“Who you plannin’ to represent down there? Real Housewives and Falcons wide receivers who get picked up on DUIs?”
“Just considering the options,” Robyn repeated. “Haven’t made any decisions yet.”
“You should give me a call,” Chris said. “I can always use good people.”
“Oh, but I’ve heard about you, Mr. Scaife,” Robyn said. “Not sure I’m up for eighteen-hour days, six days a week.”
“You heard right,” Chris said, his eyes fixed on hers. “I go hard. Or I don’t go at all.”
They stared at each other and he was beginning to form a thought when behind his eyes, tiny pain-Gremlins began sticking daggers into his corneas. He squinted. Even the dim light from the foyer, creeping into the almost darkened living room suddenly seemed blindingly bright.
“Are you okay?”
The migraines did this—messed with his vision, made it as though he was looking at everything through foggy glass, or underwater. The pain and nausea he had almost grown accustomed to, but the vision thing scared the shit out of him. Once he’d awoken to a ratchet of pain in his skull like someone had split it with a pickax, and realized that though his eyes were open he couldn’t see a goddamned thing other than light and shadows. Mrs. Lawson convinced him to call Dr. Allen, who had come in and given him a shot that cleared up both the pain and vision impairment within minutes.
Well damn, Doc, he’d said, once the drug took effect. Why can’t I just get a shot every time?
He didn’t mean it, but making a joke seemed like the best way to handle the knot of fear that had twisted his gut for those hours when he wondered if maybe, just maybe, he was about to go completely blind.
Because as I’ve told you a million times, Mr. Scaife, she responded in the chiding tone she always took with him, a few lifestyle changes and you wouldn’t need medication at all. So I’m certainly not going to administer regular doses of a powerful narcotic simply because you won’t listen.
“My brother gets these,” Robyn was saying. “It’s a migraine, isn’t it?”
Chris blinked, and in what seemed like an instant, Robyn had come closer and was holding his arm. Maybe he’d shut his eyes for longer than he realized.
“Where do you need to be? Can I help you? Probably somewhere darker than this would be best.”
Chris considered. His office was always lit up like a Christmas tree and the idea of entering a brightly-lit room right now was about as appealing an idea as having his balls in a vise.
“Upstairs,” he said.
Even talking hurt, and he was beginning to feel his right shoulder seize on him, stiffening so that later, when the pain was in full bloom, he wouldn’t be able to move it at all.
Robyn’s hand on his arm was gently tugging and Chris turned toward the stairs, wanting to be able to tell her he didn’t need her help, but that would have been bravado. The truth was, while he might be capable of navigating the long and winding staircase on his own, it would take him several long minutes to make it up to his bedroom suite. He could just make the steps out, but being able to maintain his equilibrium long enough to make his way up them was going to be a problem.
Robyn walked slowly, not holding him up—which he would have resented, even if she’d been able to—but guiding him, a hand at his elbow. The necessity of even that limited degree of help pissed him off, and it took everything in him not to pry himself loose. Even if it wasn’t her fault he was practically crippled with pain, the light pressure of her fingers, reminding him that he needed help, was unwelcome.
Chris tried to remember what Dr. Allen told him about the ‘lifestyle changes’ he needed to make. Some were dietary, but most, he recalled, were related to work hours, stress and sleep.
Usually, she’d told him, before I prescribe medication, I tell my patients to make a few simple changes. And for a fair percentage of them, that takes care of the problem.
But he was unlike her other patients. He had a company to run, and the number of people who depended on him for their livelihood could populate a small town. No, slowing down was not an option because there were many, many things he couldn’t delegate to anyone else. That was the long and short of it. So she’d given him medication right away.
Only now, it wasn’t working.
“Which way?” Robyn asked when they got to the top of the staircase.
Chris looked ahead of him. He could make out shapes pretty well—the Hepplewhite table on the landing and the statuette at the center of it. The antique grandfather clock to his right, and the dark mass that had to be the Moroccan rug on the floor just ahead.
