by Joy Fielding
“I think Josh really likes you.”
“You do?”
“I could tell by the way he looked at you. He thinks you’re something special.”
“He’s a very nice man.” I took another sip of my tea, felt it burn the tip of my tongue, pulled back.
“Careful,” Alison warned too late. “It’s hot.”
“So, what are you up to today? Going to the beach with your friends?”
“Not a chance. I’m going to stay right here and make sure you’re okay.”
“Oh, no. I don’t want you to do that.”
Alison pulled up a chair, plunked down beside me. “You took care of me when I got sick, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but . . .”
“No buts.” She smiled. “It’s settled. I’m not going anywhere.”
*
NOT LONG AFTER I FINISHED THE TEA, my nausea returned, and I suffered through an agonizing round of dry heaves. Surprisingly, Alison made a wonderful nurse, holding a cool compress to my head and not leaving my side until I was safely tucked back in bed. “Sleep,” I can still hear her repeating as she stroked my hair. “Sleep . . . sleep.”
Whether it was from exhaustion, the sound of her voice, or the touch of her hand, within minutes I was sound asleep. This time, no dreams plagued me. I slept soundly, deeply, for several hours. When I opened my eyes, it was almost noon.
I sat up in bed, twisting my neck from side to side to get rid of the stiffness that had settled in. Then I heard a voice talking quietly from the second bedroom and realized it was Alison. “I didn’t call to fight,” I heard her say as I climbed out of bed, steadying myself against the wall as I shuffled toward the door.
“Everything is going exactly as planned,” she continued as I stepped into the hall, drew closer. “You’re just going to have to trust that I know what I’m doing.”
I must have made a sound because she suddenly spun around in her seat, went ghostly white.
“Terry! How long have you been standing there? Are you all right?” The words tumbled from her mouth in a frantic rush, like sand from a broken hourglass. “Look, I have to go,” she said into the portable phone at her ear, before stuffing it unceremoniously into the pocket of her white shorts. She jumped to her feet and quickly ushered me toward the sofa, then sat so close to me, our knees were touching. “My brother,” she explained, patting the phone in her pocket. “I decided you were right, that the least I could do was call my family and wish them a happy holiday, let them know I’m okay.”
“It didn’t go well?”
“About as well as expected. Anyway, how are you? You look a hundred percent better.”
“I feel better,” I said without much conviction. What had Alison been talking to her brother about? What, I wondered, was going exactly as planned? “What have you been doing all morning?” I asked instead.
“First I went home, took a shower, changed my clothes. Then”—a huge grin swept across Alison’s face, temporarily obliterating my concerns—”I found this.” She grabbed a large, leather-bound photo album from the pillow beside her, balanced it across her lap. “I hope you don’t mind. I stumbled across it when I was looking for something to read.” She flipped it open. “Are these your parents?”
I found myself staring at an old black-and-white photograph of a smiling young couple at a public swimming pool, my father’s skinny legs sticking out from underneath a pair of dark, oversize swim trunks, loafers on his feet, a straw hat on his head, my mother sitting beside him in a modest gingham bathing suit, hands clasped primly in her lap, hair piled high on her head, large, white sunglasses swamping her small face. How long had it been since I’d looked at these pictures? The album had been tucked away at the back of the highest shelf. How had Alison simply stumbled across it? “That’s them,” I said, brushing an invisible hair away from my mother’s face, feeling her swat my hand aside. “They weren’t married yet.”
As Alison steadily turned the pages, I watched my parents grow up before my eyes, from shy young lovers to self-conscious newlyweds to nervous parents. “This one’s my favorite.” Alison pointed to a picture of my mother pressing a sad-eyed baby to her cheek. “Look at how cute you were.”
“Cute, my ass. Just look at those bags under my eyes.” I shook my head in dismay. “My mother claimed I didn’t sleep through the night until I was three years old. And I peed in my pants until I was seven. No wonder they decided not to have any more kids.”
