Nothing Personal (The Kincaids)

by James, Rosalind

  “Yeah, well,” Joe said, finishing off his water. “As long as I’m happy just being your tech side. Maybe I do still want the startup rush. Who knows, maybe I’ll decide I want to do it on my own, be the big boss, end up with a fleet of classic cars, one of those stacked garages for them underneath my mansion, not just one lousy Audi.”

  “I’d hate to lose you, man,” Alec said, completely sobered now.

  “Looks to me like you’d have compensations.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  Joe considered, taking his time as always. “Obvious to me, anyway. And I’m not exactly Mr. Sensitivity, so if I’m seeing it . . .”

  “Well, I’m not the first guy in history to have a thing for a woman he works with,” Alec said. “And sure as hell not the first to get flat nowhere with it. So just quit shooting off that big mouth of yours about it around the office, and we’ll be good.”

  He got a smile out of Joe at that, because Joe could give clams lessons. But Alec reminded himself that he’d better figure out how to keep his partner challenged and on board, because he needed him. And Joe might be quiet, but he was anything but passive.

  Joe slung his laptop case over a broad shoulder and got up to leave. “Yeah. Quit gossiping. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Affairs of the Heart

  “I thought I’d better check in before things got all wild and crazy,” Desiree said nearly three weeks later, leaning back a little in her desk chair and smiling into the phone as if her grandmother could see her. “Because Pinochle Night’s at your house tonight, isn’t it? How are the preparations going?”

  “Oh, pretty good.”

  That didn’t sound like Dixie’s usual enthusiasm. “Everything OK?” Desiree asked. “Is Mrs. Sanderson counting cards or something? You have to watch that woman like a hawk, I know.”

  And there was the wheezy, whisky laugh, to her relief. “Oh, no, nothing like that. Just been a little tired this week, got a little indigestion.”

  “Did you check with Dr. Alberts?”

  “For what? My stomach’s bothering me, that’s all. And I wore myself out some, I guess, doing the gardening the other day. But I got all that nasty oxalis up. That spring rain brings those weeds right out.”

  “Maybe you should call him,” Desiree persisted. “The doctor.”

  “If I’m not better by Monday, I’ll think about it,” Dixie conceded, and that was as much as Desiree could get from her. “But right now, I’m going to lie down on the couch and have a nice rest before the girls come over. I’ll be fine.”

  Desiree was putting the finishing touches on the report that would accompany the latest financials when her phone rang again. She reached for it with an exasperated sigh, looked at the screen. Dixie again.

  “What?” she asked teasingly when she’d picked up. “I told you she was counting cards.”

  But it wasn’t her grandmother who answered her.

  “Desiree? Honey, it’s Marti Sanderson. Your grandma’s just gone to the hospital in the ambulance.”

  “What?” Desiree was already grabbing for the drawer pull, reaching for her purse. “What happened?”

  “Her heart, I think,” Mrs. Sanderson said, and Desiree heard the worry in the quavering voice. “We’d just got there. She got up to get the drinks, and she collapsed. Fell right on down.”

  “Is she . . .” Desiree couldn’t say it. “All right?” Knowing that she wasn’t, and praying all the same.

  “Oh, honey, I don’t know. But you’d better come.”

  She left her laptop open, her notes scattered. “I’m coming,” she said. “I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

  She hurried around the corner of the desk, caught her hip on the edge, and stumbled. Her purse flew from her hand, her phone dropping to the floor, and she was there, scrabbling for it. “Mrs. Sanderson? Are you still there?”

  “I’m here, honey.”

  “I’m coming. Fast as I can. Call me if you hear anything, will you?”

  She hung up, picked up her purse, grabbed for the rest of her things and stuffed them back into it. Where were her keys? She found them, finally, under the desk. Got to the door, shut it, and fumbled with the key, but her hand was shaking, and she couldn’t fit it into the lock.

  “Going so soon?”

  It was Alec, coming out of the break room with a Red Bull in his hand. The only one still here other than Michael and Joe, after six on Friday night.

