“I didn’t know what to expect,” Jesse said. “But I have to admit I was impressed. It was a great concert.”
“Coming from you,” Rob said, “I consider that a real compliment.”
They chatted for a few minutes before Rob said, “Listen, can I talk to Casey in private for a minute?”
“Sure thing,” Jesse said. “I’ll be waiting outside.”
Ever the diplomat, he discreetly shut the door behind him, leaving her to face Rob alone. “Hey,” he said.
She shoved her fists into her pockets. “Hey,” she said.
“Look,” he said, “I want to apologize for what happened at the airport. I was way out of line.”
“Damn right, you were. Why the hell did you kiss me like that?”
He looked down at his Reeboks, shuffled them around a bit. Shrugged. “Damned if I know. It was completely spontaneous.” He looked at her speculatively. “Why’d you kiss me back?”
Because every time you touch me, I start to quiver and shake. “I don’t know,” she lied.
“I think we need to have a long talk.”
“You have lousy timing, MacKenzie. This isn’t the time or the place.”
He squared his jaw. “And just when will the time or the place get here, Fiore? When we’re both ninety years old?”
“I don’t even know what it is we’re supposed to be talking about!”
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” He slammed a flattened palm down on the top of the television. “You’re lying!” he said. “You’re lying to me, and you’re lying to yourself!”
“Damn it, Rob, this wasn’t supposed to happen! Sex wasn’t supposed to rear its ugly head! It wasn’t part of the deal!”
“Well, here it is, baby! And like it or not, we have to deal with it, or it’ll blow us right out of the water!”
Casey stared at CNN’s silent pictures of gaunt and pathetic children in some third world country. She cleared her throat. “When do you leave?” she said.
“Six-thirty tomorrow morning.” He looked at his watch, and grimaced. “This morning,” he amended.
“Until when?”
He walked over to the window and looked out. “A week before Christmas.”
Christmas was three months away, three months in which he would be crisscrossing the country, playing one-night stands, consorting with women with names like Kiki and Diedre and Sunshine. Something hard and unpleasant settled itself into the pit of her stomach. “Where do you go next?” she said.
He rested one hip on the radiator in front of the window. “Springfield. Albany. Providence. Hell, I’m not sure. I just get on and off the bus when they tell me to.” He drummed his fingers on the radiator. “I’m so tired of it. It gets to the point where the music doesn’t matter any more. It’s just a way of getting what you really want. The only thing that matters is how soon you can get to your next fix.” He crammed his fists into his pockets and squared his shoulders. “And it doesn’t matter,” he continued, “what you’re hooked on. Drugs, booze, sex, money, power—it’s all the same.”
“Since when did you become a cynic?”
He shrugged and rubbed his temple. “I’m just tired. I won’t get any sleep tonight in this zoo, and I’m coming down with the cold from hell.”
She crossed the room, took his hand in hers. His fingers were icy, and she held them until they warmed. “You need a break,” she said.
“Right.” He crossed one bony ankle over the other. “I’ll get a break at Christmas.”
She squeezed his hand. “We’ll talk then.”
“Yeah. Sure we will.” He withdrew his hand. “Look, why don’t you and Jesse just go home? I’m not very good company tonight.”
“Damn it, Rob, don’t be this way.”
He squared his jaw. “What way is that?”
“You’re being a brat. I hate it when you’re a brat.”
“In the words of that great philosopher Popeye, I am what I am.”
“You make me crazy!” she said. “Why do you have to make me so crazy?”
“I don’t know!” he said. “You make me crazy, too! Maybe this should tell us something!”
She wheeled around to leave, but he caught her by the arm and spun her back around, yanking her up hard against him, imprisoning her in his arms. Heart hammering, legs trembling, she pushed ineffectually against his shoulders. “Let me go,” she said. “This isn’t going to solve anything!”
“For once in your goddamn life,” he said hoarsely, “will you please not analyze what’s happening and just let it happen?”
She opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
“Just let it happen,” he whispered.
