“I don't know, but a bunch of other people liked it. They liked that it was a collective work. We named her SuperVirgin, and she changed a little. Apollo wanted her to have rings, like Saturn. And bright green skin.”
“That's fine. So the book's good?”
“It's my new meds.” He still didn't look up. “I can read on them. For the last seven years, all I could concentrate on was comic books.”
I hadn't realized that. How could I not know that? “Hey—did you ever get your guy?”
“Who am I, Sergeant Preston? What guy?”
“Your physicist. Joseph—Plutonski?”
“Polchinski.” He kept reading.
“Who's Sergeant Preston?”
He looked up, astonished. “You're kidding.”
“About what?”
“Man, Wollie. You don't remember Sergeant Preston? The first comic book you ever bought for me?”
I shook my head.
“You read it to me for a whole year till I learned to read myself. Sergeant Preston and his dog King. They always got their man.”
“Really?” I wondered in what deep recesses of my mind Sergeant Preston dwelled, exerting his subconscious influence. “So, did you ever find your man?”
My brother looked up again, a slow smile breaking over his face, the kind he graced me with every year or so. “No. But it ain't over till the fat lady sings.”
FIFTY-FIVE
Aman stood at the foot of my bed with a chart in hand. “Hello, there. I'm Dr. Hurwitz and I'll be your physician this evening. Would you care to hear the specials?”
“Uh …”
“Jell-O. Okay moving on. The patch job we did on your artery is healing nicely. Equally important, your hair's not going to fall out.”
“Well, that is good news.”
“It is, isn't it? Your friends were concerned that someone might be poisoning you, so we ran some tests.”
“And I'm normal?”
“No. You have highly elevated levels of hCG. I'll run another test tomorrow, to see if the hCG levels are increasing. You've been through a lot, so we'll have to see.”
“What is hCG? Poison?”
He finished writing on my chart and looked up at me. “Not exactly, although it can produce nausea, starting at about five weeks. It's a hormone.”
The room went blurry. “What kind of hormone?” I asked.
“The pregnancy hormone.”
My heart stopped.
FIFTY-SIX
Jeanne, the nurse, wheeled me out of the hospital, with Fredreeq at my side. It was impossible not to feel chirpy, wearing street clothes and not being hooked to anything resembling a catheter.
“And here's our ride now,” Fredreeq said, helping me up out of the wheelchair at the hospital entrance.
“Where?” I asked, looking around for Joey's Mercedes.
“There,” Fredreeq said, pointing to a car a half block away, pulling out of a parking lot on Gracie Allen Drive.
“That's—Simon's car,” I said.
“Yes. Oh, well. Suckered again. But as long as he's here, he can drive you home.”
“No.”
“Listen—”
“No. I'm not driving anywhere with him. I don't want to see him anymore.”
“Wollie, I—okay, hold on.” Fredreeq waved to Simon, then yelled, “Drive around the block.” She waited until he pulled away, then turned back to me. “He's mad about you, and you're nuts about him. You can't let some crazy felonness in a fur coat ruin your life. She's up the river and you're down here in the yacht, so wake up and smell the flowers.
That man wasn't seduced by her, he was seduced by his job. These superhero guys are all alike.”
“He was seduced by her too.”
“Okay so he's a pig. But you gotta realize that he was on that textiles case before he met you. He was single when he signed on for it and they moved him into that penthouse and gave him that cover story. That's what I call a mitigating circumstance. By the way I told him not to tell you the truth about sleeping with her, but he's got integrity, so what are you going to do?”
I stared at her. “Fredreeq, don't take this wrong, but is it possible for you to mind your own business?”
“When you find me minding business that is not mine to mind, you let me know. But this is not that. Here, I want to fix your lips so you don't look so much like a corpse.”
I brushed her hand away. “I'm not going to forgive—or get back with— Hey, Fredreeq, I'd have thought you'd be the first one to tell me to forget this guy.”
“Well, I'm not. And here's why. Nobody's perfect. And when there's no ring on the finger and no promises made, it's understandable that men do stupid-ass things. Women too. It's that damn job. Listen, I have not even started yelling at you about letting some delinquent girl punch holes in your arteries with a meat thermometer.”
“That's got nothing to do with this.”
“I'm looking at the big picture here and you are looking at the microscopic view. I know you had some near-death experience up on that mountain, but it's time to come back to life now. That girl died up there, but you didn't. And you didn't kill her, either.”
“But I could have.” I started to cry.
“I should hope so. It means you have a life wish and not a death wish.” She looked over my shoulder. “One more time around the block!” she called to Simon.
“You don't understand,” I said.
“No, I'm stupid that way,” she said, straightening my shirt and un doing one button. “So explain it to Simon. He'll understand. It's probably some spy thing you two have in common now. Along with everything else.” She did the thing with her eyebrows, going up and down fast, signaling something very significant.
“I don't want to talk about that. You said Simon doesn't know anything about that.”
“The baby? That's right, sister. Just you and me and Joey and Dr. Hurwitz and a couple of lab technicians and four of the nurses. Nobody else.” She rooted around in her purse. “And I purposely haven't brought it up, because if there's one thing I know, it's that a baby's no guarantee of anything, especially happy endings for grown-ups. It's just one more damn thing to fall madly in love with.”
“If it even survives,” I mumbled. “After what I put it through.” My resolve was crumbling, my longing for Simon growing.
“What you put it through is nothing compared to what it's gonna put you through. You just wait till middle school.” She pulled a huge handkerchief out of her purse. “Hang on to this in case you throw up again. Here he comes. Simon!” she called and gave a whistle that could have hailed a cab in Manhattan, three thousand miles away. “Go get him, honey,” she said and gave me a kiss on the cheek.
