Shock by Robin Cook Page B

recurrent pleading, which was particularly insistent during the Christmas holiday seasons. The holidays were a big deal in the Meissner household, and Joanna missed them, especially when Deborah had gone back to New York to be with her mother and stepfather. But Joanna had been unwilling to face her mother's constant harping about the unmitigated social disaster caused by her breaking off the engagement with Carlton Williams.
    As they'd originally planned, she and Deborah had gone to Venice, Italy, to escape the humdrum aspect of their graduate student lives and to make sure Joanna didn't have a relapse into believing that marriage was a necessary goal. At first they lived for almost a week in the San Polo district near the Rialto Bridge in the bed-and-breakfast that Deborah had found on the Internet. After that they'd moved to the Dorsoduro Sestiere on the recommendation of a couple of male university students they'd met on their second day while having coffee in Piazza San Marco. With a bit of luck and a lot of walking, they had managed to locate a small, affordable two-bedroom apartment on the top floor of a modest, fourteenth-century house on a square called Campo Santa Margherita.
    As serious students, the women had quickly adapted to a strict schedule to facilitate their work. Every morning they made themselves get out of bed by seven regardless of the previous evening's festivities. After a shower they'd descend to the campo and take a short walk to a traditional Italian bar for fresh cappuccinos, which was particularly pleasant in the summer months when they'd sit in the shade of the square's plane trees. Then it was on to the Rio di San Barnaba to complete their colazione with fresh fruit purchased from the waterborne greengrocers, or verduriere. A half hour later they were back in the apartment at their respective workstations to write.
    Without fail they wrote until one o'clock in the afternoon. Only then did they turn off their laptops. After washing up and changing clothes, they headed to the restaurant they'd picked out for that day's lunch, which often included a glass or two of white wine from Friuli. Then it was time to switch hats from committed doctoral students to tourists. Armed with a virtual library of guidebooks, they'd set out to visit the sites. Three afternoons a week they went to the university itself where they'd arranged to have Italian lessons as well as lectures on Venetian art.
    The women's Italian sojourn wasn't all work and serious touring. Socially they had a blast dating almost exclusively Italian men who were associated in some way with the university. Deborah's first beau was a graduate student in art history who was also a gondolier in season. Joanna began seeing an instructor in the same department. But neither woman allowed herself to become terribly involved, maintaining, as Deborah described it, a decidedly male attitude toward dating: namely, treat it like a sport.
    Joanna sighed when she thought of all the wonderful sights they had seen and experiences they'd had. It had been an extraordinary year and a half in every way including professionally. Tucked in their carry-ons stored above in the overhead compartment were two completed Ph.D. theses. Thanks to E-mail, which had facilitated sending chapters and their revisions back and forth, the theses had already been accepted. All that was left were their defenses, which both women were confident would not be a problem. A week after they got back, both had interviews scheduled: Joanna at the Harvard Business School and Deborah at Genzyme.
    Even Carlton had come for several visits. The first time it had been totally out of the blue, and it had made Joanna furious. Before leaving for Europe she'd tried a number of times to call him, but he had gone out of his way to avoid her and had staunchly refused to return her messages. After finding the apartment, Joanna had written a letter to give him the address so he could write to her when he