Authors: Carolyn Nash
I shrugged. “It didn’t come up.”
“You didn’t tell me because you knew I wouldn’t let you go.”
“Wouldn’t let me?”
“Yes.”
“Wouldn’t
let
me?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t
let
me do anything,
Andy
. I decide
what I do and what I don’t do.”
“Andrew and not when it comes to something like this.”
“Something like what?”
“Trouble that I got you into.”
“I told you before you didn’t get me into anything,
Andy
.
I did.”
“This is my problem. You should have stayed out of it.”
I kicked the paper across the floor. It slid to a stop
against his foot. “Your problem? It looks like it’s my problem now, too.”
“It wouldn’t be if you’d gotten the hell out of it when I
told you to, back at the airport, or at the hotel.”
“What, and I was supposed to take off and let you bleed to
death, knowing that you were too goddamn stubborn to give up and see a doctor?”
“I couldn’t. What use is it to live if everything important
in my life is taken from me?”
“What use is your work or your girlfriend or anything else
if you’d died,” I shouted. “Do you remember, Dr. Richards? Do you remember that
I almost watched you die? Did you ever once think what that would do to me?”
I saw him wince. “I’m sorry,” I said, “I didn’t mean…”
“Yes, you did,” he said, the anger spent. “And you’re right.
I didn’t think. I should have let you call the police then. I should have never
left LA. If I hadn’t, you wouldn’t be in this trouble now.”
“It’s all right.”
“No, it’s not.” He looked down at my photo surrounded by
newsprint. “I want you to help me get to a phone,” he said. “I’m going to call
them now. I’ll tell them you had nothing to do with any of this.”
The disposable phone was in my purse, but I wasn’t about to
tell him about it, at least not at that moment. “Andrew.” He wouldn’t look at
me. I eased down on the bed next to him. “Please, Andrew. Don’t you see? It
doesn’t matter how we got here. We’re here now. They know I could have left any
number of times. They know I helped you of my own free will. If we don’t get
the evidence to clear you, I’ll be charged as an accessory.”
“Jesus,” he groaned, and turned away.
“I know you didn’t want any of this to happen. It just did. Neither
one of us planned it.”
“Well, I should have,” he said angrily. “Same old idiot Andy
Richards as I’ve always been. Same old self-centered jerk.”
I looked at him, startled.
“Jesus, you too, huh?” He looked away. “You believe it too,
don’t you? No feelings, no self-doubts. My whole life people have treated me
like I’m some kind of damn Ken doll, solid plastic to the core.”
“No.”
“Bull. I’ve known it for as long as I could remember. And
don’t think I haven’t used it. To get my way, get what I want. I’m good at what
I do, but you think I got an associate professorship fresh off one post-doc
because of my research? No. I got it because the dean figured I’d bring in the
big bucks, my friends’ and my father’s. A grant here, a grant there and we can
pick up that new sequencer and a new electron microscope. Hell, let rich boy
have a corner to play in, we’ll make up for it when the dollars start rolling
in. Besides, won’t he look great in the P.R. photos, in the annual reports, on
the letterhead? And now the latest, taking your life and totally destroying it
because I had to have my way.”
The bitter words spilled out and I cocked my arm back and
punched him as hard as I could on his upper arm.
“Ow!” he cried.
“Don’t you think maybe your position at the University might
have had something to do with the fact that your research has been on the
cutting edge since graduate school? Don’t you think your three books might have
had something to do with it? Don’t you think the fact that you’re an excellent
teacher might have influenced the decision, at least the tiniest bit? No, I
didn’t know you had self-doubts, but I’ll tell you one thing, I know now that
you’ve got the market cornered in self-pity.”
“Uh.”
I scrambled up from the bed. “Okay, you know you’re
good-looking, I know you’re good looking, the whole world knows you’re
good-looking. But you didn’t have anything to do with that. Your parents’ DNA
did. But you have had something to do with the work you’ve done, and I know--because
I’m not some idiot, fainting female--that your work has been exceptional, and
that your books are inspiring. When I read your first one, it was like it… it…
lit a fuse inside me. The way you described the action of a typical cell: DNA,
proteins being made, the cell surface and the way it interacted with the
environment around it. It was beautiful, amazing. That book changed my whole
life, and I’m not going to sit here and listen to you bad-mouth the author of it.
