by Stuart Woods
“I don’t want to even think about that,” Chris said over the wind noise as Sunset Boulevard ended and they turned onto the Pacific Coast Highway. “I mean, I dreamed about that when I was in New York, doing off-Broadway, but now that it seems to be within my grasp, it scares me a little. I know I put on a tough front, but inside, I’m as insecure as any actress in town, believe me.”
“Listen, don’t worry about it. You’ve already made most of the adjustments—you’ve moved to L.A., you’re getting good parts, you’re making money, you’re building a house. You’ve got a life out here.”
“Danny, is the fame thing going to get worse?”
“Not much; all you have to do is get used to it.” Danny looked back. “Hey, wasn’t that the house back there?”
“There’s a full moon tonight, so I thought we’d have dinner first, then go back and wander around the house in the moonlight.”
“Sounds good to me.”
They dined at La Scala and talked the way old friends do. Chris hadn’t been dating since the divorce, and she enjoyed the lack of complication in her friendship with Danny; she trusted him completely. Danny had had a rough time as a young man, she knew, but now he was established as one of the industry’s leading hair stylists. He had two dozen films under his belt, working with the whole array of Hollywood’s leading ladies, and Chris felt lucky that he always made time for her, both when she was working and when she was not.
“Listen, Chris,” Danny said, “isn’t it about time you started seeing some guys?”
“Oh, Danny, I just don’t feel like it.”
“Horseshit. You’re a normal American girl; you’ve got hormones, just like everybody else. You can’t spend all your time hanging out with a faggot like me.”
“I’d rather spend time with you than anybody I know,” she said.
“That’s nice, but I’m just one of the girls. I know you, and you need something more than me.”
“Maybe in time, but not now.” She finished her coffee. “Come on, let’s go see the house.”
They drove back through Malibu to Big Rock, named for the geological formation that loomed over the highway. Chris parked at the gate and worked the combination lock that secured it, then they stepped past the fence and arrived at the front door. The full moon was high now, and everything appeared in sharp relief.
“Wow,” Danny said reverently. “It’s real, isn’t it?”
“It’s getting that way.” Chris led him down the hallway that ran straight through the house, then to the right and into the living room, taking care not to trip over debris.
“A really nice-sized room,” Danny said. “Are you going to buy a lot of new furniture?”
“Some. Brad said I could have whatever I wanted from the Bel Air house, and I like a lot of the pieces. I’ll need new bedroom furniture, though.” She led him through the living room to the kitchen. “It has its own little deck, for dining outside,” she said, pointing it out, “and there’s enough room for friends to sit around and talk to me while I’m cooking.”
“I’ll watch,” said Danny, who was a lousy cook.
“It’s going to be a great kitchen,” Chris said. “Everything I’ve always wanted.”
“There’s a lot to be said for having everything you always wanted,” Danny laughed.
“Come on, I’ll show you the bedrooms.” They walked down the arched hallway that led to a wide doorway, and Chris led him to the guest room. “This is where you can sleep when you’re fighting with your boyfriends.”
“Nice to have a bolt hole,” Danny said. “A good room; I like it.”
“Any time. Now, come and see my suite.” She led him back to the wide doorway. “There’ll be double doors here, and this is my bedroom. The big opening there will be French doors leading out to the deck.” She led him across to another room. “This is my study, and it will have a little kitchenette concealed in a cupboard, so I can stay in this part of the house for days, if I feel like it.”
“It’s just wonderful, Chris,” Danny enthused. “It has grace and charm and proportion. It has everything.”
“Everything I need, anyway. Come on, you’ve got to see the view from the deck.”
Chris led the way along a catwalk of planks.
“Be careful there,” Danny shouted. “It’s a long way down, and there are rocks at the bottom.”
“Don’t worry, I’m a regular tightrope walker,” Chris called back. She pointed at the moon over the ocean. “Isn’t that a gorgeous sight? I always wanted to live at the beach, but Brad didn’t like it out here. Now I’ve got just the right place.” She jumped up and down on the plank, steadying herself against a two-by-four.
“Stop that, you’re scaring me,” Danny called.
Chris gave one last jump, and as she landed, she heard a sharp crack and felt the plank give way. She tightened her grip on the two-by-four and tried to turn and reach it with her other hand, but the plank had parted, and she was falling. She couldn’t keep her grip.
Twenty feet separated her from the beach, and the fall seemed to be in slow motion. Her feet struck a supporting beam, and she began to turn sideways. Please, God, she was thinking, let there be sand below me.
She fell and fell, and when she struck the beach, only part of it was sand. She was lying on her back, and under her head were rocks. The pain was so intense that only unconsciousness could stop it.
As she passed out she heard Danny’s voice from somewhere above her, frantic, calling her name.
CHAPTER
5
The pain had stopped, but it began again. Chris sucked in a deep breath, and when it escaped, an involuntary moan went with it.
From somewhere nearby there was a rustle and footsteps on a hard surface, then there was quiet. Chris was afraid to open her eyes for fear of making the pain worse. Most of her body ached, but her head hurt worst; she had never had such a headache.
