by Jane Porter
His gaze still holds mine and he smiles slowly, lazily, and I smile back. I don’t even know why I’m smiling, but here everything is different.
I feel different. I feel as if all the superficial bullshit of Hollywood is falling away and the real me can breathe again. I’m finding myself and remembering what matters.
When the hospital van arrives on its final trip to the community center for the night, I try to slip away quietly from the group to get a seat in the van. But Michael sees me rise and reaches out to touch my arm as I pass. “Where are you going now?”
“Heading to bed.”
His fingertips brush my forearm and my skin tingles, hot and electric. “Always running away.”
I roll my eyes. “It’s the last van of the night.”
His dark gaze gleams. “Good night, Tiana. Sweet dreams.”
Chapter Fifteen
I feel alarmingly giddy during the ride back to the community center’s guesthouse. Giddy as I wash my face and strip off my clothes and turn out the light.
Giddy, and hot, and restless.
I shouldn’t be feeling this way, either. I should be smart. Focused. Honest.
Michael’s a playboy. An Irish charmer. The compliments drop easily from his tongue, but does he mean it? Or are they just lines?
It rains now, and I climb into bed, listening in the darkness to the rain drum on the metal roof above my head. Even with the fan, it’s oppressively hot.
If only I could just forget Michael. But I can’t, and thinking of him just makes me warmer. I hate that I miss him and I’ve only just left him.
How funny. I barely know him, yet I already miss him more than I missed Trevor after six months of dating.
There’s something about Michael that connects with me, touches me. But along with the hope is fear, and the fear is growing, too. Love never lasts. People either die or leave. Just look at Keith. And Shey and John.
No matter how interesting I find him, no matter how appealing he is here, I can’t want Michael. I can’t love him. And I can’t possibly let myself need him.
Keep it as friends, I tell myself, reaching up to touch the mosquito net cloaking the bed. My fingertips brush the fine net. He’s safe, and I’m safe, as long as I don’t let him close.
The van comes far too early to pick us up from the center for St. Francis, but I’m ready when it arrives and squeeze into the back with Howard’s camera equipment and my notebook and pen. It’s only a ten-minute drive and I’m wearing a tomato red sundress with spaghetti straps, but I’m still sweating by the time we reach the hospital grounds.
Fortunately, coffee and a hot breakfast await. After stacking the equipment in a corner of the tent, I get in line with everyone else for my eggs, potatoes, sausage, and bacon.
I see Michael at a table across the dining hall, and despite my resolve, my heart does a funny little jump. He’s sitting in a sea of females.
With my eggs and potatoes, I go sit at a table near Howard’s equipment to keep an eye on it. No one else is at my table, so I get out my notebook and scribble notes for myself about what I need to do today.
I’m halfway through my breakfast when Michael stops by the table. “Good morning, Ms. America.”
My pulse quickens. “Good morning, Hollywood.”
The corner of his mouth lifts. “You should have joined me for breakfast.”
“You had quite a bit of company already.”
His eyes spark. “There’s no competition.”
I blush, and I don’t know why I’m blushing. It’s silly that I suddenly feel nervous. “You’re sounding very Irish lately, Dr. O’Sullivan,” I say crisply to hide my uneasiness.
He sits on the bench across from me. “Hard not to. My mum and dad are both from Galway, on the west coast of Ireland.”
“So you were born in Ireland?”
“La Paz.”
“Bolivia,” I say, making sure I understand.
His smile is crooked. “Travel’s in my blood.”
I’m even more curious now. “Was your father a doctor?”
“No.”
“So why do you do what you do?”
His smile fades and he doesn’t answer immediately, and then he raps the table with his knuckles and stands. “Because I can.”
The camera’s dead. I didn’t think to check the battery last night, and now I scramble to find the plug and a converter and an available outlet. But just as I’m about to plug in the camera, Tomas, one of Michael’s doctor friends, tells me to stop. “You’ll fry your camera,” he tells me. “You’re missing a piece of the converter.”
I’m embarrassed but grateful and have to go without filming until I can see Howard and find out where the missing piece is.
Michael is scrubbed in for surgery, and I’m in the corner of the operating room in a mask and robe with my notebook and pen, to make notes during the operation of questions I have and things I need to research.
In between procedures, Michael steps outside to drink water or talk with his surgical team. I keep my distance as the staff talks. They’re truly on a mission and sharing something very special together. It’s bonded them, turning a collection of international medical specialists into a team. They know they’re doing something good, know they’re making a difference, and their satisfaction is evident in their expressions.
I want what they have. I want to feel what they feel. I want to know I’m doing something good in my life.
The medical team is scrubbing up again, and Jon, Michael’s friend, appears with a black box and plug. “This will work for your camera,” he says. “And I moved some things around in the operating room. You’ll find a free outlet against the wall by the door.”
I’m surprised by the unexpected gift and thrilled. Impulsively, I lean forward and kiss him on the cheek. “Thank you!”
