“Have a seat,” Lisbeth said. “Dr. Peterson will be with you in a moment.”

She moved Richard Hesky’s folder from her desk to the table near her office door, where Lloyd would know to look for it, then began to file the stack of folders he’d left her from the day before.

This office was very much hers. Lisbeth had been working for Lloyd Peterson for six years, ever since her graduation from secretarial school, and his office had been in complete disarray when she’d arrived. His previous secretary had been eighty years old at the time of her retirement, and she must have had failing vision, because the charts were misfiled and there was simply no system to the running of the office. Lisbeth had relished the challenge of bringing order to the place, and Dr. Peterson often told her he couldn’t do without her.

She loved working in a medical office. She had no fear of blood or broken bones or germs, only a fascination for the miracles modern medicine could perform. Like the new polio vaccine. Yes, the shots hurt and the children cried, but, oh, what lifesavers they were! She was always picking Dr. Peterson’s brain about the various medical conditions of his patients.

She looked over the counter to the waiting room, where Mrs. Hesky was engrossed in a magazine. Richard was ignoring the toys in the play area as he sat in a chair next to his mother, swinging his legs in an anxious rhythm, and Lisbeth could almost feel his fear from her desk.

“Richard,” Lisbeth said, and he looked over at her. “Come here for a minute, please.”

The little boy glanced at his mother, then walked very slowly toward the counter. Lisbeth leaned toward him, as though telling him a secret.

“There’s a trick to making a shot barely hurt at all,” she said. “Want to hear it?”

He nodded, his brown eyes huge.

“Wiggle your toes when you’re getting it,” she said.

“Wiggle my toes?” There was the hint of a smile on his face.

“Yes, absolutely.” She nodded. “Now, it’s hard to wiggle your toes when you have your shoes on, so tell Dr. Peterson you have to take your shoes off first, okay?”

“Does it really work?” He looked so hopeful, Lisbeth wanted to reach across the counter to hold his little face in her hands and give him a kiss on the forehead.

“I promise,” she said. “But you have to wiggle them hard.”

“Okay.” He nodded conspiratorially, then trotted back to the seat next to his mother. The wiggling would work, she knew as she returned to her filing. The children focused so hard on moving their toes that the shot was given before they even realized what was happening. Dr. Peterson thought she was a genius for coming up with the technique.

The real medical genius in the Kling family, though, was Carlynn. She was in her fourth year of medical school at the University of California, spending almost all her time this year at San Francisco General Hospital, a few blocks from Dr. Peterson’s office. Lisbeth had wanted to go to medical school—or at least to nursing school—herself, but she’d panicked at the thought of college, fearful that she would not get in, or once in, that she would not be able to keep up. She felt angry at herself for not working harder throughout her school years, and she was angry at her parents for providing her with what she had long ago realized was the lesser education. Sometimes she was angry at Carlynn, as well, although she knew the situation was not truly her twin’s fault.

So, she’d opted for secretarial school instead, hoping to work in a medical setting. She did not regret her choice; there was no one better at whipping an office into shape, and for the first time in her life she felt valuable. She was full of innovative ideas to make Dr. Peterson’s office run smoothly, and was often asked by other physicians to train their secretaries and receptionists in some of the methods she used.

She had followed Carlynn to San Francisco, although not without her sister’s encouragement. Carlynn may have been smarter, more beautiful and better educated, but she was still Lisbeth’s twin, and the love between the two of them, though sometimes tinged with resentment or annoyance, was strong. They met at least once a week for lunch, and occasionally saw each other on the weekends, although this year Carlynn’s free time outside the hospital was quite limited.

Carlynn had told her she’d have time for lunch today, though, and Lisbeth was supposed to meet her at noon at a delicatessen halfway between the hospital and Dr. Peterson’s office. It was now eleven, and although she was looking forward to the time with her sister, she wished Gabriel would hurry up and call. What if he called at ten to twelve? Then she’d only have a minute to talk to him before turning the call over to Dr. Peterson.