A moment later there were more footsteps, this time two people.
“You’re awake, are you?” a soft male voice said.
“I’m afraid to open my eyes,” she said. “It hurts so.”
“Your head?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t worry about it. Will you try something for me? You don’t have to open your eyes.”
“As long as it doesn’t hurt too much.”
A large hand took hers. “Will you wiggle your fingers?”
She wiggled them.
“Good.” The hand took her other one. “Now this one.”
She wiggled the other fingers.
The hand released hers, then two hands were resting on her feet. “Now wiggle your toes.”
She wiggled them, then she heard a sigh.
“Good girl,” the man said. “Wonderful girl. You had me worried for a while there.”
“Worried about what?”
“I thought you might have been paralyzed in the fall.”
“Fall?”
“You don’t remember?”
“No.”
“What was the last thing you remember?”
“Having dinner with Danny.”
“Good. Not much memory loss. You’ll be fine.”
“Where is Danny?”
“He’s been in and out of here since day before yesterday.”
“What’s today?”
“Tuesday.”
“I remember Sunday; we had dinner on Sunday.”
“Yes, then you went to see your house, and you fell from a deck to the beach.”
Chris thought about that distance and shuddered, which made the pain worse.
“Lie still,” he said. “I’ll get you something for the pain.”
Chris heard writing on a pad, and the other person, a nurse, she guessed, left the room and returned shortly. A hand pressed a pill to her lips, then a glass straw.
“Good. You’ll feel better in a few minutes. Just rest and don’t move around. I’ll be right back.” His footsteps left the room.
Chris tried to relax, tried to remember past Sunday dinner, but couldn’t. Just as well, she thought. If she had fallen, she didn’t want to remember it. She felt a little wave of something, something not unpleasant. The pain receded marginally.
Footsteps returned. “I’ve got someone with me,” the man said. “Why don’t you open your eyes?”
Chris felt sleepy, but she opened her eyes. The room was poorly lit; there was a dim light source somewhere to her left, but she could see only shapes. “Who is it?” she asked.
“It’s me, Sweets,” Danny’s voice said. He took her hand. “I’ve been very worried about you; it’s nice to have you back.”
“I’m Paul Villiers,” the other man said. “I’m a neurologist on staff at Cedars-Sinai. That’s where you are.”
“You sound like a nice man,” Chris said. “Maybe if you opened the blinds I could get a look at you.”
There was a long silence; everyone seemed frozen.
“Relax now,” the doctor said. “I just want to have a look at your eyes.”
Chris felt fingers at her eyelids, and from a great distance came a pinpoint of light. She heard the doctor sigh again.
“What is it?” she said.
“The blinds are open, Chris,” Villiers said. “The room is filled with sunlight.”
Chris sat up in bed and played at feeding herself. Why the hell did they serve peas to somebody who couldn’t see them? Abandoning daintiness, she held the peas still with her fingers and stabbed at them with her fork.
“Why don’t you let me do that?” Danny said. It was the following day, and he seemed never to have left her side.
“Because I’d rather do it myself,” Chris said. Her head still hurt, but not as much. She had been allowed to sit up that morning.
Doctors and nurses had paraded through her room all the previous day, but no one had come today; not so far, anyway.
“Where is everybody?” she asked. “Have they given up on me?”
“I saw Dr. Villiers in the hall a few minutes ago. He said he’d be in to see you.”
As if on cue, Villiers entered the room. “Good morning,” he said. “How are you feeling today?”
“Better, but I still can’t see anything,” Chris replied.
He dragged up a chair. “I’m going to tell you all I know,” he said. “I owe you that much.”
“I’m blind? Is that it?” She held her breath and waited for the answer.
“Don’t make it any worse than it is. The good news is that you can see some light, discern some shapes.”
“What’s the bad news?”
“That’s the bad news, too. That’s all you can see.”
“Am I going to get any better?” She steeled herself for his reply, held her breath.
“I wish I could give you a definitive answer,” he said, “but all I can promise you is that you have a very good chance of getting better.”
Chris let out the breath. “Tell me about that.”
“When you fell, you struck the back of your head on rock, damaging the occipital lobes of your brain. Those lie at the back of your skull. There was no fracture of the skull, and that’s good; that gives us some indication of the extent of injury.”
“And what is the extent of injury?”
“I wish I could tell you exactly, but I can’t. Think of it this way: you’ve bruised a part of your brain, and all the pain you’ve felt has come from that. You’re fortunate that the treatment policy of this hospital caused you to receive heavy doses of steroids when you were admitted to the emergency room. That’s standard here since it was learned that in spinal injuries steroids can promote the regeneration of tissue, if they are applied immediately. As a result, the swelling in the back of your head has gone down considerably, and that’s good.”
“What’s the prognosis?” She dreaded his answer.
“There’s a wide range. Worst case is that you could remain as you are.”
Chris gave an involuntary shudder. A death sentence could hardly have made her feel worse. What would she do? How could she work?
