that, a few months maybe, McIvey came over one day and wanted to go through the personnel records. Naomi said no. She called Greg and he said no and called Dr. Kelso. Dr. Kelso came right over and told McIvey that the records were not open to the public, that only the directors had the right to examine them. McIvey said the only records he wanted were Darren’s, that he didn’t believe he was qualified to treat patients, and he wanted to check his background, his training and references, before he referred another patient to the clinic. Dr. Kelso made him stay out in the waiting room while he and Naomi collected some of the file and took it to him. McIvey said he wanted the whole file and Dr. Kelso said he had given him all he was entitled to see. Of course, Darren’s education, training, all of it is impeccable. He’s recognized as the best physical therapist in the Northwest, maybe on the whole West Coast. They say he has magic in his hands. They can tell him more than a dozen X rays. Anyway, McIvey was furious. See, he was out to get Darren. Still is, I suspect. The day he gets control here, Greg, Naomi and Darren will all be out before the sun goes down.”
Erica finished her coffee, then said, “But he still sends patients here, doesn’t he?”
“Sure. He knows this is the best facility for hundreds of miles, maybe all the way to Los Angeles.”
“I don’t understand any of this,” Erica said. “Why would he try to drive out the best therapist and get control? Be second-rate or something.”
“That’s the stickler,” Stephanie said, nodding. “No one here understands it. But that’s how she blows. I’ve got to get back to work.”
It was a glorious late summer, Erica thought when she left Stephanie to walk for a few minutes in the garden. Dahlias, zinnias, marigolds, chrysanthemums…too many flowers to name were riotous, defying the calendar. Back in Cleveland there would have been a frost by then, but here in Eugene, it was a golden time of color everywhere. Working in her own yard one day, she had asked Darren when to expect the first frost. He had laughed and said Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or maybe not at all this year. Of course, she had thought he was kidding, but it was the end of September and flowers were still in bloom.
She had made friends with Darren’s son, Todd, who had been shy and silent at first, but she had known hundreds of boys his age over the years and had known not to push. Still more child than adolescent, with sun-bleached hair and high color on his cheeks, he had the grace and directness of a child, but responded like a serious young adult to a serious adult who treated him with respect. She was very respectful with him.
When he offered to show her his collection, she had rejoiced. His collection had turned out to be an assortment of posters. He had painted his room forest green with cream trim, and on the walls he had mounted his posters: lava fields, high mountain lakes, totem poles. She had been puzzled until he said, “We collect things, Dad and me. This year it was totem poles. I take pictures and we get them made into posters. Last year it was volcanoes. I think we’ll do trees next summer. You know, the biggest, the oldest, like that. I’m supposed to do the research.”
She had decided his Christmas present from her would be a bonsai tree.
Walking in the garden that golden afternoon, she thought briefly about Dr. McIvey, but decided he could not cast a very long shadow. He would be crazy to get rid of his best therapist and the two people who made the clinic work. He was too busy with his own practice to meddle. Then it was time to go to the upper lounge and read to her patients. She smiled as she realized what her phrasing had been: her patients.
6
“Bernie, what’s going on around here?” Erica and Bernie were having coffee in the staff lounge. “And don’t tell me it’s nothing. Greg looks ill and Naomi is snapping like a turtle. What’s up?”
“I wish to God I knew,” Bernie said after a brief hesitation. She helped herself to leftover Halloween candy. “Something is. All at once Annie’s a shareholder and Dr. McIvey is spending time going through the personnel files while Naomi stews and paces. Teri—you know Teri Crusak in the office?—she said that McIvey demanded the keys to the locked files, all the personnel records, and Naomi said to give them to him.”
“I didn’t even know there were locked files,” Erica said.
“Yeah, there are. Confidential stuff about the staff. Not me. I’ve got no secrets. But others.” She shook her head. “Anyway, whatever’s in there, he’s got now.” She lowered her voice. “Stephanie said she wishes he’d eat something here. She’d season it with arsenic.”
Erica remembered something else Stephanie had said, that McIvey was out to get Darren, that he had tried to get his personnel records a few years back and had not been allowed access. Now he had them, or could easily get them.
Keeping her voice as low as Bernie’s, she said, “Stephanie thinks he’s targeted Darren. Do you?”
“Sure. And now that Annie’s going to be around even more, doing some of the stuff McIvey’s mother did, it’s like he’s stoking the fire.”
Annie and Darren? Erica lifted her cup, then put it down again. Annie and Darren. She had seen his expression that one time, the hurt and anger.
“Nothing to it,” Bernie continued, “but you put kindling on a spark and fan it a little, lo and behold! you get a blaze. Maybe he’s counting on something like that, to use as an excuse to get Darren out. Or else he’s just plain stupid, and I don’t think anyone ever accused David McIvey of stupidity.”
“Were they…? I mean before she got married, were they going out?”
“How it was,” Bernie said, “she came here when she was still just a kid, and he treated her like a kid for about a year. But she was sort of in a hero-worshiping phase, and he was the hero. Gradually he seemed to notice that she wasn’t just a kid. He backed off. He thought he was too old for her. He’s what, about thirty-eight now? I think that’s right. Anyway, we were all watching to see how long it would take for her to get through to him. About a year, a little more. Well, McIvey came along and spotted her and said, I want that, and what David McIvey wants, David McIvey gets. Like David and Bathsheba. You know the story?”
Erica nodded. Her lips felt stiff, her mouth dry. She took a sip of coffee, then said, “I can’t believe there’s anything going on now.”
“But she’ll be around a lot more, not stuck back in the office. Old Mrs. McIvey was here all hours when it was fund-raising time, showing people around, having talks with Darren.” She shrugged. “We’ll see.”
That afternoon Annie dropped in on Naomi in her office. “Are you busy? Can we talk?”
Naomi closed a folder on her desk and stood up. “Let’s go to the house. No one will disturb us there. And I could use a cup of coffee.”
They walked out together. It was a cold, sunny day, with thin cirrus clouds streaking the sky in the west. Annie stopped to sniff the air. “It’s going to rain. Back home I used to go out to the bay and watch the sky move in. I thought of it as the sky eating the ocean, moving in to eat the land. The first gale of the season was always exciting. I never got over that excitement when the first gale blew in. Our lower pasture flooded every year,” she added. A sharp memory surfaced and she saw herself as a little girl, her hair wild in the wind, saw how the cattle—black-and-white like picture-book cows—all turned to smell the ocean, the approaching storm front. She shook herself. “Not quite the same here, but I like the first storms of the season.”
They entered the house through the back door into the kitchen, and while Naomi was busy with the coffee, Annie wandered about the room, as if checking to make certain it was how she remembered from when she had lived there. The same silly salt and pepper shakers—Jack Sprat and his plump wife; the same African violets in bloom on a windowsill—they were never out of bloom, it seemed; the same yellow vase with fresh flowers…
As Naomi waited for Annie to begin, she got out mugs, sugar and half-and-half. Annie always used enough cream to turn her coffee nearly white.
Annie