Gabriel Johnson was Dr. Peterson’s tennis partner. He usually called Dr. Peterson on Tuesdays and Thursdays to make sure their schedules would allow them to meet on the doctor’s private tennis court for a game after work. Of course, Lisbeth was always the one to answer the phone, and lately, Gabriel had been keeping her on the phone for a while. One time, for thirty minutes! He asked her questions about herself and seemed genuinely interested in her answers. He told her he’d heard about her reputation as an “office manager,” and she’d loved that he used that term instead of “secretary.” She was so much more than a secretary, and he seemed to know that. Although she’d never met him, sometime in the last few months she’d started fantasizing about him, wondering what he looked like. She pictured him looking like Rock Hudson, although his voice was deeper. Or maybe he was blond, like James Dean, his hair sun-streaked from the tennis courts.

The last time he called, Gabriel had asked her if she played tennis.

She’d looked down at her lap, where her white uniform stretched across her soft thighs. “No,” she’d said. “I did when I was a child, but not in years.”

“I’ll have to get you out there someday,” he said. That was the closest he’d come to actually suggesting a date between the two of them, and it both elated and troubled her. How could she ever let him see her?

“Maybe,” she’d said.

“What do you like to do for fun?” he asked.

I eat. That would be the honest answer.

“Oh, I like the water,” she said. “I used to like to sail.” She hadn’t sailed since that fateful day with her father, but it was something she missed.

“Aha!” Gabriel said. “Did Lloyd mention that I have a sailboat?”

She was embarrassed. She did recall Dr. Peterson mentioning that fact, perhaps as long as a year ago. Would Gabriel think she was hinting at a commonality between them? She would never know, because right at that moment Dr. Peterson had walked into her office, and she’d had no choice but to turn Gabriel over to him, saving her answer to his question for the next time he called.

Now Dr. Peterson stepped into her office again and picked up Richie Hesky’s chart.

“Let him take off his shoes,” Lisbeth whispered to him, and Lloyd Peterson smiled his understanding at her. “Are you playing tennis tonight?” she asked, trying to sound casual, hoping it was not obvious to him that she was yearning for Gabriel to call.

“Not tonight,” he said, leafing through Richie’s chart. “Gabe’s tied up in meetings.” He poked his head around the corner of her office into the waiting room.

“Richard? Come with me, son.”

Well, darn. No chance to talk to Gabriel today. She was being ridiculous, anyway; she was hardly in his league. Gabriel was the chief accountant at San Francisco General. He was certainly older than she was, maybe by many years. And the truth was, if she had an opportunity to meet the man, she would turn it down. That meeting, she knew, would put an end to their long phone conversations.

At twenty-six years of age, Lisbeth weighed two hundred pounds. Although she had a few girlfriends who worked for other doctors in the area, she still found most of her solace in food. She’d given up trying to emulate Carlynn’s style of dress, and she wore her short blond hair in petal curls she set with bobby pins every night before going to bed.

Carlynn, on the other hand, was the same one hundred and fifteen pounds she’d been when she graduated from high school, and just last week she’d started wearing her long hair in a new do called a French twist, which she said kept it out of her way when she was working. She looked, Lisbeth thought, sophisticated and beautiful, and there were times, mostly in private, when Lisbeth had difficulty keeping her jealousy of her sister in check.

At eleven forty-five, Lisbeth left the office and walked the few blocks to the deli where she was to meet Carlynn. She was first to arrive, as usual, and as she carried two ham and cheese sandwiches from the deli counter to one of the small tables by the window, she hoped her sister would show up. Carlynn’s hospital schedule was not often predictable, and on a couple of occasions Lisbeth had watched the hands on the clock above the deli counter tick by as she gave up on her sister and ate lunch alone.

Today, though, Carlynn arrived at ten after twelve, and she was breathless, probably having run from the hospital.

She kissed Lisbeth’s cheek, then took a seat across the table from her.

“I talked to Mother last night,” Carlynn said, pulling one of the sandwiches to her side of the table.

“Is her eyesight any better?” Lisbeth asked.

“She said it’s still fuzzy. I gave her the name of a doctor to see in Monterey. I wish I could be there to go with her, but I really can’t get away.”

Delora had been complaining about problems with her vision, asking Carlynn to come home and “heal” her. Carlynn didn’t have time to breathe, much less make the trip to Cypress Point, but Lisbeth supposed it was only a matter of time before her twin would go, and she would have to decide if she wanted to accompany her or not.