My mother patted my hand between hers gently. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Becky, but what I meant by ‘going home’ was going back to Dunewood.”
“Dunewood?” I asked blankly, as if I’d never heard of it.
“That’s where I live now,” she said patiently, as if explaining to a child. “Look at the cards and the flowers. Mrs. Fay came to visit me yesterday. They want me back. They’re keeping my room for me.”
“Is that what you want?” I asked her.
“Want?” She made a small derisive noise, as if I’d brought up something vulgar. “I think it’s best. I hope you’re not too upset.” She smiled almost coyly. “Besides, I haven’t learned the past tense yet.”
“The past tense?” I asked. “I don’t understand.”
“In Spanish,” my mother explained. “Carlos was about to get to it when I left Dunewood. I just couldn’t bear to disappoint him after he’s gone to so much trouble preparing the lessons.” She frowned. “Also, some woman sent me a note before I got in here. Dorothy somebody. She wants me to be on a committee to raise money for some charity. A bunch of us at Dunewood are going to call people. So you see, I couldn’t think of leaving now.” She looked at me. “I hope you understand.”
“That was weird,” Allie said to me when we left the hospital.
“What was?” I asked, although I could guess what she was going to say.
“That Grandma wants to go back to that place. I thought she hated it.”
“I think,” I said carefully, “that what she hated most was the idea of it. It’s a big transition, and it’s leading somewhere no one likes to think about.”
“Death, you mean,” she said solemnly.
I nodded.
“That’s sad,” she said.
“That’s life,” I told her.
“What do you think made her change her mind?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “It sounds trite, kiddo, but maybe she decided that it’s what you do on the road that counts, not the destination.” Also, I realized that intentionally or not, my mother was letting me off the hook. I could stop feeling guilty. Or at least I could try.
“Cool,” Allie said. She was silent a moment. “So what are we going to do after we sell the house?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I’m looking for another job. We’ll probably invest the money we get from the sale and rent an apartment or a condo until you get out of school. If necessary we can live with Isabel—we’ll just have to see.”
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Are you going to be seeing that balloon guy?” she asked.
“I certainly hope so,” I told her.
“Then don’t you think I should get to know him? I mean, shouldn’t you invite him over or something?”
“I might be able to arrange that,” I said.
TO: [email protected]
FROM: [email protected]
SUBJECT: YOUR INVITATION
DEAR MEMBERS OF THE BOARD:
OF COURSE I WILL BE HAPPY TO COME! I AM PLEASED TO HEAR FROM YOU SO SOON. AFTER SO MANY YEARS, IT WILL BE SUCH A PLEASURE TO MEET—AND THANK—YOU FACE-TO-FACE.
I WILL BE AT 741 WILLLOWS AND ROAD NEXT WEDNESDAY AT FIVE O’CLOCK. I KNOW THAT’S IN A GATED RESIDENTIAL AREA—SHOULD I JUST ASK FOR MEDALLION? IF NOT, PLEASE LET ME KNOW.
P.S. HAVE YOU ALWAYS HAD MY E-MAIL ADDRESS? THERE IS SO MUCH I DON’T KNOW ABOUT YOU!
It was ten A.M. on a Friday morning, but Bobbie was loaded for bear. She was wearing a white silk pantsuit with a lemon-colored tunic top and enormous sun disk earrings that managed to flash even under the fluorescent lighting. An ankh symbol in what appeared to be platinum and gold was suspended from a heavy chain around her neck. If she’d been struck down by a car on the way to the office, she could have gone straight into the pyramid without further ado.
“I hope you don’t mind the cameraman,” she said when we walked into her conference room. “We’re filming a documentary—remember, I told you I was busy.” She looked at me. “Do you think this might be a good thing to include?”
I smiled. “No.”
“I’ll tell him to come back later,” she said.
She sat back in the leather conference chair that had probably cost more than my entire suite of living room furniture. “So what is this about, Becky?”
“I’m getting to that,” I said. “Other than Taylor, do you have any other legal representation?”
“Are you still my lawyer?” she asked.
“Until close of business today, yes, I am,” I told her.
“Ah.” She clasped her palms together and touched the tips of her fingers to her chin, providing me with an exceptional view of a whopping chunk of yellow topaz set into a ring. “No,” she said.
“What about Largo and Longueur?” I asked. “Weren’t they representing you when you came to RTA?”
“We had a small difference of opinion over legal strategies,” she said calmly.
I bet. “I’m going to go over some things with you,” I told her, speaking carefully. “I’m going to put them in writing. You might want to review them with another attorney.”
“Other than Taylor?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’d recommend Lauren Gould if you want to use someone at the firm, but outside representation might be best.”
“Why are you being so serious about all this?” she asked.
“I’m trying to scare you,” I said. “I’m not kidding.”
She folded her hands and looked at me. “I’m listening.”
I handed her a piece of paper from a manila file in my briefcase. “This is a model release form. I want you to have each one of your patients sign something like this before you give them any experimental medications. You’ll have to specify the ingredients and the possible side effects.”
