Take Me As I Am

by JM Dragon

  “Her boss? Who’s that?”

  “Can you tell me the name of your boss? Okay, thank you.” Karen placed her hand over the mouthpiece again. “A guy named Jack Wicklow.”

  Thea paled as she heard the name. Why would Jack want to speak with her?

  “Shall I tell her you are out?”

  Unable to decide for a moment what to do, Thea looked at her friends, saw shock, and upset mirrored in their eyes looking back at her. As if in slow motion, she turned back to her mother. “I’ll take the call.”

  Thea waited, then heard Jack’s voice.

  “Thea, I can’t believe Belinda found you. Something terrible has happened. Jo is in the hospital in Antwerp and it’s critical.”

  “No, not Joanna,” she whispered, her heart breaking. “Where exactly is she? I need to be there.”

  “I’ll have Belinda get you on the next flight out from where you are now. She will email you with the details within a half hour. I’ll meet you in Brussels. I’m glad we found you, Thea.”

  Thea gave him her email details and signed off with tears streaming down her cheeks. “Darling, what’s the matter.” Karen wrapped her arms around her daughter.

  Thea, pulled away, picked up her purse, and then the keys to her mother’s car. “I need to be alone for a while,” she told her mother and her friends before rushing out of the hotel.

  †

  “I didn’t know that Thea’s Joanna was in fact my good friend’s daughter and a famous singer. What a small world we live in? Who would have thought my little girl was a friend of Jo Lackerly,” Karen said to Alice and Calum who were sharing supper with her.

  “Well, Jo wasn’t always famous, Mrs. Adams. She and Thea shared an apartment in Nashville and that was before anyone knew the name Jo Lackerly. They were very good friends though and they looked out for each other,” Alice explained.

  “When you say good friends…how good?” Karen gazed down at her half-eaten chili.

  “Oh, they were good friends, Mrs. Adams, believe me,” Calum said. “I would know. I courted Thea for a short time….”

  Alice put a hand on Calum’s sleeve to halt his ramblings. She knew what Thea’s mother was asking. “They shared lots of things, Mrs. Adams. I think they had a history that they never talked about, at least not to Calum or me. Jo and Thea were…are very private people. If you are asking if there was a special friendship, then I think there could have been but other pressures got in the way.”

  Calum glanced first at Alice quizzically then Thea’s mother and back to Alice. “I know I’m the token man here, but would someone let me in on what you mean by special friendship?”

  Alice smiled. Calum was so lovable but so dense at times. When he got confused, he was just like a small boy. “What Mrs. Adams was actually asking, Calum, is did Thea and Jo love one another.”

  “Well, sure they did.” Calum’s brow knitted.

  Karen spluttered a mouthful of coffee. “I see. Did they have a fight? Is that why they split up?”

  “Calum, you don’t understand,” Alice interjected.

  “Okay, what don’t I understand?” Calum asked in an exasperated tone.

  “She wanted to know if Joanna and Thea were lovers.” Alice clutched Calum’s hand as his face went pale. It was obvious to her that the thought had never crossed his mind.

  “We dated, well, kind of. Wouldn’t I have known?”

  “Not necessarily, Cal. They were very private when it came to their life together. I think we should leave that particular question behind closed doors. If it ever gets answered, our friends will answer it themselves. Shall we all agree on that?” Alice kissed his cheek tenderly before laying her forehead against his.

  “I agree,” Karen said. “It’s an invasion into my daughter’s privacy and none of our business. Thea is old enough to have her own life and make her own mistakes and triumphs. Perhaps if I had stuck around when she was a child, I could have helped her understand what she is feeling.” She blew out a breath.

  “It is what it is, Mrs. Adams, and we can only go forward from here.” Alice looked at the woman, who was obviously in distress, and squeezed her hand.

  “I’m glad she has you for a friend. You are wise beyond your years.”

