by V M Black
“Our plane doesn’t leave until tomorrow.” Sabrina cast a look at Ross. “I’m meeting the ’rents.”
“’Rents? Who the heck says ’rents?” Lisette said cheerfully. “I’ve got to be home by dinner, but my car’s already packed, so I’ve got...” She checked her watch. “Two and a half hours to burn.” Lisette lived just outside of Baltimore, in the tony suburb of Ellicott City.
“So what do you want to do?” I asked.
“I don’t know. What do young people do these days?” Lisette said, rolling her eyes.
“You know that we’re just going to end up playing ping pong at the Stamp,” Geoff said.
“Table tennis, please,” said Ross in a pained voice.
“You just want it to sound cooler because you always beat us,” I said.
“Freaking Asians and their table tennis,” Sabrina said, grinning at her Korean boyfriend as they linked arms.
Lisette let out a huff of air. “Fine, then. Be boring. It’s not like I have hours to burn figuring out what we’re going to do.” She stalked toward the Adele H. Stamp Student Union with exaggerated exasperation.
Sabrina chuckled, brushing her thick, straight blonde hair back out of her face. “She’s full of something today.”
“Final high,” I said. “She aced everything. Makes her kind of slap-happy.”
We entered the Stamp, and Lisette led us down the stairs, talking ninety miles an hour the whole way. When we arrived at the TerpZone student activity center, it was mostly empty. Half the students had already gone home.
“You do realize that we’re celebrating leaving school for two weeks by hanging out...at school,” I said as Geoff paid for a table.
“Oh, hush,” said Lisette. “Better than sitting around, doing nothing.” She snatched up the ball and one of the paddles. “Who’s gonna face me first? I am invincible! Except you, Ross, because you’ll beat me,” she added.
Geoff smiled at me over her head. “I paid. Other paddle is mine.”
“He’ll beat you, too,” I predicted.
“Have some faith!” Lisette protested.
I grabbed one of the chairs and sat gratefully behind Geoff as he returned Lisette’s serve. My legs ached dully, echoed by my head. I never wanted to move again.
I liked watching him—tall, rangy, and athletic. And the rear view wasn’t too shabby, either. I could tell that he wasn’t really putting his attention into the game, but he still beat Lisette handily.
“Your turn?” he asked, offering the paddle to me.
I shook my head, forcing a smile. “I’m a bit tired.”
In all honesty, I could not have kept up with either of them for a minute, trying or no. My ear infection had all but cleared up, but the stress of finals on top of the leukemia had left me wrung out.
“Come on,” Lisette groaned. “Now I’m going to be the ping pong dummy.”
“Table tennis,” Sabrina corrected, grabbing the paddle from Geoff.
“You have an unfair advantage,” Lisette said, pointing her paddle accusingly at Sabrina. “Your boyfriend has been showing you all those Asian table tennis secrets.”
Sabrina grinned. “Damned right. And I’m gonna school the rest of you whiteys in how it’s done.”
“Learning to play ping pong doesn’t make you any less white,” Lisette sniffed. “And it won’t make Ross’s grandmother like you one bit more.”
Sabrina served, and Lisette ducked as the ball bounced once and whizzed straight for her, letting out a piercing shriek.
Geoff and Ross whooped and Sabrina growled in mock fierceness, waving her paddle threateningly as Lisette scrambled after the ball. I laughed so hard that tears sprang to my eyes, my sides aching. It had been so long since I’d laughed, really laughed, that I’d almost forgotten what it was like.
Lisette brought back the ball and threw it at Sabrina, who caught it easily. Geoff grinned down at me, hauling another chair beside mine. He flopped into it. It was nice to have him near.
I snaked out a hand, half-hidden, under the arm of the chair. He took it and folded it in his own. It felt good.
Over the next ten minutes, Sabrina crushed Lisette, who surrendered her paddle to Ross. “I’m not even going to try against you,” she said.