Alison laughed, studied each page in turn. “Which one’s you?” she asked suddenly, indicating a large photograph of a bunch of small children arranged in neat little rows, like pansies in a garden—my senior kindergarten class.
I pointed to a little girl in a white dress, frowning from the back row.
“You don’t look very happy.”
“I never liked having my picture taken.”
“No? I love it. Oh, look at this one. Is this you?” Alison’s index finger landed on a little girl in a plaid jumper, scowling beside her third-grade teacher.
“That’s me all right.”
“Would you just look at that face.” Alison laughed. “You have the same expression in every picture, even as a teenager. Which one’s Roger Stillman?”
“What?”
“Roger Stillman. Is he in any of these pictures?”
“No. He was a few grades ahead of me,” I reminded her.
“Too bad. I would have liked to see what he looked like. What do you think happened to him?”
“I have no idea.”
“Do you ever think of just picking up the phone and calling him? Saying, ‘Hi, Roger Stillman, this is Terry Painter. Remember me?’ ”
“Never,” I said, louder than I’d intended.
“Do you think he still lives in Baltimore?”
I shrugged my lack of interest, flipped to another page, saw my parents, now in glorious color, posed together on the front lawn of their first house in Delray Beach. They looked a little stiff, as if aware there were difficult times ahead. “Would you mind making me another cup of tea?” I asked.
“It would be my supreme pleasure.” Alison pushed herself off the sofa. “How about some toast and jam to go with it?”
“Why not?”
“That’s the spirit.”
I leaned my head against the burgundy velvet of the sofa, closed my eyes, the sound of Alison’s voice soft against my ear. Everything is going exactly as planned, she purred. And then another voice: I have a message for you from Erica Hollander, the stranger whispered in my ear. She says you better watch your step.
But I was too tired, too weak, to listen.
ELEVEN
The weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas were especially busy, both at the hospital and at home. In the five years since my mother’s death, I hadn’t bothered much with the festive trappings of the holiday season. Indeed, I’d gone out of my way to ignore the holidays, often working overtime and volunteering for the graveyard shift. But Alison was determined to change that.
“What do you mean you’re working on Christmas?” she wailed.
“It’s just another day.”
“No, it’s not. It’s Christmas. Can’t you switch with somebody else?”
I shook my head. It was late afternoon and I was working in my garden. Alison was pacing restlessly back and forth on the lawn behind me.
“But that really sucks!” she protested, looking and sounding at least a decade younger than her twenty-eight years. “I mean, I was kind of hoping we could have Christmas together.”
“We could do Christmas Eve.”
Immediately her face brightened. “That’s right. Lots of families open their presents on Christmas Eve, don’t they? I guess that would be okay. Can I go with you to pick out a tree?”
“A tree?” I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a Christmas tree.
“You have to have a tree! What’s Christmas without a tree? And we’ll get decorations and little white ligh
ts. My treat, of course. It’s the least I can do. It’ll be so great. Can we do that?”
How could I say no? In the weeks since I’d been sick, Alison had become a regular—and increasingly welcome—part of my day. We spoke often on the phone from our respective places of work, had dinner together two or three times a week, occasionally went to the movies or for a leisurely stroll along the beach. No matter how busy our schedules, Alison found time for us to be together. And despite my initial reservations about tenants in general, and Alison in particular, she simply ran roughshod over any misgivings I might have had. I was powerless where she was concerned, I realized as we drove along Military Trail some days later, a tall Scotch pine protruding from the half-open trunk of my car. Alison had managed, in the space of only several months, to become an integral part of my life, and despite the twelveyear difference in our ages, probably the closest friend I’d ever had.
“Is this not the most absolutely gorgeous tree in the whole wide world?” she asked after we’d finished attaching the last of the delicate, pink bows to its long, sharp branches. We stood back to admire our handiwork.