Red-faced, Jon leaves and I glance up to find Michael looking at me.
I lift the converter and plug to show him. He smiles and there’s something warm in his eyes, something so good that I feel his warmth burrow all the way through me and into my heart.
If only he could be the right one… if only I could be brave enough… if only there could be some kind of guarantee that if I fall in love again, this time everything would work out….
During the next round of surgeries, I stand next to the camera and film with my best professional detachment, which is very hard to do in these circumstances. These patients are but babies, and Michael’s hands are like those of a giant as he works inside, restructuring the palate and connective tissue and bone.
This “devil” of a man is gentle with the smallest and weakest.
* * *
I spend the afternoon filming the screening process. There must still be several hundred families waiting, and with only a week left to the mission, less than a fifth will be chosen.
I have the camera rolling throughout the afternoon as women stand patiently in line for their child to be evaluated. The mothers know only a few will be selected, and they all want one of those coveted spots.
Later, as the screening team of pediatrician, dentist, speech therapist, and nurse examines the candidates, I film an anguished father begging the doctors to help his son.
Tears spill from the father’s eyes as he motions that his son cannot eat and is starving to death and if we do not help him, he will die. He will die.
Whispering into the mike, I repeat the father’s desperate words, and I zoom the lens in on the father’s face. It’s difficult for me to keep my composure as the father’s words are translated for the screening team’s benefit.
I pan to the thin little boy with a hole where his lip and gums and teeth should be and then have to pause filming because my vision is too blurry to see.
They’re not going to choose the little boy. I know they’re not, and it undoes me.
Late in the day I see Michael, who is finally finished until tomorrow, and I ask him about the little boy who moved me so much.
&nb
sp; “Will he be one of the ones chosen?”
“Not all children can be chosen.”
“But some children who aren’t helped will die.”
He nods imperceptibly.
“How can you bear it?” I ask, my voice breaking.
“Because I’ve learned the hard way that we can’t save everyone, so here we have to be careful, we must make good decisions. We evaluate the cases and choose the best possible candidates, children who are relatively disease-free and physically strong enough to tolerate the surgery. Children who can undergo anesthesia. Children without heart and lung problems. Children who won’t die from infection afterwards.”
“They’re not going to pick the little boy, are they.”
“If we were in an American hospital— ”
“But we’re not,” I finish fiercely, and my anger isn’t at him, but at the injustice of it all.
There has to be a way we can change things, improve things. There has to be a way to save the little boy, the only son of a weeping father, a father who has already lost his wife to childbirth.
“There has to be something I can do to help him.”
“Tiana, he’s a very sick little boy.”
I fight to keep my voice calm. “Let me help him.”
“We’re not equipped to help all the ill children. We’re limited by our mission, limited to doing what we can do— ”
“Help me help him.” I put my hand on his arm, and his skin is firm and warm. I can feel the muscle in his forearm. “Michael, you can find out what he needs. You’re a doctor. You give me a list of medicines or treatment he needs, and I’ll pay for it.”
Michael covers my hand with his. “And what of the other hundred children who aren’t chosen? Will you save them, too?”
I blink and tears fall. “Yes.”
“It’s impossible to save everyone. That’s the first lesson they teach you in medical school.”
“Then I’ll help as many as I can.”
His fingers press against mine. His voice drops. “You have a good heart.”
“I have money— ”
“Tiana.”
“I want to help.” I take a breath. “I need to help.”
“You are by being here. You’re telling the story that needs to be told.”
I shake my head. “Children will die before the story even airs.”
For a moment his expression turns bleak, and then it’s gone. “They’re dying as we speak.”
I pull my hand away and avert my head to hide my rush of emotion. I hate what he said. I hate that he’s right.
“Come…” Michael puts a hand out to me. “Let’s get dinner. It’s something we can do right now.”
Michael keeps me close during dinner. It’s an effort to eat the little I put on my plate. I’m exhausted. Flattened. And my mind is spinning trying to find solutions, trying to figure out how I can help the father’s only son.
“It’s hard to see so much suffering,” Michael says to me quietly as he stacks our trays together. “And you, despite all your TV gloss and polish, are extremely sensitive.”
My eyes burn, my chest burns. “I could not lose my child. I could not.” And these people do. And they will. And it breaks my heart.
He’s silent, studying my face. “I will have a look at the boy’s file. I will look into the reasons he wasn’t selected and see if there is anything I can do.”
“You’ll do that?” My voice catches.
“I promise.”
I blink, sniff, but the tears fall anyway. “Thank you.”
“Who would have thought little Ms. America had such a tender heart?” And then he puts his arm around me and holds me against him as I cry. And I cry. I cry for the mothers who lose their babies and I cry for the babies who lose their mothers and I cry for the losses I experienced too early, before I was ready to be whole and complete and able to stand on my own two feet.
As I cry against Michael’s chest, I think I need those two feet now. It’s time to be as big and tough and successful on the inside as I am on the outside. Fame doesn’t mean anything. But confidence and strength do.