Ross and Sabrina played a couple of games while we watched, Ross spending as much time coaching Sabrina as playing against her. After his win, Lisette insisted that Sabrina and Geoff have a final showdown, to see how much Ross’s instruction had improved her game since we’d played together last. This time, Geoff was on his toes, lunging and jumping to return Sabrina’s volleys. A fast one whizzed by, and he threw himself back to catch it.
“Watch out!” Sabrina yelled, but it was too late. He slammed into my chair, and we both went over in a tangle.
“And game,” she said, coming around the table to help.
Geoff had put out his hand at the last minute to keep his weight from landing squarely on me, but I’d hit the ground hard enough to knock the wind out of me.
“Crap, Shaw,” he said, jumping up. He slipped an arm under mine and pulled me to my feet. “I’m so sorry. I forgot you were there. I mean, I knew you were there, but I didn’t know I was that close.”
I clung to his arm for a moment to steady myself. He looked so guilt-stricken, his broad face earnest and intent.
“Really, I’m fine, Geoff,” I reassured him. “I’m not that fragile.” I let go of him, and a moment later, he released me cautiously.
“Thanks for the win, Cora,” Sabrina said. “The old stationary-chair trick gets them every time.”
“Very funny, Sabrina,” I said, making a face at her. “I’ve got to go anyway, guys. I’ve got an appointment tonight, so I was planning on catching a nap before I leave.”
“Sure, no problem,” Sabrina said casually. She and Ross didn’t know that I was sick.
“Good luck, and call me,” Lisette said intently. She gave me a worried smile. “In case you’re asleep when I stop by and I can’t say goodbye.”
“I’ll walk you,” Geoff said, picking up my book bag. “I need to do some last minute reviewing, anyway.”
“Sure,” I said. “Bye, guys.”
“Bye,” Lisette said. She waggled her eyebrows dramatically, looking at Geoff and back at me. I scowled at her. Geoff had the good grace to pretend not to notice the exchange.
Geoff and I walked side-by-side, not exactly comfortably, but I wouldn’t say the slight awkwardness was a bad thing, either. It was an awareness of his closeness, his golden looks, and his size, relative to mine.
“You sure you’re okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” I assured him again. He looked so worried that I couldn’t help myself. “All except my ankle, but I’m sure that will heal in a few weeks.”
“Shaw—” he began, his face a mask of guilt.
I relented instantly. “Kidding. Totally kidding.”
“That wasn’t funny,” he muttered as he opened the door for me to precede him outside.
“Was to me,” I said.
He just shook his head.
“Are you seriously going to carry my books for me all the way back to my dorm, like in some kind of cornball TV show?” I asked.
“Would you like me to?” he returned.
I smiled. “I wouldn’t mind.” In truth, the backpack had felt heavier than it had any right to feel, dragging at my whole body after the end of the grueling week of tests.
“Are you going to Lisette’s place again this Christmas?” he asked, changing the subject.
I shook my head. “I’m starting the new therapy tonight, and staying here will give me time to recover. Anyhow, I’ve already paid for housing over the break.”
“I’m leaving as soon as my last final is over,” he said. “My family’s expecting me home before dinner, too, and with rush hour traffic....” He lived in Annapolis, which was an hour away when the Beltway wasn’t crowded.
“Cutting it close?” I asked.
> “What can I say? I like to live dangerously. Just yesterday, I reparked my car without fastening my seat belt.”
Dangerous. An image of Mr. Thorne came to me then, holding my finger to his lips. I shivered.
“Cold?” Geoff asked.
“No, I’m fine,” I said. We got to the front door of the campus apartments. I stopped and turned to him. “Thanks for walking me,” I said.
“I’ll come up with you,” he said, reaching past me to open the door. The casualness of the offer was a little forced. “If I’m carrying your books, I might as well do a proper job of it and take them all the way to your room.”
“Sure.” I felt my face heat a little, and I ducked under his arm into the building.
“You heard back from any grad schools yet?” I asked as we waited for the elevator.
“Three,” he said. “Acceptances from Chicago and Berkley and a rejection from Stanford, but no news yet on assistantships or fellowships. You?”
The elevator doors opened with a chime, and we stepped inside.
