Palmyra Weston slid the tray onto the small table and looked around the hospital cafeteria before pulling out a chair. She saw none of her close acquaintances, but there were several other nurses in groups of two or three spotted at random in the large room. She took her seat at the table, sipped at the tomato juice in the small frosted glass, and picked up her fork.
As she toyed with her salad, she rested one elbow on the table, bringing her arm up and placing her fingertips on her brow. Her fingers formed a protective guile through which she could peer without being easily detected.
Her eyes searched the faces at the nearby tables as she nibbled half-heartedly at food she didn't really want. There was a restlessness in her today, and it worried her a little. She was to be in surgery this afternoon, and Dr. Grafton was operating. One sign of restlessness around him, and she would be in trouble. He was a fanatic on complete alertness at all times.
As she tried to throw off the unexplainable nervousness, her gaze halted on a group seated two tables away from her. Her pulse raced for a few beats as she studied the darkly handsome countenance of the man who was facing toward her. He was nodding at something one of the other diners at his table was saying.
She realized that it was Dr. Grafton's back which partly hid the upper torso of the man whose appearance excited her so much. If he was in Grafton's company, he must be another doctor, and probably an important one. Grafton was known for his snobbishness among the other members of his profession.
Palmyra was trying to remember where she had seen the exciting face before. Her fingers parted to give her a better view of him. Just then, he looked up while drinking from his water tumbler, and his piercing gray eyes met her gaze.
Her pulse jumped, starting an even more rapid pace than before. Her china-blue eyes flickered away from the gray orbs which had tried to lock them in place. She fumbled with the peas on her fork, and several dropped off to roll across the table. As she reached out to keep them from falling on the floor, her hand knocked over the juice glass.
As the edge of the glass hit the tabletop, it rolled, and tomato juice splashed out at her just as she jumped to her feet. It made a crimson pattern on the front of her uniform, right at the crotch. Clumsily, aware that she was being stared at by those around her, she dabbed at the puddle on the table with her tiny paper napkin.
It was definitely inadequate, and she now regretted not having used it to blot the worst off her uniform. To get more napkins, she would have to walk through the room past dozens of diners, her embarrassing stain looking for all the world as though she had been caught unaware by a sudden and generous menstrual flow.
She could feel the heat of the blood pounding at her temples, and knew she was blushing furiously. The longer she postponed the humiliating promenade to get napkins or a cleaning rag, the longer she was the target for all the eyes nearby.
Then her downcast eyes saw the neatly pressed creases in the fawn slacks, and as her gaze traveled upward, she knew even before she reached his face who it was that had come swiftly to her table.
The lean, tanned face wore a warm expression of solicitude, and his teeth gleamed in a friendly smile. He had picked up all the napkins available at his table, and now handed them to Palmyra.
"Please sit down," he said, and she wondered why his voice, though gentle enough, seemed to be issuing a command. As she took the napkins and reseated herself, he pulled out the chair across from her and sat down.
"Moisten it with a little water, first," he advised. But again, it sounded like an order, rather than a suggestion. She dipped the corner of a napkin in her water glass and reached under the table to sponge hastily at the embarrassing stain.
"I had a similar accident once," he said. His voice, she noticed now, was pleasantly modulated, even though there was a steely tone underlying the more gentle sound. "I was wearing tropical whites. It was at a sidewalk cafe in Paris. Not only was I embarrassed, but when I stood up I had the horribly strange feeling that I had been castrated. It was a hell of a psychological shock for a few moments, until I pulled myself together."
"Thank you for coming to my rescue," she told him, amazed at the casual way he discussed such sexually anatomical matters with a stranger of the opposite sex. It made her wonder if he really was a medical man, after all. Laymen usually thought nurses were immune to embarrassment at such matters.
"The memory of my own experience made me more than eager to lie of whatever help I could," he replied. "If only as moral support."
"I'm very grateful, Doctor…"
"Harshman," he supplied. "Paul Harshman. With one 'N' only. And you're…?" one almost-satanic brow arched quizzically at her.
"Pal Weston," she replied. "It's Palmyra, but only my mother uses the full name, especially when I've done something to upset her."
"Do you do that often, Pal?" he wanted to know.
"Heavens, no!" she protested. "I'm usually not clumsy at all. This is the first time I've ever spilled anything at the table since I was a kid."
"That's not what I meant, Pal," he said, chuckling softly. "I wondered if you often did things to upset your mother."
"Oh!" her laughter joined in, and their eyes met in mutual warmth for a brief moment. Then she quieted as she remembered that Grafton was only a few yards away. "I hope you won't tell Dr. Grafton how fumbled-fingered I was. I'm on his surgery team this afternoon."
"I'll be the soul of discretion," he promised, "if you'll have dinner with me this evening." He was smiling, but that steely undertone made her think that he was seriously blackmailing her.
"And if I couldn't wouldn't?" she asked, blue eyes wide as she peered into his metallic gray orbs.
"Let's not even discuss that possibility," he said. "Shall I pick you up at seven? And where do I call for you?" His relaxed confidence was disconcerting, and beneath it she detected the same tone of command. It disarmed her.
"Castle Arms Apartments. It's 2A," she said, then got to her feet, trying to keep her hands in front of her pinkly damp uniform. Harshman stood up and moved to stand between her and the exit.
"I'll stay in front of you until we get where there's less traffic," he offered. She moved along closely behind him until they were in a hall intersection.
"Thank you very much, Doctor," she said.
