“Good afternoon, Mr. Pemberton,” the nurse said cheerfully.
Somewhat distracted, he replied, “I wish.”
All the nurses knew him by then, knew he wasn’t an easy patient to care for. He was demanding and often cruel. Nick didn’t care what they thought of him. They were mere instruments to be used in order to bring a killer disease under control. As long as he thought of them that way, he could hold himself together. Nick couldn’t look at them as sympathetic health-care providers who wanted to do whatever was in their power to make his journey through hell easier. No, if he thought of them as something real, something touchable, he would become vulnerable and weak in their eyes. Always powerful, Nick couldn’t allow a disease, something he couldn’t even see, couldn’t even touch, to control him. Yes, the drugs that fought the disease made him wish he were dead, but once the effects wore off, he immediately started the renewal process. Then it would begin all over again.
That day was a milestone of sorts.
The nurse pushed him down the hall to the chemo suite. Hospital recliners circled a large room, where IV poles, basins, and ice chips were the order of the day. He’d gotten used to the drab atmosphere, the sickly smell of decay, the pain and suffering of all who entered. It angered him. Tremendously. He did not want to be there among the hopeless and the diseased. He told himself he didn’t belong there. He was too young to die. Then he glanced around the suite at the other patients, some much younger than his forty-three years, and Nick knew without a doubt that they didn’t want to die, either. It was an unspoken thought among them all, young and old.
An oncology nurse assisted him to the recliner. After several adjustments to the IV, she cleaned an area on his hand with an alcohol pad. “Mr. Pemberton, if you’d allow us to insert the chemo port, we wouldn’t have to jab and poke you. Your hands and arms look terrible.”
Nick didn’t need to be reminded that he looked like a heroin addict. “I’ll suffer through it,” he said flatly. Nick refused to have a foreign object implanted in his chest, even though Dr. Reeves highly recommended the procedure.
“It’s your choice,” the nurse said.
She inserted the needle in the vein just below his third knuckle on his left hand, then hooked the IV line to the small hose protruding from his hand. Within minutes the lifesaving drugs would course through his system, targeting and, hopefully, destroying the leukemia cells.
The treatment usually took about three to four hours from start to finish.
Rosa sent daily updates to his iPhone. He would listen on his headset while getting his treatment. It made the time pass quickly and took his mind off what was real, what was happening to him while he sat in this uncomfortable excuse for a recliner. He would make notes for her, and when his body finished rejecting the poisons that were his cure, he would call her with his answers. Gerald was still useless. Nick suspected his staff knew he was seriously ill, but so far no one had had the courage or the nerve to discuss his future as CEO of Pemberton Transport.
When Nick finished his chemo, another nurse took him down one floor, where he would have more blood work, and they would extract more bone marrow.
After the anesthesiologist numbed his hip area, he gave him something to relax. Dr. Reeves came in the room. He looked at his chart, made a notation, then stood where Nick could see him. “How are you feeling?”
Nick grimaced. “I’ve been better.”
“That’s what all my patients say. If it keeps up, I’m liable to get a complex.”
“I wouldn’t want to be responsible for that.” Enough, Nick thought to himself. Do what the hell you came to do and get it over with.
“Okay, I’m going to withdraw some fluid. This should be over within a few minutes. Just relax.” Dr. Reeves stepped to the other side of the bed, where a surgical nurse had the Jamshidi needle ready for him. He slowly inserted the needle, moved it up and down, then side to side before removing it. “All done.”
Nick released the breath he’d been holding. “Can’t say this is one of my favorite things to do, but that wasn’t as bad as the first time.”
After they cleaned and covered the injected area, Nick rolled over to his back. He pushed the button on the side of his bed allowing him to sit up straight.
“First time is always the worst,” Dr. Reeves said.
There didn’t seem to be any response to that statement, so Nick kept quiet.
The nurse drew more blood, wrote something on a white label, then took the fluid from the Jamshidi needle.
“I’m going to wait for them,” Dr. Reeves said.