She glanced at it. “The contents of the drug are perfectly natural,” she said. “It’s an herbal base in combination with naturally occurring caffeine and some other beneficial components. There have been some problems with pure ephedrine, so the company is experimenting with another alkaloid form.”
“Nevertheless, you have to let people know what they’re taking.”
“I think you’ll find,” she said, “that people sign a brief consent form when they check into the clinic.”
I remembered the stack of papers that were part of the check-in procedure. I myself had only given them a cursory glance. “No one reads those things,” I told her.
She laughed. “That’s a hell of a thing for a lawyer to admit.”
I drew in a breath. “The thing is, I don’t think that would meet the test of informed consent.”
“It would, and it has, in Mexico,” she said confidently. “Look, Becky, you’re worrying about this too much. Clinical drug trials have used unproved remedies with unknown effects on human subjects for years. And lots of conventional treatments were used for decades without anyone knowing exactly why they work. Look at aspirin.”
“Aspirin doesn’t cause heart attacks.”
“Aspirin can cause all manner of bad things, and people gobble them up anyway whenever they have a pain. You had a chance to meet some of the clients. Do you think they give a flying fuck what some statistically improbable side effects might be when you’re giving them back their youth? Stand there with your doomsday message and watch them trample right over you to get to the pills. What I do is far too important not to run a few risks. I’m sure you can see that.”
“Then the laws are there to protect people from themselves,” I told her. “As your attorney, I’m advising you to do this. I can’t be any clearer than that. Besides, you must know there are rumors that something has been wrong with your clinical tests for drugs.”
“Absurd,” she scoffed. “I have everything documented.” She paused. “I’m completely covered, do you understand me?”
I did. She meant no one could prove anything.
“You’re probably
right,” I told her. “But sooner or later, if there’s something to find, someone will find it. Then you could have a mammoth lawsuit on your hands, or worse. You’re the only one who knows what there is to find, Barbara. You have to consider whether you want whatever it is out there in public.” I hoped she would notice my use of her college name, a reminder of where she had come from and what I knew about her. I bet that of all the things in her past, what rankled her most was sad, unpopular Barbara Collins.
“Look,” she said again. “I had to do the drug trials to finance my clinic. There’s nothing amiss, I assure you, but the way things are going now, I could stop anyway after this one. Frankly, my patients like the way they feel on Evergreen—that’s what it’s called, by the way—and I’m inclined to go on offering it as part of the program. But that’s not the entire basis for the life-extension program, by any means.”
“Then give your patients the basis for an informed consent. It’s the legal, moral, and just thing to do.” I looked at her. “You might even come out ahead for doing it,” I told her. “Do you really want a lot of people having heart problems after they’ve been to your clinic?”
She studied her hands for a moment and then picked up the consent form again. “You can’t possibly understand, Becky. This won’t make one iota of difference. People want their youth back. They come to me because I can help them. Nothing else really matters.”
“Then they can charge ahead like lemmings,” I said. “All I’m asking is that they get a chance to see the Dangerous Cliff sign first.”
“I suppose I can do that,” she said after a while.
“There’s one other thing,” I told her.
She looked at me with something like amusement. “Just one?”
“It’s a big one,” I said.
She smiled sourly. “What is it?”
“Make sure your accounts are on the up-and-up,” I told her.
Her hands stilled on the tabletop. “Why are you telling me that?”
“Because it’s my duty as your attorney to make sure you understand the consequences of any irregularities.”
“As my attorney? Until close of business today, you mean.”
“Exactly. I’m going to leave RTA in the next week or two, but you and I are finished as of now. This is our last meeting, Bobbie. I don’t want you to misunderstand anything I’m saying.”
“You’ve found another job?” she asked.
“Not yet,” I told her.
“You’re going to leave even before you have another job lined up?”
“I’ll find one,” I said. I had to smile. I sounded just like Melissa.
“What kinds of consequences were you talking about just now?” she asked, studying her nails.
“Serious IRS-type consequences. The ones people go to jail for.”
“I see,” she said. She met my eyes. “I underestimated you.”
“I know.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“I guess so.”
“Did you really not remember Barry Norton?”
I almost laughed. I wasn’t expecting the sudden switch. “I remember him. He was a creep.”
“I know,” she said. “I ran into him at a medical convention three years ago. He had no idea who I’d been. He’s a podiatrist, for God’s sake. He talked about corns.” She looked at me. “I had the impression that you might have been interested in Taylor once.”
“Once upon a time, it might have seemed like a good idea,” I told her. “Not anymore.”
She looked annoyed. “You’re so straight-arrow, Becky,” she said. “If you had let me, I could have changed your whole life.”
I looked at her and smiled. Should I give her the satisfaction or not? Why not? I thought.
“As a matter of fact, Bobbie, you already have.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
The Medallion Foundation, like some modern-day Manderley, was not visible from the gates. They slid aside, inch by sublime inch, operated by an unseen hand. As I proceeded down the drive I entertained myself with my last imaginings of benevolent, pink-faced Pendleton Silverbridge. In a few moments I would have a real face, or faces, to put with the foundation name.
