Amanda looks at the small metal icon on top of the post in front of the inn. It's a man holding a lantern.
"Pretty cool design, but I don't remember it."
"It's one of the oldest landmarks here in Middleburg. It's been here since the 1700s or something. It's a pretty ritzy joint."
They continue walking until they find the slightly recessed entrance to Café Loco just off Jefferson Street. Amanda notices the small sign above the doorway that looks worn and battered. In the entryway, posters about past and future shows adorn the walls. As they open the second swinging door, the smell of coffee reaches Amanda's nose. To the right she notices a large open area with small tables. Straight ahead is a typical coffee house staging area, to the left she sees another group of tables near a window. On the window ledge, numerous newspapers and random magazines are stacked up for the patrons’ enjoyment. As they walk in, Iris points to a small stage on the right.
"That’s where the bands play when they have music in here. And Ramblin’ Kyle’s is down that hallway there. We've been here a bunch of times. Anything coming back to you?"
"No. But I like the atmosphere in this place. Hey, there's Kent." They get in line behind a young woman who is just finishing her order. As she moves to the side Kent says, “Hey you guys. Thanks for coming. Can I get you anything?"
Iris orders both of them a skinny vanilla latte. "You'll like this.”
"I'll get a break in a minute or two and come talk." Kent says.
“Okay, great,” Iris says.
He confers with a pretty young barista, and within a few minutes all three of them are sitting at one of the tables near a window. Iris looks at some of the magazines on the window ledge and says, "Hey, Amanda, you’re on the cover of People magazine! You're like a rock star."
"I don't feel like one."
Amanda gets up from the table and gestures for Kent to follow her. She looks up at the framed pictures hanging on the wall. “Who are the guys in the concert hall?”
"That guy is my dad, back in the early 70s. This is at Royal Albert Hall, when David Bowie played with Mott the Hoople."
"Did your dad play in a famous rock band?" asks Iris, who has now come over to hear the commentary on some of the pictures of Kyle Perless, Kent's dad.
"No, but he wrote a lot of tunes for these guys and hung out with a lot of them.”
"Is your dad here?" Amanda asks.
"Yeah, I think he's back in the little office behind the kitchen." A few minutes later, a man walks out from the kitchen and Amanda surmises that it must be Kent's dad. She figures he must be in his late 50s. He's wearing a pair of faded jeans and a well-worn T-shirt that has a picture of a surfing scene and says “Endless Summer.” He has a chiseled face which appears to be a day of stubble. Definitely handsome, Amanda concludes. And Kent does show some resemblance. She also notices the gold stud earring in his left ear and very short ponytail.
"I know who you are. Your costume is a dead giveaway," Kyle says, reaching his hand out to shake Amanda's.
"I can't imagine what you mean," Amanda says playfully. "Kent was just telling us how you knew all these famous guys, and that you teach guitar here."
"Oh yeah, I was Mr. Shooting Star back in the day, but that was long ago. I'm just a washed up rocker running a café now.”
"Are those your guitars?" Iris asks, pointing to five instruments hanging on the wall.
"Some of those are mine, and a couple I saved from way back when. Ian Hunter gave me that old mandolin. Supposedly one of the guys in Mott the Hoople played it on ‘I Wish I Was Your Mother.’ The great sound at the beginning and end of Rod Stewart's ‘Maggie May’ is done on mandolin.”
"Will you play it for us?" Amanda meekly asks.
"Sure." Kyle walks over and unlocks the rack, freeing the mandolin. He rolls right into the repetitive mandolin lick at the end of “Maggie May,” singing as he plays.
"Maggie, I wished I'd never seen your face…"
"Oh, that song. I didn't know the name of it, but now that you're playing it I know I’ve heard it on the radio,” Iris says.
Kent chimes in, "My group mixes in some classic rock with John Mayer, Coldplay, Mumford & Sons and anything else we happen to like. But none of the new stuff is as adventurous as the stuff from the early 70s."
