Huge old maple trees lined the brick walkway that led from the winding asphalt road. Stubborn Shasta daisies grew in random clumps amid the grass.
“Next house,” Madelaine said, waiting a split second for a two-voiced call to move on.
Silence.
She twisted around and looked in the backseat. Angel and Lina were both staring at the house.
“Francis would have loved this house,” Lina said. Opening the door, she got out of the car and began walking up the path.
Madelaine looked at Angel.
“I’ve never imagined myself living in a log cabin,” he said after a minute.
She smiled apologetically. “I know it’s not your style.”
He gave her a grin that was so quick and white, she felt stunned by it. “It didn’t used to be, but neither were afternoons driving around in a Volvo.” He shuddered dramatically.
She couldn’t help laughing. “Let’s go inside.”
They got out of the car and came together at the end of the walkway. Angel stumbled. Without thinking, Madelaine curled an arm around his waist and let him lean against her.
She realized a split second later that she was holding him. Her breath tangled in her throat and she turned slowly, meeting his questioning gaze. They stood that way for an eternity, neither one of them saying anything.
“I never told you thanks,” he said finally.
She felt a fleeting disappointment, but didn’t know why. “No need,” she answered.
“Not true,” he said, staring into her eyes so intently that she wondered what he saw. “I’ve learned there’s always a need.”
Impulsively she reached up and brushed a lock of hair from his eyes. She realized a split second later that she’d done it because he’d sounded so much like his brother. It was exactly the kind of thing Francis would have said in a moment like this. At the thought, she felt a pang of loneliness. “He would be proud of you right now.”
There was no question of who he was. Angel grinned and looked down at her. “Because I’m holding his best girl?”
She saw a transformation in his eyes—this time there was no trace of Francis and his gentle, caring soul. This time there was only Angel, fiery-tempered and brutally honest, and he was looking at her as if she mattered. Her heartbeat sped up. Suddenly she felt as if she were sixteen again, standing in the arms of the boy who loved her.
She told herself not to care, not to want anything from this man who’d broken her heart, but she knew even as she had the thought it was too late, and the knowledge scared her to death. “No. Because you’re changing, Angel. And we both know how hard that is to do.”
He laughed and pulled away from her. Turning back to the log cabin, they started up the pathway together. Halfway there, Angel reached down and took Madelaine’s hand in his.
The next morning, when she got to work, the parking lot was full of news vans. Reporters had descended on the hospital like a pack of ravenous hyenas, flashing photographs of anyone who walked up to the front door, barking questions at everyone they saw.
Madelaine was winded and irritated by the time she pushed through the crowd, muttering “No comment” a dozen times. When she got to her office, Sarandon and Allenford were waiting for her.
Madelaine sighed and tossed her suede coat over the back of her sofa. “Angel knew this was coming. He was seen yesterday just before we discharged him.”
“Must be that lovely woman I saw on ‘Hard Copy,’” Sarandon said calmly, taking a sip of coffee.
“What does Angel want us to do?” Allenford asked.
“Confirm with the press that he had cardiac surgery. Say that the surgery was successful and he was discharged. Beyond that, he wants a no comment.”
“That won’t last long.”
Madelaine heard the edge of eagerness in Chris’s voice, and she supposed she understood it. The surgeon wanted the world to know about his great work. “No,” she said. “It won’t. But it’ll buy him a little time.”
“Okay.” Chris pushed to his feet, and Sarandon popped up beside him. “Let’s go … the three of us.”
They strode out of the office and turned the corner, coming down the hallway of Intensive Care like the astronauts from The Right Stuff, Chris was in the middle, with Sarandon on his left and Madelaine on the right.
In step, they pushed through the front doors and marched down to the parking lot.
“I have a statement to make regarding Angel DeMarco,” Chris said.
“Just a second,” someone screamed.
Reporters and camera operators zoomed up to the three doctors, formed a tight circle around them. Microphones shot into Chris’s face.
