Claire Voyant

by Saralee Rosenberg

  “Get some rest.” He stroked my cheek, and looked at me with equal parts exhilaration and fear. “I’ll be back as soon as I can to check on you.”

  I couldn’t move. His tender touch had left me breathless and confused. Good God. What had I just done? My life was about to get very complicated without any sort of sexual entanglements, especially with an engaged man to whom I was technically related.

  But who was I kidding? Drew Fabrikant rocked my soul and had from the minute I saw him at the Jacksonville airport. Still, there was something I needed to know. “Why did you just do that?” I touched my lips. “Why did you kiss me?”

  “I don’t know.” He stopped. “I guess in case I never got another chance.”

  Chapter 16

  I UNDERSTAND THAT MY GRANDFATHER, ABE’S, FUNERAL WAS LOVELY. A testimony to the indomitable spirit of a boy who escaped Nazi Germany. A boy who chose to embrace life, rather than spend it mourning his unthinkable losses. A boy who devoted his entire life to helping others escape the life-threatening conditions brought on by demon dictators.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t get to hear any of this firsthand, as I was not among the mourners. Seems I was lying unconscious in a hospital bed. Not at Aventura Hospital, where I’d first been taken. Rather, I’d been upgraded to the more prestigious Mt. Sinai, where I could be cared for by the Fabrikants’ private physicians.

  The fact that I was unaware of any of this was a little confusing. Last I knew, I was safely tucked in Drew’s bed, confident that after the Tylenol kicked in, I would just get up and try to deal with my very real nightmare.

  Instead, I awoke to the sight of my father hunched in a big leather chair, staring out the window. “I am such an ass,” I thought I heard him mumble. But surely I was mistaken. Admission of guilt was rare. Still, it was worth pursuing, even in my groggy stupor.

  “Why? What did you do this time?”

  “I can’t believe it. I hit a lady smack in the jaw. I’ve never hit a lady in my life…. Oh my God!” He jumped out of his chair, kissed my forehead, and ran to the door. “Nurse!” he yelled. “Nurse! She’s up. My daughter is up. She’s talking. Get the doctor. Get my wife.” He rushed back to my bedside. “You have no idea how worried we were about you…we thought we were going to lose you.”

  “Where am I?” I sounded like I had a mouth full of novocaine.

  “You’re in a hospital. A really good hospital in Florida. You wouldn’t believe what they charge a night here. Like it’s the goddamn Ritz-Carlton. But who cares about that? Thank God you woke up.”

  “Everything hurts,” I grumbled. “My head, my throat, my chest…”

  “No kidding it hurts.” He ran back to the door. “Nurse! Somebody medical. My daughter woke up…. Jesus Christ.” He banged the wall. “Five hundred big ones a night, and you still can’t get any goddamn help when you need it.”

  “What are all these tubes?”

  “Don’t touch those!” He ran to my side. “Claire, listen. You’re a mess, honey. You’ve been unconscious for two days, you got pneumonia after you swallowed your own vomit, and the bacteria got stuck in your lungs, or something like that, and then they had to drill a hole in the back of your head to drain out the fluid from the blood clot, which could have killed you if they didn’t get to it in time…a subdermal hematoma they called it—”

  “Huh?”

  “But don’t worry. You’re going to be fine. The doctors said if you didn’t go into a deep coma, your chances for a normal recovery were excellent.”

  “Where’s Mommy?”

  “She’s coming. They’re getting her. She’s probably down in the cafeteria stuffing her face—”

  “I heard that.” My mother rushed in. “Oy, Claire…thank God you’re up. And for your information, mister, I was down the hall speaking to one of the nurses about my migraines, which I wouldn’t have if you weren’t always carrying on like such a lunatic.”

  “Oh, good. We solved the case of the missing nurses. They’re off gabbing instead of working.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. The care here is excellent. And stop blaming me for everything. You’re the one who always gets Claire so crazy.”

  “Me get her crazy? All I try to do is reason with her.”

  “I think I’m going to throw up.” I leaned over the bed.