“Tell the lab stat the results. I’ll take this down myself,” the nurse said.
“Thanks.” Dr. Reeves looked at Nick, as though trying to gauge his mood. He was like mercury. One minute he was up, and the next he was down. “It shouldn’t take more than an hour, possibly less.”
“Are you saying I have to stay here and wait?” Nick asked.
“Yes, at least until the anesthetic wears off. Is this a problem?”
“Of course it’s a problem. My entire life is nothing but one giant goddamned problem!”
Dr. Reeves waited, allowing him to vent, but Nick went silent, his thoughts all over the map.
“Then let’s hope it gets better,” the doctor encouraged.
It has to, Nick thought, because there’s no fucking way it could get any worse.
When Lin woke on Friday, it took her a minute to realize she was still home in Dalton, in her own bedroom. She smiled. Energized, she bounced out of bed to the kitchen, where she readied a pot of coffee. Seconds after she clicked the ON switch, the enticing aroma of the heady brew filled the kitchen. Waiting for the coffee, she looked around her home at the openness, all the glorious space. In Manhattan a place that size would cost millions.
Filling her mug with coffee, she took it into the bathroom with her, took a quick shower, dressed in jeans and a bright red sweater, put her hair in a sleek ponytail, and returned to the kitchen for more coffee before heading to her office, where she had a pile of mail she had picked up the day before from the post office but had not gotten around to dealing with. She would sort through it before going to the diner.
Lin attacked the pile with a vengeance, mostly final bills from the remodeling. She wrote out a dozen checks, scribbled out a thank-you note to Jean Le Boeuf, a food critic from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and, lastly, wrote a hefty check covering another year for her father’s stay at the nursing home in Atlanta. With the hard mail, as she liked to call it, finished, she clicked on her computer to read her e-mail, checked the stock market, saw that it had taken a nosedive. Scrolling through her e-mail, she hoped there would be something from Will.
There were 226 e-mails, most of them spam. Nothing from Will, which disappointed her, but he’d only been away a little more than a month at this point. His weekly phone calls would have to suffice.
An e-mail from Jason Vinery caught her attention. She clicked on the link he’d sent, to the Post. Apparently, they’d issued something of a retraction, which had appeared in yesterday’s paper. Simply stated, it said the reporter who wrote the article had “misquoted his source.” Lin smiled. That was an understatement. In a personal e-mail he said as soon as his next “escapade” was safe to execute, he would call her. She clicked through a few other e-mails.
With nothing more at home needing her immediate attention, Lin grabbed a handful of grapes to eat on the drive to the diner and her purse. Thirty minutes later she was in the kitchen with Jack, going over the evening’s special.
“Jack, we just can’t have meat loaf every night of the week.”
In a gruff voice he said, “It worked for thirty years. I don’t see why it won’t work for another thirty.”
Dear Jack, Lin thought. His meat loaf was to die for, but not every night of the week. Not wanting to hurt his feelings, she continued, “People are much more health conscious these days. We do the meat loaf on Wednesday. Customers look forward
to that, but they also like a change, a surprise of sorts.”
Jack shook his balding head and threw his hands up in the air. “This younger generation amazes me! You want me to run the show, and when I try, you tell me all you want is fish and lettuce, nothing hearty that’ll stick to your bones, like my meat loaf and mashed potatoes. What do I know?”
Lin smiled, remembering her days as a waitress. Jack had pretended to be tough and mean, but he’d been such a softy. He’d always made her think of the animated Mr. Clean, with his bald head and stocky build. All these years later he was still trying to act like a hard-nosed grill cook, like the guy from the seventies sitcom Alice.
“How about we compromise? Let’s do the meat loaf as a lunch special tomorrow.”
“Hey, you’re the boss. You do what you want. I’m just an old man.” Jack wiped his hands with a towel, then tucked it in the waist of his apron.
