She had met Jude Adler six months ago, at a party at the Steins’ house. Immediately, she formed an opinion of her. Seeing them together again reaffirmed her belief that they were lovers. She envied Jude her intimacy with Eli - their silent communion as they waited for the elevator while the rest of the world passed by outside their bubble. She watched from behind the white marble statue of a naked David, believing that, even if she revealed herself right now, neither of them would feel the least bit uncomfortable. They were that self-certain – that deeply enmeshed - a damnable, inexplicable serendipity that made their blatant wrongness for each other seem irrelevant.
Today she intended to prove that Eli and Jude were lovers – to badger him until he admitted it – to guilt him into choosing her or Jude - to forbid him ever to see Jude again if he expected to marry her.
It was obvious to Beth that they were on their way upstairs to make love this morning. The light above the elevator door dropped down to G. They walked in together while she watched behind the statue of David. Her eyes followed the lighted numbers to the fifth floor. She put her hand into her coat pocket and pressed the imprint of the key into her palm.
As soon as he gave Jude a tour of the apartment, Eli crashed onto the rumpled sheets in the master bedroom. Up here on the 5th floor with the radiators hissing, the sound of trolley cars passing on the street was a muffled rumble. Jude found her way around the boxes of books and curled up in the only chair in what was soon to be Eli’s library. Hours later, she marked her place with a matchbook and laid the book back in its packing box. Snow curtained the street lamps on Fifth Avenue. Yellow headlights were creeping through deep snow. Eli’s breathing echoed up the shadowy hall. It would be criminal to wake him now, just for goodbye. She’d see him on the ward tomorrow morning when the plastic surgery team made their rounds. She’d meet him for breakfast again when their schedules permitted; and join him and Killian for dinner, eventually, at the Chinese Palace on Forbes Avenue.
Right now, she needed to get back to her dorm; and she wished that she’d worn her hat. She felt along the top shelf in the foyer closet for a ski cap she might borrow. Amid the soft array of gloves and wrappings at her fingertips, lay something starched stiff as her nurse’s cap. She didn’t need to pull it down to know; it was Killian’s clerical collar.
She’d never wondered if they’d become lovers. They had always assumed that she knew. She couldn’t picture them sleeping naked on the rocks like Eli and Ben Ryan – or sparring nude in a boxing ring – or racing home at sunrise from RAMS Field house. Killian was part of their trinity, the third in a ménage engaged in a great passion for books and ideas. She envied Eli and Killian their lustier minds, groping in the dark, grasping ideas that escaped her more juvenile comprehension.
Of course Killian came to Eli’s apartment. Of course they would, on those occasions. They were both young men; and Jude was glad that they had each other. She didn’t think of either of them in that way.
She shoved Killian’s collar far back on the shelf where its tell-tale black and white blended into the gray darkness. She’d remind them to be more careful. Beth might reach up there just as innocently as she had.
Eli never stirred when the snap of the door latch echoed over the bare parquet floors. A woman waiting by the elevator door gave Jude the once-over then looked quickly away. Jude recognized Beth immediately. She watched her cross the corridor and disappear inside the fire exit; then she stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the lobby. She’d phone Eli and warn him when she reached the front desk.
Beth answered the phone when she dialed Eli’s number. Jude hung up quickly, like a guilty lover. Immediately, she wished she hadn’t. She had met Eli for breakfast. They had taken a five-minute tour of the apartment before he crashed, fully clothed down to the wet legs of his surgical trousers. Jude’s hang-up made it seem like so much more.
She wanted nothing from Beth Rosenblum’s fiancé but the pure sweet thoughts they shared about life – access to his wonderful books - communion with his free spirit. Yet Beth believed he was having an affair with her. If Killian O’Day were reading in Eli’s library while he slept, she would never think such a thing. Beth could only believe what she understood; and she would always believe it was Jude.
“Nurse Adler?” She turned the corner at the nurse’s station and hurried to the back of the Children’s Surgical Ward. The syringe she carried was Marcy’s pre- operative sedative. Marcy began to wail when she saw it. “I don’t want a shot. I want Doctor Eli!” Marcy had been rescued from her crib in a house fire when she was ten months old. She had already suffered through three years of painful plastic surgeries to repair a gruesomely disfigured face. She knew she was on her way to surgery. The pain was about to happen again.”
“Forget the Gurney,” Eli said. “I’ll carry her.” Jude watched that scarred little girl put her arms around to the neck of her giant hero and bury her disfigured little face in his thick, black beard. On a winter day, by Sully’s Run, he had been her hero – his strong arms clutching her for dear life as he climbed Monroe Street to Fazino’s Market. Eli Stein was born a hero. Why couldn’t Beth see that and just say, shalom?
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