hanging between them, no shared worries about Doug Carey or lawsuits or hospital boards to ruin their supper. Elizabeth will help him escape this crisis, at least for an evening.
And whose help do I have?
N o rubber chicken tonight, observed Dr. Robbie Brace as a waitress set a plate before him. He looked down at the rack of spring lamb and new potatoes and glazed baby vegetables. Everything looked tender and so very young. As his knife sliced through the meat, he thought, The privileged prefer to dine on babies. But he did not feel particularly privileged tonight, despite the fact he sat at a candlelit table, a flute of champagne beside his plate. He glanced at his wife, Greta, sitting beside him and saw her pale forehead etched with a frown. He suspected that frown had nothing to do with the quality of her meal, her request for a vegetarian plate had been graciously filled, and the food was artistically presented. As she gazed around at the two dozen other tables in the banquet room, perhaps she was taking note of what her husband had already observed, They'd been seated at the table farthest from the dais. Banished to a corner where they'd be scarcely noticed.
Half the chairs at their table were vacant, and the other three chairs were occupied by nursing home administrators and an extremely deaf Brant Hill investor. Theirs was the Siberia of tables.
Scanning the room, he saw that all the other physicians were seated in better locations. Dr. Chris Olshank�who'd been hired the same week Robbie was�rated a table far closer to the dais. Maybe it means nothing.
Maybe it's just a screwup in the seating arrangements. But he could not help noting the essential difference between Chris Olshank and himself.
Olshank was white.
Man, you're just screwing around with your own head.
He took a swallow of champagne, drinking it down in a resentful gulp, the whole time intensely aware that he was the only black male guest at the banquet. There were two black women at another table, but he was the only black man. It was something he never failed to take stock of, something that was always in the forefront of his consciousness whenever he walked into a room full of people. How many were white, how many Asian, how many black? Too many, one way or the other, made him uneasy, as though it violated some privately acceptable racial quota. Even now, as a doctor, he couldn't get away from that painful awareness of his own skin color. The M.D. after his name had changed nothing.
Greta reached for him, her hand small and pale against his blackness.
"You're not eating."
"Sure I am." He looked at her plate of vegetables. "How's the rabbit food?"
"Very good, as a matter of fact. Have a taste." She slipped a forkful of garlicky potatoes into his mouth. "Nice, isn't it? And better for your arteries than that poor lamb is."
"Once a carnivore�"
"Yes, always a carnivore. But I keep hoping you'll see the light."
At last he smiled, reflecting on the beauty of his own wife. Greta had more than just eye-of-the-beholder beauty, one saw fire and intelligence in her face. Though she seemed oblivious to her effect on the opposite sex, Brace was painfully aware of how other men looked at her. Aware, too, of how they looked at him, a black man married to a redhead. Envy, resentment, puzzlement�he saw it in men's eyes as they glanced between husband and wife, between black and white.
A tap on the microphone drew their attention. Brace looked up and saw that Kenneth Foley, the CEO of Brant Hill, was standing behind the podium.
The lights dimmed and a slide appeared on the projector screen over Foley's head. It was the Brant Hill logo, a curly baroque B intertwined with an H, and beneath it the words, WHERE LIVING WELL IS THE BEST REWARD.
"That is a disgusting slogan," whispered Greta. "Why don't they just say, Where the rich folk live?"
Brace gave her knee a squeeze of warning. He agreed with her, of course, but one didn't spout off Socialist
And whose help do I have?
N o rubber chicken tonight, observed Dr. Robbie Brace as a waitress set a plate before him. He looked down at the rack of spring lamb and new potatoes and glazed baby vegetables. Everything looked tender and so very young. As his knife sliced through the meat, he thought, The privileged prefer to dine on babies. But he did not feel particularly privileged tonight, despite the fact he sat at a candlelit table, a flute of champagne beside his plate. He glanced at his wife, Greta, sitting beside him and saw her pale forehead etched with a frown. He suspected that frown had nothing to do with the quality of her meal, her request for a vegetarian plate had been graciously filled, and the food was artistically presented. As she gazed around at the two dozen other tables in the banquet room, perhaps she was taking note of what her husband had already observed, They'd been seated at the table farthest from the dais. Banished to a corner where they'd be scarcely noticed.
Half the chairs at their table were vacant, and the other three chairs were occupied by nursing home administrators and an extremely deaf Brant Hill investor. Theirs was the Siberia of tables.
Scanning the room, he saw that all the other physicians were seated in better locations. Dr. Chris Olshank�who'd been hired the same week Robbie was�rated a table far closer to the dais. Maybe it means nothing.
Maybe it's just a screwup in the seating arrangements. But he could not help noting the essential difference between Chris Olshank and himself.
Olshank was white.
Man, you're just screwing around with your own head.
He took a swallow of champagne, drinking it down in a resentful gulp, the whole time intensely aware that he was the only black male guest at the banquet. There were two black women at another table, but he was the only black man. It was something he never failed to take stock of, something that was always in the forefront of his consciousness whenever he walked into a room full of people. How many were white, how many Asian, how many black? Too many, one way or the other, made him uneasy, as though it violated some privately acceptable racial quota. Even now, as a doctor, he couldn't get away from that painful awareness of his own skin color. The M.D. after his name had changed nothing.
Greta reached for him, her hand small and pale against his blackness.
"You're not eating."
"Sure I am." He looked at her plate of vegetables. "How's the rabbit food?"
"Very good, as a matter of fact. Have a taste." She slipped a forkful of garlicky potatoes into his mouth. "Nice, isn't it? And better for your arteries than that poor lamb is."
"Once a carnivore�"
"Yes, always a carnivore. But I keep hoping you'll see the light."
At last he smiled, reflecting on the beauty of his own wife. Greta had more than just eye-of-the-beholder beauty, one saw fire and intelligence in her face. Though she seemed oblivious to her effect on the opposite sex, Brace was painfully aware of how other men looked at her. Aware, too, of how they looked at him, a black man married to a redhead. Envy, resentment, puzzlement�he saw it in men's eyes as they glanced between husband and wife, between black and white.
A tap on the microphone drew their attention. Brace looked up and saw that Kenneth Foley, the CEO of Brant Hill, was standing behind the podium.
The lights dimmed and a slide appeared on the projector screen over Foley's head. It was the Brant Hill logo, a curly baroque B intertwined with an H, and beneath it the words, WHERE LIVING WELL IS THE BEST REWARD.
"That is a disgusting slogan," whispered Greta. "Why don't they just say, Where the rich folk live?"
Brace gave her knee a squeeze of warning. He agreed with her, of course, but one didn't spout off Socialist