At seventy-five, Jack was anything but old. He could pass for a man of sixty, at most. He had stayed in shape after retiring by joining a gym and was the number one player on a senior tennis team. Irma had never looked or acted her age, either. Lin loved this about them, loved that they hadn’t withered away and died when they’d retired. The couple remained a bundle of energy.
“You’re not old, and you know it,” Lin teased. “I’m going to write the specials on the computer and print them out.” Impulsively, she gave the old guy a hug. He returned it with a hefty squeeze of his own.
Smiling, Jack propelled her out of his way. “Go on now. Do that menu thing you’re so fond of.”
Lin entered her private office, a small room off the back of the prep kitchen. The daily specials were printed out in a different font and color depending on the item. Salads, dark green, meats were different shades of brown and red. Cutesy, but it was just one of the little extras she enjoyed doing. Lin would insert them into leather menu holders, and the hostess would then place them on each table as the customers were seated.
Kelly Ann had done an excellent job when she’d booked the parties for New Year’s. Each guest’s menu was itemized right down to the color of candles they preferred. This wasn’t something that Jack’s would normally do, but Lin thought Kelly Ann smart for thinking of it and made a mental note to mention this to her. Lin made a list for the restaurant-supply specialty store: extra flatware, colored tablecloths, napkins. The food was next. After spending an hour organizing the food list in order of what could be purchased ahead of time and what would have to wait until the last minute, Lin stood up, stretching the kinks from her neck and back.
Taking the menus with the lunch and dinner specials to the hostess’s stand, Lin grinned when she saw Sally. “I knew you’d materialize sooner or later. After all, lazybones, you slept the entire day yesterday. Or, at least, you didn’t show up here.”
“Yeah, wild horses couldn’t keep me away. Actually, I would’ve been here earlier, but I stopped by Irma’s to check on Clovis. Irma swears he hasn’t journeyed out at night.” Sally laughed at the image. “I’m not sure I believe her. I think she’s just telling me that so I won’t worry about the old satyr.”
Lin stacked the menus beneath the hostess’s stand. “I’m sure he’s in good hands. You worry too much.”
“Me? Worry?” Sally rolled her eyes upward. “I don’t think so.”
“Nonsense. Here, help me wipe these down.” Lin handed her a tray of saltshakers and pepper mills, along with a clean, damp cloth. Making sure no one was around to overhear her, Lin took a step, closing the distance between them. “Jason sent me an e-mail. The Post printed a retraction yesterday. Something along the lines of their source being misquoted.”
“I’m surprised they did that,” Sally said. “Seems too easy.”
“I thought so, too. Remember, Nick’s a powerful man. I’m sure he has contacts all over the world. When I think of that, it scares the bejesus out of me. With his money and power, it would be easy for him to find me out. I’m not even sure I want to continue to…try to topple his tower.” Lin paused, waiting to see how her words affected Sally. “I don’t know if it’s even worth the time and effort.” She’d already invested thousands into bringing about his downfall, and she hadn’t even put a scratch on his empire, much less the man himself.
Sally took her arm, turning her so that they faced one another. “You don’t have to do this. This is a choice you made, and you can undo it. If you’re not comfortable continuing, you need to stop. No one knows about it, except for Jason. He’s certainly not going to reveal anything. Really, if you stop and think about it, you didn’t even do anything. Yes, he’s locked out of his personal bank accounts for a few days or weeks. Yes, his reputation might need a bit of polishing after that report in the paper. It will probably take a life-or-death experience to have an effect on him, so unless you’re willing to threaten him physically, I agree with you. It’ll take a lot more than Jason and our ‘pranks’ to hurt him.”
Lin felt as though the weight of the world had been lifted from her shoulders. She could relax, look herself in the mirror without doubts and second thoughts. She knew what she had to do. So what if Nicholas Pemberton had skipped out on his duties as a parent? In all fairness to Will, he really hadn’t suffered because of this. She had. Though, if she admitted it, she’d become stronger, more capable, and probably the astute businesswoman she was today because of the situation. What she was about to do, she must do on her own. She had to let go and do things her own way.
