As the baby in the family, with three older brothers and a cold and dominating neurosurgeon for a father, Marissa had never had much self-confidence. She took the breakup with Roger very badly and had been barely able to drag herself out of bed each morning to get to the hospital. In the midst of her resultant depression, her friend Nancy had presented her with the dog. At first Marissa had been irritated, but Taffy-the puppy had worn the cloyingly sweet name on a large bow tied around its neck-soon won Marissa’s heart, and, as Nancy had judged, it helped Marissa to focus on something besides her hurt. Now Marissa was crazy about the dog, enjoying having “life” in her home, an object to receive and return her love. Coming to the CDC, Marissa’s only worry had been what to do with Taffy when she was sent out in the field. The issue weighed heavily on her until the Judsons, her neighbors on the right, fell in love with the dog and offered-no, demanded-to take Taffy any time Marissa had to go out of town. It was like a godsend.
Opening the door, Marissa had to fend off Taffy’s excited jumps until she could turn off the alarm. When the owners had first explained the system to Marissa, she’d listened with only half an ear. But now she was glad she had it. Even though the suburbs were much safer than the city, she felt much more isolated at night than she had in Boston. She even appreciated the “panic button” that she carried in her coat pocket and which she could use to set off the alarm from the driveway if she saw unexpected lights or movement inside the house.
While Marissa looked over her mail, she let Taffy expend some of her pent-up energy racing in large circles around the blue spruce in the front yard. Without fail, the Judsons let the dog out around noon; still from then until Marissa got home in the evening was a long time for an eight-month-old puppy to be cooped up in the kitchen.
Unfortunately, Marissa had to cut Taffy’s exuberant exercise short. It was already after seven, and she was expected at dinner at eight. Ralph Hempston, a successful ophthalmologist, had taken her out several times, and though she still had not gotten over Roger, she enjoyed Ralph’s sophisticated company and the fact that he seemed content to take her to dinner, the theater, a concert without pressuring her to go to bed. In fact, tonight was the first time he’d invited her to his house, and he’d made it clear it was to be a large party, not just the two of them.
He seemed content to let the relationship grow at its own pace, and Marissa was grateful, even if she suspected the reason might be the twenty-two-year difference in their ages; she was thirty-one and he was fifty-three.
Oddly enough the only other man Marissa was dating in Atlanta was four years younger than she. Tad Schockley, a microbiologist Ph.D. who worked in the same department she ultimately had been assigned to, had been smitten by her the moment he’d spied her in the cafeteria during her first week at the Center. He was the exact opposite of Ralph Henipston: socially painfully shy, even when he’d only asked her to a movie. They’d gone out a half dozen times, and thankfully he, like Ralph, had not been pushy in a physical sense.
Showering quickly, Marissa then dried herself off and put on makeup almost automatically. Racing against time, she went through her closet, rapidly dismissing various combinations. She was no fashion plate but liked to look her best. She settled on a silk skirt and a sweater she’d gotten for Christmas. The sweater came down to midthigh, and she thought that it made her look taller. Slipping on a pair
of black pumps, she eyed herself in the full-length mirror.
Except for her height, Marissa was reasonably happy with her looks. Her features were small but delicate, and her father had actually used the term “exquisite” years ago when she’d asked him if he thought she was pretty. Her eyes were dark brown and thickly lashed, and her thick, wavy hair was the color of expensive sherry. She wore it as she had since she was sixteen: shoulder length, and pulled back from her forehead with a tortoiseshell barrette.