  “DOES ANYBODY WORK HERE?” My father’s voice bellowed.

  “Stop shouting, Lenny,” my mother shouted back. “You’re in a hospital, for Christ’s sake. Here. Press this buzzer, and they come right away.”

  It only took a minute before not one, but two doctors and a nurse came to check on me. But according to my father, we’d been trying to get someone’s goddamn attention for nearly a half an hour. Fortunately, they knew enough to let the big-mouth New Yorker vent, as their greater concern was the status of the beautiful model who was somehow related to the very philanthropic Fabrikants.

  The reason I had no recollection of what happened next is apparently that I blacked out again. My brain’s way of shielding me from having to listen to my idiot parents. All I know is that when I awoke for the second time, I was much happier to see a different man sitting in the chair.

  “Hey.” I waved.

  “How are you?” He looked as frightened as the flight attendants who were hoping not to pronounce a man dead at thirty thousand feet. “Don’t move. Let me get the nurse.”

  “What are you doing here?” my voice croaked.

  “You know who I am?”

  “Drew.”

  “Oh wow. You remember me. Because they weren’t sure…”

  “Drew Fabrikant,” I said. “Abe’s grandson.”

  “Right.” He hesitated. “This is great. You keep going in and out of consciousness…the doctors are really baffled…we’ve been keeping a vigil…we were all pretty scared.”

  “Like who?”

  “All of us. Me, my parents, Marly and Sharon, your parents, of course…they just left to go pick up your brother and sister at the airport.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they wouldn’t let Viktor go. They insisted—”

  “No, why are they coming?”

  “Because…see, what happened…your condition…the doctors said…”

  “You thought I was going to die.”

  “I gotta be honest. It’s been touch and go…you weren’t responding…Let me go get the nurse.”

  “No wait.” I tugged at his arm. “I feel so much better. My chest was killing me before…it hurt to breathe…but now…not so bad.”

  “That’s great, Claire. I’m very relieved. But I really should get someone—”

  “Hold on. I want to ask you something.”

  “About…Aunt Penny?”

  “No…about us.”

  “Us? Oh. I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t remember any of that. Look, I’m really sorry. I never should have…I wasn’t thinking…it was pretty stupid, actually.”

  “Are we married?”

  “No.” He laughed. “Call me old-fashioned, but I’m one of those guys who thinks it’s better if the brides are conscious…. Why would you think that?”

  “Because I saw that we were.”

  “Claire, c’mon. You’ve been in a coma. It was just a dream. I’m engaged to Marly, remember?”

  “But I’m telling you, I saw us together. We were married.”

  “Look…I know we could have feelings for each other, but things are already so crazy. Your father…it was pretty unbelievable…he caused some scene here the other night…”

  “What did he do?” I tried to sit up.

  “Lie still. You’re all attached to tubes and everything. I’m getting someone right now.”

  “But wait. I’m not kidding. I saw us. We were married.”

  “Don’t you have to be Mormon to have two wives?” Drew chuckled as he headed out. “Especially if one of them is your first cousin?”

  “Claire, come on. You need to drink this.” My mother was pushing a straw
in my face. “The doctors don’t want you to get dehydrated again.”

  “Uch.” I tried to sip, but my throat burned, and cold orange juice was hardly the perfect antidote.

  “What if I go get her Starbucks?” My sister Lindsey yawned. “She loves lattes.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t advise that,” Sharon said. “The caffeine might not mix with all her medications.”

  “We could ask,” Marly offered. “I’ll check with the nurses’ station.”

  “What time is it?” I asked, not really knowing why it mattered.

  “Nine-thirty in the morning,” Lindsey grumbled.

  “And it’s Sunday.” Sharon smiled. “It’s your birthday, Claire. Happy birthday.”

  “Yes, happy birthday,” my mother said.

  “Yeah. Happy birthday.” Lindsey chucked my shoulder. “You wanna go hit the bars? Free drinks today.”

  “Love to.” I smiled. “Where’s Daddy and Adam?”

  “With Grams.” My mother coughed. “Seeing about a new place for her to live.”

