First Loves: A Loveswept Contemporary Romance

by Stone, Jean

  She opened the doors to the bedroom—hers alone now, hers alone probably forever. She knew she’d never return to the bar in the Underground; she hoped she’d never go to any bar alone, ever again.

  Natalie sat in the middle of Alissa’s bed, clicking the remote control of the television.

  “What are you doing in here?” Alissa snapped. “Do you know what time it is?”

  “I think the question should be ‘Do you know what time it is?’ ” Natalie answered, not shifting her eyes from the flipping screen. “It’s four o’clock in the morning, Mother.”

  Alissa tossed her bag on the brocade chaise and pulled her sweater off over her head. The sooner she got rid of the musky smell of that loft, the better. “And are you just getting home?”

  “Are you?”

  Alissa resisted the urge to cross the room and slap her daughter’s face. Maybe another night, she thought. Tonight I’m too tired. She walked instead to her dressing room, where she stripped from her clothes and wrapped a robe around herself.

  When she returned to the bedroom, Natalie was still there.

  “What are you doing in here, Natalie?” she sighed.

  “Waiting for you. I was afraid I’d be here till Thursday.”

  Alissa went to the chaise and picked up the sweater. She tossed it into the dressing room. “You’ve got a pretty bad attitude for a sixteen-year-old, young lady. Haven’t you ever learned the meaning of the word ‘respect’?”

  “I’m not here to talk about the fact that you and I don’t get along,” Natalie said. “I’m here to talk about Dad.”

  Alissa stiffened. First Michele had wanted to know what the problem was between her parents. Now Natalie. Her daughters were too smart for their own good. Maybe it was time she told them both: “Your father’s gay. He prefers men to me.” But something inside her warned Alissa that Natalie probably would accuse her of lying. Besides, Alissa had decided that if the girls were to be told, Robert had to be the one to do the telling. Let them hate him, not her. Natalie hated her mother enough as it was.

  Alissa remained standing, hands on her hips, in the middle of the room. Then a frightening thought entered her mind: Had Natalie already found out? Was that why she was here?

  “What about your father?” Alissa asked.

  “He’s at the hospital,” Natalie said.

  “So?” She really didn’t need to hear about Robert’s middle-of-the-night rounds. She didn’t want to think about all the years he’d been telling her he had to tend to a patient with one sort of crisis or another. She didn’t want to think about what he had really been doing all those nights. Right now all Alissa wanted was to take a shower. She wanted to purge her body—and her mind—of the last remnants of a night gone bad.

  “He’s had a heart attack.”

  “What?”

  “I think Daddy’s had a heart attack.” Natalie’s thin, narrow shoulders rose, then fell, in a listless shrug. “Not that you care.”

  Alissa marched to the bed and grabbed her daughter’s arm. “What are you saying?” Natalie’s gaze remained fixed on the screen. Alissa shook her. “What’s going on?”

  Natalie’s face reddened. Her eyes narrowed. She angrily pried Alissa’s fingers open and pushed her hand away. “Don’t take it out on me,” Natalie hissed. “I didn’t do a fucking thing.”

  Alissa slapped her. “Don’t use that kind of language around me.”

  “Oh, pardon me. Only you can say that, right? Only you can say fuck, fuck, fuck, when you’re fucking every ripe dick in town.”

  Alissa stepped back so she wouldn’t choke her daughter. She snatched the remote and turned off the television.

  “Where is your father?”

  Natalie got off the bed on the other side. “Memorial.”

  “Is he all right?”

  “How do I know? Do I look like a doctor?”

  Her father’s daughter, Alissa thought. She never liked me, never. She was always her father’s daughter, her father’s pet.

  Alissa stomped toward the phone.

  “What are you doing?” Natalie asked.

  “I’m going to call the hospital. Not that it’s any of your business.”

  Natalie smirked. “Don’t you think it would look better if you showed up? Bad enough I’ve been calling all over town trying to find you all night.”

  Alissa twirled around. “Who did you call? You had no right …”

  “Well, excuse me for giving a shit about my father. And excuse me for thinking you might give a shit. My mistake.”

