“Okay,” David said with resignation. “Let me get my lists.” He started to get up. Angela restrained him.
“We hardly need your lists,” Angela said. “We have three choices. We’ve been waiting for New York to respond and they did three days ago. Here are our choices in a nutshell: we can go to New York and I’ll start a fellowship in forensics and you in respiratory medicine; we can stay here in Boston where I’ll do forensics and you’ll go to the Harvard School of Public Health; or we can go to Bartlet and start to work.”
David ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth. He tried to think. He was numb from fatigue. He wanted his lists, but Angela still had a hold on his arm.
“It’s a little scary leaving academia,” David said finally.
“I couldn’t agree more,” Angela said. “We’ve been students for so long it’s hard to think of any other life.”
“It’s true we’ve had little personal time over these last four years,” he said.
“Quality of life has to become an issue at some point,” Angela agreed. “The reality is that if we stay here in Boston we’ll probably have to stay in this apartment. We have too much debt to do anything else.”
“It would be about the same if we went to New York,” David said.
“Unless we accepted help from my parents,” Angela said.
“We’ve avoided that in the past,” David reminded her. “There have always been too many strings attached to their help.”
“I agree,” Angela said. “Another thing that we have to consider is Nikki’s condition.”
“I want a dog,” Nikki said.
“Nikki’s been doing okay,” David said.
“But there’s a lot of pollution here and in New York,” Angela said. “That’s bound to take its toll. And I’m getting pretty tired of all the crime here in the city.”
“Are you saying you want to go to Bartlet?” David asked.
“No,” Angela said, “I’m just trying to think of all the issues. But I have to admit, when I hear about guns and drugs in the sixth grade, Bartlet starts to sound better and better.”
“I wonder if it is as heavenly as we remember,” David questioned. “Since we go so few places maybe we’ve idealized it too much.”
“There’s one way to find out,” Angela said.
“Let’s go back!” Nikki cried.
“All right,” David said. “Today’s Thursday. How about Saturday?”
“Sounds good to me,” Angela said.
“Yippee!” Nikki said.
4
FRIDAY, MAY 21
Traynor signed all the letters he’d dictated that morning and piled them neatly on the corner of his desk. Eagerly he got up and pulled on his coat. He was on his way through the outer office en route to the Iron Horse for lunch when his secretary, Collette, called him back to take a call from Tom Baringer.
Muttering under his breath, Traynor returned to his desk. Tom was too important a client to miss his call.
“You’ll never guess where I am,” Tom said. “I’m in the emergency room waiting for Dr. Portland to come in to put me back together.”
“My God, what happened?” Traynor asked.
“Something stupid,” Tom admitted. “I was cleaning some leaves out of my gutters when the ladder I was on fell over. I broke my damn hip. At least that’s what the doctor tells me here in the emergency room.”
“I’m sorry,” Traynor said.
“Oh, it could be worse,” Tom said. “But obviously I won’t be able to make the meeting we had scheduled for this afternoon.”
“Of course,” Traynor said. “Was there something important you wanted to discuss?”
“It can wait,” Tom said. “But listen, as long as I have you on the phone, how about giving the powers that be here at the hospital a call. I figure I deserve some VIP attention.”
“You got it,” Traynor said. “I’ll see to it personally. I’m just on my way out to have lunch with the hospital’s CEO.”
“Good timing,” Tom said. “Put in the good word.”
After hanging up, Traynor told his secretary to cancel Tom’s appointment and leave the slot open. The break would give him a chance to catch up on dictation.