Desperate Measures

by Fern Michaels

  He hopped back to the living room, stopping long enough to pick up the picture of his parents before he made his way over to the deep white chair next to the fireplace. He took one second to appreciate the fact that there was a fireplace in his room, a fire neatly laid for use in October, when he wouldn’t be here.

  It was all so goddamn, fucking perfect.

  Pete snuggled into the chair and stared at the picture in his hands. Obviously it had been a snapshot his uncle had enlarged. He was so grateful, he cried. And cried.

  Two days later Pete walked down to the gatehouse to accept a special delivery letter addressed to him. It was his acceptance letter to Harvard University. For the guard’s benefit, he let out a whoop of something that sounded like joy.

  The following days passed in a blur for Pete. He took his driver’s test and passed. He wasn’t at all surprised when a man from the motor vehicle station came to the estate and gave him his test in the back courtyard. A tennis instructor showed up and shared the fine points of tennis. The day after that, a golf pro arrived, showed him how to handle the clubs, and set up a schedule that wouldn’t interfere with his tennis lessons. A lifeguard from the country club taught him to swim in two days. He felt silly as hell floating around the huge pool with two Clorox bottles tied to his arms, but he didn’t drown, which was the point. Leo was offering the basics in everything he chose to pursue. The Coast Guard course was offered to him on an individual basis and was also done at home, three days a week for two weeks. He passed with flying colors.

  Just about all his bruises and cuts were healed. He was able to put his full weight on his leg now, and a few more therapy sessions, also at home, would allow the doctor to pronounce him A-Okay.

  He had breakfast and dinner with his uncle every day. Once or twice a week they played chess. Sometimes they watched a television program together and ate popcorn.

  They weren’t bonding, and they both knew it, but they tried, and then they tried harder.

  And then summer was over and he was packing to leave for Harvard.

  The six pieces of French luggage were stowed in the backseat and in the trunk next to his surfboard. His trunk with his bedding and pillows had been sent on by Albert the butler days ago. All that remained was to say thank you, good-bye, and yes I’ll call once a week and I’ll be home for the holidays and thank you again, sir, for being so kind to me.

  At the last minute, though, he couldn’t just stick out his hand. Instead he wrapped his arms around his uncle, who immediately stiffened.

  His eyes burning, Pete stepped back and muttered something that sounded like, “Thank you for this opportunity, I’ll make you proud of me.” He felt something being pushed into his hand. A bank book. Now he was going to have to say thank you all over again. He nodded, muttered the words, and climbed behind the wheel. At the gatehouse he looked at the numbers stamped inside: $25,000.

  He was on his way.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Where did the years go? Pete wondered. He craned his neck, his eyes searching the busy library. One minute he was settling into his dorm, and the next he was graduating. One deep breath later he was in law school, and now he was in his final year. He’d take the bar and go out into the world to make his fortune. If Leo had anything to do with it, it would be a fortune.

  Pete was in Harvard’s main library waiting for his best buddy in the whole world. Waiting for the person who’d made him stick with the law, giving up her own precious free time to tutor him, encouraging him, cursing him, cajoling and anything else she could think of to make him want to finish.

  “I hate quitters,” she’d said once. Hell, he hated quitters too. Her methods worked, which was why he was here, waiting for her. He knew he’d pass the bar, that wasn’t what was bothering him. Annie Gabriel was what was bothering him. How was he going to make it on the outside without Annie pushing and shoving him? Which didn’t say a whole hell of a lot for him. Was he so weak he needed a woman to prod him along?

  Oh, he hated the law! Maybe practicing would be better than school, though.

  Ruth Ann Gabriel, Annie to her friends, was one of a kind. Not only was she graduating from this prestigious law school at the top of the class, she’d passed the CPA exam the first time out, all four parts. She’d ace the bar too. She was petite, blond, pretty in a plain sort of way, and she was so goddamn fearless, he wanted to shake her and tell her what the world was really like. The only time he’d ever seen anything closely resembling fear in her eyes was when she talked about all the financial aid she was going to have to pay back. “It will take half my pay for ten years to pay it all off,” she’d said.