“It’s absolutely the most gorgeous tree in the whole wide world,” I concurred, and she hugged me.
“This is going to be the best Christmas ever,” Alison declared as Christmas Eve drew closer, and she added yet another present to the growing pile under the tree that she’d stationed in the corner of my living room.
“I think she’s homesick,” I confided to Margot at work. “I mean, you should see what she’s done to the house. There are decorations everywhere, mountains of holly sprigs, and I can’t move without bumping into one of these weird little Santas she has everywhere.”
“Sounds like she’s taking over,” Margot observed with a laugh. “How long before she moves in and you go back to living in the cottage?” She reached for a patient’s file, answered the ringing phone beside her.
“I think she’s just homesick,” I repeated, vaguely annoyed with Margot, although I wasn’t sure why.
Margot held out the phone. “For you.”
“Terry Painter,” I announced, expecting to hear Alison’s voice. Had she somehow sensed we were talking about her?
“Terry, it’s Josh Wylie.”
My heart sank.
“I really hate to do this to you again,” he was saying as I lowered my chin to my chest, silently mouthing the words along with him. “Something’s come up, and I’m going to have to cancel our lunch. I’m really sorry.”
“So am I,” I said truthfully. This was the third lunch date Josh had canceled in as many weeks. Aside from a few quick exchanges when he’d dropped by to visit his mother, we hadn’t seen each other since Thanksgiving.
“How about dinner?” he surprised me now by asking. “I have to be up your way later and I have a little something for you.”
“You have something for me?”
“ ’Tis the season. It’s just a little token of my appreciation. For being so nice to my mother,” he added quickly. “How about I pick you up at seven o’clock?”
“Seven o’clock would be fine.”
“Seven o’clock it is.” He clicked off without saying good-bye.
“Somebody looks awfully pleased with herself,” Margot said with a sly wink.
I said nothing, my mind already on the night ahead. So what if Josh had canceled three lunch dates in a row. One dinner equaled three lunches any day. Not only that, but he had a gift for me—a small token of his appreciation, he’d said. For being so nice to my mother. I tried to imagine what it could be. A bottle of perfume? Some fancy soaps? Maybe a silk scarf or even a small brooch? No, it was way too early for jewelry. Our relationship—if a few kisses and several canceled lunch dates could be called a relationship—was still in the beginning stages. It wouldn’t be appropriate, as my mother might have said, for him to be showering me with extravagant gifts. It didn’t matter. Whatever Josh gave me would be wonderful. I wondered what I could get him in return, deciding to ask Myra for her advice. Her condition had deteriorated in the last few weeks, and she was understandably depressed. Perhaps news of my upcoming dinner date with her son might cheer her up.
But Myra was asleep when I entered her room, so after checking her IV and adjusting her blankets, I left. “I’m having dinner with your son tonight,” I said from the doorway. “Wish me luck.”
But the only response I got was an involuntary whistle that escaped Myra’s lips as she exhaled. I closed the door and stepped into the hall, where I was almost run over by one of the orderlies. “What’s going on?” I called after him as he raced down the hall.
“Patient in 423 came out of her coma,” he called back excitedly.
“Sheena O’Connor?” I asked, but the young man had already disappeared around a corner. “My God, I don’t believe it.”
I hurried to room 423, pushed open the door. The room was overflowing with doctors and assorted medical personnel, everyone moving about purposefully, their actions both condensed and exaggerated, as if the scene were being enacted in both slow motion and fast-forward simultaneously. I caught a glimpse of the pale young woman who was the calm at the center of the storm. She was sitting up in bed, still attached to a myriad of tubes, and our eyes connected for only the briefest of seconds as I was backing out of the room.
“Wait!” Her tiny voice pierced the air.
I froze as half a dozen bodies swiveled in my direction, half a dozen faces found my own.
“I know you,” the girl said. “You’re the one who’s been singing to me, aren’t you?”
