“It’s okay. It’s good for Rachel to hear voices. Say what you want.”
It was a minute before David did. His voice was subdued, but the words came fast. “You’re right. This is a family emergency. It’s tough. I’m sorry I didn’t see that sooner”—he took a breath—“but the truth is, I’m worried. Something’s going on here that I don’t get.”
Jack threaded his fingers through Rachel’s. They looked bare. He wondered what she had done with her wedding ring.
“We had no business losing Boca,” David said. “We can’t afford things like that, any more than we can afford to take on the kind of house designing we did ten years ago. The word over lunch at Moose’s is that we’re passé. So rather than doing client development, I’m doing damage control. This isn’t where I want to be at this point in my life.”
“Me, neither,” Jack said. Odd, given Rachel’s condition, but only now was his middle starting to knot.
“So okay, we lost Boca. It was more trouble than it was worth. Okay, we lost associates. We can hire others. But on principle alone we can’t do Hillsborough. It’s too small, too minor. We need Montana, which is still up in the air but which is ours if you can get up there to argue the last design in person, and”—he grew expectant—“we need Atlantic City.”
“What’s in Atlantic City?”
“A new hotel,” he said with barely banked glee. “Big gloss, big press, big bucks.”
Jack didn’t share his excitement. He wasn’t even curious to know more. He didn’t like the feel of that knot in his middle, didn’t like the buzz that business talk put in his head.
And David went on, still gleeful, still dense. “I’ve been courting these guys for weeks. They’ve seen enough of your work to think that they might get something a little different from what the others would do. They want us out there, both of us. We’re talking high-rise, Jack.”
High-rise? He was talking a casino. A fuckin’ casino.
Jack raised Rachel’s arm, angled it slowly across her chest. This movement was personal, even intimate. So was Hope’s painting of Guinevere, taped to the wall, and the single small braid that Samantha had made on one side of the mass of Rachel’s waves. What David described was so far removed from any of this as to be otherworldly.
“Well?” David said, both hands out now, inviting response. “Come on. Did I do good, or did I do good?” He rubbed his hands together. “This could do it, Jack. It’s a biggie, one step beyond Montana. No one’ll be laughing at Moose’s if we get this nailed down. It’ll mean doing some significant hiring, but we can handle it. Would-be draftsmen are picking up their degrees as we speak. They’re looking for jobs. The timing couldn’t be better. Okay, it’ll mean travel for you and me, but, hey, you can’t—”
Jack’s warning look stopped him short.
David dropped his hands. He stared at Jack over the bed for several long, silent minutes. When Jack made no attempt to either look away or soften, David sighed.
“I think,” he said with deliberate care, “that we’ve come to a crossroads. There’s this new deal on the table. It’s the moment of truth. I have to know if you’re in, or out.”
In or out. In or out. In or out. An ultimatum?
David’s eyes remained steady. “The harsh reality is this. Ideally, Rachel gets better, and you return to your own life. I want that, Jack. I want it like nothing else. But harsh reality says there’s another side. There’s the chance that Rachel won’t get better, and you have to shift things around to accommodate the girls, but sooner or later you’ll have to work, Jack.” He was suddenly pleading. “We’ve known each other, what, fifteen years? Thirteen of those we’ve been partners, working hard for the same thing, and we’re right there, right there, pal. We’re on the verge of grabbin’ that big brass ring we’ve been running so hard after. Don’t blow it now, Jack. Don’t lose sight of what matters. We’re too close.” His words hung in the air. Finally, he let out a breath and straightened.
Jack tore his eyes away and returned them to Rachel. He counted the breaths she hauled in and pushed out, indeed a harsh reality. No, he couldn’t blame David for her physical condition. But the man stood for everything that had gone wrong between Rachel and him.
“Are you in?” David asked.
Was he? Did he want that big brass ring? Did he want to design that casino and keep running until the next big gold ring came into sight? Was there satisfaction in it? Or challenge? Or fun? Did he want the same thing for this firm now that David did?