  †

  Thea had driven several miles away to a small park where she could walk and settle her shattered emotions. Joanna, her Joanna was in Europe critically ill and she couldn’t do anything to help her. No matter how mixed up their lives had become, they were friends and always would be. The connection they shared from the first day they met would last until they each drew their last breaths.

  Now, as the tears streamed down her cheeks unchecked, she sank into a bench and gazed out over the park unable to see anything beyond her devastation. Joanna had never been one to dwell on fantasy or romantic notions, being quite hardheaded in that respect. Probably the life she had led in the past, especially with the guys she used to travel with, made her that way. Although with her, she felt that Joanna had started to dream again.

  “Then I did a most unforgivable thing and threw it all in her face by leaving so abruptly,” she whispered.

  Now, I just want to be there. I hope Belinda sends me the information soon.

  She’d heard a report on the radio as she drove saying that the singer was in a critical condition and that the next forty-eight hours would be crucial.

  There is no guarantee when I do go that anyone will let me within a mile of her—I’m not family.

  Would Jack arrange for her to see her friend? She certainly hoped so? Would Joanna survive to come back home? That thought shook her to the core.

  Her heart bled for her friend’s pain and her own, even if it was of her own making. At the end of the day, she blamed herself. The outcome—Joanna was sick and it was her fault. If she hadn’t been so selfish with her own feelings and left her friend behind, none of this would have happened.

  Bottom line was she loved—she was in love with Joanna. She had known it in Danvers and battled with it a year ago before leaving Joanna with her new life and love. Now, she was experiencing the same emotion even more profoundly. If all she could do were to say hi, I’m sorry, one last time, she would be thankful the rest of her days for that second chance. A year, month, week, day, hour, minute or a second spent with Joanna would be a cherished moment for the rest of her life.

  She would go back to the hotel and talk with Alice, Calum and her mother. Her mother would want to know everything. She meant well but she was rather protective and at her age, it really wasn’t necessary for anyone to protect her, unless the protector was Joanna. Thea looked up at the sky. It was a clear day without a cloud. Perhaps that was a good omen.

  Joanna I love you, please come back to me and this time I promise not to leave you unless you tell me to go.

  The email ringtone of her phone beeped.

  †

  The virtual silence of the sterile room persisted. Only the muted fans whirling inside the monitoring and oxygen machines gave any evidence that life stirred inside the white walled room. Jo’s body encased in a summer blue-sky blanket, which topped a pristine white cotton sheet that needed changing every two hours because of her condition. She lay motionless, drugs ensuring that she didn’t move any of the drips or other equipment attached to her body.

  Nurses monitored the unconscious woman from a station, yards away, along with two other patients who were in the intensive care unit in critical condition.

  Her pale features, drawn and haggard, could never be described as the same vibrant singer who days before had been singing to thousands of people at a concert in Hamburg. No one had known of her fatigue, or the number of painkillers she had taken to numb the pain, as the ever-increasing illness gripped her dangerously drained body.

  “How is Ms. Lackerly?” Andre Kransky asked, watching Jo through the window.

  “Holding her own, sir.” The nurse smiled politely at the decidedly unkempt man.

  “Thanks, can
I go sit with her?” His gentle blue eyes gazed at the bed through the glass window.

  “Yes, of course, sir.”

  “I’ll keep an eye on her.” Andre had brought her to the hospital and stayed by her side waiting for her family to arrive. He was a bit annoyed at how fast the tabloids found out about her illness. No doubt, someone at the hospital had leaked the information.

  “I’m sure you will, sir.” This time the nurse smiled.

  Andre settled down in the armchair beside the motionless singer’s bed and placed his head in his hands pushing distracted fingers through his hair. This had been his first European tour that he had managed on behalf of a named American artist.

  “What a disaster.” This was definitely not going to do his reputation any favors if people thought he couldn’t take care of the star performer. Yet, anyone who knew this particular singer would know how difficult it was to care for her. She never let up or let anyone in. She’d looked so good in Hamburg, a shining star, when really she had been a comet exploding before it fragmented into thousands of tiny pieces.

