The door swung open and a cool rush of air escaped to be instantly absorbed and forever lost. The thin sheen of moisture on the back of Catherine’s neck amplified the effect of the air-conditioning, and for a second she was almost cold.
The woman at the desk looked up and smiled. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you around here. How is Lynda doing?”
“She’s at camp having a wonderful time.”
“All the kids do. It’s a great program. The firefighters really go all out for them while they’re there.”
Catherine pressed the elevator button and the door opened immediately. “Thank you for asking about her.” Before words like that would have been automatic and meaningless. Now she’d learned to appreciate people who showed interest, even if only peripherally.
The door to Ray’s room stood open and his aunt’s voice was the first thing Catherine heard when she came around the corner. High-pitched and nasal, it put Catherine on edge and lured her into snap judgments about its owner.
“Excuse me,” she said from the doorway.
The woman turned. The face didn’t match the voice. Catherine couldn’t believe this woman, pinched and coarse, with unshaped eyebrows and hooded eyes, was a blood relative of Ray’s. Only then did she realize she had no idea what Ray had looked like before being burned. The image she had in her mind had nothing to do with the way he looked now, but came from what he’d said and felt and expressed since she’d known him. She pictured the old Ray with tender, expressive eyes and a quick, mischievous smile, his skin smooth, hair thick and dark.
“Yes?” the woman asked, more suspicious than curious.
“Hi, I’m Catherine Miller.” She held out her hand. “Lynda Miller’s mother.” She offered Ray a quick smile.
The woman gave her a blank stare. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
“Lynda’s a friend of mine,” Ray said defensively.
Catherine’s hope died an inglorious death. She’d believed adherence to social graces would provide a common ground for conversation. “I’m so glad I had this chance to meet you. I had no idea Ray was leaving today and I know Lynda will be devastated that she didn’t get a chance to say good-bye. They’ve become such good friends. She’s really going to miss him.”
“Look, Mrs. Miller—”
“Please, it’s Catherine.”
“If you’re here to try to get me to let Ray stay, you’re wasting your time. I already told that Winslow boy the same thing I told his father. Ray is family and we take care of our own.” She reached for her purse and tucked it under her arm. “You people out here seem to have a real problem hearing what you’re told.” She looked at Ray. “I’m going to see about those papers I have to sign. I want you ready to leave when I get back.”
“I’m sorry,” Ray said.
Catherine sat on the bed next to him when his aunt was gone. “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t do a very good job of pouring oil on troubled water.”
“She didn’t give you a chance.” He was still weeks away from being fitted for his pressure garments and was encased in protective bandages for the trip. He looked like a half-finished mummy and was sure to bring long, curious stares he wasn’t prepared to handle.
“Brian’s dad hasn’t given up, you know.”
“He’ll never get her to change her mind.”
“Don’t count him out too soon. The Winslows are known for their stubbornness. I’m sure he plans to make direct, frontal attacks every time you come back to Sacramento for surgery and follow-up.”
“But I’m not coming back. The Texas Shriner Hospital in Houston is closer, so I’ll be going there from now on.”
The news left her reeling. Brian and Lynda would be heartbroken. She had to give them something, even if it was only hope. “Do you think she’ll let you come for a visit? What about over Christmas break?”
“I don’t know. I doubt it. Not the way she feels now, at least.”
Catherine reached for his hand, curling her fingers into his gauze-covered palm. She tried to imagine him on a football field, his hand clutching a football, his skill at throwing so accurate that there were college recruiters sent to watch him his junior year. “When do you turn eighteen?”
Curiosity in his eyes at the peculiar question, he stared at her. “In May.”
“Then we’ll see you in May for sure. Once you’re eighteen, she loses control.”
“I don’t know if I can last that long,” he said softly.
The words sent a cold chill through her, raising goosebumps on her arms. “Of course you can.” He needed something more concrete than words to hold onto. To a seventeen-year-old, May was a lifetime away. “How about this—if your aunt won’t let you come to see us for Christmas, we’ll come to see you. All of us.” Finally, she saw a spark of hope. “And Easter, too. May is right around the corner. We’ll all be wearing birthday banners and carrying balloons when you step off the plane.”
She felt a little squeamish making promises for Brian’s father, but if he changed his mind, she would figure something out, even if it meant Ray moved in with them. “I’m going to use a cliché on you, but only because it’s true and it works. Keep reminding yourself that all you need to do is take this one day at a time. Don’t count the months or weeks ahead. If you have to count the hours and days, look at the ones you’ve put behind you.”
“I’ll try.”
She gently squeezed his hand. “Can you use the phone by yourself yet?”
“They set up a special one here that I get to take with me.”
“Then call me when you need to talk. If you need something and I can’t get it, I’ll find someone who can.”
The aunt came back. “Ray, please. The plane leaves in two hours.”
“I can’t get dressed by myself,” he finally, painfully admitted.
She had enough sensitivity to blush. “No one told me.”
All you had to do was look, Catherine felt like shouting. “I’ll get the nurse to help him.” If she could do nothing else, she could give him this last dignity.