The choice wasn’t cut-and-dried. Building his own firm had been his goal for as long as he could remember. He had given it his heart and soul for years.
Don’t lose sight of what matters, David had said. That was the clincher.
Jack raised his eyes and slowly shook his head. He was tired of evading David, tired of erasing messages, crumbling faxes, deleting E-mail, and feeling guilty about it. He was tired of doing projects he didn’t like. He was tired of traveling. He was tired of the kind of tension that knotted his middle. “It’s not working for me anymore. I want out.”
David looked startled. “Out? Out of the firm?”
“Wasn’t that what you asked?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t expect you’d chuck it. This is your firm as much as it’s mine.”
“Actually,” Jack said with a sigh, “it hasn’t been that for a while. Isn’t that what’s been wrong between you and me? It’s more yours than mine. I’ve been pulling back for a while.”
David continued to look stunned. Jack couldn’t remember when he had ever seen his partner that way. David’s confidence had been a mainstay of the partnership. Jack was sorry to undermine it now, but if David Sung was nothing else, he was a hustler. He would survive.
“Regardless of what happens with Rachel,” Jack said, “I want to downsize. I want to represent people; you want to represent conglomerates. I want Hillsborough. You want Atlantic City. It’s time we split.”
“Just like that?”
Jack rubbed his forehead. His thoughts were fragmented, but they were all headed in one direction. “Not just like that. There were good years. And there are details. People to reassure. Tina, some of the others. Assets to split.” Still, David was stunned. “Why are you surprised? You’re here now. You see.” Loudly, rhythmically, Rachel breathed in, breathed out, breathed in, breathed out. “This is not a vacation. It’s my life.”
Perplexed now, David asked, “Was it a choice, then? Me, or your marriage?”
“Christ, no.” Jack pushed his hands through his hair. “It’s been me all along. Me, biting off more than I wanted to chew. Me, learning the hard way that I’d bitten off more than I wanted to chew. I just want out, David. I’m tired.”
David looked appalled. “Do you know what you’re giving up?”
Jack actually laughed. “No. I’m too tired to give it much thought. All I know is I’m out.”
“Fuckin’ A.”
Jack was tired of that, too. It had been funny once. Not anymore.
Suddenly it seemed that David needed to recoup the emotional advantage he had lost. More sharply, he said, “She left you once. So now you’re out of work. Does she need that?”
“Hey,” Jack warned. “We did well together for too long to become enemies now. Let’s just quit while we’re ahead.”
“Are you gonna open your own fuckin’ firm, or what?”
Jack’s voice rose. “I don’t fuckin’ know.”
David stared at him for the longest time, then turned on his heel. The last Jack saw of him he was shaking his head and picking up the pace of those shiny black shoes. Only when he was completely gone from sight did the enormity of what Jack had done hit him, and then he was as stunned as David had been. Stunned, but relieved. Relieved. Incredibly relieved. Though he hadn’t planned it this way, another of those weights had been lifted. He was suddenly breathing easier.
Then it struck him that he wasn’t the only one who was. He looked at Rachel, swallowed, listened. The noise
was easing, it definitely was. Holding his breath that he wasn’t imagining it, he rang for the nurse.
SAMANTHA was fine as long as she was with Lydia. Lydia was the charm that instantly put her back in good standing with Shelly and Brendan, which said something for how badly Samantha had underestimated Lydia’s strength. Come second period, though, she was on her own, heading for American history with Pam.
She took her seat without looking around and focused on the teacher, which was fine, until the teacher began to drone. Her pen slowed and her mind wandered. She imagined that every other bored person in the room was staring at her back, and kept her eyes on the teacher and a confident mask on her face, all the while remembering how foreign she had felt at that party and how scared she’d been with Teague. She didn’t look back, not even when she thought she heard the rustle of note passing behind her.
