Exposed to You

by BETH KERY

  “They were both lymphomas, but Alice’s was Hodgkin’s. Joy’s type actually has a much better prognosis and treatment success than Alice’s did.”

  His heart leapt. “That’s good, isn’t it?”

  He wished Seth’s nod were a little more reassuring.

  “When was she diagnosed?”

  “Last summer. I remember it was while we were working on Maritime.”

  Everett stared out at the sun-dappled lake. Pieces of memory barraged his consciousness like sharp fragments. Joy’s panic after their sexual experience in the studio, her large, tear-filled eyes looking up at him as he’d told her everything was going to be all right. No. No, it’s not, she’d said, her frantic tone slicing him to the quick. He’d be willing to bet she’d known about her diagnosis on that day. Maybe that’s why she’d behaved so uncharacteristically in regard to their sexual encounter. He should have recognized the depth of her desperation. He heard himself teasing her lightly—cluelessly—about all her pill bottles and how she must be a health nut, and then her solemn stare back at him in the mirror.

  A pain unlike anything he’d ever experienced before pierced him. God, it hurt, to think of Joy being afraid . . . being alone. He covered his face with one hand. After a moment, he slowly lowered it.

  “That’s why she left, isn’t it? She’s afraid to get too close to anyone. She’s afraid she’ll subject them to potential pain and . . .”

  “Loss,” Seth said when he faded off. Everett turned and saw Seth’s gaze on him, cold and flinty. He felt the judgment in the other man’s stare. He returned the look unflinchingly.

  “I’m in love with her,” Everett said.

  “Jake was in love with Alice. Or so he said. Once.”

  “Well, I’m not Jake,” Everett snarled. He started toward the path.

  “Where are you going?” Seth asked.

  “To Chicago.”

  “Everett, wait.”

  Everett almost didn’t stop—why should he? Seth had almost as much faith in him as Joy, but he wasn’t the one he had to convince. It was Joy to whom he wanted to prove himself. It was Joy he needed to see. At the last moment, however, he thought of how much Seth had endured and how much he loved Joy. He thought of how much Joy adored her uncle, and his feet came to an abrupt halt.

  “What?” he said, not turning around.

  “Joy begged me not to tell you any of this. I’ve broken my vow to her.”

  Everett turned around slowly. Seth had stood and faced him.

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t have complete faith that she’s telling the truth about this procedure she’s having done in Chicago. I think things could be worse than she’s letting on.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  Seth inhaled slowly and released it. “Because after she decided to move to Chicago and separate herself from me, I started to suspect that if she ever had a return of her cancer, if she ever had to go through treatment again, she would keep it from me.”

  “You think it’s the main reason she moved to Chicago, don’t you?”

  “So that she could live her life privately. Alone. Yes.”

  “I won’t accept that,” Everett said. “Even if she doesn’t feel the same way about me as I do her, I won’t let someone I care about suffer alone like that.”

  “I admire your steadfastness.”

  “But you thinking I’m blowing hot air?” Everett challenged, taking a step toward Seth. A cool breeze caused the trees to quake and sigh and the water to ripple along the shore behind them.

  “No, it’s not that,” Seth finally replied. “The fact is, there’s something about Joy that I didn’t understand until last night when we spoke after her exam.”

  “What?” Everett demanded.

  “It’s about Jake—Joy’s father. I always knew that Joy didn’t share my contempt for his leaving, or her mother’s heartbreak. Until last night, I’d just assumed Joy’s attitude toward her father was the understandable loyalty a child feels toward both of their parents.”

  “She’s amazingly forgiving about the fact that her father abandoned them when her mom was so sick. It really struck me, her attitude.”

  Seth nodded. “Last night, she got really emotional when I encouraged her to tell you about her history of cancer and why she was leaving Vulture’s Canyon.”

