Coma

“That’s not a bad idea ... not bad. But there’s a catch.”

“What’s that?”

“Simply that I wouldn’t know where the hell I was going even if I were able to walk into the building. It’s hard to look like you belong when you’re totally lost.”

“That’s not an insurmountable obstacle. All you’d have to do is visit the building department in City Hall and get a copy of the building plans or floor plans. There are plans on file of all public buildings. You’d have yourself a map.”

Mark returned to the kitchen to get the steaks and the salad.

“Mark, that’s ingenious.”

“Practical, not ingenious.” He brought the food into the room and served up the steaks and a generous helping of salad. There were also asparagus with hollandaise sauce and another whole bottle of red Bordeaux.

Each thought the meal perfect. The wine tended to smooth any potential rough edges, and the conversation flowed freely as each learned bits and pieces of the other’s background to fill in the gaps of the personality mosaics each was constructing of the other. Susan from Maryland, Mark from California. There was little intellectual common ground, for Mark’s education had been severely skewed in the direction of Descartes and Newton, while Susan’s tended toward Voltaire and Chaucer. But skiing emerged as a love of both, as well as the beach, and the outdoors in general. And they both liked Hemingway. There was an awkward silence after Susan asked about Joyce. Bellows had not read Joyce.

With the dishes cleared, they settled on a random grouping of pillows before the fireplace at the far end of the room. Bellows put on some additional oak logs, turning the smoldering embers into a crackling blaze.

Grand Marnier and Fred’s Home Made vanilla ice cream made them quiet for some moments, both enjoying the peaceful and contented silence.

“Susan, getting to know you just a little better, and liking every minute of it, makes me even more motivated to urge you to forget this coma problem,” said Mark, after a while. “You’ve got an enormous amount of learning to do, and believe me, there’s no place better than the Memorial.

In all likelihood this coma problem will be around for some time, plenty of time for you to begin again when you have a real background in clinical medicine. I’m not trying to suggest you cannot contribute; maybe you can.

But the chances of making a contribution are small, just like in any research project, no matter how well conceived. And you have to consider the effect your activities will undoubtedly have, in fact already have had, on your superiors. It’s a poor gamble, Susan; the odds are stacked against you.”

Susan sipped her Grand Marnier. The viscous, smooth fluid slid down her throat, and sent warm sensations down her legs. She took in a deep breath and felt a certain levitation.

“Being a female medical student must be hard enough,” continued Bellows, “without adding a further handicap.”

Susan raised her head and looked at Bellows. He was staring into the fire. “Exactly what do you mean by that statement?” asked Susan with a sudden slight edge to her voice. Bellows was suddenly brushing against sensitive areas.

“Just what I said.” Bellows did not look up from the fire. The dancing flames had captured his attention. “I just think it must be particularly difficult being a female medical student. I never really thought too much about it until you forced me to come up with an alternative explanation for Harris’s behavior. Now, the more I think about it, the more I think I am right because ... well, to be truthful, I can’t say I reacted to you as a medical student first. As soon as I saw you, I reacted to you as a woman, and maybe in kind of an immature way. I mean I found you immediately attractive—not seductive.” Bellows added the last comment quickly and turned to make sure Susan appreciated his reference to their previous conversation in the coffee shop.

Susan smiled. The defensive attitude, which Bellows’s initial statement had rekindled, had melted.

“That was why I reacted so foolishly when you walked into the dressing room yesterday and caught me in my shorts. If I had thought of you asexually, I wouldn’t have budged. But it was pretty apparent that was not the case. Anyway, I think most of your professors and instructors are going to react to you first as female and only second as a student of medicine.”

Bellows looked back into the fire; he almost had the attitude of a contrite sinner who has confessed. Susan felt a resurgence of the warmth she had begun to feel toward him. She felt again the urge to give him one of her people hugs, as she thought of them. In truth Susan was a physical person, although she did not show it often, especially since entering medicine. Even before applying to medical school, Susan had decided that the physical aspects of her personality had to be suppressed if she was going to make it in medicine. Now instead of reaching for Mark, she sipped her Grand Marnier.