  Alissa shook her finger. “You, young lady, are in for a rude awakening one of these days.”

  Natalie tossed back her hair. “Are you going to see him or not?”

  “Of course I’m going to see him!” Alissa’s mind raced. Of course, of course, that’s what she should do. She should go see him. Make sure that he was all right. But she couldn’t let Natalie think that she’d won. She picked up the receiver. “But first I’m going to call. I want to let them know I’m coming.”

  “Why? So they can bring out the brass band?”

  Alissa glared at her daughter. Suddenly Natalie burst into tears.

  Alissa stood still, the receiver in her hand, the numbers untouched. Christ, she thought. This is all I need. Natalie in tears. When was the last time she’d seen Natalie cry? And how had she handled it? Michele was the teary child, the dramatic one. Natalie was too tough to cry, too controlled. Then a memory of Natalie falling off her pony surfaced. The little girl was crying. Alissa had tried to approach her, but Natalie had been firm. “Daddy,” she’d wept. “I want my Daddy.” Alissa tried to remember what it was like to want a daddy. Or a mommy. But for Alissa there had been only an aunt and uncle, who didn’t care.

  She set the receiver back in its cradle and went to Natalie. She hesitated, not knowing quite what to do. Then she put her arms around her, fully expecting her daughter to recoil. Instead the girl sobbed into her mother’s breast.

  “Mom,” she cried, “I’m so scared.”

  Alissa stroked the mass of dark hair, so unlike her own, so like Robert’s. “I know, I know. Now tell me what happened.”

  Natalie sniffed and pulled her head back. They were face-to-face, mother and adversary child. But the child no longer looked sixteen. Her frightened dark eyes blinked, her cheeks were flushed and blotched. She looked no older than ten. “He was in the library,” she began. “I was in the hall. I was waiting for Ed to pick me up.”

  “Ed?” Alissa asked. “What happened to John Wentworth?” Grant’s son. Grant’s child-fucking son.

  “He’s a jerk,” Natalie said.

  Alissa nodded.

  “I heard a noise come from the library,” Natalie went on. “I went in. I thought he was … I thought he was …”

  Alissa pulled her daughter to her again and patted her back. “I know, I know.” She hated the fact that she was uncomfortable holding her own daughter. She hated the fact that they were so different, so very different. “What did they say at the hospital?”

  “The doctor in the emergency room said they were going to run some tests. Something called an EKG. And some blood tests. That’s all they told me.”

  “Was he conscious when you left?”

  “Yes. I guess.”

  “Well, that’s a good sign.” Alissa didn’t know if it was or it wasn’t. She only knew she needed to say something to get her daughter back in control.

  “Mom, I want to go back to the hospital with you. In case Daddy needs me.”

  In case Daddy needs me. The words stung Alissa, because she knew they were true. Robert would need Natalie long before he’d need Alissa. He would need the comfort of someone who he knew truly loved him. Unconditionally.

  “Let me get dressed,” she told Natalie. “I’ll only take a minute.”

  Natalie wiped her nose while Alissa opened her wardrobe and pulled out a Dior warm-up suit. “They don’t know if he’s going to be okay, Mom. The doctor said he doesn
’t know if he’s going to make it. I don’t understand. Daddy always has taken such good care of himself.”

  Alissa nodded and quickly dressed. Such good care of himself, Alissa thought. She wondered if he hadn’t had a heart attack at all. She wondered if he had AIDS.

  “Where’s Michele?”

  Natalie folded her arms. “Sleeping. She said to wake her if anything happened.” Tears returned to her eyes. “Wouldn’t you think she’d want to be there, too?”

  No, Alissa should have said. In the past few years Michele hasn’t been too partial to your father. It’s been as though she sensed what was going on, as though she sensed the infidelities. “It’s her decision,” Alissa said as she tucked her feet into her sneakers.

  Alissa put her arm on Natalie’s elbow. “Let’s go.”

  They started out the door when Natalie stopped. “Oh, Mom, I almost forgot.”

  “What?”

  “There was a call on your private line. I thought it was Daddy, or the hospital or something. Don’t be mad, but I answered it.”