“I think I’m good from here,” he said.
Robyn’s hand fell from his elbow and for a moment, Chris was uncertain.
Maybe having her walk with him into his bedroom might not be a bad idea. Mrs. Lawson had undoubtedly cleaned up in there and it would be pitch dark, so he could probably feel his way to the bed, but the spears behind his eyes had grown sharper, the hammering at the base of his skull more insistent. He wasn’t sure he could find the medication if he tried.
Robyn seemed to sense his ambivalence. “I’d feel a lot better if you let me make sure,” she said. “Which way?”
“Down to the end of the hall,” he said. His voice sounded slurred.
Chris tried to walk with a sense of purpose but this was shaping up to be the granddaddy of them all. The nausea was beginning now, with each step it grew like a snake in his stomach uncoiling, and preparing to leap from his throat.
He took a deep breath, more audibly than he intended and Robyn paused.
“Let’s stop for a moment,” she recommended.
“No, I just need to get to my . . .” he took another breath. His jaw was stiff, almost locked and his tongue felt like it weighed five pounds.
Motherfucker, this hurt.
Chris thought about his house in Southampton; the courtside terrace where he sometimes sat to do some work, the bubinga slab dining table and custom-made chairs in his dining room. He thought about the astronomical sums he’d spent to get everything just right. And then he thought about the fact that he’d spent only about two days there this year, even though the house was his favorite place in the entire world. Then he wondered whether he would ever see it again, because the pain felt like death had to be imminent. Nothing could hurt this much and not kill you.
But he couldn’t afford to be dead. So he clenched his jaw tighter, fighting back against the torturous pounding that seemed to envelop his head.
“Don’t do that,” Robyn said, as they began moving once again, making their way slowly down the hall. “Gritting your teeth only makes it worse.”
Chris didn’t respond, because he wasn’t even sure he could anymore.
“I know it sounds impossible right now but you have to try to relax your muscles. Tensing up only makes it more painful.”
At the bedroom door Chris saw only a blur as Robyn reached for the light, flipping it on before realizing what she was doing. The sudden flood of brightness literally brought him to his knees.
“Oh my god! I’m so sorry!”
Robyn hit the light switch once again and fell next to him, but it was too late. The relentless thudding in his head, the needlelike pain in his eyes assailed him once again and with renewed force, and before he knew what was happening, Chris had vomited—copious, viscous, voluminous vomit—across the floor. He was conscious only long enough to hear Robyn’s exclamation of horror and surprise, and then it was lights out.
2
“Is that you?”
Robyn paused at the threshold of her bedroom stilettos in hand and heaved a deep sigh.
“Yes, Mom, it’s me,” she called back. Who else would it be?
“Didn’t expect you would be spending the night out,” her mother returned, the sound of her voice coming closer.
Then she was standing at the doorway of her own bedroom, wearing her housecoat, a paperback romance in hand. Robyn’s mother spent many ho
urs each day reading romances. It made her calm, she said; gave her a positive outlook on life.
“I didn’t expect it either,” Robyn said, yawning.
Her mother looked at her expectantly, hopefully. As though it wasn’t ludicrous that she might have spent the night with some man she’d met at a wedding.
“Someone got ill,” Robyn explained. “I stuck around to help.”
“Oh,” her mother said, making no effort to mask her disappointment.
Of course she would be disappointed. In her mother’s world, the fantasy world of romance novel heroines, women happened across the love of their lives at other people’s weddings and soon were themselves well on the way to happily-ever-after. Hating herself for her cynicism, Robyn decided it was probably better to cut this interaction short until she was in better humor.
“Anyway, I’m beat,” she said. “I’m going to shower and take a long nap. We’ll go to Olive Garden like we planned, just as soon as I get some rest.”
“Was Curtis there?” her mother asked. She did so quickly, wanting to get the question about before Robyn disappeared into her temporary sanctuary closing the door behind her, and shutting the world out.