  When they separated on graduation day, he was going back to New York to work at Leo’s law firm. Annie had a job offer in Boston with a decent firm. Pete had asked Leo if he could use her in his office, and Leo had come back with such a generous offer it made his head spin. When he presented the offer to Annie, however, she’d looked at him with such pity in her eyes, he’d cringed. “If I can’t make it on my own,” she said, “then this isn’t where I belong. Thanks for the offer, though.” And that had been the end of that.

  Pete was certain there was no one in the world who was kinder, gentler, more piss-assed obnoxious than Annie Gabriel, and he loved her. “We’re not going to get involved,” she’d said early on. “I have things to do, places to go. Relationships get in the way. I need to see what I’m made of.” She’d gone on to say, “And a sexual relationship always ruins a friendship.”

  Once he’d hit on Annie after a moot court session. They’d gone back to her room and opened a bottle of wine. She drank most of it and was tipsy when he was ready to leave. She’d leaned against him and whispered, “I love you so much, Pete Sorenson.” He’d kissed her, clumsily at first, and then ... she’d pushed him away and said, “Go home, Pete.” He’d tried to kiss her again, but she clamped her lips shut and opened the door. He would never forget the tears streaming down her cheeks. “I’m drunk,” she said as she pushed him out the door. “Don’t pay attention to anything I say.”

  He’d walked for hours trying to figure out what it all meant. When he returned to his own room, he decided he would never understand women.

  “Your problem, Sorenson,” Mark Ritter had said, “is you love her, but you aren’t in love with her. Maybe she feels the same way and doesn’t know how to handle it.”

  “Don’t you have to love someone before you’re in love?” Pete asked.

  “How the hell do I know?” Ritter said. “I just love ’em and fuck ’em and go on about my business. I don’t want any emotional baggage standing in the way of my career. When it’s time for me to tie the knot, I’m going to marry some senior partner’s nubile daughter.”

  Pete felt that Mark Ritter was stupid, dense. “What about love?” he asked. “Don’t you want to spend your life with someone you love, have a family and look forward to your golden years?”

  “In your dreams, Sorenson. You know, you’re an asshole if you believe all that crap. Love is for fools. Women suck you dry. Financially and emotionally. I’m not going through that bullshit. Trust me, I’ll make sure the nubile daughter is good-looking, with a body to match. I can handle the rest.” Pete never felt the same about Mark Ritter after that. In fact he went out of his way to avoid him.

  He hadn’t dated much while he was in law school; there simply wasn’t time for the party scene, and he’d pretty much gotten that out of his system during college days when, like Ritter, he’d had so many one-night stands he lost count of them.

  Pete envied Annie for her uncanny ability to live in the moment. To her, anything before the moment was history and didn’t bear thinking or talking about. He wished he was more like her. He dwelled on everything, worried to death, dissected it and then worried some more. Maybe it all stemmed from his childhood. Maybe he was fucked up. Hell, yes, he was fucked up.

  Where the hell was Annie? She said she’d meet him at eight o’clock, and it was nine now. He wondered i
f she was sick. But then, Annie never got sick, she simply wouldn’t allow her body to carry germs. And then he saw her and knew immediately what the sappy smile on her face meant. He didn’t recognize the stirrings he felt as jealousy, but he wanted to throw his book through the window.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she said, sitting down across the table from him. “Let’s get right to it. You look like you’re in a daze, Pete. Is something wrong?” Her sappy expression was gone, replaced by a look of genuine concern.

  “I was thinking.”

  “You shouldn’t do that, Pete. You’re dangerous when you think.” She smiled, and he felt better right away. Today she was wearing something that was as blue as her eyes. A little gold pin was on the collar. He’d never seen it before. He knew everything Annie owned, which wasn’t much. She wore just the right amount of makeup, kept her pale hair short; “wash and wear” she called it. She always looked professional. She’s beautiful, Pete thought. “You look pretty this morning,” he said.

  “Thanks, but don’t think that compliment is going to make me go easy on you. Just two more months, Pete, and we’re outta here.”

  “I’m going to miss you, Annie.”