  A new place for her to live? My grandmother had lived in the same apartment on Country Club Drive for seventeen years. Why would she move now? I waited for my mother to explain, but she was examining the contents of her pocketbook. And Lindsey, who never had anything substantive to add to a conversation, but talked anyway, was unusually quiet.

  Then it was if a power surge tripped a switch, and the memory chip in my head turned on. The details were still fuzzy, but I was starting to remember. My grandmother hated where she lived…she’d gotten rid of all her things…she needed a place to go…an assisted living center was available…it belonged to Abe Fabrikant…the man who died on me…my grandfather…that’s why I was in the hospital…I’d fainted from the shock of figuring out the truth…my mother and father were not my authentic parents they were understudies for my real parents, one of whom was unable, the other, unwilling, to fulfill their duties. At this performance, the role of Claire’s mother will be played by Roberta Greene.

  As for the Marly twins? Think…why were they here? Of course! Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. The only way to stop me from becoming the majority stockholder in the Drew Corporation was to keep tabs on my recovery.

  In fact, I’d bet the Fabrikant family farm that they were up to no good. There was just too much at stake here. The chance for Marly to marry into money, to live among the other wealthy scions of Florida, to complain about the high cost of maintaining a yacht and the difficulty in finding good help.

  No way could they take the chance that I fully recuperated and competed for Drew’s affections. I wouldn’t put it past them that they had come in hopes of finding me alone so that they could pull the plug, then watch me die a slow, painful death.

  Oh God! The idea that today was my birthday, that I was spending it in a hospital after coming out of a coma, and that I had no one in my corner who really cared about me, made me think I should let the Marly twins do the dirty work and just get rid of me.

  “Get out!” I cried. “All of you, just get the hell out of here!”

  “What did we do?” my mother asked. “We’re just sitting here talking.”

  “I don’t want to see any of you,” I cried. “Please leave!”

  “That’s the thanks we get for schlepping here day after day.” My mother stood, hands on hips. “You wouldn’t believe what it costs to park the car, or get a lousy cup of coffee.”

  “Roberta, calm down,” Sharon said. “Remember what the doctors said. She could be easily agitated.”

  “I am not agitated. I just don’t see why you have to be here. I was doing fine without you.”

  “Hello? No, you weren’t.” Lindsey shuffled. “You were in a coma. They told us you might…you know. Check out.”

  “Yeah. And you were probably all thinking, good, who needs her? She’s nothing but a burden and a nuisance.”

  “You’re talking nonsense!” my mother barked. “We’ve been praying to God that you got better. Your father even went down to the chapel to talk to the rabbi.”

  “Sure!” I sniffed. “He’s a big fan of religion, as long as he doesn’t have to pay dues and contribute to a building fund.”

  “Enough with the insults!” she ordered. “We all have feelings, you know.”

  “Me, too!” I flung the TV controller at her.

  “But I don’t have to go, right?” Lindsey played with a hangnail. “You want me to stay?”

  “No!”

  “Why? What did I do?”

  “Did you get me a birthday gift?”

  “No. ’Cause…you know…I waited to see if you were going to croak first.”

  “GET OUT! ALL OF YOU JUST GET OUT!”

  You can’t blame a girl for losing track of time. Especially when she’s lying in a hospital bed, struggling to recover from a near-fatal fall. And I didn’t know if it was because I was a Very Important Patient or the staff was this attentive to everyone, but I had no idea how an ill person was supposed to regain her strength if she couldn’t be left to rest for even five minutes.

  The nurses were the worst, insisting that they needed my temperature, blood pressure, and how was I doing with that stool sample? Then the interns would come charging in to poke and prod, like I was a med-school cadaver. “Excuse me,” I’d scream. “Is there a sign outside my door that says OPEN HOUSE?” And let’s not forget the doctors who would casually stroll in, pull up a chair, and ask a lot of irrelevant questions, as if I were a defendant in a murder trial.

  Frankly, I was so emotionally and physically drained, I didn’t care if I lived or died. Until I saw Drew standing at the door with flowers and a box of candy.