"Ditto that," Kyle says as he walks back over to the wall and carefully places the mandolin back on the rack and snaps the lock in place. "Good to meet you,” he says, and walks back toward the kitchen.
"Who's the pretty girl behind the counter?" Amanda asks.
"That's Sienna. She's been with us a few weeks.”
"I noticed she has a slight accent."
"Yeah, she's originally from France but went to college here. Seems nice."
Amanda checks her out and wonders if Kent is interested in her.
"When can I hear your band?"
"We play here once a week. We’re mediocre at best, but it's a blast. I'm sure you'll get to see us soon."
"They’re actually really good Amanda, he's just being modest." Iris says, pushing her hand against Kent's shoulder.
"We suck, she's just being nice." Kent laughs and playfully shoves her back. "I've given Amanda most of the songs we play, she probably just doesn't remember their names," he teases.
“Not true, I’ve learned a couple!” Amanda says, getting up to go to the restroom.
Have you talked to your dad about the party we want to have here for Amanda’s 18th birthday?" Iris asks Kent.
"Oh yeah, my dad said that’s absolutely cool. Two Saturdays from now is best. My band will play and we'll have a DJ. It should be very cool."
"I heard your dad has set up the entire café before with strobe lights and black lights and made it a big 1960s psychedelic room."
"Yeah, that was a couple years ago. We can do it again. "
"Why don't we make up some posters calling it 'The Psychedelic Rave for Amanda’s Halo Charity' and ask people to give donations? Then we can donate the money to a charity like 'Healing Heroes' or wherever Amanda thinks would be good,” Iris says.
"That’s a great idea,” Kent agrees.
“She's already told us not to do anything big, but we're ignoring her. You only escape death and turn 18 once, right?"
Chapter 33
Healing
Dr. Wrightson leans back in his leather swivel chair and stares again at two large monitors. On one screen are the full-size CT scans and thumbnails of various other test panels. An MRI image occupies the other large monitor. With his mouse he scrolls around the 3-D images looking at both axial and sagittal views of the cervical fracture sight. Hmm, there’s no question that there’s good – no, great – bone growth. He continues to review the images for a few more minutes, and then pushes the speaker button on his phone.
“Bobby, are you in there?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Do you have a second to take a look at some scans of one of my patients?”
“Sure, be right there.”
A minute later the other neurosurgeon is standing by Wrightson’s desk.
Wrightson points at his monitor. “Look at how solid that bone has fused at the cervical site.”
“Yeah, what about it?”
“This is not after months of healing, this is after two weeks. It’s Amanda Michaels.”
“Two weeks? I’d categorize that as remarkable. Is that what you’re asking me?”
“Yep.”
“Amazing. She is young though. She’s what, 18?”
“Yeah, but you should’ve seen it the night of the surgery.”
“Everyone is different,” Dr. Canton responds, already backing a few steps out of the office. “Anything else?”
“I’ve got to decide if this changes my timetable for removing her halo.”
“Can’t answer that one for you,” Canton replies.
“Did I tell you that we thought she contracted MRSA?”
“No, what about it?”
“Did you ever have a patient develop MRSA and then it just disappeared, literally the moment you started antibiotics?”
“MRSA doesn’t disappear, everyone knows that. It takes days, even weeks for the vancomycin to have any effect on the blood counts. Did you talk to an ID doc about it?”
Wrightson closes his eyes and leans back again in his swivel chair. “Yes I talked to an infectious disease doc. He told me exactly what you told me. But I went back and looked at the blood counts and tests myself.”
“And?”
“I don’t know. There had to be a false positive or something. The tests were positive for MRSA, but a day later it was gone.”
“Sounds like a CSI episode. Maybe someone secretly switched the blood tests.” Canton laughs.
“Something else, kind of off topic,” Wrightson continues. “Have you heard about Lucent meeting with Amanda Michaels, even for unscheduled visits, about NDEs?”
“He’s like a witch doctor,” Canton agrees.