“Honestly?” I said, pushing the button for the fourth floor. “I didn’t apply until November.”
“Ouch,” he said.
“I know, stupid, right? But I was distracted. Hope all the slots aren’t filled before they look at my application.”
Distracted. That was an understatement. I hadn’t been physically capable of completing the paperwork. It had taken all the strength I had to make it through my classes.
The doors opened, and we walked to my door, marked by the huge collage of pet memes that Lisette had papered it with. I grabbed the lanyard around my neck and unlocked it, pushing the door open.
“Well, thanks again,” I said, extending an arm to take my backpack.
Geoff stepped forward instead, dropping my bag just inside the door. I stepped back automatically, but he caught up with me and pulled my body into his, one arm wrapped around my waist, the other hand tangled in my hair, puffy jackets bunched up between us. I realized his intentions just as his mouth met mine, and instantly, instinctively, I kissed him back.
I leaned into him, letting my sick and weary muscles surrender to his warm strength. I gasped against his lips as his tongue touched my teeth, and I let him urge them apart.
Finally, after a time that was both far too long and far too short, he pulled away. I staggered back a couple of steps and stared at him. He was looking at me, his breath ragged and two spots of color high in his cheeks.
“Well,” I said breathlessly. “I did say next semester.”
“I know,” he said. “And I meant to wait. But I had to say—” He broke off.
“Goodbye,” I finished. “But it won’t be goodbye. The therapy will work, and we’ll both be back in a month, and we’ll laugh about how sick and scared I was.”
“I’ll never laugh at that,” he said. His smile was rueful. “But I really do have to cram for my history final.”
I grinned back, still feeling the pull of him but more on my own balance again. “And I do need my nap. Go on, then,” I said.
“See you in January,” he said.
“See you,” I returned.
He raised a hand in salute as he stepped backwards, out of the door, and I mirrored him.
Then he was gone.
No longer needing to keep up the pretense of strength, I slumped onto the couch, staring at the empty doorway until it closed on the bright lights of the hallway beyond. Geoff slotted so neatly into my life trajectory: the degree, the boyfriend, the job, the marriage, the house, the kids. It was my modest version of “having it all”—what my Gramma had sacrificed so much so I’d have a chance to have. I’d never imagined any other future, though I wasn’t on any kind of rushed timetable to get there.
I still wanted Geoff, along with all the rest. I felt my attraction to him every time he was near, and he would still fit well into the rest of my life that was still laid out in its tidy map, if only the cancer would go away. He might not be the one to end up filling the full boyfriend-husband-father sequence. But he could. And that’s what I wanted.
But now, when I tried to fix my mind on the bright image of that future, shadows of Mr. Thorne kept intruding on the edges. He was a man who could never fit in my life plan, not in any capacity. Even so, I still wanted him, too, in a way that I’d never wanted anything else.
Perhaps more than I’d wanted anything else, even now, when he was miles away.
And that terrified me.
The microwave clock read two o’clock. I had four hours—only four hours until the appointment that would determine whether that “see you” was a prediction or an empty promise.
Four hours before I saw Mr. Thorne again.
Well, then, I thought, I’d better get my sleep.
Chapter Twelve
At precisely 6:32 PM, the Bentley stopped, and the chauffeur walked around and opened my door. I knew because I checked my phone one last time before turning it off and shoving it into my coat pocket.
“Thank you,” I murmured. I realized that this might be my last time in the car—in any car.
I shut down that line of thought as I got out. I was not going to die. Not tonight. It was a knowledge that was deeper than reason. One that I had to cling to.
I hadn’t paid attention to the city passing in front of the car window, too distracted by my own whirling thoughts. Now I found myself in front of a dense hedge of hollies, easily fifteen feet tall, with only a passage wide enough for the flagstone walk that squeezed between them.
I turned back to look at the chauffeur.
“It is Mr. Thorne’s Georgetown home, Ms. Shaw,” the man said with a small bow before I had a chance to ask the question aloud.
“I see,” I said, even though I didn’t.
