Skygods (Hydraulic #2)

by Sarah Latchaw

  “The correct combo of meds works wonders. But finding that balance is often difficult, as the disease is prone to shift and change. Mr. Cabral has done everything he’s supposed to. In this case, the treatment failed.”

  “How do we make sure it doesn’t happen again?”

  “Right now, we have him on antipsychotics to rapidly stabilize his mood. Long term? We’ll rediagnose him with Bipolar I, ditch the antidepressant, and put him on a higher dose of Depakote. In any other case I’d consider something less archaic, but unfortunately, antidepressants have messed up the system. The good news is, we’re on the right road. I also recommend a round of couples therapy for the two of you.”

  I pressed my fingertips to my forehead. “When will you release him?”

  “When his mood stabilizes. I’d give it another few days, just to be certain.”

  “Does he want to see me yet?”

  “I’ll ask.” I don’t know why she bothered. His answer would be no. She returned, eyes full of pity. “Maybe tomorrow.”

  That evening, I had drinks with Molly and Danita at the hotel bar. It was either the pungent martinis or Molly’s crocheted shawl that made me think of my grandmother, deceased nearly a decade. I recalled the best advice she’d given me that I’d never taken: a man can be your best friend, but don’t expect him to be your best girlfriend.

  I’d spent many summers at her home in Durango, sustained by Samuel’s infrequent letters and even more infrequent phone calls. The letters were wonderful, detailed, revealing…when he sent them. Half the time, he’d take so long rewriting and perfecting, they never saw a stamp and only made it into my hands after I’d returned to Lyons and he dug them out of his desk drawer.

  The calls? Paaainful. They went something like this:

  “Hey, Kaye, it’s Samuel.”

  “Hey, Samuel, it’s so awesome to hear from you! How’s Lyons?”

  “Okay.”

  “How’s the parents?”

  “Okay.”

  “Danita?”

  “Good.”

  “Erm…how’s the baseball season?”

  “Oh man, you should have been at the game the other day. We were playing Princeville, right? And of course it’s gonna rain half the afternoon, but the ump’s never going to cancel unless there’s lightning, which never happens. So Pedro’s rounding the bases, but Princeville sucks at field maintenance so third base is this giant mud hole…”

  And thus, the conversation dissolved into baseball for fifteen minutes. Then he made the mistake of asking “How’s Durango?” and I spent the next fifteen minutes gushing my little thirteen-year-old heart out about how I didn’t have any friends in the neighborhood and my grandmother made me go to bed at nine. His reply?

  “Oh. That sucks.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Listen, I have to go ’cause dinner’s ready.”

  “I really miss you, Samuel.”

  Silence. Then…

  “You too. Bye.”

  Later that night, my grandmother laughed away my teenaged angst and told me the reason Samuel talked about baseball all the time was because it was a topic he could discuss with confidence.

  “Men hate to use the F-word.” I blinked up at her in faux innocence, and she smirked. “Feelings. Men don’t like to let us know they aren’t sure of themselves. They feel like frauds most of the time, but it’s preferable to us believing they’re failures. You, dear granddaughter, seem to think Samuel hung the moon, and he’s not going to let on otherwise.”

  Psh, Samuel didn’t hang the moon? Nonsense!

  Fortunately, I managed to glean a couple of lessons from Gran during those summers. I could just feel her smacking me upside the head right now as I sipped martinis with my girlfriends and silently bemoaned Samuel’s self-imposed quarantine. She’d tell me, “Kaye, it’s not the end of the world if you have to wait a couple days until that boy has a modicum of composure. In the meantime, quit moping. He’ll appreciate that you’re taking care of yourself.” Then she’d wink and I’d cringe, because grandmothers should never, ever hint about sex to their grandkids.

  Day Six of The Great Boston Boogie: Samuel Cabral, here I come.

  I got the call from Dr. Tran in the middle of a hotel bagel and cream cheese—Samuel wanted to see me.

  I dug through the suitcase Danita and Molly had packed for me. Everything was so wrinkled, I might as well have ripped down the drapes and fashioned a dress a la Scarlett O’Hara.