“Have you ever talked to him about it? He was talking to me one day about how he actually thinks the soul may temporarily depart the body during an NDE. Then apparently the soul just sneaks back into your body. The whole thing is way outside of the scope of what he ought to be doing with his patients, especially when they’re our patients too. And on a high-profile case like this it’s even worse. This smears all of us, don’t you think?” Wrightson questions.
“Maybe you should confidentially discuss it with administration.”
“Hmm…maybe so.”
Chapter 34
New Clients
"Andy, the Richmans are here," Myra announces through the speakerphone.
"I'll be there in a minute. Please tell Angie too." Andy scans back over the yellow pad at the bullet-point reminders of what he wants to cover in each meeting: liability/fault, damages, choice of state laws, cause of crash, recording a statement, legal documents to sign.
As they discussed at lunch, he and Angie have prepared a PowerPoint presentation with embedded video clips from some of the previous settlement conferences and mediations the firm has conducted in some of its more high-profile cases. Heading down the hall, he peeks into Angie's office and asks, "Ready to go?"
"Yep.” She follows Andy down the hall to the reception area where he greets the couple on the reception couch.
"Good morning Mr. and Mrs. Richman. I'm Andy Michaels and this is Angie Tipton, my paralegal." Andy and Angie each exchange handshakes with the Richmans. "As we head back to the conference room, I want to express our heart-felt condolences to you for your loss.”
"Thanks," Mr. Richman begins slowly. "Lauren had just graduated from UVA in Charlottesville. She was working for the Department of Justice in Washington, and had been accepted to both Harvard and Yale Law Schools. She was on her way to visit one of her friends from UVA in Manhattan."
Mrs. Richman is refusing to look at Andy, staring down at the conference room table instead. Andy decides to stick to the formalities and stay away from family details for now.
"I'd like to tell you a bit about our firm and how we handle a wrongful death case…"
"Mr. Michaels, we already know who you are and what you've done." Mr. Richman interrupts. "We know you are the only lawyer who took a 9/11 case involving the Pentagon crash to trial. And we also know about your brother, sister-in-law, and niece. You don't have to convince us that you're going to tear into this airline.”
Andy’s emotions start to get the best of him as his mind wanders, not toward the Richmans’ daughter, but his brother Ron.
"When we handle wrongful death cases we normally charge a one-third contingent fee. The contingency part is that we only get paid if we recover for your family. Do you have any questions about the economic part of our representation?"
"No,” Mr. Richman answers.
“Lauren was our pride.” Mrs. Richman breaks her silence. “This airline has stolen away the daughter that we loved. Do you have any idea what that means?" Her voice trembles with emotion.
Mr. Richman reaches to his left and places his hand over his wife's clenched fists on the tabletop.
"I want you to know, Mrs. Richman, that we are going to do everything possible to obtain justice for you and your family," Angie says. A little bold, Andy thinks, but it’s actually reassuring to the Richmans.
"Here’s the bad part,” Andy says. “This airline will drag things out, and they will fight us on every effort we make to determine what caused the crash. In a wrongful death case we must prove some negligence of the airline or some defect or faulty part on the jet itself. The airline will most likely try to point to sabotage or equipment failure, basically anything that would deflect the blame away from them."
"You mean to tell me that the airline isn't going to have to pay if we can't show precisely what caused the plane to crash? The jet broke up into thousands of pieces," Mr. Richman says incredulously.
"Not quite. We don't necessarily have to show an exact cause, but we do need to develop a good, plausible theory backed by corroborative evidence. I’ve already contacted a forensic aviation expert. We also spend an incredible amount of time marshaling the evidence and figuring out how to present it in a way that conveys our clients’ enormous loss and ultimately serves as a catalyst to get a big case settled," Andy explains. “I can show you examples of previous presentations we have created.”
"Will you be willing to go to trial and prove the neglect of the airline if necessary?" Mr. Richman pointedly asks.