Now, I’m hungry, and I’m going to fix lunch. Do you want some?”
He stared up at me.
“What are you going to do if your face freezes like that?”
He shut his mouth.
“Fine. You’re not hungry; I’ll fix lunch for myself.”
I turned to go.
“That’s not necessary,” he said. “Lunch is fixed.”
He jerked his head toward the patio table outside. I looked
out to the little wrought iron table on the patio which had plates and covered
dishes on it. “You made lunch?”
“Yes,” he said. “Don’t sound so surprised.”
“I thought you’d be resting, considering what we have in
front of us this afternoon.”
Andrew shook his head and picked up the small brown package
I’d brought. He hefted it in his hand. “I couldn’t rest. It was a long three
hours and fifteen minutes.”
“Oh,” I said, then stepped around the end of the mattress
and walked out the doors into the late-morning sunshine. The table had been set
with paper plates, plastic forks resting on paper napkins, and clear plastic
cups. Across from the two place settings a cut down plastic soda bottle held
white and yellow daisies, pink and red geraniums and some yellow, red and
violet snapdragons, all plucked from around the garden. Two covered plates sat
on each side of the flowers. I lifted the napkins draped over them. One had
wedges of orange, apple and pear arranged around a cluster of grapes. The other
plate was piled with sliced sourdough French bread and cold cuts. An old
galvanized metal bucket sat in one of the extra chairs. The neck of a two-liter
bottle of diet Pepsi stuck up through some melting ice.
I heard Andrew’s footsteps come up behind me, but I didn’t
turn around. Even though I gave myself a full ten seconds, when I spoke, it
still came out a little breathless. “Andrew, this is really very nice.” I
reached out and touched the petals of one of the red geraniums. “Very
thoughtful.”
His hand came up and rested on my shoulder. I could just see
the ends of his fingers, brown and strong-looking against the white of my
t-shirt. “Aw shucks. Tweren’t nothin’ ma’am.” His voice had completely lost the
self-pitying tone and the anger. In fact, he seemed almost cheerful. “I hope
there’s enough. You must have worked up quite an appetite with that speech.”
“Oh, shut up, cowboy. You deserved it.” I moved out from
under his hand, making it seem as if I were only reaching out to tuck a napkin
in before the breeze could take it. Ever since The Kiss, I’d had trouble enough
having Andrew near me; his touching me was impossible.
Andrew pulled out a wrought iron chair. I quickly pulled out
the other chair and dropped down into it.
“Hey,” Andrew said. He raised an eyebrow and nodded at the
chair he held.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” I jumped up and moved over. “I’m not used
to these first class, four-star dining establishments.”
He eased the chair in under me, then leaned down across my
shoulder and shot glances to the left and right. “I can see that,” he whispered
in my ear. “But don’t let Francois, the maitre’d see you or we’ll be tossed out
of here on our ears.” If he hadn’t moved away that instant to go sit down, I
think I would have put an elbow into his side. If he couldn’t tell how hard all
of this was on me, then he wasn’t the man I thought he was. Or maybe he could,
and he was doing it deliberately. But if he was, then he was a jerk, so what
was I worried about?
Andrew reached for the bottle of Pepsi, twisted the metal
cap off and held it out to me. “Madam would like to sniff the cork?”
“But of course.” I took it and sniffed gently. “Ah yes. Aluminum.
Colorado. Mined in I’d say ’09, perhaps 2010.”
He laughed. “You have a problem with your silliness factor.”
No, I have a problem letting
things get too serious.
I grinned back. “You started it.”
He gave me a look. “The last desperate cry of the terminally
silly.”
We each took some bread and some of the deli meat and helped
ourselves to the fruit. Unfortunately, we both reached for the last slice of
apple at the same time and the ends of our fingers touched. I snatched back my
hand. The wedge of apple rocked back and forth then lay quietly next to the
grapes.
“Uh, you go ahead,” Andrew said.
“No, no,” I said, gesturing toward the apple. “You.”
He smiled and shook his head. “Really, I have plenty.”
I looked over at him. “Then why’d you go for it?”
“Because you got most of the pear, that’s why.”
“I never did. And if I did, it’s because you took most of
the turkey. But then, that’s appropriate. After all, you are what you eat.” I
smiled.
He glared at me. “Ms. Brenner, are you aware of why donkeys
are not sent for a formal education?” he asked.