Behind a wall of cypresses the house rose like a glass tower next to the sea. I could see right through it to the horizon. I caught my breath. No kindly old gentleman in a sweater lived in a building like that. I parked the car on the circle drive and walked across the limestone pavers, my steps sounding loud in my ears.
The door (massive and framed in some expensive-looking dark wood) was answered by a pleasant-looking woman in a T-shirt, cotton pants, and running shoes. “I’m Becky Weston,” I told her.
She looked blank, although not unfriendly.
“The Medallion Foundation?” I inquired. I hoped I had the right address.
She laughed. “Oh, sorry,” she said. “Of course. The offices are upstairs. I’ll show you.”
She led me into an atrium with a ceiling a good twenty feet high. On one side was the Pacific, on the other was a long pool lined with deep blue tile. In the middle of the room was a large etched-glass sculpture like a cross-section of the ocean, complete with tropical fish and coral. It was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. “That’s stunning,” I told my guide.
“It’s by a local artist,” she said.
“The setting is perfect,” I said sincerely. In an ordinary house it would have been overwhelming, but here it was dramatic and appropriate.
She took me up the stairs, passing all manner of doors I was dying to open. She stopped at last in front of one of them. She tapped on the door. “Mr. Henry Sutton’s away just now,” she said to me.
Sutton? As in “the family owns half the real estate in Southern California”?
I didn’t have time for further speculation. She opened the door. “Ms. Weston to see you,” she said, stepping out of the way…
“Come in,” Mark said, rising from behind his desk.
I stared at him uncomprehending. I thought that somehow the foundation had arranged for him to be there to…To what?
“I don’t understand,” I told him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I know it must be a shock. I feel terrible about this. I tried to tell you the other day, but…I couldn’t.”
In an instant it flashed over me. About six years late. “It was you?” I gasped.
“Sort of,” he said apologetically.
“I have to sit down,” I said. “You…you were the foundation? You did all that for me?”
“I hope it’s not that hard to believe,” he said. “Anyway, it wasn’t really me. I only set things in motion.”
“It’s like finding out your parents are Santa Claus after believing in some magical elf,” I said. “I’m in shock.” I shook my head, thinking of a thousand things that might have clued me in. “I don’t know what to say.” I looked at him. “Why didn’t you tell me? It was unfair not to.”
“I know,” he said seriously.
“And you even let me go on and on about the foundation the other day and never said a word,” I pointed out.
“I know,” he said again. He spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “I should have said something, I know it. But you’d just refused my help, and you made a big point of wanting to take care of things yourself. And I remembered what you said about the balance of power being all on one side because I used to be your therapist.” He hesitated. “I thought…I was afraid that if I told you the truth…”
“What? What were you afraid of?”
“I was afraid I’d lose you before we even got started,” he said.
Okay, so he wasn’t perfect after all. He’d lied to me and by omission had misrepresented himself. On the other hand, he’d helped me in every possible way you could help someone, and he’d just confessed he had feelings for me. Maybe it balanced out the equation a little that he had a few faults.
“Why did you do it?” I asked him.
�
�Because you deserved a chance, Becky.” He leaned forward across the desk, but he didn’t touch me. “I want to make that clear. At the beginning that’s all it was. The…rest came afterward.”
“The rest,” I said. I was having trouble taking it all in. “So the foundation is just a made-up thing?” I asked after a moment.
“Oh, no,” he said, sounding surprised. “There’s a foundation. My uncle’s the head of it. Uncle Harry makes all the final decisions, including about you. I just make recommendations. My sister and I are members of the board. I fill in for him when he’s not here, but that’s the extent of my involvement. We’ve been anonymous till now, but now he’d like to move into the public realm. That’s why we need to enlarge the directorial staff.”
“You and your sister? The black-widow spider?”
He laughed. “That’s the one. I want you to meet her today, because she’s back from Costa Rica. Our grandmother died in Florida last week. That’s where I’ve been since I last saw you.”
“I’m sorry,” I told him.
“Don’t be,” he said. “She was ninety-seven and very ill. It was past time.”
I had a thought. “Did you read my letters too?” I asked. I blushed, remembering all the things I’d put into them.
“What letters?” he asked.
I looked at him. His expression said, “Not guilty.”
I decided to believe him. “Never mind,” I told him. “I don’t get it. Where does the money come from for this foundation? Why haven’t I heard of it?”
He looked embarrassed. “It’s family money,” he said.
“The Lawrence family?”
“Um, actually, Lawrence is just my middle name,” he said.
“Your last name’s Sutton,” I ventured.
He nodded. “We’re just a lesser branch,” he said. “But there’s enough.”
I looked around at the house. “I guess,” I said. “Why the subterfuge?” I asked him, although I could imagine.
He shrugged. “I think I told you, the family wasn’t too keen on my going to med school. And after I chose psychiatry, I knew a background like that would create a lot of issues for my patients. So I decided to use Mark Lawrence professionally instead of my full name. I’m sure I remember telling you that I like to keep my private and professional lives separate.” He looked at me. “Besides, sometimes a lot of money just gets in the way.”
Exit Strategies Page 29