  Jack Wicklow had been shocked but thankfully, not accusing. Her parents were due to arrive in the next two hours and one of them would pick them up at the airport and bring them there personally.

  He gazed at the singer, wondering why she hadn’t allowed someone to know she was ill. They could have done something far earlier and she wouldn’t be in the state she was in now. “Typical American, always thinking they know best.” He knew Americans and he loved their work ethic and generosity so he instantly regretted his words.

  The popular music world was at this woman’s feet. Jo Lackerly had the looks, the voice, and the general manner to make it into super stardom and stay there if she wanted. The country fans were very loyal and she had the added talent of writing her own songs to make her great. If she had a death wish—and it would seem that she might—it wasn’t going to be a long career. Funny how so many talented people go off the rails and never get back. These days it was usually drugs but exhausting yourself to the point of death worked equally as well. He’d seen it from time to time in the past fifteen years. When he’d met her, she certainly hadn’t come across that way. Funny how people could be so deceptive and never really let anyone know them until it was too late.

  It reminded him of a song she had sung three days before, silencing the crowd for a few moments before they burst out in thunderous applause. A good possibility for a record release he’d thought at the time. Now, he wondered how much of the song reflected what she was feeling. The words came back to him…”A lifetime hidden with borrowed dreams waiting for a special chance.”

  As he watched Jo’s uneven breathing, he shook his head. Maybe he was being too harsh on the singer. Perhaps her illness came on suddenly. The doctors had indicated that perhaps she had an unknown virus along with pneumonia. He hoped the medications they were using would work.

  He stood and placed a comforting hand on the pale skin of Jo’s arm before leaving the room. He needed a shower and to change before going to the airport to meet Jack. He doubted Jo’s parents would welcome some scruffy individual being in charge of their daughter’s care in Europe. They might even blame him for all that had happened to her.

  He knew he already did.

  †

  Thea paced the hotel lobby, a small travel bag ready at her feet. “Hi, Thea.”

  “Calum, hi. Where’s Alice?”

  “She’s running late. I hoped I could talk you into having a drink with me before you leave and Alice catches up with us.” He showed her his boyish smile and took her arm, leading her to the small hotel bar.

  “I’ll have a beer and a soda with lime for the lady,” Calum told the bartender.

  “You remembered?”

  Calum blinked with a steady smile on his face. “Of course I did, Thea. I’ll never forget anything about you.”

  A faint tinge of red streaked her cheeks at his genuine comment. “I was going to say how pleased I am that you and Alice are a couple. She’s a really nice person.”

  “Yes, she is and a handful too. She has a lively intelligence that leaves me behind at times. Guess I’m going to be a lawyer’s husband one day.”

  “Thanks for the drink.” Thea grinned warmly at him. “What about your plans for a career? What are you doing now?”

  “I decided that my dad needed a hand. He had a mild heart attack a couple of months back and I decided to give it a chance.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, and…?”

  “I love it. I think I’ll be staying and anyway Alice will need to go to college full time if she wants to be a high flying lawyer.”

  “What do your parents think of Alice?” How could his parents not like the woman? She had a wonderful personality and worked hard to achieve what she wanted. It was good to hear the young man thinking in terms of Alice being in his life permanently. How love could change all preconceived ideas about what you want in life.

  “They think she’s marvelous. My mother is already planning the wedding. I haven’t told Alice that yet, but I will.”

  “You love her very much, don’t you, Calum?”

  “Yes, I do. I confess I was falling for you, Thea, and thought Alice might be my rebound affair. However, the more we went out, the more I didn’t want to let her leave. In the end, I realized that she’s the woman for me and I’m glad she agrees.”

  Thea listened to the way he spoke. It was like listening to a poet narrating a love poem.

  “What about yourself? Are you dating anyone?” he asked.

  “No, too busy here at the hotel and somehow I’m just not interested.” Thea glanced down at her drink before quickly placing it to her lips and taking a sip.

  A silence stretched between them for a couple of minutes.

  “Is it because of Jo?” Calum asked.