He looked calm and unruffled. “Mr. Angelo DeMarco was recently a patient at this hospital. Following his much-publicized collapse in Oregon, he was transferred here for cardiac surgery. The surgery was completely successful, and Mr. DeMarco has been discharged.”
“Does he have AIDS?” someone yelled.
“No, he does not.”
“When was the surgery?” someone else wanted to know.
“I’m sorry, I don’t have that date with me,” Chris said calmly.
“Why are you hiding the date?”
Chris nodded briskly. “Thank you for your time.”
Lights flashed, cameras clicked, questions rang out.
But the press conference was over.
It was quiet here in the early morning hour before school began. Thin yellow clouds spread across the tree-tops, and the first glimmering rays of the sun glanced off the metal bleachers. Lina could feel her feet sinking into the squishy, rain-soaked grass, and it made her feel strangely buoyant to leave a set of footprints across the football field. As if, for once, she was actually here.
She heard the kids talking long before she reached the lip of the ravine. Their chattering voices floated up from the dark copse of trees, accompanied by the sweet smell of marijuana.
She couldn’t wait to join them. She jammed her hands in her pockets and raced to the edge of the ravine, staring down at the crowd she’d tried so desperately to belong to.
They were down there, clustered together, passing a thermos around in one direction, and a joint in the other. The few kids who weren’t smoking pot were puffing away on their cigarettes.
Lina frowned, disappointed suddenly. Last night Angel—her dad!—had talked to her about drugs and booze and cigarettes.
She’d heard it all a million times before, but last night was different. First of all, Angel was her dad, and she wanted him to love her. But too, he seemed to understand her in a way no one ever had before. Last night, as they’d sat together on the porch swing, listening to the tinny clanks of her mom cooking inside, Lina had looked into her father’s green eyes and felt as if she were looking into a mirror. He was the first adult she’d ever known who remembered what it felt like to be a kid.
When she told him that, he laughed and said it was because he’d never grown up. But then, in the middle of all their joking, he turned serious. When she pulled out a cigarette and started to light up, he grabbed her hand and stared at her so long, she became scared.
“First of all,” he said, “you can’t smoke around me because of my surgery. But more importantly, smoking is for idiots, and you seem like a smart kid to me.”
His words made her feel small and stupid, and mumbling something, she put the cigarette away. After that, they lapsed into silence. Night fell slowly, drizzling across the untended yard, blurring the edges of the trees. A white moth came out of hiding and fluttered around the porch light.
Finally her dad spoke again, and this time she could tell that he was thinking long and hard before each word. “I’m an alcoholic, Angelina, and a drug abuser, and … worse. I know what sends a person out into the darkness, looking for a little bit of light—even if that light comes with a helluva price and only lasts for the length of an evening.” He turned to her then, and she saw the disappointment in his eyes. “I’ve ruined
my life—and drugs and booze were how I did it. Please, please don’t be like me. It’d break my heart.”
“Hey, Lina!” Jett’s voice cut through her thoughts.
Distractedly Lina looked down the ravine and saw Jett standing in his usual spot, clutching the thermos in one hand and a joint in the other. “You bring anything to drink?”
Lina frowned. For the first time, it bothered her that Jett always asked for something from her. “Nope,” she yelled down.
He looked away from her before the word was even finished. “Bummer!” he yelled, and everyone laughed, then he went back to passing the joint around.
Lina stood there for another minute, waiting for someone else to call to her, or invite her down. But the kids seemed to have forgotten her existence. Shoving her hands in her pockets, she made her careful, picking way down the loose embankment, her tennis shoes crushing the muddy ivy and mushrooms in her path.
She moved into place beside Jett and said nothing. In the distance the second school bell rang and everyone laughed.
Someone handed Lina the joint. She stared at it, blinking at the smoke that stung her eyes. Then she passed it to the next person in line.
Jett frowned at her. “You don’t wanna get high?”
She shrugged. “Don’t feel like it.”
“Why not?”
Everyone waited, breathless, for the answer.
“I met my dad last night.” She felt a rush of adrenaline as she said the words.