  “I hung your blue knit dress in the closet,” Danita said behind me. She tugged the dress from the hanger and tossed it at my head. “Samuel loves it when you wear blue.”

  “I’m not dressing for him,” I grumbled. “He hasn’t wanted to see me, so why should I?”

  “It’s okay to admit you want to look pretty for him. He’d jump your bones, even if you wore one of Tom’s old Dead T-shirts. But make him suffer a bit for the past week. He’ll appreciate it.” Apparently Danita had been communing with Gran.

  “He’s probably too doped up on meds to jump onto the toilet, let alone me.”

  Her velvety brow furrowed. “What is this, Kaye? Are you seriously going to stand here—a woman who’s thrown herself off mountains with two small strips of plywood attached to her feet, nearly drowned herself year after year in the Colorado River, and dived headfirst from planes thousands of feet in the air—and tell me you’re intimidated by one manic episode? This is right up your alley. Wear. The. Dress.”

  I couldn’t argue with both Danita and Gran. Wordlessly, I slipped on the dark blue dress, fastened a pretty turquoise necklace, and grabbed a jacket on the way out. The temps had cooled as Boston slid firmly into a golden autumn. Just as I shoved on a pair of sunglasses and walked out of the Wyndham, a flurry of camera flashes blinded me.

  “Kaye, are you on your way to see Samuel?”

  Crud. Tweedledee and Tweedledum had camped outside the hotel since stupid HollywoodDays leaked Samuel’s location. I tried not to scratch my nose, or sniff, or trip, or kick them in the balls.

  “Hey, Neelie Nixie, do you straddle him in that hospital bed?”

  “Morning, guys. Hope you get hit by a car.”

  I couldn’t believe I once gave those jerks blueberry muffins.

  Tweedledee and Tweedledum trailed me until I reached Mass General. They didn’t follow me in, because several days ago, one of their cronies got brave and ended up behind bars when the front desk receptionist called security. “We frequently have celebs here,” she explained, “so the paps tag along. Once, someone even pulled a fire alarm when a celeb’s wife was having a baby, trying to force the poor guy onto the street. It was crazy.”

  A gaggle of diehard Neelie fans also camped outside the hospital, clasping bunches of helium balloons and Red Sox gear (clearly his readers now knew he was a baseball fan). For security purposes, the hospital wouldn’t let them loiter in the lobby. Each morning, they pressed gifts on me and begged me to carry them up to Samuel, making me feel like the pope on his way to say intercessions. Security told me to leave the stuff at the front desk.

  But this morning was different. I could only attribute the dark glares and hisses to the garbage the tabs churned out. I wove through the small crowd, absently accepting their presents, skirting their questions and dodging spiteful elbows until I zipped through the rotating door. The receptionist waved me over. I dropped an armload of teddy bears and collapsed, breathless, over the desk. She held up a bear wearing a tiny Deep in the Heart of Nixie T-shirt and pursed her lips.

  “Keep it, if you want,” I told her.

  All chubby cheeks and giddiness, she tucked it next to her computer monitor. “Lean over here, honey.”

  Confused, I did as she asked. She pulled a tissue from a box and dug something from my hair, then held it out for me to see. A chewed pink blob of bubble gum. I grimaced. “Disgusting.”

  “They’re turning on you. Best call someone to escort you home when you’re ready.” I nodded my thanks as she pitched
the tissue in the garbage. “I’m not supposed to do this,” she whispered, “but I have a huge favor to ask. Can you ask Mr. Cabral to sign my copy of The Last Other?”

  I started to protest, but remembered this gal all but broke a photog over her knee for me. I took the book.

  My palms were a clammy mess when I reached the psych unit. I wiped them on my dress and followed the nurse. A Red Sox game on a mounted television in the lobby quietly buzzed. Could Samuel hear it? The only other occupant in the room was an old woman, tangled white hair all askew and her lipstick even more so. She wrung her leathery hands as she watched the game, but I didn’t think she actually followed it.

  The nurse knocked on the third door down.

  “Mr. Cabral?”

  She pushed the door open. There he was, and my heart pounded.