She stood without letting go of Brian’s hand and looked down into his eyes. “You will get through this,” she said softly, desperately seeking a way to give him the willpower he would need to get through what was ahead. “And you will come back to us.”
His eyes filled with tears that spilled onto his cheeks. “Thank you.”
Twice that morning she’d been thanked for giving hope that wasn’t hers to give. She had no real control over what would happen, only words that lost their meaning in the harshness of day-to-day reality. She wiped his tears the way she imagined his mother might have and leaned down to kiss the corner of his eye, the one part of his face where the skin and feeling had survived intact, the one place where she knew for sure that he could feel her touch.
Catherine headed for Fair Oaks Boulevard when she left the hospital, thinking foolishly that she could distract herself with shopping. She’d gone to the hospital to fulfill her promise to Lynda, nothing more. Until today she’d stood in the wings while the drama of Ray’s fate played itself out on a stage not her own. Now she was one of the players, but without a script to follow or anyone to direct.
First she went to Pavilions, a small upscale shopping center with exclusive high-end shops and restaurants. The center had been a favorite haunt for years, a place she came to buy presents when the wrapping counted as much as the gift inside. She perused the wine at David Berkely’s, looking for something from Randle’s Roost, wondering if Rick had ever come there for a sandwich from the deli, whether he liked the bitter Italian olives she always bought to take home with her, and if he ever drank sherry. Was he a meat-and-potatoes man, or could he be content with an occasional meal of champagne and crackers and cheese and fruit by the fireplace?
Had he ever shopped at Pavilions or did he simply drive by, believing it held nothing of interest to him? Did it make a difference?
She wandered to the florist and then Willi
ams-Sonoma to see what was new in their kitchenware. She left with a nutmeg grinder, unable to remember the last time she’d used nutmeg in a recipe, but caught up in the idea of fresh nutmeg in pumpkin pie.
At Ann Taylor she tried on a dress, decided it made her look slimmer than she’d felt in a long time, and had it at the counter before she bothered to look at the price. Her behavior had been automatic. Now it struck her that the casual fall dress could pay for a round-trip ticket for Lynda to visit Ray in Kansas.
She returned the dress to the rack, to her surprise feeling neither deprived nor constrained.
She left the shopping center and on impulse stopped in to see her friends Cary and Joe at the Duck Stamp. Cary was one of those people who saw spring flowers in a raging winter storm. She brought an unbridled enthusiasm to the art shop that made her customers feel as welcome when they came just to browse as they did when they came to buy.
Cary was home with a cold.
She visited with Joe for several minutes and then left. As she got in the car, she remembered that he had contacts in the secondary art market. The week before when she’d called her broker to sell another block of stocks, he’d suggested she hold off until the market rebounded from the current low, or she’d lose almost a third of her initial investment. His manner and tone made it clear he assumed she wanted the money for something frivolous. Her pride stood in the way of telling him the truth.
Catherine returned to the gallery and told Joe that she’d been thinking about selling some of her signed and numbered prints and asked how she should go about doing it. He looked up their value, told her what she could reasonably expect someone to pay, and warned her that it could take months to years for a sale to come through. She gave him her all-too-familiar, I-wasn’t-really-serious smile, asked him to give her best to Cary, and told him she’d be in touch when she made up her mind about the prints.
Disheartened, she headed for Tower Books to see what she could find on writing résumés.
27
LYNDA KNEW. OR AT LEAST SHE GUESSED THE OUT-come without knowing the details. Either she’d picked up something in the tone of Catherine’s voice or had figured it out by her unwillingness to give details about her visit with Ray. Whatever tipped her off, she was angry and then contrite, demanding details and then saying she was willing to hear them from Brian.
Catherine refused to let her go until she’d received a promise that Lynda would call her back that night before she went to bed. She even made her set a time. Ten o’clock. No matter what was going on, no matter who she had to coerce, either the call came or Catherine would show up at camp in the middle of the night.
She wouldn’t, of course—having her mother show up at camp was a sure way to draw attention to herself, something Lynda didn’t want. But Catherine was fairly sure Lynda didn’t recognize the threat as bluff.
She looked at her watch. It was only five. She would go out of her mind if she sat around the house five more hours waiting for the phone to ring.
Needing some of the mothering she wanted to give Lynda, Catherine grabbed her purse, got in the car, and headed for her own mother’s house.
Phyllis wasn’t home.
Catherine considered going to see a half dozen friends she’d neglected that summer, but wasn’t up to explaining the chain of events that had put her on the road looking for company when the rest of the world was concentrating on dinner. She still had another month at the club before her membership expired, but the prospect of running into Tom ranked a rung below being in a plane with engine failure.
Instead she drove aimlessly, sticking to the back roads to avoid commuter traffic, turning her air conditioner to high, and the radio to a conservative talk show that never failed to make her rethink her belief in the basic goodness of her fellow man. Not even a woman on a tirade about her right to kill any animal that crossed her property line, no matter what the State Fish and Game said, was enough to distract her for long. She switched to public radio. Organ music by Bach. Hardly something to lift her spirits.
