Lew. “If it’s not too late when I finally get caught up, could I call you to finish our conversation?”
“No calls about this,” he said, too quickly. He realized she was taken aback and added, “Tell you what. I’ll come in an hour early if you’d like, and we can talk.”
“If you don’t mind getting up that early,”
“I work a farm, Abby. I’m
always
up that early. Meetme right out here at seven. If you’re busy, I’ll wait. And, please, don’t say a word to anyone about all this until we’ve talked.”
“O-okay,” she said, bewildered by the precautions and by his tone.
“Abby, I’m sorry if I seem paranoid,” he said in his near whisper. “But I have every right to be.”
The woman’s name was Claire Buchanan. She had been born and raised in the Midwest and had gone to New York City at eighteen to make it in show business. Her hair was colored flame-red.
“I was a damn good dancer,” she said, talking almost nonstop as Abby carefully examined her skin, eyes, and ears. “At least for Sioux City I was. But New York is a different story. Thankfully, though, I got lucky. I met Dennis Buchanan, and he took me the hell out of there. A few years later we were living outside of LA and Dennis was selling carpeting. He has a gift. Like they say, he could sell refrigerators to Eskimos. Anyhow, one day we were just driving around up here and we found this town on a map. Dennis liked the name. We decided to spend the night, and we weren’t here fifteen minutes when he saw the For Sale sign on the John Deere tractor place. ‘Claire,’ he told me, ‘this is it. This is as far as we need to go.’ That was almost ten years ago. Now I’m beginning to wonder if maybe I’ve developed an allergy to the damn place or something. Or maybe I’m allergic to Dennis. I’ll tell you this, I can’t stand this itching anymore.”
“Mrs. Buchanan—”
“It’s okay to call me Claire. Everyone does.”
“Claire, tell me. Did your itching get at all better with the cortisone pills I gave you?”
“Maybe for a little while. The Benadryl might have helped a little, too. Then it just got bad again. Especiallyat night. I went to see Dr. Oleander, but he said he couldn’t find much. He was very complimentary about you, though. He said that you had done a very thorough workup on me.”
“Except I can’t figure out what’s wrong.”
“He thinks it’s nerves.”
“Are you the nervous type?”
“I don’t think so, except that I’m very claustrophobic. My mother and sister are, too. Dr. Oleander did one of those MRI tests on me for some stomach trouble I was having. If he hadn’t given me a tranquilizer and a blindfold, I would have never made it into that tube.”
“What stomach trouble? When?”
“I don’t know. Six, eight months ago. The tests were all negative and my indigestion went away. But, Dr. Dolan, I can’t sit around waiting for this itching to go away. You’ve got to do something to help me before I just throw myself into one of Dennis’s combines.”
“I don’t know what’s going on with you, Claire, but I don’t think it’s in your head. I can sort of feel a fullness in places beneath your skin, a thickening, but I just can’t see anything. And I can’t tell if the thickness is from your scratching so much. I think the next step is a dermatology consult and maybe a biopsy.”
“Whatever you say.”
“Actually, it’s whatever Dr. Oleander says. He’s your primary-care physician, and we try to defer making any referrals to him. But I’m sure he’ll be happy to send you to the dermatologist.”
“I don’t think so,” Claire said. “The last time you saw me here, you suggested I see a dermatologist. But Dr. O said this itching was either nerves or hives, and that all I would be doing was traveling thirty miles each way to have a so-called specialist tell me the same thing.”
“Well, now that you’re no better after a course of oral cortisone, I think
“No calls about this,” he said, too quickly. He realized she was taken aback and added, “Tell you what. I’ll come in an hour early if you’d like, and we can talk.”
“If you don’t mind getting up that early,”
“I work a farm, Abby. I’m
always
up that early. Meetme right out here at seven. If you’re busy, I’ll wait. And, please, don’t say a word to anyone about all this until we’ve talked.”
“O-okay,” she said, bewildered by the precautions and by his tone.
“Abby, I’m sorry if I seem paranoid,” he said in his near whisper. “But I have every right to be.”
The woman’s name was Claire Buchanan. She had been born and raised in the Midwest and had gone to New York City at eighteen to make it in show business. Her hair was colored flame-red.
“I was a damn good dancer,” she said, talking almost nonstop as Abby carefully examined her skin, eyes, and ears. “At least for Sioux City I was. But New York is a different story. Thankfully, though, I got lucky. I met Dennis Buchanan, and he took me the hell out of there. A few years later we were living outside of LA and Dennis was selling carpeting. He has a gift. Like they say, he could sell refrigerators to Eskimos. Anyhow, one day we were just driving around up here and we found this town on a map. Dennis liked the name. We decided to spend the night, and we weren’t here fifteen minutes when he saw the For Sale sign on the John Deere tractor place. ‘Claire,’ he told me, ‘this is it. This is as far as we need to go.’ That was almost ten years ago. Now I’m beginning to wonder if maybe I’ve developed an allergy to the damn place or something. Or maybe I’m allergic to Dennis. I’ll tell you this, I can’t stand this itching anymore.”
“Mrs. Buchanan—”
“It’s okay to call me Claire. Everyone does.”
“Claire, tell me. Did your itching get at all better with the cortisone pills I gave you?”
“Maybe for a little while. The Benadryl might have helped a little, too. Then it just got bad again. Especiallyat night. I went to see Dr. Oleander, but he said he couldn’t find much. He was very complimentary about you, though. He said that you had done a very thorough workup on me.”
“Except I can’t figure out what’s wrong.”
“He thinks it’s nerves.”
“Are you the nervous type?”
“I don’t think so, except that I’m very claustrophobic. My mother and sister are, too. Dr. Oleander did one of those MRI tests on me for some stomach trouble I was having. If he hadn’t given me a tranquilizer and a blindfold, I would have never made it into that tube.”
“What stomach trouble? When?”
“I don’t know. Six, eight months ago. The tests were all negative and my indigestion went away. But, Dr. Dolan, I can’t sit around waiting for this itching to go away. You’ve got to do something to help me before I just throw myself into one of Dennis’s combines.”
“I don’t know what’s going on with you, Claire, but I don’t think it’s in your head. I can sort of feel a fullness in places beneath your skin, a thickening, but I just can’t see anything. And I can’t tell if the thickness is from your scratching so much. I think the next step is a dermatology consult and maybe a biopsy.”
“Whatever you say.”
“Actually, it’s whatever Dr. Oleander says. He’s your primary-care physician, and we try to defer making any referrals to him. But I’m sure he’ll be happy to send you to the dermatologist.”
“I don’t think so,” Claire said. “The last time you saw me here, you suggested I see a dermatologist. But Dr. O said this itching was either nerves or hives, and that all I would be doing was traveling thirty miles each way to have a so-called specialist tell me the same thing.”
“Well, now that you’re no better after a course of oral cortisone, I think
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