Recessional: A Novel Page 6

  He could not remember much about the movie—there was the bounteous supply of animals, as promised—but Edwina Booth still echoed in his memory. She had been an effective heroine, but what had captured his imagination was what happened after the film had been shot. News reports said that during her heroic work in Africa she had either suffered a terrible case of sunstroke or contracted some debilitating disease, which would prevent her from ever making another film, and she never did. For years thereafter he would catch himself brooding about Edwina Booth: ‘Why couldn’t some doctor have saved her? Why didn’t they get her to a proper hospital where the nurses—’ Often he speculated about how he would have handled her case and could see himself dressed in white as he gave a series of orders to his admiring assistants and nurses. It was not preposterous to claim that he had become a doctor in order to be on hand to save the life of some future Edwina Booth were she to be brought into the hospital where he worked.

  So now, on this fading afternoon as he explored, he was examining not an untamed corner of western Florida but the jungles of Africa, on the trail of lions, and behind that clump of bushes he might very well come upon Harry Carey and Edwina Booth and be of service to them. On and on he went, past the baby Washingtonia palms, past the scattered Brazilian pepper trees with their bright berries, and into a land as rough as if it were indeed in the heart of Africa. And he was mesmerized.

  The sun had sunk low in the January sky when he came upon an enchanting sight: a small oval pond—filled with water of a character he had never before seen or heard of. It was green, but not a stagnant or weed-covered green. It was bright emerald, the most beautiful green he had ever seen, scintillating, resplendent, a green that one might see in a magical dream. When he bent down to inspect it more closely he saw it was composed of a million tiny specks of something—buds perhaps, tips of submarine plants, but whatever they were, in the mass they presented a magnificent sight.

  He was unaware, as he knelt beside the emerald pool, that he was not alone. Off some yards to the west, toward the channel and deep within the low bushes, lay a huge rattlesnake some eight or nine feet long and as thick through the middle as a big softball that children play with before they can manage a real baseball. The snake had lived close to his assured supply of water and careless mice and squirrels for more than a score of years, during which he had occasionally watched some huge and unfamiliar animal like Dr. Zorn come to the pool. Since he had never attacked them, they could not have been aware of his presence, but whenever they did move near, he coiled in preparation to activate the hornlike buttons on his tail, sending a warning that he was prepared to defend himself. Fortunately for the explorers, this had never been necessary.

  One morning many years ago, when dew was on the foliage near the pool, a young woman in shorts and heavy boots had lost her way in the savanna and had beaten her way noisily through the brush trying to find some path that would lead her back to the waterway and its footpath that would lead her to safety. The Palms did not exist then, so she could not use it as a guide, but she did have a useful sense of direction that told her roughly where west and the channel would be.

  So after pausing to admire the extraordinary green pool, she continued westward, her heavy boots taking her within a few feet of the coiled rattlesnake. Had she taken one more step in that direction the snake, with its enormous charge of deadly poison due to its exceptional size, would surely have struck at her exposed white leg and she would have died before she could even signal for help. Fortunately her foot fell short of the fatal mark; however, she had moved so close that the snake had to sound a warning. He did not want to attack this strange creature so much bigger than his usual targets, but he was prepared to do so if it came closer. Accordingly its rattling was so loud and insistent that the girl froze, not knowing what the sound was nor where it came from, but aware that it was a warning of some grave danger.

  Searching for an explanation, she looked down and saw the monstrous snake, perfectly coiled, its tail vibrating furiously. The snake saw her, and for an agonizing moment each stared into the eyes of the other. Then quietly she withdrew her trespassing foot, which encouraged the snake to cease his signaling. Slowly, her heart beating furiously, she moved away from both the pool and the snake.