An eternity later, the bell rang. She closed her notebook, pushed her things together, and slid out from behind the desk. She had no sooner reached the hall than Pam fell into step beside her and said, “I don’t care what the others say, I still think you’re okay. So you couldn’t handle Teague. I had a feeling he’d be a little much for you.”
“A little much?” Samantha asked, feeling something but not sure what it was.
“Well, I mean, he’s more than you’re used to, isn’t he? Like, he’s totally cool. Is Bar-rendan totally cool?”
Annoyance. That was what Samantha felt. She had seen Pam drinking, dancing, laughing her head off over a half-naked dancer. Pam had seen her leave the party with Teague. Had she tried to stop them? “No, Brendan isn’t—”
“See?” Pam cut in. “I knew you’d agree. So I forgive you. If you want to sit with us at lunch, we’ll let you. By the way, is that natural curl? What, did you sleep too late to blow it out?” She was walking at an angle to look, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “I know the best stylist in the center. He’ll get that straight.”
“I don’t want it straight,” Samantha said. More beautiful. More you. It was something her mother would have said, too.
Pam made a face. “You like it curly?”
Samantha stopped walking. “Actually, I do.”
Pam stopped, too. “It’s very … Lydia.”
Life is about making choices. “Thanks,” Samantha said with a pleased smile. “Hey, I have Spanish. I have to run.”
Pam tossed her shiny black, stick-straight hair over a shoulder. “So, are you meeting us for lunch, or not?” she asked. “Because if you’re not, that’s it. I mean, forget it. I’m through sticking my neck out. If you want to be with Lydia, be with Lydia.”
Samantha took a last good look at the most popular girl in the class. She moved closer, focused in. “Is that eye makeup? No, it’s a blackhead, right there on the side of your nose. Gar-rowsss. Do you have a skin doctor? Like, I never needed it, but there’s one I’ve heard great things about.” She glanced at the clock. “Omigod. I’m late. See you around.”
HOPE tried to concentrate, but she had that feeling. Something was happening; only, when she tried to decide whether it was something good or bad, she couldn’t. Her head was too full of things that had to do with her mother and her father—whether her mother would wake up, whether they’d get back together, what would happen if they did, what would happen if they didn’t, whether Rachel would die first—and Hope still missed Guinevere, still woke up mornings aching to hold her.
The class ended. She filed out with the others, but when they turned right, she turned left. She ducked into the bathroom and closed herself in a stall, but stayed only long enough for the bathroom to empty. Then she went out and walked down the hall like she had every reason to be headed for the door. If you hold your chin up and act like you know what you’re doing, people will think that you do, Rachel always said. She had been talking about going to things like birthday parties, because Hope knew that everyone would be staring when she got there, unless she pretended that they were all just waiting for her to arrive because she was the best part of the group. At least, that’s what Rachel said.
Hope held her chin up and pretended there was a note filed in the principal’s office saying that her mother was waiting outside to take her to the dentist. She fingered her jaw as she went down the steps, frowned toward the curb where the parents usually waited, even looked off down the street. She checked her watch. Apparently her mother was late. She figured she’d walk down a little way to intercept her. That wasn’t against the rules. She wasn’t in elementary school anymore.
Off she went. She walked with confidence until she reached the corner, then turned it and ran until she came to a spot where she could catch a bus. No one else was waiting, which meant that either the bus had just come or there was no bus at all. It didn’t run during the winter. She couldn’t remember whether it started up again in April, or May.
For a long time, she stood there with her backpack on her back, thinking that she was wearing her lucky boots and that it was about time they did something. She shifted from one foot to the other. She sat down on the curb. She stood again and hopped from foot to foot like a runner waiting for a traffic light to change. Something was happening. She knew it was.
She shrugged out of the backpack and was scrounging around inside to see if she had enough money for a taxi when her boots delivered and the bus came down the road.
BAUER hurried in. So did Bates, Winston, and everyone else on the floor who had been involved with Rachel’s care. The monitor showed improved oxygenation; the gasping was softer; and while her lips weren’t the soft pink that Jack loved, they were definitely less blue.
