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Dataset card Data Studio Files
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“Nick more than anyone else,” Stu said.
“Yeah. Nick more than anyone else.”
They watched Nick walking slowly down Broadway, losing himself in the shadows which grew around him. Then they looked at Tom’s darkened house in silence for a minute.
“Let’s get out of here,” Larry said suddenly. “The thought of all those stuffed animals… all of a sudden I got a grade-A case of the creeps.”
When they left, Nick was still standing on the side lawn of Tom Cullen’s house, his hands in his pockets, his head down.
George Richardson, the new doctor, had set up in the Dakota Ridge Medical Center, because it was close to Boulder City Hospital with its medical equipment, its large supplies of drugs, and its operating rooms.
By August 28 he was pretty much in business, assisted by Laurie Constable and Dick Ellis. Dick had asked leave to quit the world of medicine and had been refused permission to do so. “You’re doing a fine job here,” Richardson said. “You’ve learned a lot and you’re going to learn more. Besides, there’s just too much for...
Laurie did.
Around eleven o’clock on that late August morning, Fran let herself into the waiting room and looked around curiously and a little nervously. Laurie was behind the counter, reading an old copy of the Ladies’ Home Journal.
“Hi, Fran,” she said, jumping up. “I thought we’d see you sooner or later. George is with Candy Jones right now, but he’ll be right with you. How are you feeling?”
“Pretty well, thanks,” Fran said. “I guess—”
The door to one of the examining rooms opened and Candy Jones came out following a tall, stooped man in corduroy slacks and a sport shirt with the Izod alligator on the breast. Candy was looking doubtfully at a bottle of pink stuff which she held in one hand.
“Are you sure that’s what it is?” she asked Richardson doubtfully. “I never got it before. I thought I was immune.”
“Well, you’re not and you have it now,” George said with a grin. “Don’t forget the starch baths, and stay out of the tall grass after this.”
She smiled ruefully. “Jack’s got it too. Should he come in?”
“No, but you can make the starch baths a family affair.”
Candy nodded dolefully and then spotted Fran. “Hi, Frannie, how’s the girl?”
“Okay. How’s by you?”
“Terrible.” Candy held up the bottle so Fran could read the word CALADRYL on the label. “Poison ivy. And you couldn’t guess where I got it.” She brightened. “But I bet you can guess where Jack’s got it.”
They watched her go with some amusement. Then George said, “Miss Goldsmith, isn’t it? Free Zone Committee. A pleasure.”
She held out her hand to be shaken. “Just Fran, please. Or Frannie.”
“Okay, Frannie. What’s the problem?”
“I’m pregnant,” Fran said. “And pretty damn scared.” And then, with no warning at all, she was in tears.
George put an arm around her shoulders. “Laurie, I’ll want you in about five minutes.”
“All right, Doctor.”
He led her into the examining room and had her sit on the black-upholstered table.
“Now. Why the tears? Is it Mrs. Wentworth’s twins?”
Frannie nodded miserably.
“It was a difficult delivery, Fran. The mother was a heavy smoker. The babies were lightweights, even for twins. They came in the late evening, very suddenly. I had no opportunity to make a postmortem. Regina Wentworth is being cared for by some of the women who were in our party. I believe—I hope —that she’s going to ...
“Including the superflu.”
“Yes. Including that.”
“So we just wait and see.”
“Hell no. I’m going to give you a complete prenatal right now. I’m going to monitor you and any other woman that gets pregnant or is pregnant now every step of the way. General Electric used to have a slogan, ‘Progress Is Our Most Important Product.’ In the Zone, babies are our most important product, and they are goin...
“But we really don’t know.”
“No, we don’t. But be of good cheer, Fran.”
“Yes, all right. I’ll try.”
There was a brief rap at the door and Laurie came in. She handed George a form on a clipboard, and George began to ask Fran questions about her medical history.
When the exam was over, George left her for a while to do something in the next room. Laurie stayed with her while Fran dressed.
As she was buttoning her blouse, Laurie said quietly: “I envy you, you know. Uncertainty and all. Dick and I had been trying to make a baby like mad. It’s really funny—I was the one who used to wear a ZERO POPULATION button to work. It meant zero population growth, of course, but when I think about that button now, it ...
Fran only smiled and nodded, not wanting to remind Laurie that hers would not be the first.
Mrs. Wentworth’s twins had been the first.
And Mrs. Wentworth’s twins had died.
“Fine,” George said half an hour later.
Fran raised her eyebrows, thinking for a moment he had mispronounced her name. For no good reason she remembered that until the third grade little Mikey Post from down the street had called her Fan.
“The baby. It’s fine.”
Fran found a Kleenex and held it tightly. “I felt it move… but that was some time ago. Nothing since then. I was afraid…”
“It’s alive, all right, but I really doubt if you felt it move, you know. More likely a little intestinal gas.”
“It was the baby,” Fran said quietly.
“Well, whether it did or not, it’s going to move a lot in the future. I’ve got you pegged for early to mid-January. How does that sound?”
“Fine.”