  “I . . .” She was still trying to fit the key. “I have to go. To Chico. My grandma . . .”

  “Whoa.” Alec’s hand was on her shoulder. “Rae. What’s wrong? What happened?”

  She gave up on her keys, turned to him, saw the concern in his eyes, and almost lost it. “She’s been taken to the hospital. They think . . . her heart. But I don’t know. I have to go.”

  He took the keys from her hand, locked the door, handed them back to her. “I’ll drive you. Let me grab my stuff. We’ll be out of here in two minutes.”

  “No. I have to go. I can’t . . .”

  “Desiree. Sit down.” He guided her to an empty cube, sat her in its chair. “You can’t drive yourself. Two minutes. Wait.”

  She waited, because she didn’t know what else to do. Her car was at home, and home was too far away, even if she got a cab. So instead, she watched him walk briskly to his office, then watched the door until he emerged again, jacket on, laptop case slung over his shoulder, and came back to her.

  “Let’s go,” he said. Within fifteen minutes, he’d walked her to his car and was pulling out of the Millennium Tower’s underground garage. And that was where the progress stopped, because they were immediately caught in the rush hour traffic heading for the Bay Bridge.

  She pulled her phone from her purse again with clumsy fingers, tried to punch ‘Chico Hospital’ into the navigation bar, but couldn’t do it.

  “Damn it,” she breathed, feeling the agitation rise. “Come on.” The tears were close now, hot and sharp beneath her lids, and Alec glanced across at her.

  “I need to call,” she said helplessly. “I need to find out what’s happening. And I can’t make it work.”

  He nodded. “Hang on.” Pushed a button on the leather-wrapped steering wheel with his thumb and said, “Call Dad.”

  Another few seconds, then Dave Kincaid’s deep, rich voice filled the car, and Alec was explaining the situation in a few quick sentences.

  “I’ll call right now,” Dave said. “Back to you in a few minutes.”

  Alec hung up, glanced over at Desiree again. “Dad knows everybody,” he promised. “If there’s anything to find out, he’ll find it out.”

  The minutes ticked by, neither of them saying anything, because there was nothing to say. Just the litany running through Desiree’s mind, Please let her be all right, over and over again, as the traffic inched across the bridge approach, not even on the span yet, and she watched the red brake lights winking on and off ahead of her, and wanted desperately to hurry, and couldn’t, because they were stuck.

  The chime of the phone through the big car’s speakers made her jump.

  Alec punched the button again. “Dad? Got you on speaker.”

  “She made it to the hospital OK,” Dave said. “That’s all I know. Probably all there is to know. I’ll head on over there now, and keep you posted. How far out are you?”

  “A good four hours,” Alec guessed.

  “I’ll keep you posted,” Dave said again. “And Desiree?”

  “Yes, sir?” She heard her voice trembling with relief and the tears she couldn’t completely hold back anymore, because her grandmother was alive.

  “You hold that good thought,” Dave said. “Your grandma’s a strong lady, and so are you. You say a prayer and let Alec take care of you, and don’t despair. I’ll be right back to you just as soon as I get the word.”

  The drive was endless, and at the end of it, her grandmother was still alive.

  She and Alec sat for another hour in the
surgical waiting room, and Dave Kincaid sat there too, and they waited, and Desiree felt as if she were going to wait forever, cycling between dull numbness and restless anxiety. But when the middle-aged woman in the green scrubs came into the room and called her name, there was no question which emotion was uppermost.

  Alec was up with her, she barely registered as she approached the doctor. She was searching the woman’s face for the expression that would give her the news, not seeing it, and knowing that it couldn’t be. It couldn’t, because she couldn’t stand it.

  Please, she prayed as she took what felt like the longest walk of her life. Please.

  “Your grandmother’s in Recovery,” was the first thing she heard, and she sagged, and knew she would have fallen if Alec hadn’t put an arm around her to hold her up.

