Frankie’s jaw tightened. The part of her that was both a Princeton College and Harvard Medical School graduate secretly believed that people who insisted on calling themselves “doctor” generally had credentials like “director, International Hair Club for Men.”

“Tell him I’ll call him back.” Frankie lowered her head. She had learned over the years never to make eye contact when walking into a waiting room.

As she furtively glanced around for obvious catastrophes, she was simultaneously pleased and a little anxious that the office was packed. After almost fifteen years of experience, Frankie viewed general pediatrics as twenty percent emergency and the rest an oddly seasonal practice—early September school checkups, Presidents’ Day pneumonia, spring break sprains, and Fourth of July poison ivy. But this September the World Trade Center disaster had altered all familiar routine. Only now, in October, were the prominent city mothers putting their tumbling tots’ medical permission slips in order.

Frankie had known most of her patients since infancy. She was happy to spot six-year-old Brooke Santorini coloring on the floor in her three-hundred-dollar Bonpoint cashmere painter’s overalls and matching sweater. Her mother, Clarice, in autumn white size 4 jeans and matching twin set, was chatting avidly about the new Spence Lower School building with her decorator, Pippa Rose. Mrs. Rose was bobbing her head up and down in concerned agreement worthy of a Middle East peace treaty negotiator. Her own son, Alex, who was notorious at age six for being rejected by every ongoing school in Manhattan, Riverdale, and Brooklyn, was coughing directly into the watercooler. Slumped against a wall was Jessica Rodman, only ten but already filling out a Dolce & Gabbana red leather halter. Jessica was wailing something to herself about being “jilted one more time.” Frankie wasn’t sure if it was a pop song or Jessica’s real-life experience.

On the periphery of the room sat the caregivers, the current evolved term for nanny. Only a few of the caregivers were from the traditional nanny breeding grounds of Great Britain and Ireland. The rest were a diverse group of East Indian, Dominican, and Filipino. Frankie had deduced that the newer the money the older the nanny source. Thus Mrs. Adrienne Strong-Rodman, Jessica’s mother, had a nanny who claimed to have weaned Prince William and Prince Harry, heirs to the throne of England.

“Dr. Weissman! Dr. Weissman!” A large African-American woman exploded into the room with a small child and a baby. “Dr. Weissman, I see you over there! This is an emergency!”

Frankie turned around as the woman charged toward her.

“I need to leave my kids here with you. I’ve got to get my mother to the hospital in Brooklyn and I have nobody else to stay with them.”

“Mrs. Caesar, what happened to the day care center I arranged for you?” Frankie asked. All the other mothers and caregivers stopped their conversations to listen.

“They don’t want to go there. They’re still scared from the Trade Center.”

“I told you she won’t take us.” The older child, who was around eight, held her baby brother Clayton in her arms.