  His skin was chalky. That was the very first thing I noticed—how stark his brown eyebrows and eyelashes were against his pale face. His lips were cracked and as bloodless as the rest of him. Books were stacked on a table next to his bed, all of them new and untouched. His eyes were closed, head resting on a pile of pillows. Six days’ worth of stubble covered his jaw and chin, and it hit me that I’d never seen him wear a beard before, even in our Boulder days.

  “No razors?” I whispered to the nurse. She gave a shake of her head. “What if I brought an electric one?”

  “Not even that. No cords allowed, not unless an orderly watches him and Mr. Cabral has been adamantly against that.”

  I could only imagine.

  “I’ll leave you to your visit.” She patted my shoulder and left.

  He looked so, so tired. Lifeless, like one of those tagged corpses in thriller movies. I reminded myself he was heavily medicated and probably battling off a post-manic crash, but seeing his death-like pallor scared the crap out of me, and I focused on the gentle rise and fall of his chest.

  Then those beautiful blue eyes met mine. They were dull and foggy, but damn it, he was still alive and I was grateful for it.

  “How do you feel?” I hung back, near the door.

  “Like I just woke up, all the time.” His voice was coarse, slurred. “I can’t shake the fuzziness.”

  “It’s the antipsychotic. They’ll put you back on Depakote, but even then, you’ll feel sluggish for a while. And you’ll have to exercise like an Olympian to keep that pretty form.”

  “I know. I’ve had to before.” He gave me a lazy smile. “Would you still love me if I was fat?”

  The corners of my mouth curled in spite of myself. “I suppose it would give me leeway to pack on a few pounds. We could be one of those happy, pudgy couples that hold hands in the park.”

  “We’ll laugh about this someday.”

  “Definitely a funny story to tell the grandkids.” But I wasn’t laughing. Still, Samuel ran with it.

  “Oh no, Kaye. The grandkids will never hear a word of it.”

  “Sure they will. The minute little Samuel the Third does a school report on Grandpa, the whole sordid Fenway affair will spill out.”

  We let the fantasy linger in the air, reluctant to admit that’s what it was—a fantasy. Right now, children seemed as unlikely as a hurricane hitting Lyons.

  “You look so beautiful.” He motioned me closer. “What do you have there?”

  I pushed the book into his hands. “The paparazzi slayer in the lobby would like you to sign this as payment for my safe passage.”

  “You’ll have to ask the nurse for a pen. They won’t let me have one.”

  “It’s just a precaution, Samuel.”

  He rolled his eyes. I jogged out to the nurses’ station, asked for a pen, then handed it to him while an orderly hovered behind me. Samuel scowled as he signed the inside flap. “Offing myself was never my intention, you know.”

  “I didn’t know. Thanks, though I would have preferred that clarification a week earlier.” He may have been doped up, but he still heard the bitterness in my tone, and he paused mid-signature. I continued, “The city’s going to let you off with community service, which can be served in any state. Ace is a miracle worker.”

  “I’m running out of chances, aren’t I?” He snapped the book shut.

  “If something happens again, you might have to do time.”

  His dry lips pressed into a thin line as the thought of prison hung between us. He capped the pen and returned it to the orderly, glaring at the man’s back until he was gone. Then he held out a hand, trembling from the meds. I took it, and he pulled me onto his bed, burying his face in the folds of my jacket.

  “I didn’t want this life for you.”

  “It was never your choice.”

  His hands tenderly clasped my hips. “Do you know what my biggest regret is, about that night? Not telling you how lovely you looked on your birthday.”

  My fingers combed through his soft, thick hair until his body sagged against me. Kissing the top of his head, I left him so he could grasp at much-needed sleep.

  When I returned to Central Command, Justin thrust another printout from the HollywoodDays blog in my face.

  “‘Ex-Wife Singing for Sirens Author’s Fortune,’” I read aloud. Peachy. I grabbed the article from Justin and skimmed.

  “I liked the bit about your enlistment of a top Boston Law Firm to fight for conservatorship. Oh, and the speculation about Ace and me entering and exiting your hotel room. That was particularly seedy. Other gossip mags are starting to parrot HollywoodDays, too.”