Mr. Thorne directed medical procedures from his home? It was absurd, but I couldn’t manage to be surprised about anything he might do. I walked up the path even as I heard the Bentley door shut behind me and the change in sound of the engine as it rolled away.
I still didn’t know the chauffeur’s name, and now I might never learn it.
There was no going back.
The house, half glimpsed between the hedges, revealed itself to me as I passed between them. I stopped.
Rich—I’d known that Mr. Thorne must be a very rich man. But this went beyond all my expectations.
I stood at the edge of a formal walled garden, the immaculate lawn clipped short within the boxwood frames that edged the paths. These crossed precisely in the middle of the garden at a tall iron fountain, empty and silent now for winter. The house rose up beyond, its marble façade so pale it glowed in the city lights that turned the night sky orange.
It was a massive baroque reimagining of classical style, complete with a half flight of stairs leading up to the main floor and a wide porch, like a Roman temple, behind the row of great columns. Here and there, a window shone. I wondered just how big the house was—ten thousand square feet? Fifty thousand? It must date from the age of the robber barons, if not before. I could hardly believe that such a home still lay in private hands, even in Georgetown.
I blew out a long breath. I’d spent even longer deciding what to wear this time than I had for the last meeting. I was going in for a medical procedure, I knew, and a likely fatal one at that. The last thing that mattered was what I wore. But I couldn’t make myself go in my college girl jeggings. It seemed too important an event for that. It needed to be mark with some kind of ceremony, some level of deliberateness, however small, so I’d chosen my gray dress pants and a silky black turtleneck with care.
Now they seemed like such trivial things to try to attach such meaning to.
I squared my shoulders and mounted the steps to the great double doors.
One swung open before I could knock. A distinguished-looking gentleman with silver hair and a dark suit greeted me with a cordial nod.
“Ms. Shaw,” he said.
“Let me guess,” I interrupted, unable to help
myself. “Mr. Thorne is waiting.”
The man—an honest-to-goodness butler? I wondered—treated me to an indulgent smile. “Indeed, Ms. Shaw. And he will see you now. Come this way.”
I stepped inside the foyer, a vast landing before a central set of marble stairs that rose up in front of me, wide enough for a dozen people to mount shoulder-to-shoulder. Two more staircases, each half as wide, flanked it, leading down. Under my feet, an elaborate geometry of inlaid marble spread out, dizzying to examine too closely.
I surrendered my coat to the butler, who made it disappear behind a cast bronze door set into the wall on one side.
“This way, if you please, Ms. Shaw,” the man said.
He led the way up the stairs, and I followed. I found myself in a kind of antechamber, separated from the main space by a row of broad columns.
“This floor is the piano nobile, Ms. Shaw,” the butler said, stopping at the edge of the room.
I gaped.
It looked like the lobby of some extravagant hotel from a classic Hollywood film, all scarlet upholstery, rich woods, and precious oriental rugs. The space was so vast that the room was divided into a dozen different conversational areas with screens and plants, sculptures and furniture groupings. A two-story colonnade surrounded it, each floor at least fifteen feet high, with a wide corridor behind the columns below and a matching mezzanine above. Above the upper colonnade, the room was ringed with a fresco of classical figures in elegant postures.
“A follower of Botticelli, Ms. Shaw,” the butler said comfortably, following my gaze. “Brought from Italy by Mr. Thorne many years ago.”
Light filtered down from the clerestory windows above, and only then came the ceiling, divided into coffers which were painted in a variety of mythological and biblical themes and hung with sixteen vast and branching chandeliers.
“Ms. Shaw,” the butler said politely, rousing me from my frozen state.
“Coming,” I said, still feeling somewhat stunned.
The man led the way behind the colonnade, passing several tall paneled doors before turning down a side corridor that was wider than my room.
“The main east gallery,” he said. It was hung with paintings from floor to ceiling—portraits, landscapes, allegorical scenes all in a great jumble, with the only breaks to make spaces for the doors that occasionally interrupted the long walls. I couldn’t imagine what it was all worth.