The Bentley pulled up to the curb. The passenger-side window went down, along with the music he'd been listening to. Opera. And there sat Olive Oyl. How despicable, using the dog as bait to lure me in. Hadn't she been through enough? And why did she look so happy?
“So,” I said, pointedly not getting in. “Is this car yours? Or is it just part of the cover story for Daniel Lavosh, Agent on the Take?”
“It's mine, but only as long as I stay with the bureau.”
I let the implications of that hang in the air.
“And the penthouse on Wilshire?” I asked. “Is that yours?”
He shook his head. “It belongs to the company.”
“Where do you live?”
“Mandeville Canyon.”
“What part?”
“Mango Way.”
“Apartment?”
“House.”
“Nice?”
“Small. I've been working on it. Putting in an extra room.”
“For what?”
“A n artist studio. For a friend of mine. She does greeting cards.”
“I didn't know you could build rooms. Like, with a hammer and nails?”
“There's a lot you don't know about me,” he said, snapping his fingers at Olive Oyl, who obli
gingly lumbered over the front seat into the back. “And probably one or two things I've yet to discover about you.”
“Baby, you don't know the half of it.”
“So let's take it from the top,” he suggested. “Start over.”
I stood on the sidewalk and looked around.
The month of May had slipped away while I'd lain in a hospital bed, and most of this day was gone as well. The morning fog had long since burned off, June gloom giving way to an afternoon suitable for surfing and picnics and kite flying. Relentless happiness. The fog would roll back in by midnight, but now people were heading home to fire up barbecues and open bottles of wine or driving to Dodger Stadium with their tops down. Olive Oyl sniffed the air through the back window, gathering information, smiling the way dogs do.
It was too much. I had no defenses against such optimism.
“Okay,” I said. “But this time around I drive.”
The look of fear that passed over Simon's face was gone in a second, but not before I'd seen it. I laughed for the first time in a week.
“Gotcha,” I said, and climbed into the passenger seat and turned up the music. Simon put the car in gear.
And away we drove, westbound on West Third Street, off into the sunset.
Acknowledgments
My brother Joe Kozak inspired a large part of this story, with his knowledge of and passion for faraway places, and I owe him, as always, a big debt of gratitude. Nancie Hays cares deeply about getting the firearms right; William Simon is the go-to guy for things you don't even want to know about; D.P. Lyle is the last word in poison; and Dr. Barry Fisher is always good for the corpse questions. My Russian-speaking friends include Lera-in-the-Ukraine, J. Renée Stuart, and Yevgeniya Yerekskaya-Pozzessere—spasibo, all. Michele Martinez, Rick Steinberg, and Marcus Wynne generously shared their knowledge of government agencies but are not responsible for any inaccuracies found in my story. Agatha and Rugi Aldisert and Kathy Kouri gave me the insider's view of i Madonnari; Holly Gault helped with chalk; Karen Olson helped with something I can't remember if I can reveal or not; Rob Aldisert spoke Italian with me; Sharon Fiedler knows where all the bodies are buried at Tiffany & Co.; Hawk Koch and David Rosenbloom lent me their filmmaking expertise; and Joel Roberts really is the media trainer to the stars. Thanks to David Mize of Santa Monica Chevrolet, to Ian Tansley and to Ash Reid, who will talk anyone into fuel-conversion, given half a chance. Thanks finally to Dr. Terence Kite of Pepperdine University. I couldn't have written this book without my friends. That's always true, but some years it's truer than others. My seven brothers and sisters and their families, Gregg Hurwitz and Delinah Blake Hurwitz, Patty and Robert Flournoy Brian and Elizabeth Kuelbs, Laura Hogan, Jenny Aldisert, Lisa Aldisert, Sandy and Jim Brophy Alessandra Brophy Leah Goodman, Carolyn Clark, David Dean, DawnMarie Moe, Beth Karish, Victoria Vanderbilt and Tom Chaney Margaret Winter, Cynthia Tarr, Hayley Andrus, David Corbett, Bob and Pat Crais, Kim Terranova, Anja Kubertschak, Jon McCormick, Madeira James, Tara Fields, Mary Anne Cook, Janet Hamilton, Heather Graham, Alexandra Sokoloff, the Killer Thriller Band, the Slush Pile Players, Patricia Waldo, the Book Club moms, the Yoga moms, Cath Carper, Writers Group (Bob, John, JB, Linda, Sharon, and Jamie), Space 7 in Alaska, Charlaine Harris, Laurie King, my TLC Blog sisters, Nancy Martin, Sarah Strohmeyer, Elaine Viets, the aforementioned Michele Martinez, and, especially in the middle of the night, Kathy Sweeney, helped me more than I can say. Thanks to all TLC commenters; to Gavin Polone; to Laura Swerdloff; to my kind and talented editor, Stacy Creamer; and my beautiful agent, Renée Zuckerbrot. And to Audrey, Louie, and Gia, for whom words aren't enough.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations,
places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination
or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2009 by Harley Jane Kozak
All Rights Reserved
Published in the United States by Broadway Books, an imprint of
The Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.broadwaybooks.com
BROADWAY BOOKS and its logo, a letter B bisected on the diagonal,
are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kozak, Harley Jane, 1957-
A date you can't refuse / Harley Jane Kozak. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Shelley, Wollie (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Women artists—Fiction.
3. Commercial artists—Fiction. 4. Greeting cards industry—Fiction. 5. Dating
(Social customs)—Fiction. 6. Los Angeles (Calif.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3611.O75D34 2009
813′.6—dc22
2008028888
eISBN: 978-0-307-58871-5
v3.0
Table of Contents
Cover
Other Books By This Author
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Acknowledgments
Copyright
A Date You Can't Refuse Page 33