After my embarrassing crying jag, I want to return to my room at the community center, but Michael insists I stay and play games. So here I am, at a table in the dining tent, playing Yahtzee. In fact, the tent echoes with the sounds of cups slamming and dice rolling and shouts of laughter. Turns out Yahtzee is a tradition among Michael and his friends. They drink orange Fanta and play a mean game of Yahtzee. At least Michael plays a mean game.
“He’s cheating,” I say grumpily as he gets four fours and howls with delight.
“Get used to it,” Tomas tells me with a long face. “He’s very good at winning.”
“Which is a good thing when you consider he’s a terrible loser,” Jon adds.
They laugh, and shaking my head, I glance up at Michael. He’s looking right back at me, and what I see in his eyes makes me go warm even as my heart turns over.
He likes me.
Michael slides the plastic cup of dice toward me, and his fingers brush mine. “My parents were peace workers, Tiana. We didn’t have a lot of money, and life in Bolivia was often hard, but compared to the pressure of life in Los Angeles, those years in South America seem like paradise now.”
I inhale, breathless all over again.
I understand.
I understand that living in Los Angeles means never being good enough. No matter how young, how fit, how tan, how beautiful, there will always be someone younger, fitter, tanner, more beautiful. There will always be another young woman appearing on the scene, threatening to take everything away I’ve earned.
There’s nothing wrong with how I am. I’m not the problem. The message is the problem, the message that we’re not good enough or pretty enough or fit enough or smart enough. It’s the message Madison Avenue has been selling us, and it’s a message Hollywood packages and pushes with every bone-thin Botoxed actress they stick in our face.
It’s a message I’ve perpetuated, too. But no more.
And last, I finally understand that Michael likes me.
Maybe a lot.
Today, with Howard finally behind the camera, we’re staying out of the surgery room and focusing on preop and recovery. We’ve been told by Meg that it’s the most emotional moment for parents. In preop, the fathers are usually stoic, but the mothers alternate between hope and terror. If preop is fear, recovery is pure joy.
Not just elated that their child has survived the operation, these parents are seeing their child for the first time with a whole face.
There is such wonder in their eyes as they reach for their children. The upper lip has been stitched closed and the palate has been restored. It’s a miracle for the whole family.
After one particularly extensive surgery, Michael appears in the recovery room to check on the nine-month-old girl. The little girl’s mother is practically a child herself, and she’s overcome as she examines her baby’s beautiful face.
Michael gives the sobbing mother a hug.
My chest grows tight. He’s good. He’s gifted. He’s passionate. He’s determined. He’s the kind of man I always wanted, the kind of man who makes my heart beat harder, faster. Why didn’t I ever see who he was? When I looked at him before, what was I looking at?
It’s been years since I really loved, years since I let myself be loved. Can I do this again? Do I know how to do this again? Can I go for it without screwing it all up?
Midafternoon there’s always a half-hour break for tea. Everyone spills into the dining tent for tea and coffee, rusks and slices of milk tart. It’s a very South African tea and one I remember from my eight months in Natal.
Today I pass on the tea and head outside for a walk, needing the exercise to try to burn off some of my tension.
Despite the heat, I walk briskly, ignoring the perspiration beading my skin. I walk and walk, making circles around the brick hospital with its one-hundred-bed capacity.
&nb
sp; I’ve just completed my third circle around the hospital when I hear, “How am I expected to sleep with you thundering about like a herd of elephants?”
I glance toward the shade provided by the lone hospital tree and see Michael stretched out on the ground, his arms folded behind his head.
I walk toward him, my nose wrinkling when I see him lying on an area that’s more red dirt than grass. “Aren’t you afraid of being eaten by ants?”
“I don’t taste that good. They leave me alone.” His smile is lazy. “I’ve been watching you march around the hospital. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Everything. I love this. I hate this.” My hands go to my hips. “I’m elated and emotional and excited and overwhelmed— “ I break off, laugh unsteadily. “I’m so glad you challenged me to come here, to be here. I’m just so grateful.”
He pats the straggly grass next to him. “It does give one perspective, doesn’t it?”
I nod and sit cautiously. As I settle onto the ground, I get a look at Michael: The shadows beneath his eyes are even darker today. “You’re not sleeping, are you.”
“I don’t tend to sleep well on the missions. There’s so much to do and so little time in which to get it all done.”
“Yet you’re always so nice to everyone.”
“You don’t know the real me. I’m no saint. Just ask Alexis. She’ll tell you.”
“Did you cheat on her?”
“No.” He laughs, gives me an odd look. “I didn’t give her the attention she deserved. I don’t try hard enough, don’t listen enough, don’t make her needs a priority.”
“Is that true?”
He thinks, nods. “Probably.”
“Did you go to counseling or try to work on the problems?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“We weren’t ever supposed to get serious. It was just supposed to be fun. But of course it got serious, and… well, I’m an asshole.”