  “Me or the security blanket I represent?” Annie said warily.

  “Both. Annie?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you and I ... that night when we had the wine after moot court ... what is it about me that . . .”

  “Pete, you’re my best friend. I don’t think I will ever have a friend like you. I hope ... I mean, if we’d gotten involved, two months from now we’d wave good-bye to one another and send Christmas cards for a few years and then we’d forget each other. I don’t want that. I care about you too much. Sometimes I actually feel like you’re a part of me,” Annie said carefully, her eyes averted.

  “Yeah, yeah, I feel that way too. So why—”

  “We needed to get to this place. Now, when we walk away two months from now, if it’s meant to be, it will be. I don’t know how else to explain it. Are you following me here?”

  Pete nodded. “Annie, did I ever tell you about Barney?”

  “No. Are you telling me there’s something about you I don’t know? Who’s Barney?”

  Pete told her. “I believed, right up to the day I turned sixteen, that Barney was going to come for me. I honest to God believed it. There are no words to tell you how I felt when midnight passed and Barney was a no-show. In my gut I still hope . . . want . . .”

  “Oh, Pete, how awful for you. Children have a way of ... I’m sure Barney meant every word he said, and if circumstances were right he would have kept his promise. You don’t know for a fact that he never tried to find you. Did you really tell that man to kiss your ass? At six years old?”

  “Damn right I did. With gusto. I was sticking up for Barney. I still think about Barney. Someday I’m going to try and find him. I need to know if he tried to find me. It’s like there’s a piece of my life that’s missing. If that sounds stupid . . .”

  “It doesn’t sound stupid at all. Memories are so wonderful. Especially yours. I had such an ... ordinary childhood. Nothing ever happened. Actually, it was downright boring. I was this terrible-looking ugly duckling. None of the girls wanted to be seen with me. I guess that’s why I’m such a reader. It was all I did.”

  “And look at you now!” Pete said proudly.

  Annie reached across the table to take Pete’s hand in hers. “Promise me, Pete, that we’ll always be friends. Promise me that we won’t go that Christmas-card route. I’ll always be here for you. I swear on ... on Barney.”

  Pete nodded. “I swear too ... on Barney.”

  “Since we’re, ah ... sharing,” he continued, “was that sappy expression on your face when you came in anything to do with you getting laid last night?”

  “Pete!” Annie hissed.

  “Well, does it?”

  “None of your damn business.”

  “I thought we were each other’s business. I want an answer.”

  “Up yours, Pete,” Annie said, clearly flustered.

  “And I thought you were saving yourself for me.” He realized he meant the words the moment he uttered them. Annie looked like she realized it too.

  “You aren’t exactly a monk, Pete. I seem to recall some of your ... escapades, the ones you felt the need to share with me. Look at me, Pete Sorenson. Are you judging me?”

  “Hell no. Ah, Annie ... I’ve had this fantasy for so long about us ... and how it would be.”

  “Fantasy?”

  Pete’s head jerked upward. He’d never heard her voice sound so cold and brittle. “Well, yeah. Fantasy is as good a word as any. You made it clear you wouldn’t ... you didn’t . . . What the hell is happening here, Annie?”

  Annie was on her feet, the blue dress fussing about her knees as she gathered up her books. Her eyes spewed sparks. “Fuck you, Pete Sorenson,” she snarled.

  “Annie, wait. Jesus Christ, I didn’t mean that the way you took it. Annie, wait. Goddamn it, I try to do what you want and you kick me in the gut.”

  Pete followed her outside, Annie’s shoes slapping on the concrete as she tried to run from him. “I was out of line,” he said. “I’m sorry. It’ll never happen again. Annie, I would never, ever hurt you. You know that. I’m ... What I am is ... jealous. Yeah, I’m jealous. I wanted to be the one to put that sappy expression on your face. Me, not some guy I don’t know.... Or do I know him? Forget it, forget I said that. It’s none of my business.”