“You heard me?” I approached the bed, the doctors and nurses who surrounded her clearing a path for me.
“I heard you,” Sheena said softly, leaning back against her pillow, large, dark eyes fluttering to a close.
“It’s a miracle,” a hushed voice whispered from a corner of the room.
“Has anyone notified her family?” someone asked.
“Her parents are on their way.”
“Should we call the police?”
“They’ve already been notified.”
“It’s a miracle,” someone else said. “A true Christmas miracle.”
*
I COULDN’T WAIT TO SHARE THE NEWS of Sheena’s miraculous recovery with Alison, so I decided to stop off at the gallery where she worked. Maybe Alison could help me select a gift for Josh, something appropriate, I thought, feeling giddy and euphoric, as I pulled into a just vacated parking space right on Atlantic Avenue. Another miracle!
I didn’t see Alison when I entered the store. Nor did I see Denise. Indeed, the gallery appeared to be deserted. How on earth did they stay in business? I wondered, looking around, noting that the painting of the woman with the wide-brimmed sun hat no longer occupied its usual place on the far wall. I felt a pang of regret. Alison had been right about it being the perfect painting for my living room. It was too bad I hadn’t taken her advice and scooped it up when I had the chance. Obviously, someone much more decisive than I had done just that.
My life was a collection of missed opportunites, I thought glumly, deciding that was about to change.
Starting with tonight.
Starting with Josh.
“Hello?” I called out. “Alison?”
“Can I help you?”
I turned to see an attractive woman approximately my own age walking toward me, her high heels clicking against the hardwood floor.
“I’m sorry. I was in my office. Have you been waiting long?”
“Just got here.”
The woman smiled, although the skin around her mouth was pulled so tight, it was hard to tell whether she was happy or in pain. Reflexively, I brought my hand to my cheek, pushed at the fine lines around my eyes. “Is there something in particular you’re looking for?” she asked.
“Actually, I’m looking for someone who works here. Alison Simms.”
The woman’s smile became a tense, straight line. “Alison no longer works here,” sh
e said curtly.
“She doesn’t?”
“She left last week.”
“She left? Why?”
“I’m afraid I had to let her go.”
“You had to let her go?” I repeated, feeling like a parrot. “Why?”
“Perhaps you should ask her.”
Alison hadn’t said a word about being let go. She had told me that her boss had requested she not receive any more calls at work. Dear God, was I the reason she’d lost her job? “And this happened last week?” I heard myself ask, my mind reeling.
“Is there anything I can help you with?” Fern Lorelli was clearly anxious to move on.
I muttered something about needing a Christmas gift for a friend and eventually purchased an attractively masculine ballpoint pen I thought Josh might like, but my heart wasn’t in it. Why had Alison been fired? More importantly, why hadn’t she told me? I made up my mind to ask her as soon as I got home.
My phone was ringing as I pulled into the driveway. I ran into the house, the bells Alison had hung on the front door jingling as I raced into the kitchen and grabbed for the phone. I dropped the small bag containing my new purchase on the counter beside three small plastic Santas, all of whom stared at the bag with bemused curiosity. “Hello?”
A soft male voice slithered through the phone wire like a snake. “Buy anything for me?”
My breath froze in my lungs, even as my eyes darted nervously toward the back window. Had someone been following me? Was I being watched? Why? I wondered, my arms folding protectively across my chest, as if I were standing in my kitchen completely naked. “Who is this? What do you want?”
My answer was a sly chuckle, followed by silence and the familiar drone of the dial tone.
“Damn it!” I hung up and immediately pressed *69. But whoever was calling had blocked the trace. I slammed the phone into its carriage.
It rang again almost immediately.
“Look, I don’t know what your problem is,” I said instead of hello. “But if you don’t stop bothering me, I’m going to call the police.”
“Terry?”
“Josh!”
“I know I broke our lunch date, but do you really think the police are necessary?”