was glancing at her watch, and trying to assess how much time she could afford. At lunchtime, even the traffic would be against her.
“Half an hour? I'd like to spend a little time talking to you. Could you come right now? I just saw my last patient of the morning. I've got a woman at the hospital, and I have a patient in early labor. This would probably be as good a time as any.”
“I'll be there in five or ten minutes,” she said tersely, standing as she prepared to hang up. Her heart was suddenly racing. This couldn't be good. But now she wanted to know, whatever it was. Maybe they had confused her results with someone else's.
“Thank you, Alex. I'll be as quick as I can.”
“I'll be right over.”
Alex sped past Liz, carrying her handbag and her coat, Brock and the others weren't even back yet. “Tell them to get something to eat, I'll be back in forty-five minutes.” She was halfway to the elevator by then, and Liz shouted after her down the hallway.
“Are you all right?”
“I'm fine. Order me a turkey sandwich.” And as Liz watched her disappear down the hall, she wondered if she might be pregnant. She knew they wanted more kids, and John Anderson was her obstetrician.
But Alex knew full well that it wasn't that, as she rode uptown in a cab, agonizing over why he had called her. It had to be the mammogram, and then suddenly she thought of it. It wasn't the mammogram, it was the Pap smear. Shit. She had cancer of the cervix. How would she get pregnant now? Although she had a number of friends who had had treatments using freezing techniques or laser beams applied to precancerous conditions, and had still managed to get pregnant. Maybe it wasn't as bad as she feared, all she wanted to know was that her life wasn't in danger and she could still get pregnant.
The cab reached his office in record time, and she hurried inside to the empty waiting room. They were expecting her and they waved her straight through to his office. He was wearing a suit, instead of his white coat, and he looked unexpectedly serious when he saw her.
“Hi, John, how are you?” She was a little out of breath from hurrying and from the anticipation of seeing him, and she sat down in a chair with her coat on.
“Thank you for coming. But I really thought you should. I wanted to talk to you myself, in person.”
“Was it the Pap smear?” she asked, feeling her heart speed up again. And the palms of her hands were damp as she clutched her handbag. But he was shaking his head.
“No, it isn't. It's the mammogram.” But it couldn't be. She had no lumps, no bumps, no problems. He reached down then and put a piece of film on the light box behind him. He pointed to a frontal view, and then put another film up with a side view. It all looked very mysterious to her, like a weather map of Atlanta. He turned then to look at her, with a look of painful importance. “There's a mass there,” he pointed to it, and only because he showed her where it was could she see it. “It's very large and quite deep. It could be a number of things, but the radiologist and I are very worried.”
“What do you mean, it could be a number of things?” She was suddenly totally confused by what he was saying. It was as though all of a sudden she couldn't hear him. Why was there a mass deep inside her breast? What was it and how did it get there?
“There are several possibilities, but a mass of this size, at this depth, in this particular area, is never a good thing, Alex. We think you have a tumor.”
“Oh Jesus.” No wonder he didn't want to tell her on the phone, and insisted that Liz interrupt her. “What does that mean? What happens now?” Her voice was thin and her face pale, and for a moment she thought she might faint, but she forced herself not to.
“You need a biopsy, as quickly as possible. Within the next week ideally.”
“I'm going into trial in two days. I can't until after the trial is over.” It was as though she hoped it would go away by then, but they both knew it wouldn't.