  Annie turned. “For every action, Pete, there is a reaction. I reacted. Look, I can’t—won’t—go to bed with you because ... because I care about you. If I need a bodily release, I can find it anywhere. Why are you looking at me like that? You guys talk like that all the time. I won’t . . . I will not muck up our friendship. If you think so little of it, then maybe you and I should just . . . go our separate ways. I’m sorry for my part in this. I have to get to class.”

  “Are we studying tonight?”

  “I don’t know,” Annie called over her shoulder.

  He was more confused than ever. Love was love. Love. In love. Love. Out of love. This confused, euphoric, gut-wrenching feeling had to be some kind of love. Son of a bitch. He remembered a feeling that was similar the day Barney said he’d come for him. That was love. When Leo came for him, that was a kind of love too. The first time he had sex, he thought it was a kind of love. “Shit!” he said succinctly. He jammed his hands in his pockets. “So fuck you too, Annie Gabriel,” he muttered as he turned and walked in the opposite direction.

  Back in his apartment, Pete paced, up and down, over and around. Damn Annie Gabriel. He couldn’t let it go on like this. God, the look on her face, it was so terrible, he’d made it back just in time to puke up his guts. He had to make things right with Annie. The only problem was, he didn’t know how. In a fit of something he couldn’t define, he called his uncle Leo. He blurted out the past hour’s happenings. “I want to do something, but I don’t know what. Do you have any ideas, any advice?” he asked hopefully.

  “I have an idea, Peter. I’ll need thirty minutes or so. I just need to know one thing, can you manage a few days off, your friend too?”

  “How many days is a few? Annie won’t have a problem. It’s me, I’m not the quick study she is. Four, tops.”

  “Sounds good to me. Five would be better, though. I’ll get back to you in half an hour or so.”

  Pete waited. He paced again, up and down, over and around. When the phone rang forty minutes later, he caught it in midring. “Yeah,” he bellowed.

  “I have it all set up. Pick up your friend and take a cab to Logan Airport. There’s a charter waiting for you. Your destination is Paris. Your hotel has been booked. First-class all the way, Pete. Your pilot will have all the details. Sometimes you need to do something completely... what I mean is, you need to act on impulse on occasion. I’m happy to be of help. I think it sounds like both of you need some getaway time before those hallo
wed halls close in around you.”

  “Paris as in France?” Pete said, his jaw dropping.

  “That’s the only one I know. Have a good time, Peter.”

  “Yes, sir, I will, sir,” Pete said, but he was talking to a dead phone. Jesus Christ, Paris, France, with Annie. His fist shot in the air. Pack a bag or not pack a bag. Hell no, he’d charge everything on the Visa card Leo gave him that he’d never used. He’d buy Annie a Paris creation.

  “Yeahhhhh.”

  Fifteen minutes later Pete was in the back of Annie’s classroom. He tiptoed down the aisle to her seat and hissed, “Come with me right now. Now, Annie.”

  Annie didn’t question the order. She gathered up her books and followed Pete from the room. “What’s wrong?” she asked fearfully.

  “Look, don’t ask any questions, just follow me. Nothing is wrong. That’s all you need to know.”

  An hour later Annie squealed, “What do you mean we’re going to Paris? Paris, France?” she said when they were in his car, heading to the airport. “I don’t believe this! You’re out of your mind!”

  “Haven’t you ever done anything wild and adventurous, Annie?”

  “Well, yeah, when I was a little girl I always wanted to go to Paris....”

  “Well, you’re in luck. We’re going to Paris!”

  “Oh God, I don’t have any clothes. Not even a toothbrush.” Pete flashed his Visa card. Annie howled with glee.

  “I bet there’s champagne onboard, a gourmet meal and a movie,” Pete said. “We’re both on overload. We need this. We deserve it.”

  “It must be nice to be rich. How much is this costing?”

  “I have no idea, but Leo never springs for anything unless he can afford it. I expect in the end this will be my graduation present. Neat, huh?”

  “I could get real used to this,” Annie said when they were in the plane, looking around at the plush seats, at the two stewards who would serve them. They were the only passengers. “God,” was all she could say. “Wait a minute, I can’t go, I don’t have my passport with me,” Annie said, tears forming in her eyes.