It was a spectacular kiss, loaded with heat and fury and breathless anticipation. They broke apart, green eyes probing green eyes, before coming back together with a heated, liquid fusion that rendered her incapable of rational thought. He tore his mouth away from hers and buried his face in her hair. Her heart was beating so hard she was sure it would jump out of her chest. She raked both hands through his hair, marveling at its texture. “Don’t go,” she said. “Stay here with me.”
He rubbed the collar of her shirt between his thumb and forefinger. “Oh, baby,” he whispered, “you don’t know how much I wish I could do that.” He nuzzled her neck, kissed the sensitive spot just behind her left ear. “Come with me,” he said.
She actually considered it. Considered the implications, thought about what it would mean if she went with him. Did she really want to live with him on a bus or in an endless series of cheap, anonymous hotel rooms? “I can’t,” she said, surprised by how much it hurt.
He sighed. “You’re right,” he said. “It’s not what I want, either.”
In despair, she said, “This isn’t working. It just isn’t working.”
He caught her earlobe between his teeth, drew it into his mouth, released it. “What isn’t working?” he said.
“You living on one coast, me on the other.”
He raised an eyebrow. “And this,” he said, “is news to you?”
“Yes,” she said. “I guess it is.”
“Good. It’ll give you something to think about while I’m gone. You’d better get on out of here now. Your date’s waiting outside in the hall.”
“Why does it seem like we’ve spent half our lives saying good-bye?”
His mouth thinned into a grim line. “Because we have.”
***
For eight days, she paced her ten lonely rooms like a cat in heat. She should have known that a civilized little affair would never satisfy her. Somewhere inside her, hidden behind that tight-assed, oh-so-proper exterior, lived a woman who had never been willing to settle for anything less than passion. She’d been sure that passion had died with Danny, until Rob MacKenzie’s kiss had taught her that what she really wanted was heat so hot she melted, and a man who would give her not only his body, but his soul along with it. She wanted an affair of the heart, not just one of the body. Messy, bloody, maddening passion.
And there was only one man she wanted it with.
He called around one-thirty on a blue and gold Indian summer afternoon, just as she was making a salad from the last of summer’s bounty. With that peculiar clairvoyance they’d always shared, she knew it was Rob before she picked up the phone. Softly she said, “Hey, Flash.”
“Hey, darlin’.”
“Where are you at?”
“Providence.” He went into a spasm of coughing that lasted for half a minute before he regained control. “Sorry,” he said.
“Rob,” she said, alarmed, “you sound terrible.”
“I can’t throw this damn cold.” He sniffed. “It’s really got me down. Along with about a hundred other things.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m tired of living out of a suitcase. Half the time, I wake up in the morning and I don’t even know what state I’m in. It’s all falling apart, and I don’t know what to do about it.”
“Hey,” she said, trying to keep her voice light. “Are you okay?”
“I’m not aging gracefully, babe.” He stopped to cough again. “It’s like yesterday I was in high school, and today I’m thirty-five, and I don’t know how or when it happened. How the hell did I get to be thirty-five years old?”
Gently, she said, “It happens.”
“I’m beginning to wonder if I’m doing it all wrong. I mean, is this what I really want to do with my life? Jesus, Casey, there has to be more.”
“Come on, Rob, get serious. Music is your life.”
“Yeah, well, maybe it’s time I took up some other line of work. Maybe I should be painting pictures.” He went into another spasm of coughing. “Or houses,” he added darkly.
“Cancel the tour.”
“Are you nuts? You don’t cancel in the middle of a tour.”
“Why not?”
“You just don’t. It must be written in stone somewhere.”
“You have to take care of your health.” Pointedly she added, “And that includes your mental health.”
“Right. And what kind of excuse do I use?”
“Call it burnout, call it exhaustion. I don’t care what you call it. You shouldn’t need an excuse. This is your life you’re talking about, not some two-bit concert tour.”
He coughed again, a dry, tight cough that frightened her. “Have you seen a doctor?” she said.
