Chapter 11

THE WEEK IN New York flew by too fast. Steve had taken the week off too, and the time they shared was idyllic. They played in the snow, and went sledding in the park. They went for long walks, and out for dinner. They made love more than they had in years, as though they were both desperate to cling to each other. And after the first few days, they finally talked seriously about their problem.

“What are we going to do?” Meredith was the first to ask. “We can't live like this forever.”

“I hope we won't have to,” he said sadly. With Meredith there, and so obviously in love with him, he was calmer than he had been in a while.

“Do you want me to quit my job? I will if it's what you want,” she said honestly. They had been apart for almost three months, and with no job for him on the West Coast, there was no end of their separation in sight.

“Of course I don't want that. I want what's good for you. Something will turn up sooner or later,” Steve said calmly.

“What if it's later? What if it takes six months? Or a year?”

“Then we'll live with it. And if nothing great turns up, I'll take a job in some ER and wait for the right opportunity while I'm there. This is not a tragedy, it's just a tough time. Other people seem to do it.”

“Some of them don't make it,” she said, looking worried. The incident with Cal on Christmas Eve had told her that no one was invulnerable, and no matter how much they loved each other, living on opposite coasts presented a real danger for them. For Meredith, it had been a warning, but she had no intention of saying that to him. She didn't want to hurt him.

“What does that mean?” Steve asked, looking confused.

“It means that some people's marriages fall apart, living like this. It puts a hell of a lot of pressure on both of us. Things haven't exactly been easy lately.”

“I know that. But we can do it. It's worth it. I don't want you giving up a job you love, or an opportunity like the one Cal gave you. You love working with him, it's the most exciting job you've ever had, and you're making a goddamn fortune.”

“It's not worth losing you for,” she said clearly. “Nothing is worth that to me, Steve. No job on the planet would be worth that, and no amount of money.”

“I know that,” he said, pulling her into his arms, and kissing her. “I'll be out there in a couple of months, and we'll look back on all this and laugh. We can do it, Merrie. I promise.” She felt as though she were being pulled away from him sometimes, by a force that was bigger than they were, as though the fates were conspiring against them. But she didn't want to say that to him. “Let's just try and spend the weekends together more often.” From that standpoint, the past few months had been a disaster for them. She seemed to get tied up in Palo Alto every weekend, and he was always on duty at the hospital, and between colds and meetings and blizzards and bad luck, they had hardly seen each other.

“I think that'll help,” she said pensively, and he nodded.

“And I'll keep beating the bushes for work in San Francisco. I can't go anywhere right now anyway for the next two months, until Lucas recovers from his hip. So we know I'll be here for that long. And maybe by then a job will open up in the Bay Area.” He sounded hopeful, more so than he had in a long time. Being with her had really boosted his spirits.

“Christ, I hope so,” she said, and with that, they fell back into bed. They even managed to spend New Year's Eve together, without interference from the trauma unit, which was mostly thanks to Anna Gonzalez, who was covering for him. Steve said that she had absolutely forbidden anyone to call him. “I owe her a giant thank you,” Meredith said, as she packed her bags on New Year's Day, to go back to California. They were both sad she was going, but it had been a great week for them, and even Meredith felt more secure about the relationship than she had on Christmas morning. She felt as though they were safe again. And everything he had said made sense. A job would have to turn up for him sooner or later. And if not, he said he'd come out anyway, even if he had to be a paramedic, although she knew he didn't really mean that.

“I want you to meet Anna the next time you're here,” Steve said over the dinner he cooked her before she left. “She's an amazing woman. She's from San Juan, and grew up dirt poor. She got a full scholarship to Yale, and then another one for med school. She was married to some rich kid at the law school, and I gather his family was none too pleased about it. They eventually forced him to ditch her, but not until after she had a baby. He left her high and dry during her residency with no money and a newborn baby. The kid is five now, and she's living in some miserable walk-up apartment on the West Side. She's an incredible physician. We were lucky to find her.”

“What does she look like?” Meredith asked, and Steve laughed.

“You sound just like a woman,” he teased her.

“I am a woman.”