  Green eyes full of sadness met his compassionate ones. Should she answer truthfully? He was her friend and now it was becoming harder and harder to disguise her feelings for Joanna. “Yes.”

  “We thought so.”

  “We?”

  “Don’t look so surprised, Thea. I think Alice has always known and she hasn’t broken any confidences. Your mother and I speculated.”

  Thea didn’t know if she should be mad, upset, or relieved. A fraction of all surged through her body. “You speculated?”

  Calum held up a hand. “I’m not trying to upset you, Thea. We all care about you. Your mother started it and we just discussed—”

  “My mother!” Now, Thea was mad. This was her personal business, not something for them to discuss behind her back.

  “Well, yeah but it wasn’t for long, we just—”

  Thea got off her bar stool and stalked off toward the office.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  “Alex, look at our baby,” Stella whispered, her throat thick as the tears trailed down her cheeks.

  “They are looking after her, darling. She will come back to us. I know she will.” The tall man’s eyes were brimming with unshed tears.

  A nurse busied herself with various tubes, leads, and oxygen.

  “Will she?” Stella beseeched the nurse.

  “I will have the doctor come in to answer your questions.”

  Stella closed her eyes as the tears flooded out. She didn’t want to break down knowing Joanna would not approve. Her stoic child would frown and shake her head at the show of public emotion. This wasn’t public. It was a hospital room where her child lay fighting for her life.

  †

  Alex stood behind his wife, who was sitting in the armchair clutching their daughter’s hand hoping it would bring her back to them. How did she let herself become so ill? Surely others would have seen her condition and not allowed this to happen.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Xianthos, I am Charles Dumont, your daughter’s physician.”

  “What can you tell us about her, Doctor?” Alex asked while clutching Stella’s hand.

  “She isn’t responding
as well as I’d hoped. The added complication of a virus hasn’t helped. We have identified the virus and we can now give her medication to help her body fight it. The next twenty-four hours are crucial. If she doesn’t have the strength to fight, her body will soon find it difficult to pull back from the brink.”

  “She’s always been a fighter, Doctor,” Alex remarked absently. This wasn’t like his Joanna.

  “I’m afraid that at the moment, your daughter appears to have given up on the will to live. Now that you are here, I’m hoping that will change. Perhaps if you talked to her, it might help.”

  “Yes, yes, we will.” Alex couldn’t stop the tears from falling.

  “I’ll check back later.” The doctor gave them a smile before leaving the ICU room.

  “I know that Jo, for all her faults, has always been your favorite, darling.” Stella sobbed. “We just found her again. We can’t lose her.” Stella hugged him close.

  After sitting back down in the armchair, Stella took a breath and spoke. “Jo, do you remember when your dad fell into the pond trying to find your favorite fish? What were you, six at the time? My, it was funny wasn’t it? I think you.…”

  †

  Grayson watched the flight take off as he turned to make his way home. Two hours before, both the women in his household had been crying. That wasn’t a good sign. Thea’s two friends had given him a general overview of what the situation was. Thea was accusing her mother of prying into her private life. A bewildered Karen was upset at the turn of events.

  Once both Thea and Karen stopped crying, he managed to get them to talk. After calling an old friend at the airport, he was able to obtain a seat for Karen on the flight Thea was taking to Brussels. A man named Jack Wicklow would meet them at the airport and escort them to the hospital.

  What a day. He looked to the sky for the plane and smiled ruefully. Who would have known that Thea was such a dark horse? Or that the world was such a small place? The parents of Thea’s friend were his and Karen’s friends. Who would have given him odds on that one?

  †

  Alex watched Stella sleeping awkwardly beside their daughter. She had spent the past seven hours retelling every childhood story she could remember. Jo hadn’t responded in any way. He had a great faith in lots of things and the fates were one of them. They surely haven’t decided that the child he loved, lying like a pale shadow of her former self in a hospital bed, was now going to leave the earth for good. He couldn’t believe it—wouldn’t believe it. He knew that life was beckoning her to fight and fight she must.