Doctors by Erich Segal Read Free Book Online Page B

Warren was there. During the halftime break, they retired to the dressing room and sucked sliced oranges. Barney, his uniform heavy with sweat, slumped on the floor against a locker. Forty minutes later, when the game ended with Midwood a six-point victor—Barney had scored thirteen. Instead of following the rest of the guys to the lockers, he walked slowly over to Laura and Warren.
    Laura spoke first. “Papa wouldn’t let him come.”
    “Huh?”
    “Right after dinner Dad felt some sort of pain in his chest,”Warren explained, “and Dr. Castellano came and examined him.”
    “What’s wrong?”
    “Papa thinks it was probably just something he ate,” Laura quickly added. “But he made him go to bed to be on the safe side.” And then she tried to change the subject. “You were fantastic out there, Barn. I bet you get your picture in the
Argus.
”
    And Warren added, “I’ll remember every single terrific thing you did for the rest of my life.”
    “Yeah, good,” said Barney absently, and started toward the showers.
    The next morning Luis drove a reluctant Harold Livingston to King’s County for an electrocardiogram. His neighbor had agreed to go only on condition that Estelle not accompany them. (“You’re already upset over nothing, honey.”)
    Later, as he smoked nervously, Harold could overhear Luis discussing the results with the cardiologist, mumbling about P-waves and Q-waves.
    Finally, Luis came over and helped Harold to the car.
    “Well,” Harold asked, trying to mask his anxiety, “wasn’t it just indigestion? I seem to be prone to that after all those years on Army food.”
    Luis did not reply for a moment. Then he remarked, “Harold, the test showed you had some cardiac arrhythmia. That means—”
    “I know Greek, Luis. Some sort of irregularity of tempo. Is it anything serious?”
    “Well, yes and no. It can be an isolated physiological event that means nothing. Or it can be a warning signal of some underlying pathological process.”
    “That’s just a grandiloquent way of saying you don’t know.”
    “Okay, Harold, I
don’t
know. But since you don’t know either, I suggest you start taking better care of yourself and having regular checkups. You can begin by cutting down on the cigarettes.”
    “They relax me.”
    “You only
think
they do, my friend. Nicotine is a truly poisonous alkaloid and it is actually a stimulant. I can assure you that it would do you no harm to smoke less.”
    As the car approached Lincoln Place, Harold asked, “What are you going to say to Estelle?”
    “Don’t you think I should tell her the truth?”
    “You’ve already admitted you don’t know for sure.”
    “May I at least tell her that?”
    “Feel free, Luis,” Harold answered good-humoredly, “broadcast the inadequacies of your profession all over Brooklyn.”
    But the moment Luis parked his car, Harold turned to him and said firmly, “But there’s no reason to trouble the children about this.”
    “I agree, Harold. They should not be given additional burdens when they are busy enough just trying to grow up. But I want
you
to worry and remember what I told you.”
    Barney tried to broach the subject casually.
    As they were riding the trolley on Monday morning, he looked up from his Chem book and asked matter-of-factly (in a casual tone he had much rehearsed), “Are you ‘going all the way’ with Jay Axelrod?”
    “None of your business,” Laura retorted.
    “That means you are.”
    “No, it just means it’s none of your business. How come you’re asking, anyway?”
    “Well,” he replied sheepishly, “some of the guys on the team—”
    “The basketball team? The closest those horny nerds have gotten to a naked woman is the statues in the Brooklyn Museum, which I’m sure they’d like to feel up.”
    “Yeah.” Barney laughed. “They do exaggerate sometimes, don’t they?”
    “Not just ‘they,’ Livingston. I hear you’ve been going around school claiming you’ve