  Alissa decided not to react. “Who was it?”

  “Some guy from New York. Named Danny. He said he has the information you wanted.”

  Robert was lying on the bed. Wires and cords snaked from his body to beeping monitors. Fluid from an IV bag dripped down the plastic tubing into his arm. From the glass window in the hallway, Alissa could see that his eyes were closed.

  “He looks dead, Mom,” Natalie said.

  “He’s not.”

  A nurse pushed past them and went into the room. She checked the IV and adjusted some buttons and knobs. On her way out Alissa stopped her. “Where’s his doctor?” she demanded.

  “Dr. Harrington knows you’re here,” the nurse said briskly. “He’s with another patient.” She strode away.

  Alissa unzipped her jacket. Christ, it was hot in there. She wished the good Dr. Harrington, whoever he was, would hurry up and get there. She needed to find out about Robert; then she needed to get a couple of hours’ sleep. She wondered if eight o’clock would be too early to call Danny. She wondered what he would have to say.

  I’ve found him? That must be it. He told Natalie he had the information Alissa wanted. He knew that was the only information she wanted.

  She stared into the hospital room and studied the rhythmic beeping and sharp bounces displayed on the EKG monitor. Robert was forty-six years old. Jay, forty-four. Robert was lying there in who-knew-what kind of a state. The last time she’d seen Jay, he smoked. He took drugs. Not Robert. Never Robert. And yet Robert was the one lying there, in the hospital bed. An eerie thought washed over her. Maybe Jay wasn’t sick. Maybe Jay was dead. Just because Danny said he had the information she wanted didn’t mean it was what she wanted to hear. No, her mind shouted. Jay can’t be dead. You saw him on TV only weeks ago. Still, Robert had been healthy, Robert had been whole, only weeks ago.

  “Mrs. Page?”

  His name tag read “Julius Harrington, M.D.” Alissa had never heard of him, but he looked too young to have any kind of initials after his name, never mind “M.D.”

  “Dr. Harrington. How is my husband?”

  “He’s reasonably stable at the moment. He had us going for a while in the ER.”

  “Did he have a heart attack?”

  “Not that we can tell.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  The doctor adjusted the stethoscope around his neck. “We want to do an angiogram later this morning. Check for blockages in his coronaries.”

  Alissa looked back through the window. “Is he conscious?”

  “He’s sleeping.”

  “Good.”

  Natalie grabbed her mother’s arm. “He’s going to be okay, Mom?”

  Alissa turned back to the doctor. “Doctor?”

  “We’ll know more later. After the angiogram.”

  Alissa nodded again.

  “It would help if you could answer some questions, Mrs. Page.”

  “Such as?”

  “Has your husband been under any stress lately?”

  Alissa bit her lip. Stress. Now, there was an interesting word. “I haven’t noticed,” she said. “Then again, he treats mostly AIDS patients, you know. He doesn’t talk to me about his work very often.” Lately, in fact, he doesn’t talk to me very often at all.

  “His regular physician is Jacob Stern, is that right?”

  Alissa was disgusted. She was standing there, in the middle of the night, with a whimpering daughter on one side and a prepubescent doctor on the other, who was probably intimidated as hell about being on call when Robert Hamilton Page was admitted. “Has Dr. Stern been called?” Alissa asked.

  “He’s in Zurich,” Harrington answered. “At a conference.”

  “Surely someone is covering for him.”

  “I am.”

  She didn’t hide her surprise. “You?”

  “I’m the group’s newest partner.”

  Alissa sighed and looked back to Robert. At least it wasn’t serious, she thought. At least he hadn’t had a heart attack. “Then you have his records.”

  “I’ll bring in a specialist in the morning.”

  “I think that’s a good idea,” Alissa said, then added, “after, of course, you’ve checked with Dr. Stern.”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  She wondered if Robert’s medical records in any way indicated that he was gay. She looked at him. He seemed so vulnerable, so pathetic. It was hard to believe he had once been young, vibrant. It was hard to believe she had once loved him. Or thought she had.