  “She’s a lucky woman,” the doctor went on. “That this happened when she had someone with her, and they called the ambulance as fast as they did, which meant that we were able to begin thrombolytic therapy right away too. Clot-busting drugs,” she explained.

  Desiree nodded. She’d heard all this. And she knew what the doctor hadn’t said, too. That if it hadn’t been Pinochle Night, her grandmother would have collapsed alone. And that she would have died.

  “We did go ahead and do the angioplasty, and we put in a stent to relieve the blockage,” the doctor went on. “She came through it well, and the damage wasn’t severe, so all in all, you’ve got about as good an outcome as you could hope for.” She smiled a little, the fatigue evident now, well after midnight. “Like I said, she’s in Recovery, and best case, we’ll keep her for another couple days, but we’ll need to see.”

  “Can I see her?” Desiree asked.

  “She’ll be taken to Intensive Care,” the doctor said. “On the fourth floor. But you won’t be allowed to visit until morning. You should think about going home and getting some rest. You can come back as early as six.”

  Desiree shook her head. “No. Can I sit in their waiting room?”

  “Of course.” The woman put a hand out and touched Desiree’s arm. “Your grandmother’s a sick lady, but she’s a tough one too,” she said, and the sympathy made Desiree’s tears well. “I’ll come check on her again tomorrow, and then we’ll see.”

  Alec could feel the trembling in Rae’s body as he led her back across the room and lowered her into her chair. She immediately leaned forward, circled her arms over her knees, and held on.

  “Desiree,” he said. His arm was still around her, his hand rubbing over her shoulder, and he’d never felt so helpless. “Oh, baby.”

  She shook her head violently, and he could feel her shaking under his hand, and still she was bent double, hanging on so tight. He looked helplessly at his father.

  “Just hold her,” Dave said quietly. “Wait.”

  So he held her and waited until the shaking had lessened, until she finally sat up again and he could pull her into him, because he couldn’t help it, and hear the shudders of the sobs she was still trying to suppress.

  “Thanks. I’m OK,” she said at last, sounding anything but, and pushing herself upright, away from him. “It was just . . . hearing she was all right.”

  “Of course it was.” He let her go, but he kept his arm around her shoulders, because he had to. “And now we should take you home, to my parents’.” He looked at his dad, got the nod of approval. “For a few hours, at least. You need some rest.”

  “No.” She stood, and he stood helplessly with her. “I’m waiting wherever they let me. Close to her.”

  So he stayed with her, all that night. Dozed in the uncomfortable chairs, checked on her every time he woke, and saw her sleeping and waking too. And in the morning, she was able to see her grandmother, and that was better. Alec got her to go to breakfast, and coaxed her to eat twice more during that long day, during which her grandmother was transferred to a regular room on the cardiac care floor, so Rae could sit at her bedside and hold her hand.

  Alec watched some of the terrible tension leave her over that long day. And still she didn’t cry.

  Guy Number One

  “This is it. Turn left up ahead. The Country Club sign.”

  He’d wondered if she’d fallen asleep, she’d been so quiet. He’d been about to say something, to wake her up to ask the way before he drove right on out of town.

  She continued to direct him, though, a right turn, then a left. He pulled to the curb at the spot she indicated, clicked the button to release his seatbelt. But she didn’t follow suit. Instead, she turned towards him in the dark, seemed to be hesitating. So he waited.

  “Do you think you could come in for a while?” she asked at last.

  “Sure. Or I could take you to my parents’,” he suggested again, “if you don’t want to be alone. You know they’d be happy. It’d be better, Desiree. Really.”

  She shook her head. “No, I want to be here. But . . . could you come in? Just for a few minutes?”

  “Sure.” Although this wasn’t exactly the way he’d pictured her inviting him back to her place.

  He followed her up the sidewalk, climbed four wooden steps onto a neat little deck, and waited while she fished in her purse for the key, opened the door and flipped the switch. The light cast by a standing lamp revealed her exhaustion, the shadows under her eyes, the pallor of her skin. And he knew that, whatever help he could be to her, that was what he was going to do.