There were high fives all around. Rachel might still be comatose, but everything in medicine was relative.
Long after they were gone, Jack was still grinning, breathing one loud, relieved sigh after another against Rachel’s hand. Then, because he needed to hug her and it had been too long, he slid his arms under, carefully drew her up, and fitted her upper body to his. She felt thin and limp; his memory fleshed her out and gave her shape. She smelled hospital white; his own hands supplied threads of paint thinner; his imagination supplied lilies. He closed his eyes on unwanted tears and gave several more immense sighs.
He didn’t know how long he held her. There was no rush, no rush at all. When he opened his eyes, Katherine was smiling.
Very gently, he settled Rachel into the pillows. He could have sworn her lips were more pink than they had been when he had picked her up, and guessed that it was from holding her, perhaps from nearness or the change of position. In any case, it was a gratifying sight.
“Steve called and told me the news,” Katherine said. “He was nearly as excited as I was.” She came to the bed. “This is a good sign. A good sign.”
Jack thought so, too. As far as the doctors were concerned, the medicine had finally kicked in. As far as Jack was concerned, Rachel had been listening in on his conversation with David and had reacted with a show of support. He was grinning again, grinning still. He felt so tired, so good, so shocked. “Katherine, I just deep-sixed my job.”
“You what?”
He told her about David’s visit. “We’ll be dissolving the firm.”
“Wow,” she said, then, “Good for you. You’d outgrown it. Besides, you have a name. You can work on your own, whenever, wherever.”
“Yeah, well, I want to work out of Big Sur, but that’s Rachel’s turf. For all I know, she wants no part of me.”
“Is that what you think?”
“I don’t know what to think, since she isn’t talking. You’re her best friend. You’ve heard her side. Do you think she’d consider giving it another try?”
Katherine held up her hands. “Not my place to say.”
“You know her. Give me a hint.”
Cautious, she said, “A try, as in living together? Remarrying?”
“Remarrying,” Jack said, since it was a day of shockers. He felt a twisting inside when Katherine looked troubled. “Come on. Say it. I’m a
big boy.”
“It’s not that. It’s this. One crisis is over, but the other goes on. You want her back based on memories of how it was during the best of times. But what if it isn’t ever like that again? What if she wakes up and can’t walk or talk?”
“We’ve been through this before.”
“What if there’s permanent brain damage, so that she can’t think the way she used to? What if she can’t understand what it takes to paint? Or to cook a meal, or drive a car, or bathe?”
“Why are you obsessed with this?”
“Because it’s part of what it means to love Rachel.”
“But why are you pessimistic?”
“I’m not,” she cried, then composed herself and said a quieter “I’m not, but I could be. I could assume that next month or next year I’ll find that they didn’t get it all and my cancer has spread. For a year or two after my diagnosis, I panicked every time I felt a pain. Then I decided that hope was a better way to go. I choose to believe that I’ll live to grow old. But there are no guarantees. If I become involved with someone, he has to know that.”
Ahhh. Jack understood. She was asking him what she would have to ask Steve Bauer. Jack could argue that Rachel’s situation was more traumatic. If Katherine woke up one day with a recurrence of cancer, there would be treatment and remission and, still, the possibility of some good time. If Rachel woke up mentally diminished, there would be nothing.
No. That was wrong. There would be something. But it would be different.
He guessed that was what Duncan had experienced with Faith. Life after the accident was different. Duncan changed jobs. He learned to do things around the house. He gave up much of what was social in their lives, all because he loved Faith.
If that old, leathery clod of a mountain man could do it, Jack certainly could.
One thing was for sure. If Rachel woke up disabled, he didn’t trust that anyone else could take care of her the way he would.
He said a quiet “You didn’t answer my question. Do I have a chance? Is the feeling there? Or gone?”
Katherine looked past him at something and brightened, then frowned almost as quickly.
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