Jett took a long drag and held it in, then exhaled the smoke at her face. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah,” she said, grinning up at him. “He’s Angel DeMarco.”
There was a moment of stunned surprise, then everyone burst out laughing.
“Sure he is, Lina.” Brittany laughed. “And my dad’s Jack Nicholson.”
Jett frowned at her. “So who is it really?”
Lina stared at them. All of a sudden she felt unwelcome here, and she wondered if she’d ever really belonged. “I told you, it’s Angel DeMarco.”
Jett stared at her, one black eyebrow rising slowly. “I read he had AIDS.”
“No,” she answered. “He just had bypass surgery. No big deal.”
“Oh, right,” Brittany said with a humph, “like you would know.”
She spun to face the crowd. “I do know. I spent the whole weekend with him, and he told me he had bypass surgery.”
“You’re a liar,” Jett said softly, and she knew the second he spoke that the group would follow him. Then he grinned at her. “Hey, give me a smoke, willya?”
“Buy your own,” she snapped.
Jett spun to face her again. “What did you say?”
She stared up at him, seeing his drug-pale skin and bloodshot eyes and the too-black hair that fell across his forehead. She wondered what she’d ever seen in him. Disgusted, she shook her head. “My uncle Francis was right. You guys are a bunch of losers.”
The look in Jett’s eyes turned ugly. “Oh, really?” he whispered.
She backed up. “Yeah, really.”
Jett followed her. She tripped on a stone and thudded to a sit. He came up close, towering over her, grinning down at her. “Where do you think you’re going?”
She squished her hands on the muddy earth and shot to her feet. “I’m getting the hell away from you guys.”
He laughed, but it was a cold, angry sound that made her afraid—just like it was supposed to. “What’re you gonna do, make friends with the cheerleaders? They wouldn’t hang with a skank like you, Hillyard.” He laughed again. “And no one’s gonna believe a lame story about Angel DeMarco bein’ your dad, either. Get real. We’re the only friends you’ve got. Now, quit actin’ like a bitch and give me a smoke.”
Lina slapped his face. The smack reverberated in the dense, moist air. She realized a second too late what she’d done—she saw the anger dawn in his eyes, and she was off, scrambling up the bank and running across the football held. He reached for her, missed and cursed, but by then she had a head start.
Lina didn’t look back. She ran all the way to the school and skidded into the quiet hallways. Breathing hard, she raced to Vicki Owen’s door and knocked hard. When the counselor said, “Come in,” Lina burst through the door and slammed it shut behind her. Sinking onto the seat, she gulped in a few aching breaths, then looked up at Miss Owen. “I need help.”
A half hour later, Lina sat in the school gym, alone, waiting for some guy she didn’t know. Miss Owen’s nephew or cousin or something.
Miss Owen had listened to Lina’s story about Jett and the gang and said very simply, “You need new friends, Lina.”
Lina had laughed. “Oh, yeah. I’ll get some out of the Wheaties box tomorrow morning. All I need is a few proofs of purchase.”
Miss Owen had just smiled and told Lina to go to the gym and wait. And so she was here, sitting on the cold wooden floor of the basketball court, her arms crossed. Waiting.
After about ten minutes, the door creaked open. A guy paused in the opening and then began slowly walking toward her. His footsteps left an echoing wake in the huge room.
Lina stared at him, making out more and more of his features with every step. He was tall—way taller than she was—and he had short blond hair. His skin was pale, with two ruddy spots of color on his cheeks. He wore a huge, baggy sweatshirt and oversized jeans.
She recognized him finally. He was the school’s student vice president—Zach Owen. “Hi,” he said, looking at her with a directness that made her uncomfortable.
She nodded but said nothing.
He flopped to a sit in front of her. “My aunt tells me you’re in trouble.”
“Nothing I can’t handle.” She raked him with her eyes. “Besides, what would you know about trouble?”
He laughed, and for a second he reminded her of Francis, with his crinkly-faced smile. “It’s an act,” he said softly, as if he could read her mind. “Last year my parents died and I went off the deep end—drinking, drugging, you name it.”
