The Fountain of Age Read Free Page A

coat standing by the elevators. “Wait!” she called, loud enough that several people turned to look, evening visitors and ambulatories and a nurse Carrie didn’t know. She didn’t know the doctor, either, but she rushed over to him, leaving Dr. Erdmann leaning on his walker by the main entrance.
    “Are you a doctor? I’m Carrie Vesey and I was bringing Dr. Erdmann—a patient, Henry Erdmann, not a medical doctor—home when he had some kind of attack, he seems all right now but someone needs to look at him, he says—”
    “I’m not an M.D.,” the man said, and Carrie looked at him in dismay. “I’m a neurological researcher.”
    She rallied. “Well, you’re the best we’re going to get at this hour so please look at him!” She was amazed at her own audacity.
    “All right.” He followed her to Dr. Erdmann, who scowled because, Carrie knew, he hated this sort of fuss. The non-M.D. seemed to pick up on that right away. He said pleasantly, “Dr. Erdmann? I’m Jake DiBella. Will you come this way, sir?” Without waiting for an answer, he turned and led the way down a side corridor. Carrie and Dr. Erdmann followed, everybody’s walk normal, but still people watched. Move along, nothing to see here . . . why were they still staring? Why were people such ghouls?
    But they weren’t, really. That was just her own fear talking.
    You trust too much, Carrie , Dr. Erdmann had said just last week.
    In a small room on the second floor, he sat heavily on one of the three metal folding chairs. The room held the chairs, a gray filing cabinet, an ugly metal desk, and nothing else. Carrie, a natural nester, pursed her lips, and Dr. DiBella caught that, too.
    “I’ve only been here a few days,” he said apologetically. “Haven’t had time yet to properly move in. Dr. Erdmann, can you tell me what happened?”
    “Nothing.” He wore his lofty look. “I just fell asleep for a moment and Carrie became alarmed. Really, there’s no need for this fuss.”
    “You fell asleep?”
    “Yes.”
    “All right. Has that happened before?”
    Did Dr. Erdmann hesitate, ever so briefly? “Yes, occasionally. I am ninety, doctor.”
    DiBella nodded, apparently satisfied, and turned to Carrie. “And what happened to you? Did it occur at the same time that Dr. Erdmann fell asleep?”
    Her eye. That’s why people had stared in the lobby. In her concern for Dr. Erdmann, she’d forgotten about her black eye, but now it immediately began to throb again. Carrie felt herself go scarlet.
    Dr. Erdmann answered. “No, it didn’t happen at the same time. There was no car accident, if that’s what you’re implying. Carrie’s eye is unrelated.”
    “I fell,” Carrie said, knew that no one believed her, and lifted her chin.
    “Okay,” DiBella said amiably. “But as long as you’re here, Dr. Erdmann, I’d like to enlist your help. Yours, and as many other volunteers as I can enlist at St. Sebastian’s. I’m here on a Gates Foundation grant in conjunction with Johns Hopkins, to map shifts in brain electrochemistry during cerebral arousal. I’m asking volunteers to donate a few hours of their time to undergo completely painless brain scans while they look at various pictures and videos. Your participation will be an aid to science.”
    Carrie saw that Dr. Erdmann was going to refuse, despite the magic word “science,” but then he hesitated. “What kind of brain scans?”
    “Asher-Peyton and functional MRI.”
    “All right. I’ll participate.”
    Carrie blinked. That didn’t sound like Dr. Erdmann, who considered physics and astronomy the only “true” sciences and the rest merely poor stepchildren. But this Dr. DiBella wasn’t about to let his research subject get away. He said quickly, “Excellent! Tomorrow morning at eleven, Lab 6B, at the hospital. Ms. Vesey, can you bring him over? Are you a relative?”
    “No, I’m an aide here. Call me Carrie. I can bring him.” Wednesday wasn’t one of her usual days for Dr.