  When she rejoined her companions she told them breathlessly: ‘Oh, what a terror! I looked down among the low bushes and there it was, the biggest rattlesnake anyone ever saw,’ and she formed her two thumbs and forefingers into a circle five inches in diameter, the exact girth of the snake she had just seen. The young men in her group derided this claim: ‘No snake but a python is ever that big around,’ and her listeners concluded that she had probably seen a harmless garter snake and been terrorized. She did not argue back; a girl knew she gained no advantage by contradicting young men who were sure they knew more than she. But she had seen the snake; in that terrible protracted moment when she and it stared at each other, she’d had ample time to form an estimate of its size, and she knew it was still there beside the emerald pool.

  When Dr. Zorn made his retreat from the pool he had a good guess as to where the channel lay, and his path carried him well away from the rattler’s hideout. The snake made no noise, nor did the doctor through clumsiness disturb the peace. Safely he passed on, worked his way through the savanna that had destroyed Edwina Booth, and came at last to the footpath leading back to the Palms. Retracing his steps when entering the area, he reached his new quarters and was eager to report to Krenek: ‘I’m going to like it here. Interesting residents. Responsible health care. Clean buildings, and a fascinating bit of unspoiled savanna right outside the door. Three wonderful birds welcomed me—herons, egrets and a half-drunk pelican.’ Unpacking his trailer, he quickly organized his few possessions in the furnished apartment assigned to him, eager to begin confronting the challenges of the Palms.

  On his first full day at the Palms, the new director appeared early in his new office and approved its spaciousness and feeling of centrality. He found Kenneth Krenek, nineteen years older than himself, waiting for orders on how the center should be run, but Zorn was not the type of man to be dictatorial: ‘Let’s make it Ken and Andy, and I need to know most of what you know.’

  ‘All right. In our two offices it’ll be Andy and Ken, but before the staff and certainly when visitors come to inspect, it’s got to be Dr. Zorn. Impresses the public.’

  Without being asked, he drew up a chair and said: ‘Andy, the Palms has enjoyed a pretty good reputation thus far, so we must do everything reasonable to enhance it. This is a first-class operation, not top dollar—there are others more expensive—but top service and we’ve got to keep it that way.’

  ‘That’s what I promised Mr. Taggart, but I’ll need your counsel if I begin to make mistakes.’

  ‘You understand the basic principle of a place like this? Lure them with a fine residence hall, good service, good food and good lifestyle. That’s Gateways here. Then bring in recuperation cases from the local hospitals for Assisted Living. Be very, very nice to the hospitals. Anything they want they get, because their referrals pay our bills. And finally there’s the third floor, Extended Care, where they come in the last stages, more than half from outside as their last resort.’

  ‘Is it my responsibility to keep those two parts filled with patients?’

  ‘We all have to work on it. Miss Foxworth will keep you posted on occupancy and the profit-and-loss situation. She’s our accountant and a wizard with figures. Trust her, and rely on her to keep you on course.’ Andy nodded.

  ‘You know, much of our good name comes from what residents of Gateways say about us. So you’ve got to keep them happy. There’s still one special problem, you’d never guess. Names! Each apartment, it seems to me, has its own preferences as to how the incumbents prefer to be called. With St. Près it’s Mr. Ambassador. I think he’d scowl if you dared call him Richard. And Jiménez, our grandee from South America, would actually faint if you called him Raúl. Muley Dug
gan is Muley to everyone, of course, and Mrs. Elmore actually prefers Duchess. President Armitage is usually given that title though he stopped being one years back. Everyone calls our black jurist Judge Noble and he prefers them to do so. But the Mallorys, Chris and Esther, prefer first names, even though they’re both millionaires.

  ‘We do not pry into the financial conditions of our residents, and when I show you the list of people for whom Miss Foxworth has quietly made reductions in their fees because investments went sour or dividends dropped, you’ll be surprised. Mr. Taggart’s always been generous in that regard. He preaches to us: “If we get ten years of high rent from a husband and wife, when she becomes a widow or her fortunes fail, we can afford to carry her at a lower rate for the last years of her life, but we don’t want her to linger on into her late nineties.” ’

  As he said this he started to chuckle: ‘I think we’d better bring Miss Foxworth in right now to explain the financial morass in which we operate. All legal, all fair to the residents. But also insanely complicated.’

