The first blast brought a shudder of cold, followed by a gradual warming. The tub was an antique ball-and-claw de-sign, devoid of curtains and open to the small bathroom. Here, amidst brass and porcelain fixtures, mauve and lavender tiles, grey-and-black curtains, she began and ended her working days. The hot water soothed her. The long soak gave her time to think.
Thinking time was what Evelyn cherished most. While soak-ing in the steaming tub, she paid no mind to her body. It mat-tered little to her that forty-seven years of life steadily left their tracks on her. The face that lined a bit more with every frown of deep concentration, the hair that turned relentlessly from black to frost, the flesh that would someday slowly surrender to the pull of gravity-these were invisible to her.
The unceasing thoughts continued to buzz within her. In-side, she was eternally young, unaging in her enthusiasm.
After half an hour spent in meditation, the water had be-come chilly. In that time, Evelyn had reviewed her schedule for the day and given further thought to the ramifications of her research. She turned on the tap to fill a stoneware pitcher with tepid water. A loud, sloshing waterfall substituted for the tub's nonexistent shower. After a few jugs worth of rinsing, she toweled dry and dressed for the day in her usual clothes.
She favored dark clothing. She'd once commented to a col-league that she preferred primary colors such as white and black. Or blends-grey, off-white, and off-black.
Today she wore black. Only a small triangular wedge showed through at the apex of her lab coat's lapels. The coat-as clean and white as modern laundering could offer-was one of seven that she owned. One for each workday, plus a spare for emer-gency calls.
With a grunt, Dr. Fletcher hefted a heavy briefcase, filled to its tattered limits with papers, charts, abstracts, and research. Her right hand clutched her black instrument bag. She had never owned a purse on the theory that carrying feminine items would only weigh her down.
As she did every workday, she locked her apartment door's triple set of deadbolts, dropped the oversized ring of keys into her lab coat pocket, toted her burden down to a faded blue Saab that was only half her age, and threw the bags into the back seat. They landed with satisfying squeaks on the torn upholstery.
She hesitated before climbing into the driver's seat. Gazing out of the carport, she saw that the sun had come up over feathery white cirrus clouds. A breeze from the sea blew smog inland from Torrance, bringing with it a fresh smell. Dew from the night before misted on shake roofs, cool night air surrendering to morning's warmth. It would be a good day.
II
Valerie Dalton stared blankly at the line of men and women before her. She hadn't seen them from the parking lot. Only when she reached the level of the sidewalk leading to the Re-productive Endocrinology wing of Bayside University Medical Center did she realize that some sort of protest was in progress.
The men and women dressed in the casual style endemic in Southern California. Their children accompanied them in an elliptical march along the sidewalk. The signs they carried were neatly printed in bright DayGlo colors.
Abortion Is Murder read several of the signs. End the Si-lent Holocaust read another. One, held by a young woman, said Abortion Kills Unborn Feminists, Too!
Valerie took a deep breath. She had seen such displays on TV but hadn't considered that she would ever need to cross such a line or even encounter such people.
The continuing orbit brought new signs into view. Fertility Clinics Play God-God Is Angry. A small boy carried a sign obviously printed by someone trying to imitate a child's letter-ing. It read I Know Who My Mommy and Daddy Are, with a couple of letters drawn backward for authenticity. They've covered both sides, Valerie thought. I can't lie my way through. She let go her breath and walked forward.
"Please don't kill your child," a man in a dark suit said as she passed between the marchers.
"I'm not," she said. "I'm just going for a test." She didn't un-derstand why she felt the need to explain anything at all to him.
A woman stopped to join them. She was older, already gray. She stared at Valerie with a flat, cold gaze. "There are other clinics you can go to. They'll provide the same tests and give you any counseling you need."
Valerie pushed her way past the pair. "Please," she said. "I just need a test." Another woman stepped in her way, smiling warmly. "We want to help you avoid making a tragic decision. We know you don't want your baby to end up like this." She turned her sign around to thrust it in Valerie's face. She stared at the bloody, mangled remains of an aborted fetus. The photograph had been printed in the brightest, most lurid colors. Reds, yellows, grisly black tones swirled through the image.
Valerie's vision faltered for a moment. Her breath hung sickly in her lungs, threatening to drop to her stomach in an elevator rush of shock, as if she were watching a real murder on the evening news. A firm hand grasped her arm. "Back off!" a woman's voice shouted with military intensity. "You know the rules. You touch anyone or interfere with free passage and your permit goes up in smoke." Dr. Evelyn Fletcher stared at the assembled group for a long moment before releasing Valerie's arm.
"You use laws to keep us from throwing you off our property. Just be damn sure you follow them yourselves." She turned to Valerie. "Come on, miss. The receptionist's right inside." Picking up her two bags, the doctor led Valerie through the automatic doors. Before they closed, she shot another glance back at the pickets. Her eyes softened from anger to a weary kind of sadness. Turning, she strode silently past the recep-tionist and into her office. " Valerie always felt uneasy waiting in an examination room. The cool white walls, the antiseptic scent, the indecipherable buzz of voices outside imparted the same sense of mystery and mysticism she had felt since childhood. A doctor's office was like a church. One stepped in from the street into a hushed, different world, with its own unique smells and quiet intrigues. It made sense to her somehow. Priests struggled for the salva-tion of human souls. Doctors fought for the health of the body. Both listened to their charges with the same inscrutable ex-pression.
Valerie had given up attending church long ago. She tried just as much to limit her visits to doctors. She fingered the wad of cotton in the crook of her left arm. Priests want tithes. Doctors demand blood. A crisp set of footsteps approached her door, followed by the zip of a folder being removed from the door tray. A long mo-ment of silence-pierced only by the faint sound of pages turn-ing-ended with the sharp crank of the doorknob.
"Oh-it's you." The tallish greying woman who had come to Valerie's aid stepped in. "I'm Dr. Fletcher. Evelyn. May I call you Valerie?"
The doctor extended her hand to her patient. Valerie stood to clasp it, returned the light shake, nodded, and sat down nervously.
"Should I get undressed?" she asked.
Dr. Fletcher shook her head while glancing at the forms in Valerie's folder. "Not for today. First I want to let you know that our test confirms your home test. It's positive, too. You're pregnant." She said it without any congratulatory smile, know-ing from the younger woman's demeanor that the answer would not be greeted as the best of news. Valerie's deep breath and slight lowering of the head confirmed her diagnosis.
"What I'd like to discuss with you is your feelings about that and what you'd like to do." Valerie looked up with wet, panicked eyes. "This is the wrong time. I don't know what happened. Ron and I use the sponge. It's not supposed to happen. I just got a promotion where I work and I can't see my boss just letting me have a few months off to go have a baby which Ron and I weren't planning to do anyway. I mean, babies are nice and all, but we're not even married and we still haven't been to Europe and you can't just go running around Europe changing diapers and expect to have any fun. Not when you have your whole life ahead of you. We both have to work. I can't take any time off. We wanted to have a honeymoon and all that first-"