Two of a Kind by Yona Zeldis McDonough Read Free Book Online Page A

I’ll take care of you.”
    â€œPlease,” she said. “It’s not about that. It’s the principle of the thing.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œAnd another thing: I gave that fellow downstairs a big tip to fix the leak in my bathroom faucet and it’s
still
dripping. The sound is driving me crazy at night.”
    â€œIs he a plumber?” Andy asked, glancing at his watch.
    â€œNo, but he said he could handle it.”
    â€œMa, I think you need a plumber to take a look. Do you need me to call one?”
    â€œI’d appreciate that,” she said.
    Again, Andy checked his watch. “Can I call you later?” he asked.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    At the hospital, both C-sections went extremely well. Julie Bixby delivered a perfect little boy—seven pounds, five ounces—and Samantha Kane hit the jackpot with triplets, all of them girls. They were preemies of course, whisked off for testing practically the second they came out. All three were more than two pounds each, which was tiny but still viable. And their vital signs looked good. When Andy held the first one in his arms, she screwed up her face and looked at him with such indignation that he wanted to kiss her.
Feisty,
Andy thought.
This one is going to make
it.
    So he was in an excellent mood while he made his rounds and then left the hospital. He planned to walk up to Seventy-ninth Street, which was where Jennifer lived. But just as he crossed Seventy-third Street, his phone buzzed again. This time it was his service, calling to inform him that Linda McConnell, one of his patients, was in labor
now
; she’d been monitoring the contractions for the last hour. Which would have been fine except that she was only twenty-six weeks pregnant; the baby in there was not fully cooked. He called her back immediately.
    â€œTell your husband to take you to the ER; I’ll meet you there. And have him call an ambulance.”
    â€œAll right, Dr. Stern.” She was crying of course. They all cried.
    â€œAnd Linda? I want you to hang on. Tell yourself you are
not
going to have this baby until you get to the hospital.” He said good-bye and checked his watch. No way was he going to make that date with Jen. Then he raised his arm and hailed a taxi to take him straight to the hospital.

FOUR
    O liver sat on an ornately carved wooden bench outside Cunningham’s office, which was on the ground floor of the fortresslike building that housed Morningside Grammar and Prep. The seat of the bench was worn in places, evidence of all the kids who’d waited here before him. Oliver wasn’t looking forward to this meeting, but his father had made it clear that Cunningham was insisting on it. “And this time you’d better show up,” his dad had said. “Otherwise, you’ll be spending your senior year somewhere else.” Oliver might not have cared about this had it not been for the presence of Delphine, an incredibly hot French girl who had shown up in his grade this year. The thought of being apart from her this summer—she was going back to France—was bad enough; he had to know that he would be seeing her in September.
    Oliver looked around the waiting area. There was a frayed rug in front of the bench, and the table in front of him was scratched. Everything about this place was worn-out. But the lack of attention to appearances was a reverse kind of snobbery.
We don’t care about any of that statusy stuff,
it said.
We just care about the life of
the
mind.
Which was pretty funny when you considered that Morningside was a third-rate school for kids who couldn’t cut it at Dalton, Spence, Chapin, Brearley, or any of the other really good private schools. Oliver used to go to Dalton, but that was before his mom died and everything went totally to hell.
    On the table sat copies of the student paper and yearbook. Once, he’d thought about becoming involved with both;