“No, Mom, he wasn’t,” Robyn said, her voice weary.
“Oh, I just thought . . .”
“He wasn’t friends with this couple. He knew them through me,” Robyn said. “They’re my friends.”
That sounded childish and petulant, but that’s what they’d come to, she and Curtis—‘yours’ and ‘mine’—dividing up money, property and even people so that the line between them was bright and unmistakable. That was the way he wanted it. The ink on their divorce papers wasn’t even dry, and most of that had been settled because of Curtis’ insistence on order in all things. He wanted order, and he wanted there to be a plan. Even for their divorce he had been ruthlessly efficient in tying things up.
Robyn put a hand up to her forehead. “Mom, I’ve really got to get some . . .”
“Okay, okay,” her mother said. “We’ll talk when you wake up.”
Once the door was shut, Robyn shed her dress, laying it carefully across the armchair nearby. She’d spent way more on it than she should have, but she thought it might lift her spirits to look pretty and get gussied up. She may even be able to return it if she cleaned it first. The minus eighty dollars in her back account would be restored to a plus.
What a joke that had been, thinking a wedding would make her feel better. Well, it was her own stupid fault. And the wedding of a couple that clearly adored each other, no less. Brendan, with that irrepressible smile of his even more in evidence today than Robyn had ever seen before, and Tracy, who seldom betrayed any emotion, with her eyes never leaving his face.
During a particularly emotional moment in the middle of the ceremony, Tracy and Brendan’s baby daughter in the arms of Tracy’s mother in the front row—perhaps awaking from a nap and finding herself somewhere unfamiliar—let out an unexpected wail and everyone laughed. The laughter only caused her to cry with more gusto. At that, Brendan had turned to the officiating minister and made the time-out sign with his hands, going to retrieve his daughter from his mother-in-law. A collective ‘awww’ went up from the guests as he kissed her head and put the baby over his shoulder. He finished his vows while rocking back and forth, patting the baby on her back.
In the background, behind the minister’s head as Tracy slid the ring on his finger, awkwardly as he was still holding the baby, the sun set with dramatic splashes of crimson, gold and the intermittent streak of purple. The moment had been almost too beautiful for Robyn’s heart to take; the couple, their baby and the vibrant colors in the horizon like a gift from God, blessing the union.
Feeling lucky that she was sitting near the rear of the gathering and at the end of a row, she’d discreetly slipped away. As she entered the house, cheers were going up as Brendan and Tracy were declared husband and wife. A server, clad in white handed her a glass of champagne and she took it, retreating to the furthest of Chris Scaife’s three sitting areas. And there she had remained for much of the miserable evening.
___________________
Once naked, Robyn considered taking a shower, but decided against it. She was just so damned tired. Instead, she collapsed atop the bedcovers without bothering to pull them aside. The bedside clock read eight-fifteen. Wondering whether Chris was okay, she tried to remember if she had any of his numbers to call later and check up on him.
After he threw up, he’d blacked out for a couple minutes. Even while unconscious, his body had been tense, rigid against the pain. Robyn rushed downstairs and grabbed one of the catering staff who was basically the first passing man who looked strong enough to help her get Chris up. Together they’d moved him to the bed where Robyn had assumed the task of removing his soiled suit jacket and arranging a soft pillow under his head. For a while there she thought he might actually convulse. A vein at his temple pulsed and he clenched his jaw so tight, Robyn could hear his teeth grind. His eyes were glassy and glazed as the excruciating pain seemed to rob them of their ability to focus.
Finally realizing there was no way Chris could assist with his own care, Robyn found his medication and called the number of the doctor listed on the bottle. Until the doctor arrived, she’d fashioned a cool compress with washrags from the enormous master bathroom. Even though there’d been no time to pause and admire her surroundings, Robyn couldn’t help but notice the opulence, the sheer scale of everything. The master suite easily outsized the dining, living and kitchen areas of her mother’s townhome, and even that of the house she and Curtis had planned to make an offer on before everything went to Hell in a hand-basket.
