Laura & Emma by Kate Greathead

Author:Kate Greathead
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

THEN IT WAS JANUARY, WITH its sobering return to routine and tree corpses on the curb. Laura still hadn’t called Dr. Brown; the New Year was a good excuse.

But it didn’t happen.

Now it was February. Discovering Dr. Brown’s home number had been disconnected, Laura phoned Downtown Pediatrics.

“Dr. Brown is no longer affiliated with this practice,” she was told. “Would you like to schedule an appointment with one of our other doctors?”

“Where did he go?”

There was a silence.

“Would you like to schedule an appointment with one of our other doctors?”

“No, we already have someone. I’m calling because I’m looking for Dr. Brown.”

“Dr. Brown is no longer affiliated with this practice. I’m sorry, ma’am, that’s all I can tell you.”

Swallowing her pride, Laura called her mother to see if the two had been in touch recently.

“No, and to tell you the truth, I’m a little irritated. I sent him a Williams Sonoma gingerbread house for Christmas and he didn’t call to say thank you, which is very unlike him.”

“You’ve known him for barely a year. You don’t know what he’s like.”

“It’s very unlike him,” Bibs repeated.

* * *

THERE WAS A MAN WHO lived on the fourth floor of Margaret’s building who hosted a supposedly famous daytime television show. Laura had never heard of the show, which bore his name, but after an encounter in the elevator with him she was curious to watch it.

It was like nothing she had ever seen. It featured emotionally unstable people confronting estranged family members or former lovers before a live audience. High-octane, profanity-riddled shouting matches ensued, with sordid revelations, accusations, and threats. Just as things felt on the verge of erupting into violence, a burly security person would lumber out onto the stage and there would be a commercial break.

When the show resumed the guests would be subdued, and the host would summarize the conflict before inviting members of the audience to offer their take on the situation. The audience had no shortage of opinions of these people and their problems, and the crueler these were, the rowdier the applause they generated.

This was the part Laura could hardly bear to watch. Fortunately, most of the guests seemed incapable of seeing themselves for who they really were and were thus indifferent to the audience’s impression of them.

It appeared the host of the show was blessed with the same deficit of self-awareness, Laura concluded, as she recalled the man she’d shared the elevator with—who’d been delighted to confirm his identity to a third passenger, one of the building’s nannies, whose excitement bordered on hysteria.

“I am he,” he’d said, the corners of his mustache rising in an unabashedly self-satisfied grin.

* * *

“LOOK, THAT’S OUR APARTMENT, RIGHT up there!” Emma pointed as they waited to cross the light at Ninety-sixth Street.

Emma’s classmate Tiffany squinted as she looked up. “I don’t think my mom would like me to be in a neighborhood like this,” she said.

“Why not?” Laura asked.

The light turned; Laura took the girls’ hands as they crossed. As they passed by James’s corner, Emma waved and called his name but James did not wave back.

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