  Everett stilled, realizing Seth was getting to the meat of things. “What did she say? Seth?” he prodded when the other man hesitated. Dread filled him. “Did she tell you she thought I couldn’t handle dealing with her being ill? She thinks I’m like her father, doesn’t she? A glory hound who only cares about himself?”

  “No,” Seth said in a ringing tone that brought him up short. “A little part of her—the scared kid in her—is afraid that she’s like Jake.”

  Everett blinked. “I don’t understand. How could she think that? You told me she walked every step of the way with her mother during her treatments . . . all the way until the end.”

  Seth nodded. “Yes, and like all people, especially a child, she occasionally had fantasies about what it would be like to run . . . to flee all the hurt and fear. A part of her envied her father for being able to walk away from all that heartache. Because she had those natural longings once in a while, a small part of her identified with him.”

  Everett’s throat tightened. He shut his eyes. It wasn’t fair. How could such a unique, lovely woman like Joy be forced to struggle and suffer so much?

  “Joy doesn’t believe that you can’t handle things, Everett,” Seth said quietly. “She doesn’t want you to have to handle it. In her own words, she wouldn’t wish what she endured on her worst enemy, let alone you.”

  Everett cursed softly.

  “She feels she never had a choice in the matter. She was a child, a dependent, while Alice was sick for all those years. She’s afraid that if the choice had ever been given to her as an adult, like it was her father, she’d choose as he did. She wouldn’t, of course. Not in a million years. Joy loves very deeply. There were plenty of times I had to pull her away from her mother’s bedside because she was half dead with exhaustion. It’s her self-doubt, her fears, that are at the heart of things.”

  “And so she keeps people away. She’s taking away the necessity for people like me or you to choose to be with her, in health or in suffering,” Everett said starkly, understanding bringing a heavy wave of sadness along with it.

  Seth nodded. “I think it’s both—she feels guilty for subjecting others to her condition. She also, in her own way, is protecting the people she cares about from having to make the choice of being with her or not.”

  Everett closed his eyes and felt the burn. “Part of her hates herself for understanding Jake’s need to escape.”

  “Yes,” Seth said heavily.

  “Why are you telling me all this, Seth?” Everett asked after a long pause.

  “Because Joy only opened up to me, she only told me what’s been in her heart all these years, when I suggested that she speak to you about her cancer. I saw how passionate she was—how desperate—for you not to know. She wanted to protect you at all costs.”

  “How will I convince her that I would choose to be with her, no matter what happens?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t even know if it’s possible.”

  Everett looked at him incredulously.

  “The only thing I know is that I haven’t been able to get through to her so far. Perhaps it takes the type of feelings she has for you, versus those for an uncle, to truly break through to her.”

  His heart started to thud loudly in his ears. “You think she really cares about me?”

  “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here talking to you right now.”

  Everett inhaled slowly. “I should go,” he said, gazing toward the path.

  “I’ll stay here for a while, but here,” Seth said, stepping toward him. Everett gave him a dubious glance when he handed him the keys to his rental car.

 
; “I already have a car,” Everett said.

  “No. There’s something in the trunk for you. From Joy.”

  Everett glanced up in surprise.

  “She gave me some money and a note for you last night, and made a request that I purchase something while I was in St. Louis this morning. It’s in the trunk of the car.”

  “Thanks,” Everett said, accepting the keys.

  “Everett?” Seth called.

  “Yeah?” he asked, turning only his chin, impatient to be gone.

  “Good luck.”

  Everett nodded once and strode toward the path with a hasty determination.

  * * *

  When he reached the circular turnabout in front of Rill and Katie’s house, he immediately approached Seth’s rental car. He popped the trunk. It was empty save for a square box. He drew off the lid and immediately saw a folded note with his name on it in Joy’s handwriting. He picked it up. The notepaper had the insignia and address for Prairie Lakes Hospital on it. Beneath it, he read:

  Everett,

  I have never met another person who lived life with so much passion and grace. I count myself lucky to have known you. Please, please . . . take good care of yourself?