Sitting cross-legged on his bed next to him, Robyn pressed the damp, cool rags against Chris’ forehead, watching his chest rise and fall as he tried to manage his breathing. Pinpricks of pain-induced perspiration appeared above his lip and across his nose and cheeks.
Recalling long nights in high school just like this one, when her mother helped her brother manage his migraines, Robyn knew better than to try to speak to him. And when Chris reached down gripping the bedcovers, Robyn grabbed one of his hands, gently releasing his death-grip on the Egyptian cotton sheet and instead allowing him to press her hand. His hold was uncomfortable but she forced herself to bear it, knowing what it was like to feel swallowed up by pain and not have another human being nearby.
When she finally showed up, the doctor was dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt that bore spatters of oil, like she was in the middle of preparing a meal when the call had come. A tall, blonde woman with considerable hips and Arctic-blue eyes, she seemed more exasperated than concerned as she prepared a syringe.
“How long has he been this way?” she asked.
“About forty minutes,” Robyn had responded.
“I’m going to give him two shots. One for the pain, and one to knock him out,” she said, her tone terse and businesslike. Then she looked directly at Chris. “Two shots, Mr. Scaife. One for the pain, one to help you get some rest.”
Robyn remained where she was, watching as the doctor struggled to get Chris to relax an arm enough to get the needle in. Through it all, he said nothing, seemingly unable to speak. After the first shot, Robyn felt the strength of his grip on her hand lessen. And a fifteen minutes after the second shot, he released her hand altogether. When Robyn looked at him, his face had gone slack, his jaw finally unclenched, and he appeared to be asleep.
“Are you his girlfriend?” the doctor asked as she packed her bag once again.
“No,” Robyn shook her head. “Just a friend.”
“If you, or someone could stay with him through the night that would be good,” she said. “He may still have a headache when he wakes up. But it should be just a headache, nothing like before.”
Robyn’s shoulders sagged at that and she realized for the first time how tense she herself had been. She hesitated, for a moment almost protesting that she couldn’t possibly stay because
her husband would be waiting. And then she remembered that there was no husband waiting for her; not anymore. Not only could she stay, she was probably, out of everyone at the wedding, the best bet. Walking in, she had been one of very few people unaccompanied by at least one other person.
“I’ll stay,” she said.
And she had, curled up in bed next to him about a foot away, sleeping only intermittently and spending much of the night making sure Chris’ chest still rose and fell.
When she saw the pale orange streaks across the sky signaling a new day, she washed her face in his bathroom at the sink large enough to bathe a toddler, and with shoes in hand, crept down the stairs and out the front door which was still open, as workmen were still milling about dissembling the remaining evidence of the previous evening’s revelry.
___________________
“You never did tell me how the wedding was,” her mother said as she bit into the soft, warm garlic roll.
“It was beautiful.” Robyn reached for her glass of iced tea and took a longer-than-necessary sip.
“And this is the couple who canceled their last wedding, right?”
“Postponed,” Robyn corrected.
But “canceled” was certainly what everyone thought at the time. The whispers, which no one had the guts to repeat to his face, were that Brendan had dodged a bullet. Tracy, who Robyn had known for now almost five years, had never been unpleasant, exactly. But neither was she warm, except to her best friend Riley and Riley’s kids.
And of course to Brendan.
In Brendan’s presence she was putty: soft, warm, malleable and so obviously crazy about him it was difficult to harbor any ill-feeling toward her on that basis alone. Whatever else she may be, she was definitely a woman in love. And maybe what seemed like a lack of general warmth came from the fact that Brendan was the type of man who made you do a double-take. And it wasn’t just good-looks, it was the light he radiated, bright like the sun, and just as likely to cheer the darkest of moods. Being with a man like that had to be cause for some measure of stress, even for the most self-assured of women, because people were drawn to him like moths to a flame.
Afterwards Page 2