  “Hey.” He knocked. “Coast clear?”

  I smiled yes.

  “I wasn’t sure,” he teased. “I heard this was a combat zone.”

  “A what? Oh, that. I’m better now.”

  “Glad to hear it.” He walked over and kissed my cheek.

  “Everyone’s probably pissed at me, right?”

  “Nah. Don’t worry. We all know you’ve been to hell and back.”

  “It’s so weird. Sometimes I feel fine. Like myself. Other times I feel completely out of it. Paranoid and delusional…. Like the other day when Marly and her mom were here? I actually thought that they’d come to kill me.”

  “Believe it or not, that was this morning. But don’t worry about them. They’re very concerned about you. You’re family now.” He laughed. “Otherwise they would have come to kill you.”

  It felt so good to laugh. And for that one brief moment of lightness, I was grateful.

  “Anyway, happy birthday.” He tossed what looked like a perfectly fresh bouquet into the trash, replacing it with the most magnificent arrangement of roses.

  “Thank you. Wow. Those are beautiful. And so huge. How many are there?”

  “Eighteen.” Drew saved me the trouble of counting. “Marly thinks twelve is too ordinary.”

  Yeah, and ordinary is a terrible sin. “Well, it’s a beautiful bouquet, and I’m very touched. Thank you again.”

  “My pleasure.”

  “So is it still my birthday?”

  He looked at his watch. “For a whole ’nother five hours.”

  “Oh God. Hands down, it’s been the absolute worst birthday of my life.”

  “Hey, we were just glad it wasn’t the last birthday of your life.” He slumped in the guest chair. “Believe me, one funeral a week is enough.”

  “I see that,” I said. “You look like hell.”

  “Well, then we’re twins, ’cause you look like crap yourself.”

  “Yeah, but I have a good excuse.”

  “So do I.” He sighed. “So do I.”

  “I’m sorry. Forgive me. I remember. Your grandfather just died.”

  “Funny thing about that.” Drew sighed again. “Turns out you were right…so did yours.”

  We let the enormity of that statement linger, as the implications were so deva
stating, neither of us could fathom where to start. Until I realized there was something I absolutely had to know.

  “Does she…does Penny know about me?”

  He nodded.

  “What happened?” I hoisted myself up. “How did she find out?”

  “It’s a long story, Claire…probably not a good idea right now…you’ve been through so much.”

  “No, please. Tell me what’s going on.”

  “It’s not my place. You really should wait and discuss all of this with your parents.”

  “Uch, don’t even use that word. They don’t deserve it.”

  “Claire, c’mon. However weird your life started out, they raised you. They love you. You’re their daughter. Nothing has changed.”

  “Maybe for them nothing has changed.”

  “Look, I’m not telling you that this whole thing isn’t crazy. But maybe you just need to give it some time before you write off your family. They’re all you know, and—”

  I cut him off. “Has she come to see me?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Well, has she asked about me? Does she want to see me?”

  “She had to fly back to L.A.” Drew looked down. “Something sort of came up…she had to deal with it right away.”

  “Are you serious? She left without seeing me? Oh my God….”

  “It’s not that she didn’t want to see you,” he said. “It’s just that it…well, it was sort of a medical emergency.”

  “A medical emergency? You mean she finally realized she had no heart?”

  “She has a heart, Claire…it was actually a problem with her face.”

  “Oh. She found out she had two of them?”

  “Trust me. It’s not what you think.”

  “The hell it isn’t. Is she even human? I’m her daughter, okay? Doesn’t that mean anything to her? Why does she keep running away from me?”

  “She’s not running away, I swear. It’s just that…Oh God…I really didn’t want to be the one to have to tell you this. But you know the night you were supposed to come over for dinner? Right before Pops’ funeral? Then you ended up falling asleep in my bed. Remember? You were so tired, and you had a high fever, and you just wanted to sleep…. Turns out this blood clot had formed on the back of your head, and if I hadn’t gotten home when I did, it could have burst, and you would have died in my bed.