  Always,

  Joy

  He flipped back the paper and saw a brand-new pair of men’s high-end running shoes.

  He stared, thinking of how he’d said he’d be the one to buy her all the shoes she wanted. Here, she’d done it for him, and the gesture meant so much more than his hollow offer because Joy didn’t have the financial means to go around buying expensive running shoes.

  Bitterness rose in him when he thought of how she must have considered his condescending, cavalier attitude toward his health and good fortune, how he never questioned it, like he was some kind of fucking self-righteous prince of the realm.

  He slammed the trunk so hard, it rocked the car.

  “Everett?” Katie called a few seconds later. He glanced up to where she stood on the front porch, the box clutched against his chest. “Where have you been?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said as he strode toward the guesthouse. He’d get in the shower, pack a few things and be on the road in three minutes flat.

  “Then what does matter?” Rill called.

  Everett paused. Rill had walked out onto the porch after Katie and stood next to her. He tossed Seth’s car keys to his friend. Rill caught them without ever taking his gaze off Everett.

  “Joy. I’m going after her,” Everett said.

  The last thing he saw was Rill raise his eyebrows at his adamancy, and then nod as if Everett had just uttered the most reasonable thing on earth.

  Nineteen

  Joy paused in the action of flipping the channel with her remote control in her hospital room when she saw Everett’s face on the screen. She tried desperately to find the volume control on the device while not removing her gaze from his image. He was talking soberly to a famous daytime talk show diva. His goatee was in place, so Joy knew it couldn’t have been a live interview. It must have been recorded last week when he’d been doing all those rounds of publicity appearances.

  “Do you think you’ll ever settle down and get married?” the talk show host asked in the friendly, confidential tone for which she was known.

  “Oh yeah. Family is very important to me.”

  “So what’s holding you back?”

  “Finding the right woman.”

  “You have a studio full of women right here who would be happy to audition for the part,” the host joked. The camera panned to the small arena filled almost exclusively with cheering, whistling women before it cut back to Everett. Now that Joy had grown to know him, she noticed that his smile didn’t reach his eyes.

  “It’s not a part. But thanks, I’m flattered,” he said, softening the edge in his tone and smiling at the audience. “Actually, I think I’m doing okay with my own search.”

  The host’s eyebrows shot up with interest. “I’m sensing there’s a story here.”

  “No, no story,” Everett said, shaking his head. “Just someone special.”

  “Can you tell us something about her?” the host coaxed.

  “Sure. She’s very private,” Everett replied unblinkingly.

  For a split second, the host looked taken aback at his subtle remonstrance for her prying. Then Everett grinned—full out and brilliant—and of course he was forgiven. Both the audience and the host broke into laughter.

  “Joy?” A voice penetrated her intense focus on the television screen and the sound of her pumping heart in her ears. She blinked and turned her head, seeing Dr. Chen standing next to her bed.

  “Dr. Chen,” she said breathlessly, fumbling with the remote control. She turned the TV off. “I’m sorry, I was just—”

  “Everett Hughes. I saw,” he said, grinning knowingly.

  She gave a hollow laugh.

  Had Everett been talking about her on that talk show?

  She felt a little sick all of a sudden. Disoriented.

  Heartsore.

  “Can we do the procedure now?” she asked Dr. Chen, forcing her mind into the world of the mundane versus the flash of Everett’s smile.

  Unfortunately, after she’d been admitted, the surgery had been delayed due to the fact that her temperature had gone up again and was over one hundred. Dr. Chen didn’t want her to undergo general anesthesia until it at least dipped below ninety-nine degrees. Joy had been forced to wait for three hours now, willing her fever to go down the whole time.

  “The nurse is about to come and do your vitals. If your fever has gone down, we’ll take you to the OR right away. I just heard from the anesthesiologist that she’s got an opening.”

  Joy held her breath in anticipation as the nurse took her temperature. She hated the fact that she’d already been in there longer than she’d expected.