“But,” he said hurriedly, “best case is that the injured area of your brain could regenerate completely, and your sight could be completely restored.”
“What’s your best guess?” she said, afraid to hope.
“Somewhere between the two extremes,” he replied. “Because of your treatment, I will hazard that you’ll finish up nearer the good extreme than the bad.”
“How long will it take?”
“It could take as long as eighteen months. That’s a maximum.”
“You mean that what sight I have after eighteen months is what I’ll always have?”
“That’s probable. I think you’ll see improvement long before that, though. We’ll certainly keep your treatment at an optimal level for the next few days. When the swelling has gone down and your pain is gone, then you can go home. We won’t keep you here any longer than necessary.”
“Dr. Villiers, thank you for being straight with me.”
“That’s how I try and do it. Now I have some rounds to make, and there are a couple of people here to see you.”
Danny spoke up. “Ron Morrow and Jack Berman are here,” Danny said. “I’ll get them.”
Chris tried hard to shift mental gears from fear of blindness to greeting guests.
The pleasantries and encouragement had passed; now everyone seemed at a loss for words.
“Let’s talk about work,” Chris said.
“Baby,” Jack said, “you worry about getting well; Ron and I will worry about work.”
“Ron, what have you told the studio?”
“That you’ll be in the hospital for a few days. And laid up for a while.”
“Do they know I’m blind?”
“You’re not blind,” Danny said.
“Let’s call it what it is. I can’t see much; I can’t read a script; I can’t work.”
“No, they don’t know that,” Ron said. “Nobody does. But Chris, I have to tell you that they’ve replaced you on the film.”
“When?”
“On Monday, right after they heard,” the agent said. “That was to be expected. At that point, they didn’t know if you’d ever regain consciousness, let alone if you could work anytime soon. They have a big investment to protect.”
“I guess so,” she said, then she laughed. “And Jason was just saying the other day that he couldn’t imagine anybody else in the part.”
“Sweetheart,” Jack said. “Don’t do this to yourself. This is only a setback. You’ll be working again before you know it.”
“What have you released to the press?”
“Just that you’re recovering from injuries received in a fall, and that a complete recovery is anticipated. You made ‘Entertainment Tonight’ last night, and it was in the trades today.”
“I’ve had a lot of calls,” Ron said. “Everybody wishes you well.”
“I’ve had a bunch, too,” Jack said. “And look at all the flowers you got. Sorry, I mean…”
“Thanks, Jack, I know what you meant. I’d like all mention of my sight kept out of the papers.”
“Of course.”
“Listen, guys, I’m kind of tired. Why don’t you go back to work, and I’ll call you in a few days. Danny, you stay a minute, will you?”
“Sure,” Jack said. “If there’s anything at all you need—chocolate ice cream, cheesecake from New York—just call.”
“Right,” Ron said. “We’ll be thinking about you. Let’s have dinner as soon as you feel better.”
The two men left, and Danny dragged his chair up to her bed.
“Tell me about the flowers,” she said.
“They’re from all over,” Danny replied. “Some from the studio; some from Brent Williams and Jason Quinn; some from Brad. He’s called a couple of times; he’s on location in Spain. I’ve handled all the calls.”
“You’re a treasure, Danny. Who else?”
“Well, t
here are a lot of roses from somebody—six dozen. No card.”
Chris began to laugh.
“What?” Danny said, laughing with her. “Oh, shit, it’s not him, is it?”
“It’s him,” Chris said.
Later, when Danny had gone and she was alone, Chris began to cry. She had never been so frightened in her life.
CHAPTER
6
As soon as Chris and Danny pulled to a stop in her driveway, Chris was out of the car, striding up the front walk, determined not to feel blind in this place she knew so well. She ran up the stairs, put her key expertly into the front door lock, opened the door, and fell flat on her face in the entrance hall.
Danny was right behind her. “Oh, shit!” he moaned. “The maid left the vacuum cleaner right in front of the door. And I asked her to have the place perfect for you.”
Chris untangled her feet from the machine and stood up. Suddenly she was dizzy and disoriented, and she reached out for Danny. She began to cry. “I’m crying because I’m mad,” she said.
“Just hold on to me, Sweets,” he said, taking her hand. “Come on, let’s find your bedroom.”
“Wait,” she said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand like a little girl. “Are there any other unusual obstacles?”
Danny looked around. “Nope.”
“Any of the furniture been rearranged?”
“Nope.”
“Then I’d better start getting used to doing this myself,” she said, and set off for her bedroom, Danny in her wake with her hospital suitcase. She crossed the living room and turned down the hall, and, occasionally feeling for the wall with the backs of her hands, found her bedroom. What light she could see had barely illuminated the objects in the room; they were just smudges, seemingly arranged at random.
Chris sat down on the bed and wrinkled her nose. “Do I smell roses?”
“Afraid so,” Danny said. “The usual six dozen; the maid must have put them in a vase.”
“Would you please get them out of here, Danny?” she pleaded. “I don’t think I’ll ever feel the same about roses again.”