  During the break that followed he explained: ‘Miss Foxworth and I have been working here for eleven years. We supervised the construction for Mr. Taggart, and it’s our passion to see this place succeed. We’ll help you in everything you do.’

  When Miss Foxworth appeared, Andy saw a thin, angular woman in her early fifties with a pulled-back hairdo that made her seem austere but an impish smile that enabled her to laugh at the contradictions with which she worked. Thrusting out her right hand she gripped his firmly: ‘Welcome to one of the best. It’s our job to keep it that way, or even improve our standing. Don’t hesitate to experiment, and I’ll support you financially every time I can.’ Then she growled and said in a husky voice: ‘But we won’t kid ourselves. The Big Bad Wolf in Chicago, he’ll be inspecting the bottom line very carefully. And so will I. And so will you, Doctor, if you’re as smart as they say.’

  At Krenek’s suggestion she explained various aspects of a Florida retirement center: ‘On Gateways we break even, but profit from splendid visibility. On Assisted Living we lose money, not excessive but enough to be irritating. And on Extended Care we can earn a bundle if we keep the rooms filled. What we hope from you is to improve each of these balance sheets. And we think it can be done.’ She stared at him intently, then said: ‘Your predecessor was a grand guy, everybody’s friend except mine, because I could see he was running this place into bankruptcy. I’m sure you’re not going to be that stupid.’

  She then explained the pricing policy for Gateways: ‘We’re like every other retirement area in the country. We hand-tailor our pricing structure to fit the needs of the individual couple. First option is the one that made the first retirement areas famous. Up front you give us all your assets plus your retirement income, including pensions, and we undertake to care for you for life, at the end of which your estate gets nothing back. An enticing deal in the early years, until places like this found that with good health care, a dietitian’s dinner each night and no worries, people lived longer than expected and the centers started going broke. Old people found themselves out on the street. I was employed by one of those places and it was a tragedy. So now we offer three standard deals. In each of them you start by paying two hundred fifty thousand dollars up front for the deluxe suites, less for the one-roomers. Then you pay a substantial monthly sum—say, eighteen hundred dollars every month—till you pass away, when we give back to your estate eighty percent of your original investment. Great for residents with children and grandchildren. Plan two, same initial payment, but a smaller monthly rental and fifty percent return at your passing. Fair all around. Third plan, same quarter of a million deposit, a much lower monthly rate and twenty-five percent back at the end.’

  ‘Which is best for us, best for the client?’

  ‘We never use that word “client.” Too legal. Doctor, I assure you they all work out to be dead equal. We’re like the insurance company. Unless we conform to the statistics of the American Actuarial Tables, which report the longevity of American men and women, we go broke. How old are you? Thirty-five? You have a predicted longevity of 39.7 more years, so if you entered the Palms today as a paying resident, which we wouldn’t allow because you’re much too young, we could arrange a very attractive deal for you, because you’re going to be paying us for each of those thirty-nine years.’

  She looked at Zorn as if weighing whether he was bright enough to understand, then laughed: ‘In the old days when it was “Give us everything and we’ll take care of you for life,” there used to be a saying: “What we’re looking for is old folks who enter when they’re in their healthy sixties, so their medical bills won’t be high, then have the decency to leave us when they’re eighty-two so we can sell their room again.” ’

  ‘What would you say was the optimum now?’ Zorn asked, and she had an immediate reply: ‘I like to see them come in at age sixty-five so they can enjoy the place and say their farewells at about eighty-eight before they begin to accumulate huge medical bills.’

  ‘Sixty-five seems awfully young,’ Zorn said, but she countered: ‘Ask our people. Many of them tell me: “Roberta, my husband and I should have come here ten years earlier. The only sensible thing to do.” ’ She laughed, her bright eyes showing that she was giving only a partial report: ‘Of course, I’m forgetting the couples who try us out for a month or two and then flee, with either the husband or the wife vowing: “I’ll never again move into one of those jails!”

  ‘But seriously, Doctor,’ she concluded, ‘I can think of a dozen or more couples who were originally savagely divided on the issues but who now confess that it was the best thing they ever did.’

