“I know he reads the New England Journal of Medicine from cover to cover,” Betsy said in the doctor’s defense. “Anyway, I thought I’d found out some secret about him.”
“She didn’t even tell me!” April said reproachfully.
Betsy continued her story. “The package came two days later, and I asked if he wanted me to open it. He said no and took it into his office. Three days later when Mr. Tucker left the exam room, he was carrying the book. I wouldn’t have noticed but he had a note from the doctor and the poor man couldn’t read the handwriting, so he asked for my help.” Betsy stopped talking.
“What did the note say?” Heather asked.
“Well . . . ” Betsy said, “Mr. Tucker is in his seventies and all his family has moved away. His son lives in England. Or is it Sweden? Or maybe it’s Wyoming.” She looked at Alice, who shrugged. “Anyway, the poor man was alone and deteriorating fast. He was in here every other week with a new ailment.”
“ ‘Was’ alone?” Heather asked. “What happened?”
“The note he couldn’t read was the date and place of a book club meeting in the basement of the Baptist church. I didn’t tell the poor man so, but it was an all-female group.”
“Which is why they read authors like Barbara Pym,” Alice added.
“Mr. Turner went there to return the book and he—”
“Let me guess,” Heather said. “He met someone.”
Betsy smiled. “Mrs. Henries. She was sixty-eight and had been widowed two years before. Her two children also live elsewhere. Dr. Reede told Mr. Turner that Mrs. Henries had left the book in his office and would he please return it to her.”
“And it was the book the doctor had ordered?”
“Yes, it was. Last week I saw Mr. Turner and Mrs. Henries sitting in the town
square, and they both looked very happy—and Mr. Turner hasn’t been back in this office since. All his physical complaints seem to have disappeared.”
Heather was quiet for a moment. “Because the doctor’s done a few good deeds doesn’t excuse his bad behavior to most of his patients.”
“You mean he should be nicer to the many females who come here with no real problems but always end up inviting Dr. Reede out?” Alice asked.
“Or the men who live on beer and chicken wings but can’t understand why they’re so tired?” Betsy asked.
“And what doctor today makes house calls?” Alice asked. “Dr. Reede does. If a person is genuinely sick, he goes to them. One time he delivered the baby of a woman pinned inside a wrecked car. He slithered in through the broken back glass while the EMTs cut the door open to get her out. And he’d cut his leg enough to require stitches, but he didn’t tell anyone.”
“I don’t understand,” Heather said. “I keep hearing about this Dr. Tristan and how everyone loves him. What would he have done in those situations?”
“The same things, but his attitude is different. Dr. Tris would have gone through the back windshield too, but he wouldn’t have yelled that the EMTs weren’t doing their jobs quickly enough,” Betsy said.
“And while he was delivering the baby he would have teased and flirted with the young woman until she was half in love with him,” Alice said.
“Would he have put the knitting lady and the pregnant woman together?” Heather asked.
“Probably, but he wouldn’t have done it in secrecy,” Betsy said.
Heather looked from one to the other. “Didn’t some philosopher say something about it being better to give anonymously?”
Alice and Betsy were looking at her with little smiles on their faces.
“Okay,” Heather said, “so maybe I won’t quit. Maybe the next time he snaps at me I’ll try to remember some of his good deeds. But damn! He’s hard to be around. Maybe if he had a girlfriend he—”
“You think we haven’t tried that?” Betsy asked quickly. “We have paraded every pretty girl within fifty miles of here past him. Tell her about the party you threw at your house,” she said to Alice.
“I cooked for three days, and along with the other guests I invited eight very pretty, young, single women. Betsy and I made a list, then filled it: tall, short, skinny, plump.”
“Never married, been married with a child, even a young widow.”
“Betsy and I made sure Dr. Reede talked to each of them, but he wasn’t interested.”