  She stood, looking irresolute again, in the middle of the shabby little living room, furnished with a single faux-leather recliner, a yellow couch with a red and black afghan folded over the end, a wooden coffee table with curved legs. The dinette set standing a few feet away, the compact kitchen beyond it, to the right of the front door. The layout completely familiar to Alec, and the whole place not that different from the doublewide where his own family had lived when he’d been in middle school. Right down to the framed piece of needlepoint hanging against the veneer paneling. God Bless Our Home.

  “I need to take a shower,” she said vaguely, clearly dead on her feet. “If you want . . .” She gestured towards the kitchen, let her arm fall again. “A beer or something. It’s Miller Lite, though.”

  “I’m fine,” he assured her. “You go take your shower.” He’d gone by his parents’ earlier in the day and showered, pulled clean clothes from the dresser that his mother, luckily, still hadn’t cleaned out. But Desiree hadn’t had a break at all.

  He was sitting on the couch, leafing through a copy of Good Housekeeping, when the sound of running water stopped. The magazine selection here was pretty similar to the one in the hospital’s waiting room. In fact, he’d read this same issue there, had already checked out the article on “Seven Ways to Make a Statement—Without Spending a Bundle.” If he ever needed to stencil anything, he was all set.

  He heard the bathroom door opening. And then a dull thud, a gasp. And was up and into the hallway leading out of the living room before he’d finished registering the sound.

  She was leaning face-first into the space between the bathroom door and what was obviously her bedroom, her arms hugging herself in desperation, her head wedged into the corner. Wrapped in a pink terrycloth bathrobe, her feet bare. And crying.

  “Desiree.” He pulled her away from the wall, turned her gently around. “Oh, baby. Shhh. Come on, now. It’s OK.”

  She shook her head blindly, wrapped her arms around herself even more tightly, literally trying to hold herself together. He didn’t know what else to do, so he walked her back to the living room, pulled her down onto the couch with him. And then he held her while she cried.

  She tried to talk a few times, but never got beyond, “It just . . . I’m just . . .” before the sobs took her again.

  “I know,” he said, his hand smoothing again and again over her wet hair. “I know, baby. But it’s going to be all right.”

  At last she sat back, her eyes and nose streaming. Sniffed hard, wiped her hands over her wet cheeks.

  “Here.” He looked
for tissues, couldn’t see any. Got up and went into the kitchen and found the roll of paper towels, ripped a few off and carried them back to her.

  She took them from him, set about the business of mopping up. She was breathing through her mouth, her cheeks and nose were mottled with red, and her eyes were puffy. And he could feel her pain all the way inside his chest. All the way to his heart.

  “I was in the shower,” she finally said, her voice even huskier than usual from her tears. “And I thought, my grandma’s going to die. She’s going to be gone, and I’m going to be . . .” She swallowed, and he could see the moisture leaking again from her swollen eyes. “I’m going to be alone. And I can’t . . . I don’t think I can stand it. She’s all I have.” The tears were back in force now. “She’s the only thing.”

  “She’s going to be all right, though,” Alec said, wishing his dad were here. Or Gabe. Somebody who knew how to say the right things.

  “But sometime,” she said again. “She’s going to die.” She gave a watery little laugh that turned to a hiccup, blew her nose again. “Well, that’s stupid. I mean, I know that. But I didn’t . . . I didn’t really know that, before.”

  He wasn’t his dad, and he wasn’t Gabe, so he went with what he had. “She’s going to be mad at you, you know,” he said conversationally.

  “What?” She stared at him, horrified.

  “That you’ve already got her dead and buried,” he explained. “I’ll bet she tells you that you’d better not be thinking you’re getting your hands on her good stuff, because she’s planning to be around for a long time yet.”

  That shocked another laugh out of her, and this one sounded more genuine. “I bet you’re right.” Her smile was wobbly, but it was a smile. “She’s probably thinking right now that she’d better get out of the hospital fast, before I make off with her special sombrero-shaped chip-n-dip server.”