“So I noticed.” They had just made love again an hour before. “One for the road,” as he called it. “She's nice looking, not gorgeous. A little thin, a little nervous, a lot stressed out. She has a kid to support, and she seems to live hand to mouth, doing locum tenens. I'm trying to get them to hire her permanently. We could really use her in the unit. And when I leave, she could replace me. She'd love it.”

“She sounds like a paragon of virtue.” Something about the way he talked about her made Meredith uneasy. And somehow his vague physical description of her seemed just a bit too sketchy. “How old is she?”

“Thirty-three. She's no kid. And she's pretty bitter about her ex-husband.” He sounded sympathetic.

“Doesn't he have to support the child?”

“He sends her two hundred bucks a month. Apparently, he won't even talk to her, won't see the child, and has since remarried some debutante, and just had twins.”

“Nice guy,” Meredith commented, and then realized that she was jealous, which was ridiculous. Steve wasn't the one who'd kissed Cal on Christmas Eve. She was still sorry that had happened, and feeling guilty about it, because she knew Steve would never have done that. He had always been faithful to her, and so had she. But she also knew it would never happen again. Cal knew how upset she had been, and she also knew she wouldn't let it happen.

Steve took Meredith to the airport when she left, and they looked like newlyweds as they hugged and kissed and held each other. She had promised to come back in two weeks, no matter how busy they both were. She knew now, more than ever, that their visits were vital to them. She left him with a last kiss, boarded the plane, and thought about him all the way to California. But she felt a lot better than she had a week before, when she'd arrived the day after Christmas.

She got back to her apartment in Palo Alto just after midnight, and she fell asleep dreaming of Steve. And she was up bright and early the next morning. She was at her desk, looking busy and pleased when Cal got in, and he stood in her office doorway for a moment. He was searching her face for signs of awkwardness with him, but there were none. She looked up and smiled at him. And he could see that things were different than they had been ever so briefly. She looked happier than she had in weeks, and he was pleased for her.

“How was New York?” But he didn't need to ask. He could see it.

“Terrific. How was Mexico?” She sounded at ease with him, and he was relieved.

“Hot and sunny. Lots of tequila and margaritas.”

“No turista?” She laughed at him and he grinned. He was so happy that she wasn't angry or ill at ease with him, after his stupidity in kissing her on Christmas Eve. He had learned an important lesson. And he'd been lucky. This time. She might have quit, or been furious with him, but she obviously wasn't.

“I think the booze kills all the bugs. It was fine.”

“I'm glad. How are the children?”

“A little jangled. They always are after being with Charlotte. She always seems to unnerve them.”

“They'll settle down now that they're home.”

“How was Steve?” he asked cautiously as he walked into her office carrying the briefcase she had given him for Christmas. He loved it. And she was wearing the Bulgari watch he'd given her. She had left it in San Francisco rather than upset Steve with it, when she went to New York. But all was well in the world for both of them now, and business was booming.

“Steve was off all week for once.” She looked pleased as she said it. “And he's being very reasonable about the job situation. He's stuck there for the next two months anyway. I'm just going to have to make more of an effort to go home on weekends. I'm going back again in two weeks.” And her saying that reminded him of something.

“I've organized a retreat, for top management, in Hawaii in three weeks. I was going to tell you. I think they can use it.” He gave her the dates and she jotted them down on her calendar.

“Sounds good to me,” she smiled at him, and then reminded him they had a finance committee meeting in ten minutes.

“Slave driver. Where's my margarita? Where's the beach?” She laughed and wagged a finger at him in answer.

“Never mind that. The vacation's over. We have a lot of work to do, Mr. Dow.”

“Yes, ma'am,” he saluted, and disappeared to his office to collect his papers.

They worked together after the finance meeting all afternoon, and he could detect only the faintest change in her attitude toward him. She was a little more businesslike, a little more cautious with him, but by the end of the day, everything seemed back to normal. And when she left, she waved cheerily and said she'd see him in the morning. It was as though she had shut him out just a little bit, but he couldn't say that she was wrong to do so. He had thought about her a lot when he was in Mexico, and worried about how things would be when they met again. But worse than that, he had missed talking to her every day, and he was surprised himself to realize that morning how glad he was to see her.