She came to an intersection and glanced at the road signs. She was on Laird Road. Rick lived on Laird Road. Coincidence or subconscious need? She knew if she tried to analyze her behavior, she would reach a conclusion that made her turn left or right, any direction to take her away from yet another complication in her life. Instead, giving in to need instead of intellect, something she’d sworn she would not do again, she went straight and sought something, anything that would lead her to him.
A half mile later, she spotted his truck. She glanced in the rearview mirror and saw a car coming up behind her, fast. She could either drive by or turn into his driveway. Gut instinct told her if she passed, she would not turn around. It would seem too planned that way, too calculated.
Again, she glanced in her rearview mirror. The car was closing in. She had to make up her mind and do it quickly. If only he’d asked her there, even casually. Just a hint, a simple comment that she should stop by sometime. She had no business being there.
She turned.
Rick stopped pulling weeds in his vegetable garden when Blue lifted his head and cocked his ear toward the front of the house. For Blue to expend that much energy with the temperature still in the hundreds, it had to be serious. Someone had pulled into the driveway.
Rick put the hoe aside, lifted his cap, and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He was expecting a package from UPS, but they usually made their deliveries to his area in the morning. He waited several seconds to see if it was someone using the driveway to turn around or someone who would come close enough to rouse Blue to a sitting position.
Blue skipped sitting and actually stood, his tail wagging with a surprising show of enthusiasm considering his previous lethargy.
“Must be someone special,” Rick said, giving the dog’s ear a scratch as he passed on his way to the side of the house. Blue followed on his heels.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said under his breath when he saw the Lincoln Navigator pulling to a stop. Blue sidled up beside him, plopped down on his foot, leaned against his leg, and let out a soft whine. “The snowball made it through hell.”
She hadn’t spotted him yet when she started walking toward the house, and Rick had a chance to observe her unnoticed. She looked as she always did: impossibly beautiful. She was the kind of woman who could wear the linen suits his sister favored and have them wrinkle just enough to look fashionable instead of as if she’d slept in them. Rick glanced down at his bare chest and dirt-encrusted jeans with the holes in the knees. He’d pass on being able to leap tall buildings with a single bound if he could just manage to hop in a shower, put on clean clothes, and meet her at the door before she had to ring it a second time.
She saw him. The look on her face was somewhere between surprise and dismay. When she threw a quick smile in the mix, Rick didn’t know what to think.
“You’re busy.” She stopped and made a nervous gesture with her hand. “I should have called before I came.”
“How did you know where to find me?” It was something to say while he tried to think of something better. Something short of telling her his heart was beating so loudly he had to concentrate to hear her voice, or that he’d imagined her there so many times he was having trouble convincing himself it had finally happened.
“The day you took me to the car rental you told me you lived on Laird Road.”
“I’m surprised you remembered. That was months ago.” Now he was really reaching. While clever dialogue might be beyond him at the moment, he could at least get her out of the sun. He wiggled his foot free of Blue’s rear end. “I made some iced tea this afternoon. Would you like to come in and have a glass?”
“You’re not even going to ask why I’m here?”
“I figure you’ll tell me when you’re ready.”
She started toward the door he indicated. “I’ve never known anyone like you.”
“Then we’re even. I’ve never known anyone like you, either.”
She laughed. “You must run with an interesting group. I’m the most ordinary person I know.”
Rick reached around her to open the front door. He took a moment to brush the dirt off his jeans, step out of his boots, and point at Blue. “Shake,” he commanded.
Blue dutifully shook himself, bits of leaf and grass flying into the air. “Again,” Rick said. Blue patiently obeyed. “Okay.” Rick stood aside and let Blue come in the house. He stopped in front of Catherine and looked up at her.
“Hi there.” She leaned down to scratch his head. “Don’t tell her I told you, but my daughter thinks you’re really special.”
“The feeling’s mutual. Blue fell in love the first day she came over.” He crossed the room. “How do you take your tea?”
“Straight.”
“I’ll be right back. Make yourself at home.”
Catherine took the opportunity to look around the room when he left. His house was nothing like she’d expected. Operating from a prejudice she hadn’t known she possessed, she’d taken his description of the half-burned house he’d purchased eight years ago and turned it into a very ordinary dwelling with tasteful but ordinary furnishings. Not only hadn’t she imagined what she now saw, she never could have imagined it. What Rick had done with his house made everything about hers appear pedestrian. The sterile look she’d inherited from Jack’s favorite decorator, the one he’d left her to live in after the divorce settlement, was cold and pretentious compared to this.
The floor and molding and doors were made from a honey-colored wood she didn’t recognize even after a childhood spent in her father’s woodworking shop. The finish had been applied as painstakingly as the crown molding had been fitted. Built-in bookshelves flanked a floor-to-ceiling fireplace, the wood hand-rubbed to a deep shine.
The end tables and matching coffee table showed the same degree of craftsmanship and care. Only the sofa and chair appeared commercially made. They were covered in a forest green and burgundy fabric, comfort colors that invited tucking up feet or sprawling with book in hand.
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