“No,” I said warily.
He smiled as maliciously as I. “Because nobody likes a smart
ass.”
I clenched my teeth and turned away, but when I looked back
I caught Andrew’s eye and we both burst out laughing. He threw back his head
when he laughed and the sunlight shone down on his face. He’d shaved and washed
his hair while I’d been gone; it was still damp and combed straight back from
his face so that I could see that the color was back in his cheeks. The
combination of the sunlight, the clean-up and two days’ rest made him look as
if he’d never been hurt.
As if reading my thoughts, he grinned, rubbed his scalp
briskly, and raked back his hair. “God I feel better.”
“I’m glad.” Our eyes met again. The silence swelled, and I
could feel my heart knock-knock-knock-knocking in my throat and the color
rising in my cheeks.
“Melanie…” Andrew lifted his hand, started to stretch it
across toward me.
A rustle of movement under the table made me jump and I
nearly screamed when the white Persian cat from next door suddenly leapt onto
my lap.
“Jesus!” Andrew cried, and then he began to laugh.
I wrapped my hands gently around the cat’s throat. “You
nitwit!” The cat butted his head against my chest and began to purr. What could
I do but laugh? Besides, he had saved me. “Scaring me like that,” I said to the
cat. “You ought to be ashamed.”
The cat rubbed his head up under my chin, then changed his
focus to my plate of food.
“Oh no you don’t! Get on down, now. Go on.” I pushed him
gently and he thumped down on the patio and stropped himself against my legs.
“Oh, all right. But this is it.” I tore off a bit of turkey
and passed it down to him. He took it quite daintily, and then, taking me at my
word, he stropped himself against me once as if to say thank you, lovely having
lunch with you, then he walked grandly over to the fence, swarmed up the thick
trunk of an ancient grapevine, and leapt up and over to his own yard.
Andrew watched him go. “It’s always nice dining with
royalty.”
“Too true.”
Our eyes met again.
“Gee, this sandwich stuff looks great. I am absolutely
starving,” Andrew said.
“Me too,” I said. I really was hungry, and as long as I didn’t
look over at Andrew, I kept my appetite.
“Listen, are you going to explain the Uncle Marley and Tiny
Tim business now?”
“Nope.”
He’d brought the partially-opened package with him and I
snagged it. “Gee, that’s too bad.” I tossed it in my hand. “You know, this
looks flammable. I bet it wouldn’t take more than a match or two to get it
started.”
“All right! Just put the package down. I’ll probably be
sorry, but… John Chambers was my father’s partner when I was a kid.”
I dropped the package back on the table and picked up my
sandwich and took a bite.
He picked it up and finished opening it while he talked. “The
summer I was thirteen I spent about every waking moment ragging on my Dad to
buy me a dirt bike. I had to have one, would die without it. One afternoon it
came to a head. All my friends were going up in the foothills to ride and I
couldn’t go because I didn’t have a bike and I certainly could not ride on the back
of some other guys’ bike hanging on like some girl!”
“A girl? Horrors!”
“Exactly! Well, John was at the house working with Dad on
some paperwork and I stormed into the study and threw an absolute fit. I’ve got
to have a dirt bike, and I have got to have it
right now!
Dad looked me
straight in the eye and told me for the umpteenth time that they were dangerous
and that he wasn’t letting me near one. So I yelled back that the truth was
that he couldn’t care less about me. The truth was he wouldn’t buy one because
he was tighter than Ebenezer Scrooge. Well John started laughing and he looked
at my Dad and said, I guess that makes me Jacob Marley. Then they both started
laughing and I got so mad I didn’t speak to either one of them the rest of the
day. I never lived that down. To this day if I start getting mad because I don’t
get my way, whichever of them is around will look at me, shake his head and
say, Poor Tiny Tim. Poor, poor Tiny Tim. Believe me, it’s a very humbling
experience.”
I laughed. “I’ll bet.”
“Let’s see what old Ebenezer has to say.” He opened the box.
Inside were a leather wallet and a thick envelope. He flipped open the wallet. It
held the usual assortment of credit cards, a driver’s license, and in a clear
photo holder, a picture of Caren Granzella. “Ah, yes. My plastic.” Andrew
nodded at the credit cards; I looked at the photo. “I’m a real person again.”