“I’ll phone you, Tonio,” Galen called after him.
They heard Sarah giggle as she asked, “What’s with this ‘Tonio’ stuff? It sounds like the brand name for a spaghetti sauce.”
“Were we ever that young, Bob?”
Sandy looked up at the bear-sized man.
What could he say? He was, even with his New Jersey upbringing, a southern gentleman at heart.
“We still are, Sandy, especially you.”
He smiled at Edison’s look of astonishment and Nancy’s knowing expression.
“Sandy, why don’t you come with us?” Nancy chimed in. “We’re going to take a quick tour of Bob’s and your old stomping grounds. There’s plenty of room in Wilma.”
“Wilma?”
“Yeah,” Galen replied, “Edison likes to name things. It’s the RV we drove down in. He named it after a hurricane that hit the day he got it. It’s a great old RV. Sometimes I think it understands us, the way it handles on the road.”
Edison had braced himself for insults but now beamed at his friend’s compliment.
“I thought I was the only one who felt that way about Wilma.”
Nancy quickly changed the subject.
“Come on, let’s get moving. After we’re done we’ll come back here. Maybe the kids will want to go out for a late snack.”
The old doctors turned back momentarily to watch Tonio and Sarah standing in line at the registration office. They wondered if the kids would be as lucky as they had been with the toss-of-the-dice roommate selection.
3. Seven Come Eleven
The little silver music box sat on the white pine bookshelf above his desk.
Betty, please forgive me. I’d like to see Sarah again, maybe take her out.
Antonio Hidalgo sat on the bare mattress in his small dorm room. He stared at the pale-green-painted cinder block walls.
He felt guilty, just as he had when he had dated in college, but this girl was special. What was it about Sarah Knowlton?
He picked up the music box and opened it. “Lara’s Theme” filled the room but so did something else.
Tonio, go with her. It was meant to be.
He lay on the bare gray mattress, clutching the little box to his chest, overwhelmed by thoughts of Betty Orth. He wanted to cry but couldn’t. Even now, Betty had given him everything.
“When did she die?”
“Holy shit! Don’t you knock?”
Tonio jumped up from the bed, startled by the quiet New York City accent. In the open doorway stood a muscular young man, ocean-blue eyes peering at him from behind thick-framed glasses. He was dressed for the tennis court in white jersey and shorts, cased racket under his left arm, a captain’s hat topping russet-brown hair.
He held out his right hand. “Julius Petrie, but call me JP.”
Tonio put the music box back on the shelf and shook the young man’s hand.
“Antonio Hidalgo. I go by Tonio, or Tony, or ‘hey, you.’ Sorry I snapped at you, JP. I didn’t hear you come in.”
Their grips both strong, the two first-year med students took the measure of each other—blue eyes peering into brown and vice versa. Each held the same, unspoken thought:
This could be a worthy opponent.
The young Cuban immigrant sensed the presence of family money and position in his roommate, and the wealthy New Yorker felt a hidden strength and something else, something strangely spiritual, in Tonio. Both recognized a high level of intelligence.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, Tony.”
“It’s okay, but how did you know?”
Julius Petrie took on a didactic tone as he dragged his suitcases into the room and tossed them on the other bed.
“Elementary, my dear Hidalgo.”
The comment brought a harrumphing smile.
“Okay, I’ll be serious. There you were, a young guy, lying on an unmade bed, holding a music box and looking down in the dumps. Several possibilities crossed my mind. First, it had to be a gift from someone else, but whom?
“Mom? No, not the type of gift a mother would give.
“Sis? Ditto and it’s definitely not a guy gift, so that lets out father, brothers, male relatives and friends.
“What do we have left? The girlfriend—or maybe the fiancée. But why’s he on the verge of tears? He just broke up with her? No, usually a guy would just toss a gift if he’d been dumped. Did he leave the girl behind to go to school? That’s obvious, but he could always keep in touch and travel is easy. So, the girl is gone, but in a permanent sense. That’s the type of sadness I saw in you.”
Tonio stared at him then slowly stretched his lips out tightly in sad acknowledgment.
“Yeah, you nailed it.”
“What happened?”
Even now, Tonio couldn’t form the word easily.
“L ... eukemia.”
“That’s awful, Tony. I didn’t mean to be so glib.”
Tonio forgave him by changing the subject.
“So, what’s your story? What brings you to this revered institution?”
“Someday I want to do forensic pathology.”
“JP, that’s a foregone conclusion, and I think you’ll be great at it.”
So it began, two bright, driven young men thrown together for the first great cycle of their careers. They sat on their respective beds, talking about family, school, girls, goals and girls.
“So, why did she dump you, JP?”
“Ah, well, that gets to what my life has been like. Father and Mother both came from the crème de la crème of society. My sister and I were attending cotillions by the time we were 12. God help us if we committed any social faux pas.
“Dad went to Harvard Med and became a society doc. He treats all the neuroses of our social class, you know, the ones with more money than common sense. He validates their empty lives.
“Mother is … well … mother. She enjoys her parties and getaways at the Hamptons; loves all of the big dinners for major campaign contributors and charity types.”
“I figured as much. So what happened to you? You don’t look like the black sheep type. And what about your sister?”
“Sis joined the Peace Corps, which really ticked off the parents. And when I wanted to go somewhere besides Daddy’s alma mater you can guess what hit the fan. Good thing Grandma left me a trust fund.
“Then Tiffany decided I wasn’t good husband material, so ‘sayonara, JP.’”
As Tonio listened his stare grew harder.
“So how about we cut the crap.”
Startled by the clarity, he stared back then looked down and sighed.
“It goes back to my high school days. I saved the life of a kid from the wrong side of the tracks. We became best friends and even went to Cornell together.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Just that was a slap in the face to my father. He wanted me to attend his alma mater. During our time