“I don’t need a doctor. I can take care of myself.”
“Of course. I forgot you had your medical degree. And what have you prescribed for yourself, Doctor MacKenzie?”
“Aspirin. Nyquil. Some twelve-hour crap that’s supposed to help me breathe, only I’ve been taking it every six hours and it does really funky things to my head. I’m supposed to go on stage in seven hours, but there’s no way it’s going to happen.” He paused before letting loose with a magnificent sneeze. “No way in hell,” he added darkly.
“Rob, you’re scaring me. Won’t you please see a doctor?”
“Damn it, woman,” he snapped, “I don’t want a doctor! I want you!”
There was a moment of silence as, somewhere in the vicinity of her heart, she felt the fluid rush of an emotion she didn’t dare to name. “Where are you?” she said.
He sneezed again. “Providence,” he croaked.
She felt it again, that heady, terrifying rush of emotion. “I know that, lovey,” she said. “You already told me that. But where in Providence?”
“I’m sorry. It’s this damn Nyquil. It’s fogged my brain.”
“Rob,” she said, “where the hell are you?”
“The Worcester Hotel.”
“What room?”
“Damned if I know.”
“Never mind, I’ll find you. Start packing. I’m coming to get you.”
“What about the tour?” His voice had gone thin and reedy.
“Let me worry about that. You just get some sleep. Capisce?”
“Yeah.” He managed, somehow, to inject immense relief into that one syllable.
***
His eyes were bloodshot, the pupils dilated, his face ashen beneath a three-day growth of reddish beard. He looked as though he had barely enough strength to stand as he held open the door of his hotel room. “Only for you, MacKenzie,” she said as she breezed past, “would I brave Route 128 at rush hour. All those yuppies in their Volvos, changing lanes at ninety miles an hour. Not to mention the vultures at the front desk downstairs. They wouldn’t even admit you were here, let alone tell me what room you were in, until I told them I was your wife and if they didn’t let me in, I’d knock on every damn door in the place until I found you.”
He gave her a weak grin. “What a woman,” he croaked.
“You look like roadkill,” she said, and touched his forehead. “Rob, you’re burning up! You need to see a doctor.”
He scowled. “I don’t need any doctor.”
“Listen, you jackass, I’m not about to let you die on me.”
“I’m not dying,” he said. “What about the tour?”
“It’s all taken care of. I’m surprised you didn’t hear the screaming.”
“Holy shit. Canceled?”
“The whole ball of wax.”
“Jesus, woman, get me out of town before they lynch me.”
“Let them try. They’ll have to go through me first.” She touched his cheek and was frightened by the feel of his skin, dry and brittle, like onionskin paper. “You’re too thin,” she said, smoothing his hair. “Have you eaten anything lately?”
“Not unless you count big red and yellow pills.”
“Oh, that’s really healthy, MacKenzie. I don’t suppose this joint has room service?”
“Are you kidding, Fiore? I’m lucky to have soap and toilet paper.”
“We’ll have to stop somewhere, then. I left my lunch sitting on the kitchen table when you called.”
He was asleep before they crossed the state line. As she drove north through eastern Massachusetts, she darted brief, worried glances at him. He was much too pale, and his raspy, uneven breathing frightened her. He slept fitfully. When she stopped for food and fuel, he washed down a fistful of pills with a swig of her Coke, then reclined his seat and drifted back into an uneasy sleep.
Somewhere north of Portsmouth he began having cold chills. Casey pulled the car into a rest area and got a blanket from the trunk and wrapped him in it. He was afire with fever, soaked with sweat, trembling uncontrollably. It was nearly midnight when they reached Jackson Falls, and he was too weak to protest when she turned into the parking lot at County General. She steered him in the direction of the emergency entrance and left him slumped on a chair in the waiting area while she spoke with the charge nurse. And then she bit her lower lip in determination and followed him into the examining room.
The doctor was quick but thorough. “Viral pneumonia,” he pronounced as he tucked his stethoscope back into his pocket.
