Flashback (1988) Read Online Free Page A

But he didn’t. It took an extra year, but he got his degree. Then, to the surprise of many, he stayed on in school and earned a masters in business administration.
    The walls of expectation erected by the Judge were sheer glass, but bit by bit, in his own way, Frank had scaled them, and now he was a success once again, at least in terms of lifestyle, power, and accomplishments.
    Cinnie Iverson had poured the final round of coffee, and the twins had at last been allowed to leave their seats, when Frank stood and raised his half-filled wineglass.
    “A toast,” he announced. The others raised their glasses, and the twins insisted that theirs be refilled with milk so they could join in. “To my little brother, Zachary, who proved that brains are always better than brawn when it comes to making it in this world. It’s good to have you back in Sterling.”
    “Amen,” said the Judge.
    “Amen,” the twins echoed.
    Zack stood and raised his glass toward Frank, wondering if anyone at the table besides himself thought the message in the toast a bit strange. For a moment, his eyes and his brothers met. Almost imperceptibly, Frank nodded. The toast was no accident. For all of his status and accomplishments, Frank still measured himself against the MD degree of his younger brother, and found himself wanting.
    “To you all,” Zack said finally. “And especially to my new partner in crime. Frank, I’m proud to be working with you.”
    “Amen,” shouted the twins. “Amen.”

2
    The three of them, father and sons, sat alone at the table. Outside, the storm clouds had arrived, bringing with them a premature dusk. The women were in the kitchen; Annie in the breakfast nook, Cinnie and Lisette by the sink, loading the dishwasher for the second time, chatting about the upcoming Women’s Club bake sale, and keeping watch on the twins, who had taken Cheapdog out back to play in the meadow.
    In a manner quite consistent with his belief that business matters and women should be separated whenever possible, the Judge had kept the conversation light until the last of them, Annie, had left the room. Then, after a few sips of coffee, he turned abruptly to Frank.
    “Guy Beaulieu came to see me yesterday,” he said.
    “So?”
    “He says Ultramed and that new surgeon, Mainwaring, have just about put him out of business at the hospital.”
    “Jason Mainwaring’s not new, Judge,” Frank said patiently. “He’s been here almost two years. And no one—not him, not Ultramed, not me, not anyone—is trying to put Beaulieu out of business. Except maybe Beaulieu himself. If he’d be a little more cooperative and a little more civil to people around the hospital, none of this would be happening.”
    “Guys a crusty old devil,” the Judge said, “I’ll grant you that. But he’s also been around this town nearly as long as I have, and he’s helped a lot of folks.”
    “Whats all this about?” Zack asked. The Judge was hardly a spontaneous man, and Zack could not help but wonder if there was a reason he had postponed this conversation through four hours of golf to have it now.
    Frank and the Judge measured one another, silently debating whose version of the story Zack was to hear first. The contest lasted only a few seconds.
    “A short while back,” the Judge began, obviously unwilling openly to concede Franks “almost two years,” “Ultramed-Davisbrought a new surgeon into town: this Jason Main-waring.”
    “I met him, I think,” Zack said. He turned to Frank. “The tall, blond guy with the southern drawl?” Frank nodded. Zack remembered the man as somewhat distant, but polished, intense, and, during their brief contact, quite knowledgeable—more the type he would have expected to see as a university medical-center professor than as a mountain community-hospital general surgeon.
    “Well,” the Judge went on, “apparently Guy was already beginning to have some trouble getting a lot of his patients admitted to the