Now, as he made the left turn off the highway at the airport, she found herself thinking that Slattery was about as ambitious as any doctor she’d ever met. She knew quite emphatically that he despised her, and that it was for all the simple, boring reasons-that she was an extraordinary surgeon, that she had the job he coveted, that she might soon be back.
A debilitating chill passed over her. She knew she was picking up his thoughts. If her plane crashed, he could take her place forever. She glanced at him, and their eyes met for a second, and she saw the flush of embarrassment pass over him. Yes, his thoughts.
How many times in the past had it happened that way, and so frequently when she was tired? Maybe her guard was down when she was sleepy, and this evil little telepathic power could assert itself wantonly, and serve up to her this bitter knowledge whether she wanted it or not. It hurt her. She didn’t want to be near him.
But it was a good thing that he wanted her job, a good thing that he was there to take it so that she could go.
It struck her very clearly now that, much as she had loved University, it wasn’t important where she practiced medicine. It could be any well-equipped medical center in which the nurses and technicians could give her the backup she required.
So why not tell Slattery she wasn’t coming back? Why not end the conflict inside him for his sake? The reason was simple. She didn’t know why she felt so strongly that this was a final farewell. It had to do with Michael; it had to do with her mother; but it was as purely irrational as anything she’d ever felt.
Before Slattery even stopped at the curb, she had the door open. She climbed out of the car and gathered up her shoulder bag.
Then she found herself staring at Slattery as he handed her the suitcase from the trunk. The chill passed over her again, slowly, uncomfortably. She saw malice in his eyes. What an ordeal the night had been for him. He was so eager. And he disliked her so much. Nothing in her manner, either personally or professionally, evoked a finer response in him. He simply disliked her. She could taste it as she took the suitcase from his hand.
“Good luck, Rowan,” he said, with a metallic cheerfulness. I hope you don’t come back.
“Slat,” she said, “thank you for everything. And there’s something else I should tell you. I don’t think … Well, there’s a good possibility I may not come back.”
He could scarcely conceal his delight. She felt almost sorry for him, watching the tense movement of his lips as he tried to keep his expression neutral. But then she felt a great warm, wondrous delight herself.
“It’s just a feeling,” she said. (And it’s great!) “Of course I’ll have to tell Lark in my own time, and officially-”
“-Of course.”
“But go ahead and hang your pictures on the office walls,” she continued. “And enjoy the car. I guess I’ll send for it sooner or later, but probably later. If you want to buy it, I’ll give you the bargain of your life.”
“What would you say to ten grand for it, cash, I know it’s-”
“That will do it. Write me a check when I send you my new address.” With an indifferent wave, she walked off towards the glass doors.
The sweet excitement washed over her like sunlight. Even sore-eyed and sluggishly weary, she felt a great sense of momentum. At the ticket desk, she specified first class, one way.
She drifted into the gift shop long enough to buy a pair of big dark glasses, which struck her as very glamorous, and a book to read-an absurd male fantasy of impossible espionage and relentless jeopardy, which seemed slightly glamorous too.
The New York Times said it was hot in New Orleans. Good that she had worn the white linen, and she felt pretty in it. For a few moments, she lingered in the lounge, brushing her hair, and taking care with the pale lipstick and cream rouge she hadn’t touched in years. Then she slipped on the dark glasses.
Sitting in the plastic chair at the gate, she felt absolutely anchorless. No job, no one in the house in Tiburon. And Slat double-clutching Graham’s car all the way back to San Francisco. You can have it, Doctor. No regret, no worry. Free.
Then she thought of her mother, dead and cold on a table at Lonigan and Sons, beyond the intervention of scalpels, and the old darkness crept over her, right amid the eerie monotonous fluorescent lights and the shining early morning air commuters with their briefcases and their blue all-weather suits. She thought of what Michael had said about death. That it was the only supernatural event most of us ever experience. And she thought that was true.
The tears came again, silently. She was glad she had the dark glasses. Mayfairs at the funeral, lots and lots of Mayfairs …
She fell asleep as soon as she was settled on the plane.
Nineteen
The Mayfair Family from 1900 through 1929
RESEARCH METHODS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
As mentioned earlier, in our introduction to the family in the nineteenth century, our sources of information about the Mayfair family became ever more numerous and illuminating with each passing decade.
As the family moved towards the twentieth century, the Talamasca maintained all of its traditional kinds of investigators. But it also acquired professional detectives for the first time. A number of such men worked for us in New Orleans and still do. They have proved excellent not only at gathering gossip of all sorts but at investigating specific questions through reams of records, and at interviewing scores of persons about the Mayfair family, much as an investigative “true crime” writer might do today.
These men seldom if ever know who we are. They report to an agency in London. And though we still send our own specially trained investigators to New Orleans on virtual “gossip-gathering sprees” and carry on correspondence with numerous other watchers, as we have all through the nineteenth century, these private detectives have greatly improved the quality of our information.
Yet another source of information became available to us in the late nineteenth and twentieth century, which we-for want of a better phrase-will call family legend. To wit, though Mayfairs are often absolutely secretive about their contemporaries’, and very leery of saying anything whatsoever about the family legacy to outsiders, they had begun by the 1890s to repeat little stories and anecdotes and fanciful tales about figures in the dim past.
Specifically, a descendant of Lestan who would say absolutely nothing about his dear cousin Mary Beth when invited by a stranger at a party to gossip about her, nevertheless repeated several quaint stories about Great-aunt Marguerite, who used to dance with her slaves. And later the grandson of that very cousin repeated quaint stories about old Miss Mary Beth, whom he never knew.
Of course much of this family legend is too vague to be of interest to us, and much concerns “the grand plantation life” which has become mythic in many Louisiana families and does not shed light upon our obsessions. However, sometimes these family legends tie in quite shockingly with bits of information we have been able to gather from other sources.
And when and where they have seemed especially illuminating, I have included them. But the reader must understand “family legend” always refers to something being told to us recently about someone or something in the “dim past.”
Yet another form of gossip which came to the fore in the twentieth century is what we call legal gossip-and that is, the gossip of legal secretaries, legal clerks, lawyers, and judges who knew the Mayfairs or worked with them, and the friends and families of all these various non-Mayfair persons.