  Robert will be fine, she thought, and she was glad. For as much as Alissa wanted to change her life, she didn’t want to see him die. She wondered if he would ever believe that.

  She put her arm around Natalie. “Come on, Nat. There’s nothing we can do here tonight.”

  Natalie remained rigid. “I’m not going home,” she said. “I’m staying here.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Your father will be fine.”

  Natalie shook her head. “I don’t care. I’m staying here. The nurse will find me a bed. She likes Daddy. She said he’s a fine doctor. One of the best. She told me that when I was here before.”

  Alissa wanted to tell her daughter to stop acting like a child and come home. But Alissa was too tired to argue; she was too tired to care. She’d come to check on Robert; she’d performed her wifely duty; she’d done what was expected. Now she wanted to go home and go to bed. Besides, if Natalie was not at home, there would be one less person snooping around the house when she placed the call to Danny.

  “Hi. This is Danny Gordon. You know what to do.”

  Alissa was tempted to slam down the receiver.

  “If you’re there, get your lazy ass out of bed,” she barked instead. “This is Alissa Page. Pick up the phone, Danny. I’m paying you enough.” She waited a moment. No response. She figured he was rubbing his eyes, fighting being roused from sleep. She wondered if a naked female lay beside him. She wondered if his muscles were sore from a long night of fucking. Was his penis erect, throbbing, ready for more? Would he turn onto his side and slip it into the naked figure lying beside him? And was that figure Meg?

  “Danny!” she screamed. “Pick up the phone, you son of a bitch!”

  No response.

  This time she slammed down the receiver.

  There was a knock on her bedroom door. “Mother?” It was Michele.

  “Come in.”

  Michele looked as though she were going to the White House for tea.

  “Aren’t you a bit overdressed for eight o’clock in the morning?” Alissa asked.

  “I was just trying this on. David and I are going to pick out our crystal and china this morning.”

  “Doesn’t he ever work?”

  “Mother,” Michele groaned as she examined herself in the floor-length, free-standing mirror. “You know he works for his father’s investment firm.”

  “Hard work, I’m sure.” Aliss
a nodded.

  Michele adjusted a turquoise silk scarf at her throat. “Do you like this with or without the scarf?”

  “Don’t you care how your father is?”

  Michele removed the scarf and dropped it onto Alissa’s bed. “Of course I care, Mother. That’s why I came in here.” She moved closer to the mirror and studied her eye makeup. “He is okay, isn’t he?”

  “You say that as if you assume he is.” Alissa watched her daughter lift a mascara fleck from her brow.

  “Did he have a heart attack?” Michele asked, her eyes never leaving her reflection.

  Such a cavalier attitude, Alissa thought. She’s learned so much from me. Alissa knew that, like her, Michele had definitely mastered the art of maintaining a cool persona—on the surface. But in her daughter’s case Alissa wondered how deep below the surface it really went.

  “He didn’t have a heart attack,” Alissa said.

  “Oh, that’s good,” Michele answered, then stepped away from the mirror and smoothed the front of her dress. “He would have hated that. Being restricted. Being an invalid.”

  Or being dead, Alissa wanted to add, but then decided that perhaps what she was witnessing wasn’t so much coldness on Michele’s part as it was life in a fantasy world where parents never died until their children were ready for them to die. One thing she did know was that right now she was far too tired to teach her daughter the realities of life.

  Michele stood with one hand on her hip. “I thought I’d go to the WFFA luncheon today. It’s time I became an active member, don’t you think?”

  Alissa picked up her daughter’s scarf and began folding it.

  “You’re going, aren’t you, Mother?”

  Expectations. There was that word again. First Aunt Helma. Then Betty Wentworth, Sue Ellen Jamison. Now her daughter. “No,” Alissa answered. “I’ll be going to the hospital.”

  Her private line rang. Danny. She looked at Michele. “Would you excuse me, please?”

  “You want me to leave?”

  The phone rang again.

  “Yes. Now.”

  Michele yanked the scarf from her mother’s hand and stomped from the room with her usual overdrama. Alissa grabbed the phone.

  “Yes?” she said.

  “Alissa, it’s Danny Gordon.”