  “Ninety-eight point eight,” the nurse said.

  Joy glanced triumphantly at Dr. Chen, and he gave her a thumbs-up.

  “I’ll send over some transporters to transfer you,” Dr. Chen said before he left.

  Joy set aside the remote control and lay back on the flat, uncomfortable hospital pillows. Why had she been so eager to get the procedure underway? she wondered as her familiar dread for the general anesthesia rose like an encroaching shadow ready to pounce. She started to panic.

  What if she never woke up? Why hadn’t she asked Seth to be here with her?

  Had she done the stupidest thing she’d ever done in her life by telling Everett good-bye? She had an overwhelming desire to call him. She sprang up and fumbled with the phone on the bedside table. A young man dressed in white knocked on her door and rolled a gurney into the room.

  Slowly, Joy set down the receiver.

  * * *

  Everett saw a meter maid writing out parking tickets a half a block away. Crap. He couldn’t believe they gave out tickets at night. He glanced at the sign posted at the side of Joy’s street. Apparently, vehicles were supposed to have a neighborhood sticker to park here legally.

  For the two hundredth time since he’d arrived in Chicago that evening, he looked at the brownstone where Joy lived. Her apartment remained dark. She wasn’t answering when he buzzed her intercom. She wouldn’t pick up her cell phone.

  Where the hell was she? What if she was up there in her apartment, sick and fevered? His thoughts about picking the locks to get into her place fractured when he heard a tap on the windshield of his rental car. He glanced up and saw the meter maid—a short, light brown–skinned woman of about fifty—squinting at him. She waved her hand toward the street as if to say Get going and I won’t ticket you.

  Everett shrugged and gave her a sheepish glance, wishing she’d just give him the ticket and leave him alone. Joy’s street was lined on both sides with bumper-to-bumper cars. He wasn’t going to give up his prized spot. Instead of ignoring him, however, the meter maid shone a flashlight in his eyes and indicated she wanted him to roll down his window. He pulle
d down the bill on his cap and followed her instructions with a resigned sigh.

  “What’re you doing?” she asked bluntly.

  “I was waiting for a friend,” he said, tilting his chin toward Joy’s brownstone. A thought occurred to him. “Hey, have you passed this street earlier today? You haven’t seen her coming in or out, have you? The woman who lives in that brownstone? Real pretty, short brown hair, great legs—”

  “Joy,” the meter maid stated rather than asked.

  “Yeah,” Everett said, leaning forward eagerly. “Have you seen her by chance?” He squinted when she shone the flashlight full in his face. He ducked his head.

  “You could pass as a double for that guy—Everett Hughes,” the woman said, peering at him.

  He slunk back into the shadows. “That’s what I’ve been told a time or two. Hear it more when I have a goatee,” he mumbled, wondering belatedly why he hadn’t thought to do a foreign accent to further disguise himself. “Have you seen Joy or not?”

  “Are you going to move this car, or do you want a ticket?”

  “I’ll take the ticket,” Everett said. He started to roll up his window, but the meter maid tapped on it lightly with her flashlight, glaring at him. He waited resignedly while she filled out the ticket and handed it to him.

  “Gee, thanks,” he said with tired sarcasm.

  “My pleasure. And I did see Joy today when I was ticketing early this morning. She caught a cab up at the corner. She had a bag on her shoulder, like she was going somewhere,” the woman said, giving him a significant glance.

  “Thanks,” he said, meaning it this time.

  “You’re welcome, Mr. Hughes,” the woman said.

  Everett watched her while she moved on to leave her cheerful little greeting on the windshield of the next car. He’d already called Seth a half hour ago to clarify what he’d told him earlier: Joy wasn’t supposed to go in for her procedure until tomorrow morning. Why wasn’t she at home? He replayed his conversation earlier by the lake with Seth.

  I don’t have complete faith that she’s telling the truth about this procedure she’s having done in Chicago. I think things could be worse than she’s letting on.