Casey stepped forward in alarm. “Shouldn’t he be hospitalized?” she said.
“It looks a lot worse than it really is.” The young intern gave her what was supposed to be a reassuring smile. “His temp’s nearly 105. That’s why he feels so rotten.”
Her pulse began a slow hammering. “Isn’t that dangerous?”
“Let’s say we wouldn’t like to see it go much higher. Fever’s a perfectly normal reaction, the body’s way of fighting the infection. We’ll give him aspirin to bring down the fever and an antibiotic to prevent complications. Keep him off his feet, make sure he gets plenty of liquids, and he should start feeling better in a few days.”
Rob grumbled when the nurse gave him an antibiotic injection, but he fell asleep again once they were in the moving car, and she had to wake him when they reached the house. With the blanket wrapped around his shuddering body, he stood up, took a step, and faltered. She caught him by the arm and supported his weight all the way to the house, silently thanking God that she had a guest bedroom on the first floor. She could never have gotten him up the stairs.
When she came back with his luggage, he was slumped on the edge of the bed, head cradled in his arms. She rubbed his shoulder. “You get into your jammies,” she said, “and I’ll heat you some soup.”
His pupils were dilated, and he had a drifty look about him that frightened her. But his grin was sassy, if weak. “I don’t own any jammies,” he said.
“Then get into your birthday suit,” she said briskly. “I’ll be right back.”
When she returned with the soup, he had discarded his clothes and was nestled beneath the covers. Like an obedient child, he allowed her to feed him, and it was his docility that frightened her more than anything. He ate half a cup of Campbell’s chicken noodle before burrowing back under the covers and falling asleep.
Casey tossed another blanket over him and pondered her dilemma. Her bedroom was upstairs, and she was terrified to leave him alone. She would have to sleep here. On the shelf in the closet, she found a spare pil
low and a comforter. Overwhelmed with fatigue, she curled up beside him on the bed, expecting sleep to overtake her immediately. Instead, after eight hours behind the wheel, she saw a continuously moving expanse of gray asphalt passing behind her closed eyelids.
Fighting back nausea, she cautiously shifted position and rearranged her blanket. She couldn’t allow herself to get sick. Rob needed her. Three years ago, she’d slept by her daughter’s bedside like this. If she could do it then, she could do it now. But those three years seemed half a lifetime ago. She’d been younger then. So much younger, and not nearly as tired.
His thrashing woke her near daybreak. He was tossing restlessly, mumbling disjointed words in his sleep, the bedding askew and tangled around his lanky limbs. His side of the bed was saturated with sweat. She touched his bare shoulder, and he mumbled something and twisted away from her. “Wake up, Flash,” she said. “Time for your medicine.”
“Lemme sleep,” he mumbled. “Do th’ damn sound check tomorrow.”
His skin was hot as smoldering coals. “Rob,” she said again, “you have to wake up.”
“I am. I’m awake.”
“Then open your eyes for me, sweetheart. Look at me.”
“Jus’ wanna sleep.”
“Rob,” she said, more forcefully this time. “Open your eyes.”
“No,” he said. “Lemme sleep.”
“I can’t,” she said. “If you won’t wake up and take your medicine, I’m going to have to go call the doctor again.”
“Don’ leave me...need you.”
It struck her again, that nameless emotion that kept worming its way into her heart uninvited. She brushed a single curl away from his face. “I won’t leave you,” she whispered. “I’m right here beside you.”
“So tired,” he said. “Jus’ wanna sleep.”
“All right,” she said, and patted his shoulder. “You sleep.”
When he had quieted down again, she went to the kitchen phone and called the hospital. “Look,” she told the doctor, “he’s still running a raging fever, he’s delirious, and I can’t get any medicine into him. I don’t know what to do.”
“He’ll continue to run a fever until the virus works its way out of his system. What you need to do at this point is bring the fever down.”
Coming Home (Jackson Falls Series) Page 40