She took a deep breath, smiled, and forced a feeling of light-heartedness. “I’m going to call Jason and tell him to forget it. It’s just not worth the time and the stress.”
“And don’t forget the money,” Sally added.
“How could I? You can’t stop reminding me!” Lin stacked the salts and peppers on the tray. “As I said, I could’ve spent that money on something useful. Like these chairs.” She nodded at the chairs placed throughout the main dining room. “Now Kelly Ann won’t have to work like a slave during the holidays. With the three of us here to help with the planning, the New Year’s parties and the Christmas parties will go off without a hitch. Help me put these on the tables. We’re opening in twenty minutes.”
They placed the saltshakers and pepper mills on the tables, made sure the silverware sparkled, the napkins were folded just right, and the water glasses glistened like platinum.
“I think we’re ready to unlock the doors. I’m glad we had this time to…reflect,” said Lin.
Sally laughed and hugged her. “Yeah, if you want to call what we’ve been doing ‘reflecting,’ then I think it’s the smartest ‘reflecting’ we’ve done all week.”
Lin paused, then announced, “I’m calling this off right now. Remember that old adage, ‘What goes around, comes around’? I’m sure it’ll catch up with Nick someday.”
She was positive that it would.
Chapter 10
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
New York City
Nick couldn’t wait to tell Chelsea his news. She wouldn’t like it, but tough.
“Herbert, I’ll be needing your services tonight. I plan to take Mrs. Pemberton out to dinner. To celebrate.” She wasn’t going to get rid of him that easily.
“That’s wonderful, sir. You haven’t been out in quite a while.”
Nick thought the old geezer would ask what it was he was going to celebrate, but he didn’t, so Nick explained. “Dr. Reeves told me I could taper back on the chemotherapy today. My red blood cells are almost back to normal. Platelets are normal. Hell, even my liver and spleen are good as new. No swelling, nothing.” Nick knew he’d whip the leukemia’s ass, just to prove he wasn’t a loser.
A smile crinkled Herbert’s already wrinkled face even more. “Congratulations, sir. That’s the best news I’ve heard all day.”
“Indeed it is.”
Nick was still weak, the aftereffects of the treatment just as severe as before, but knowing he wouldn’t have to undergo another treatment for a mont
h seemed to obliterate the nausea and the weakness he usually experienced afterward. He even felt hungry for the first time in weeks. Knowing that was most likely psychological, and he’d be as sick as ever, didn’t matter. It was simply a case of mind over matter. If he could keep going until he arrived home, he could rest before taking Chelsea out to dinner. He couldn’t wait to see the look on her face when he told her he was going to live, after all, if anything, just to spite her. The thought brought him immense pleasure.
Herbert pulled into the garage. Still very weak, Nick refused the man’s help getting to the elevator. He was a Pemberton, and Pembertons did not lose. At anything. Ever. It simply never occurred to him that there was a first time for everything.
Standing erect, he waited for the elevator doors to open. Inside the elevator, he slumped a bit, but as soon as the doors opened, he stood straight and tall. He was going to use his brain to help him conquer the disease. More mind over matter.
Entering through the kitchen, Nick nodded at Nora.
“How are you today, Mr. Pemberton?” she asked with genuine concern in her voice.
“I’m on the road to recovery, Nora, and thank you for asking.”
The short, squat woman raised her black eyebrows and smiled. “Wonderful news, sir. Just wonderful. Shall I make a pot of tea for when you’re settled in?”
“That would be wonderful. And maybe something sweet to go along with it.”
“Of course.” Nora smiled, thinking she had just the perfect dessert for him. She’d baked oatmeal raisin cookies just that morning.
Nick went to his suite of rooms. He was about to lie down when the first round of nausea hit him. Racing to the bathroom, he spent the next hour heaving. When he had regained his strength, he managed to crawl into the shower and let hot pelts of water beat against his thin, sallow skin. He managed to scrub the vomit off his face and wash his hair. Shaving took too much energy.
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