"You needn't thank me," he replied. "You're paying me for services rendered, you know." When her eyes widened at this, he hurried to clarify his statement. "The pleasure of your lovely company tonight… remember?" His smile melted any misgivings she had begun to feel as she wondered what kind of payment he had intended to exact.
"That's right. I hadn't forgotten, really. Just a little confused after my silly accident. Seven o'clock, then."
"Seven," he repeated, then turned and moved down the hall toward the elevators. Pal gazed after him over her shoulder as she moved in the opposite direction. When she almost collided with a cart from the diet kitchen, she pulled her mind back to her duties, and rushed to get her uniform changed before she reported to surgery.
Luckily, Thaddeus Grafton had a minor emergency with an outpatient and was several minutes late, so he didn't discover Pal's tardiness. She had just finished getting into sterile garb and was adjusting her mask as he came plunging through the door of the scrub-room.
Later, during those short respites between stages of the operation, she felt him studying her. Twice, she managed to catch him looking directly at her, but he shifted his gaze to the patient both times. Yet, she had noticed his studious regard, and the quizzical arch of his brows before he looked away. She wondered if someone else had seen her nervous clumsiness in the cafeteria, and had mentioned it to the difficult old surgeon.
When the second patient was completely under the control of the anesthetic, and Grafton began the mastectomy, she happened to look up at the small audience seated behind the glass which separated them from the sterile amphitheater of the operating room.
Paul Harshman was staring intently at the procedure, and for a brief moment before he noticed her watching him, she got the strange impression that he was morbidly relishing the way Grafton's scalpel had started to sever the breast from the young patient's torso.
But after he met her startled gaze, he seemed to change his expression to one of humorous camaraderie. When he winked at her, she forced a smile, then realized he couldn't see it behind the mask.
Quickly, she turned her head to watch the surgeon. At any time, he might finish the commentary being picked up by the overhead microphone for the instruction of the interns and other members of the viewing audience. She didn't dare be a fraction of a second late in her reaction when he called for something and held out his hand.
When the wound was dressed and the bloodied mound of creamy flesh had been covered and sent off to pathology, Pal looked up at the big window again. Paul Harshman was gone.
By the time she had finished the post-op duty and removed the bloody-sleeved surgical gown, Grafton and his assistant had left the scrub-room. While she washed up, she could hear the intern who had attended the operation – Jack something-or-other who was Grafton's current protege – talking to Matthews, the anesthetist.
"Did you notice that lean, tanned cat in the expensive suit? He was licking his chops as if he wanted to dive through the glass and eat that meat before the pathologists got their hands on it. And the hungry look in those cold, steely eyes! Man, I'll bet he'd have gnawed off the other breast before anyone could stop him if he'd been down below with us!"
"Kee-rist, Jack!" said the anesthetist, disgusted with the way the intern's mind worked. "How could you interpret all that by a couple of looks at an observer during such a short operation? Sure you aren't a bit of a sadist, yourself? He was probably just straining to get a good view, like any doctor might, in case he ever has to perform the same operation himself."
"Not him, friend!" protested the intern. "He's not a surgeon. He's a field rep for Boswell Bio-Ceuticals. I know, because he had lunch with Grafton and me. And different things he talked about gave me the feeling he wasn't exactly normal in his attitude toward the physiology of surgery."
"I still think you've got a sick mind, Jack," said the anesthetist. "You'll have to excuse me. I'm on standby for O.R. Two. Some chick who wants a natural delivery just might scream for a little help at the last minute when those pains get real bad."
Pal hurried out into the hall before she could be noticed. By the time the two men appeared, she was busily pretending to drink at the hall fountain. When they separated, she slowly followed the intern, who was headed for the coffee room, she knew. She wanted to see if he was going to spread any more of his sick slander.
She wasn't quite sure why she felt the urge to protect Paul Harshman's reputation. After all, even if she did have a date with him, she hadn't known him longer than three hours, and their meeting had been awfully brief. Of course, she had eyed him several times in the last few months.
So he was on the road for a pharmaceutical manufacturer. No wonder she saw him so seldom here at Good Sam. But those tall, lean good looks had intrigued her every time she had glimpsed him. In fact, he made her maidenly juices flow a little each time she saw him. She tried to think cooler thoughts as she pushed open the door to the coffee room.
Jack of the sick mind was in a huddle with Juanita Peron and Isabel Marcy, the two goof-offs of the current crop of nurse's aides. But his smart mouth, Pal noticed, was devoted to the type of talk he always used around the more impressionable females of the staff. As long as he was busy trying to maneuver someone into his bed, he wouldn't be likely to reopen the subject of Paul Harshman.
Pal lit a cigarette, took three puffs, and put it out. Then she left the room before anyone could get her into a conversation.
For the rest of the day, whenever she had some time for her own thoughts, she pondered on the strange complexity of Paul's personality. By the end of the day, she had solved nothing, but she had determined to use her feminine wiles to probe this masculine mystery when she met him in the evening.
Of all the things about him – at least all of the few things she knew or could guess – the one which bothered her most was that indescribable quality which seemed to magnetize her whenever he was around her.
She began to think that maybe it was a case of the bird hypnotized by the serpent. But she shrugged that off as prejudice which must have been caused by the intern she was comma to think of as Sick Jack.
After all, even if she was a virgin, and still lacked experience in some phases of the male-female relationship, she had managed to take care of herself pretty well so far. Paul Harshman couldn't be a danger to her. No matter who or what he was, she was only going to "repay" him for his lunch-time courtesy by acceding to his wish for her company during a single evening.
What harm could come of that?