"Absolutely. I’m not afraid to try cases, but events will dictate whether we need to take this all the way. If you retain me, we will promptly file the lawsuit, but if we develop good evidence, many times the companies or insurers want to settle before trial. They may offer substantial compensation to your family. Based on my experience with this airline, I don't foresee that happening, but it could.”
"We want you to get to the bottom of it. Neither of us is scared to testify," Mrs. Richman says, with as much bravery as she can muster.
"Angie is going to review the necessary paperwork with you and record your statements relevant to the case. Thank you so much for allowing us to represent you, and remember that there will not be any settlement negotiations or any action on any offer from the airline without your permission." Andy shakes both of their hands and exits the room.
Next is Mr. and Mrs. King, who have lost their 28-year-old son Sam, an information technology supervisor working for a D.C. bank with numerous branches. His fiancée asked him to join her at a friend’s wedding in New York City. Even though this is the type of client Andy would crawl across hot coals to represent, he just can’t summon up his usual exuberance.
The last meeting of the day is with Mr. and Mrs. Perkins from Chevy Chase, Maryland, who lost their son, Charles, a regional manager for the Porsche dealership in Bethesda, Maryland.
While Angie goes to bring Mr. and Mrs. Perkins back to the conference room, Andy’s sorrow over the loss of his own brother and sister-in-law gets the best of him. He runs out of the conference room and bounds down the stairs.
Chapter 35
The Park
Andy finds himself at Dumbarton Park, the one hidden from the busy streets. The circular slide, the monkey bars, and the jungle gym are all still there. It has even been spruced up a bit with a few nice touches, like wood chips covering the area, some new paint on the bench where he decides to sit.
Tears wet his cheeks, but he remains silent. Just what he wants, he thinks, the Dumbarton park bench. Alone.
"Hey mister, why are you sad?"
The small voice startles Andy. He quickly wipes the tears off both his cheeks. "Oh, nothing. Nothing really."
"You must be crying for something," the little girl says, jumping up and plopping herself down on the park bench a few inches away from Andy. She is deep inside his personal space, having crossed a line that most adults respect but many kids are oblivious to. Her little 8-year-old feet dangle back and forth, not reaching the
ground.
"Something bad happened, tell me what. I cry sometimes too."
Andy looks out and notices a couple of other kids, eight, maybe ten years old. One chases the other up one side of the jungle gym, down the other. On the opposite park bench across the playground sit a couple of adults, and in the middle of the park stands an older grandparent-looking lady peering in his direction.
"Well, are you going to tell me?" the little girl asks again, her swinging legs shaking the park bench.
"Some people lost their daughter, and I lost my brother." Andy says, just staring out at the playground.
"We can find them. I find stuff that I thought was lost too. I lost a Barbie doll. My mom found it behind the toy box. I thought I’d never see it again."
Andy feels the slightest ripple of a grin. Such awesome innocence.
"Did they just get lost? Was it around here near the playground? Grammy and I can help you find them. She's right over there." The little girl waves her right hand toward the elderly lady in the middle of the playground.
"My brother and I played on that snake slide. Do you like the snake slide?"
"I love it. Will you go on it with me now? I got Grammy to go on it with me one time, but she won't do it anymore. C’mon, please?"
"It was a long time ago when my brother and I used to slide down."
"He didn't just get lost today? I thought that's why you were crying."
Andy decides against some deep discussion about life and death, opts instead to just be grateful her innocent mind has lifted him up in some strange way.
"Mister, are they really lost or are you crying about something different?"
"You ever played the game 'Troll' on the jungle gym before?" he asks her.
"No, let's do it. How do you play?" she asks.
"Well, you have to have a ball. It can be small or big.”
"We have a ball!" She jumps off the park bench, runs across the wood chips, sending errant chips flying, past Grammy to the other side of the playground where she grabs a little bouncy ball. After running all the way back, she proudly holds it up in front of Andy.
Taming the Telomeres, a Thriller Page 11