kelley then."
"I'm not concerned," David said. "I'm practicing good, careful medicine. I don't give a hoot about the bonus program concerning hospitalization and I'm certainly not in the running for one of the grand prize trips to the Bahamas."
"I wouldn't mind," Kevin said. "I think it's a good program. Why not think twice before hospitalizing someone? Patients around here follow your orders. People are better off home than in the hospital. If the hospital wants to send Nance and me to the Bahamas, I'm not going to complain."
"It's a bit different for ophthalmology than for internal medicine," David said.
"Enough of this medical talk," Gayle Yarborough said. "I was just thinking we should have brought the movie The Big Chill. It's a great movie to watch with a group like this."
"Now that would stimulate some discussion," Nancy Yansen said. "And it would be a lot more stimulating than this medical drivel."
"I don't need the movie to think about whether I would be willing to let my husband make love to one of my friends so she could have a baby," Claire Young said. "No way, period!"
"Oh, come on," Steve said, sitting up from his slouch. "I wouldn't mind, especially if it were Gayle." He reached over and gave Gayle a hug. Gayle was sitting next to him. She giggled and pretended to squirm in his arms.
Trent poured a bit of beer over the top of Steve's head. Steve tried to catch it with his tongue.
"It would have to be a desperate situation," Nancy Yansen said. "Besides, there's always the turkey baster."
For the next several minutes everyone except David and Angela doubled up with laughter. Then followed a series of off-color jokes and sexual innuendoes. David and Angela maintained half smiles and nodded at punch lines, but they didn't participate.
"Wait a minute, everybody," Nancy Yansen said amid laughter after a particularly salacious doctor's joke. She struggled to contain herself. "I think we should get the kids off to bed so we can have ourselves a skinny dip. What do you say?"
"I say let's do it," Trent said as he clicked beer bottles with Steve.
David and Angela eyed each other, wondering if the suggestion was another joke. Everyone else stood up and started calling for their children who were still down on the dock fishing in the darkness.
Later in their room as Angela washed her face at the wall sink she complained to David that she thought the group had suddenly regressed to some early, adolescent stage. As she spoke they both could hear the rest of the adults leaping from the dock amid giggles, shouts, and splashing.
"It does smack of college fraternity behavior," David agreed. "But I don't think there's any harm. We shouldn't be judgmental,"
"I'm not so sure," Angela said. "What worries me is feeling that we're in a John Updike novel about suburbia. All that loose sexual talk and now this acting out makes me uncomfortable. I think it could be a reflection of boredom. Maybe Bartlet isn't the Eden we think it is."
"Oh, please!" David said with amazement. "I think you're being overly critical and cynical. I think they just have an exuberant, fun-loving, youthful attitude toward life. Maybe we're the ones with hang-ups."
Angela turned from the sink to face David. Her expression was one of surprise, as if David were a stranger. "You're entirely welcome to go out there naked and join the Bacchanalia if you so desire," she said. "Don't let me stop you!"
"Don't get all bent out of shape," David said. "I don't want to participate. But at the same time I don't see it in such black and white terms as you apparently do. Maybe it's some of your Catholic baggage."
"I refuse to be provoked," Angela said, turning back to the sink. "And I specifically refuse to be baited into one of our pointless religious discussions."
"Fine by me," David said agreeably.
Later when they had gotten into bed and turned out the light the sounds of merriment from the dock had been replaced by the frogs and insects. It was so quiet they could hear the water lapping against the shore.