  I crumpled the paper. “This has got to stop, Justin. They have someone on the inside, and I think you know as well as I do who it is.”

  “Who has the most to gain by painting you as the bad guy?”

  Who had the most to gain by painting me as a bad guy? I silently repeated. My status as Samuel’s publicist didn’t affect Caroline anymore, but it mattered to The Buitre Group.

  “You’re makin’ enemies, Kaye. That means you’ve reached the big time. You want me to release a statement?”

  “What would be the point? They’ll just twist it into a lie.” Would Jerome stoop that low? Dish dirt on Samuel’s illness—his own client—to gossip mags? You bet he would. I punched in Jaime’s number.

  “Have you found anything new on the HollywoodDays source?” I asked.

  “Give me some time, Trilby,” she grumbled. “You can’t rush weasel-fucking.”

  I cringed. That was a resounding no.

  I visited Samuel every morning for the next three days. Each visit, he seemed a little less tired, a little more together. He was able to jog on a treadmill. He read. Went to therapy. Soon, he permitted his family to visit.

  Switching from the role of devoted lover to that of publicist soon gave me a Jekyll-and-Hyde complex. I wanted to wear each hat as well as I could, but I balanced a stack of hats on my head all at once, and that stack soon began to teeter. Each time I returned to the hotel Command Center from Mass General, I strained to detach my heart from the business calls I made.

  When I arrived at the hospital one morning, the chaplain was in the room with Samuel, immersed in soft conversation.

  “He’s visited several times since Mr. Cabral was admitted,” the nurse next to me whispered.

  In fact, he’d been the first visitor allowed access by their celebrated patient. I tried not to feel hurt by this new information. Samuel’s grapple with God was nothing new. With a sigh, I let it go. If I couldn’t keep Samuel grounded, the Almighty was the only one for the job.

  The chaplain shook Samuel’s hand and rose, greeting me as he exited the sterile room. When Samuel saw me, his entire face glowed brighter than a Colorado sunset, and it burned away my petty jealousy.

  “How are things?” he asked.

  I awkwardly swung our arms, not sure if he was asking his lover or his publicist. “Busy. We’ve canceled your appointments and released a statement—”

  “Kaye.”

  “—and Nat, Justin, and Patrick are running interference, at least until you can decide what you want
to do—”

  “Kaye.” He tugged my hand. “That’s not what I meant. I guess…I want to talk about us. Not work.”

  “Oh.”

  “First of all, is there still an ‘us?’”

  I nervously twisted the aluminum rails of his bed as if they were jail bars. “I’m up for it if you are.”

  He frowned, not liking my flippancy. “Please be—”

  “—serious, I know. Sorry. Yes, there is still an ‘us.’ I refuse to believe our window is gone for good.”

  “I want to fight for us, too,” he said, his voice brightening. “I will always fight for you. I know the selfless thing to do would be to encourage you to get the hell away from me, but I’m not willing to do that. Do you understand why I couldn’t see you right away?”

  “I think so. You were angry and needed time. Samuel, I’m very sorry for not telling you I was in contact with Mr. Avant Garde.” He raised an eyebrow and I waved my hand. “The scarf you punched. If I had known it would drive you away…”

  He sighed and beckoned me onto the bed with him. “Firecracker, this isn’t your fault. It wasn’t rational anger. But it was still anger, and some part of me, through the haze of mania and meds, recognized I loved you too much to expose you to that sort of abuse.”

  I relaxed against him, weariness seeping from my muscles. I liked this new honesty between us. He brushed a long finger over my knuckles, white from clutching the bed railing.

  “I’ll find a way to make this easier for you,” he said. “What questions do you have?”

  “How much do you remember?”

  “I remember everything, except the night before your birthday.”

  “Um, we…”

  “Had sex? Yes, I was able to piece that together.”

  I rested my head on his shoulder, biting back tears as the guilt of that night bowled over me. Even on heavy meds, Samuel still saw. He wrapped strong arms around my shoulders and sighed into my hair. “We’ll have our chance again, Kaye. A time when it’s significant for both of us.