She eyed him suspiciously. “Yeah, right, and I’m Michael Jackson’s love child.”
He grinned at her. “You don’t look like him.”
“Very funny. Look, I gotta run—” She started to get to her feet and he grabbed her, held her in place.
“Don’t run.” It was all he said, just two simple words, but in his voice she could hear understanding. And suddenly the two words didn’t seem simple at all. Slowly she bent back down to her knees and looked at him, really looked. “How’d you stop?”
“Aunt Vicki put me in detox. When I dried out, I transferred to this school. At first it was hard…. I didn’t know anyone. But I ran for vice president to make friends, and I won.” He grinned sheepishly. “Course, no one ran against me.”
“I found out this weekend that Angel DeMarco is my dad.” She hadn’t meant to say it, somehow it just came blurting out. She waited, shoulders tensed, for him to respond. To make fun of her.
He studied her. “Yeah, you sorta look like him.”
“I do?” She heard the completely dorky awe in her voice and she winced, embarrassed.
“You’re way prettier, though.”
The compliment fluttered through her. A quick smile jerked one side of her mouth. “Thanks.”
She looked at him again, and saw for the first time that he sort of looked like a young Hugh Grant. Not really like a nerd at all.
Chapter Twenty-two
The doctors’ lounge was uncustomarily quiet in the last few minutes before the close of the day shift. The tables were empty, their cheap, brown surfaces cluttered with paper cups and plastic forks. A row of soda and candy machines stood waiting for the next shift of storm troopers to descend, quarters in hand.
Madelaine sat at the rickety table closest to the window, her fingers cupped around the comforting heat of a thick porcelain mug. The burnt scent of French roast coffee wafted upward.
At precisely 5:01 Allenford and Sarandon strode through the single
doors, pulling down their surgical masks in unison. Both men nodded at her and headed for the coffee machine, plunking their money in one after another and waiting in silence for the paper cups to drop into the slot and fill with coffee. Then they carried their drinks to the table.
Chris had a pile of tabloids tucked under his arm, and he tossed them onto the table. Headlines jumped up at Madelaine. Angel DeMarco in St. Joseph’s Hospital … AIDS … cancer … heart surgery … heart transplant.
The two men sat down across from her. Chris reached instinctively for the cigarettes in his breast pocket. Pulling one from the pack, he stared down at it, caressing it absently.
Madelaine was used to his little ritual. He’d given up smoking three years ago—due to the sheer volume of staff and patient pressure—but he still held a cigarette when he’d had a hard day and he needed to think.
Finally he looked up at her. “The DeMarco situation is heating up.”
Madelaine nodded. “I heard a photographer from one of the magazines caught him in physical therapy yesterday.”
Sarandon gave a tired smile. “He wasn’t happy—and he made sure everyone on the floor knew it.”
Madelaine laughed softly. “I don’t doubt it.”
’The point is,” Allenford said, “we can’t hold out much longer. Our security is getting more sievelike every day. Obviously we’ve misled the press by implying he underwent simple cardiac surgery, but that won’t last much longer.”
Allenford took a long sip of coffee, eyeing Madelaine. “You know that security is not the only problem here.”
Madelaine knew what he was going to say before he said it. She’d tried not to think about the repercussions of his celebrity, but they kept coming back, worming through her joy at Angel’s progress. “You mean Francis,” she said dully.
Allenford stared sympathetically at her. “Some reporter is going to discover the connection. The only reason they haven’t discovered it yet is because there’s been no official confirmation of the transplant—they’re too busy trying to find the woman who supposedly gave him AIDS. The confusion has them more interested in his sex life than his heartbeat, but that won’t last. Once they find out about the transplant, some smart reporter will track down the sequence of events … and find out about a patient in Oregon who donated his organs on the same night Angel got his heart. When they hit that patient’s name, it’s going to rip through the headlines like a rocket. If he isn’t prepared…” He said nothing more, let the implication hang in the air between them.
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