  As she was about to leave the office with her formidable armful of papers summarizing the finances of the Palms, Zorn interrupted: ‘Please stay with me a few minutes longer, Miss Foxworth. And Ken, would you mind giving us a moment alone?’ When Ken had stepped outside, Andy smiled and asked: ‘Suppose you, with all your figures and knowledge, were in my position with no dumb men telling you what to do? What moves would you make to turn this place around, red deficit into black profits?’

  Pleased to have at last been consulted as an equal, she looked down at her hands, leaned back and reflected, then said: ‘I’d do everything possible to fill the Gateway apartments, but that’s not your real problem. You’ve got to get more beds filled in Assisted Living. That’s where the profits are hiding. Extended fills itself.’

  ‘So how do I get the extras for Assisted?’

  ‘I really don’t know. Advertising won’t do it. We’ve tried that. But I do know this. Favorable comment, of any kind, makes an immense difference. So you’ve got to get this place talked about. You’ve got to do things that attract attention.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘That’s your problem.’ She smiled: ‘That’s why Mr. Taggart gave you that sixty-five-thousand-dollar salary.’ She smiled a second time when his jaw dropped: ‘And hopefully, from what Chicago tells us, you’re the man to swing it, Dr. Zorn.’

  When Krenek returned to the office after her departure, he deemed it appropriate to let Zorn know that he, Ken, appreciated the accountant: ‘She’s a wizard with figures. Made a study of our hundred and eighty-six residents one year and calculated how many deaths would occur statistically in each month of the next three years. She kept careful records and told me in October of that year that she was right on target, but November proved an unusually healthy month and at Thanksgiving her figures were badly askew because nobody had died. But several residents apparently overate seriously at our big turkey festival, and on both the twenty-ninth and thirtieth someone died unexpectedly. On the first of December she appeared in my office triumphant with her scorecard: “We made it, just as the figures predicted.” But did you notice, she never uses the word “die.” They “leave us” or “they pass on” or “God sent his angels for her.” ’ At this he snapped his fingers and asked Zorn to phone Foxworth’s office and tell her to bring her
Johnny Carson video with her. ‘You’ll enjoy this. Superb comedy.’ Andy protested: ‘I don’t have time for a half hour of comedy,’ and Krenek explained: ‘It’s only a few minutes. Extremely relevant to our work in this place. Provides a sense of balance.’

  When Foxworth slid her tape into the video machine, Zorn saw on the TV screen a fine image of Johnny Carson in one of his famous skits. He was the editor in chief of a publishing company that specialized in a massive thesaurus containing a prodigious number of synonyms for any word. Dressed in funereal black, Carson was addressing his fellow editors: ‘We have come here today to pay our last respects to one of the finest editors we’ve ever had. Gregory left us last night. He passed over. He expired, drew his last breath, went to his last reward, headed for the last home.’ He continued with fifteen other graceful euphemisms and then moved on to the vernacular: ‘So good old Gregory croaked, bit the dust, kicked the bucket, cashed in his chips, turned up his toes’ and numerous other country phrases. Just as Zorn supposed the litany was ended, Carson moved on to robust jokes his staff of writers must have had a riotous afternoon devising: ‘So, as I say, our beloved Gregory has taken his ride in the long black, he is wearing the white satin vest, he is helping to push up the daisies, his toes are digging into the dust, he is paying Charon with a plugged nickel, he’s crossing the river where he pays no tax, he is gone from us, he is kerplunk.’ It was a bravura performance, one of Carson’s best, and Zorn told Miss Foxworth: ‘Don’t lose that video. We might need it if things get too sticky around here.’

  As Miss Foxworth started to leave the office, a huge black woman whom Zorn had not yet met, but whom he could guess to be the head nurse, Nora Varney, arrived. As the two women passed, the nurse edging aside, for she knew that both of them could not pass through the doorway at the same time, Andy had the distinct feeling that these two women actually liked each other and that they were true partners in the Palms enterprise.