American Cream by Catherine Tudish

Author:Catherine Tudish
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2007-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Pretending to read a CPR poster on the wall, Virginia studied her father out of the corner of her eye. Nathan was sitting in the chair beside her, thumbing through a back issue of People magazine. He had some color that morning, and his hair was freshly washed, combed back over his ears. A month short of seventy, he was a fine-looking man, still trim with a firm jaw, although his reading glasses magnified the lines around his eyes. Years of squinting into the sun.

To Virginia’s surprise, Lydia had asked her to drive Nathan to his doctor’s appointment at the clinic in Tenney’s Landing. A dozen years before, when old Doc Brooks finally retired, the state had bought the small brick building that had been his office and started sending doctors just finished with their residencies. They stayed for two years, fulfilling a service requirement, and then moved on. Although they were mostly eager and pleasant, it wasn’t the same. After patients saw one of the “little doctors,” as they called them, they would often go visit Doc Brooks with some small gift—tomatoes from the garden, a pair of hand-knit socks—and ask his opinion about the diagnosis. Sometimes two or three of his former patients would be at his house at the same time. As often as not, they would have a shot of whiskey and decide they felt fine.

The waiting room had been painted recently and smelled of new carpet. In one corner, an open cabinet held neatly stacked children’s books and an assortment of stuffed animals. A vase of pink gladioli sat on the counter where patients checked in. No one else was waiting. The only sound was the tap tap of the receptionist at her keyboard behind the sliding glass window. Doc Brooks’s office had been a noisy place, children sneezing and whining as the appointments backed up, farmers with mangled fingers impatiently watching the clock as blood seeped into their homemade bandages. Then Doc Brooks would come out in his white coat to call the next patient in, and they would all forgive him. Young women had crushes on him because of the tragedy. His son, Stevie, had died at the age of five, shot by another child.

“Why is it,” Nathan asked, turning to show Virginia the magazine, “that women nowadays try to look like prostitutes?” He pointed to a group of young actresses posing at a Hollywood event in skimpy dresses that barely covered their breasts and thighs. “Every page. Look.”

“You need to get out more,” she said, smiling at him. At Randall’s graduation, Rob had commented on the fourteen-year-old girls, transformed by eye shadow and mascara, three-inch heels and slinky skirts. They suddenly looked twenty-five.

“Irene, now. She has the tiniest clothes I’ve ever seen.” Nathan tossed the magazine onto the table. “Is this what your women’s lib business was all about?”

“Sometimes I wonder myself.”

When the inner door opened, a nurse dressed in white pants and a maternity top told Nathan to come in. Virginia stood to help him out of his chair and said she’d like to speak with Dr.

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