Not a trait Sam Becket could tolerate for long.
‘Everything OK?’ La Morrison asked him as they were packing up.
‘Except for my lousy dancing,’ Sam said.
‘Seems to me you move pretty well,’ Billie said.
Tyler Allen made a small, derisive sound, and Sam understood why, because it had seemed to him that Billie was actually looking him up and down. Which had discomfited him, considering she was an old friend’s daughter.
Imagination, he told himself. Maybe even wishful thinking from a forty-four-year-old with a paunch, according to Toni Petit.
Though Allen had noticed it too, and hey, what the hell.
A compliment from a lovely young woman could only be good for a middle-aged guy’s self-esteem.
May 10
The conference facility was less than fifteen minutes walk from Grace’s hotel; sleek, modern, and beautifully appointed. The welcome breakfast at eight-thirty was delicious, and her name tag identifying her as ‘Dr Grace Lucca’ was boldly colored in a prizewinning design by the children of a primary school in the alpine canton of Graubünden.
‘We’re so happy that you could step in,’ Dr Elspeth Mettler, one of the organizers, elegantly suited, wearing Chanel spectacles and sensible shoes, told Grace. ‘And I’m personally very grateful to Doctor Shrike for her recommendation.’
‘I’m honored to be here,’ Grace assured her. ‘Though to be frank, it’s been a long time since I’ve spoken anywhere, let alone in such illustrious company. I hope I won’t disappoint.’
‘I’m sure you won’t,’ Dr Mettler told her. ‘And yours, I understand, is to be an interactive event.’
‘That’s my hope,’ Grace said.
She looked the part, at least, in a new linen dress bought with Sam’s encouragement two weeks ago, but though she wasn’t scheduled to speak till tomorrow, she felt suddenly intensely nervous.
Abruptly, she realized why.
It had been a long while since she’d stood on a podium.
The closest to it last year, in court.
In the past, she’d felt reasonably equal to this kind of gathering, but so much had been ripped from her during that terrible time, and though she accepted that she was slowly getting back on track, there was still a long path to travel.
In the old days, Grace Lucca Becket had believed she knew who she was.
A contented, grateful woman, at ease with herself.
Not quite back there yet.
Mildred was finally at the optometrist’s.
David had made the appointment with Ralph Sutter, a man he had known for about a decade, a good optometrist with his own practice on NE 29th Place, an experienced and kindly doctor.
Mildred seldom took pills, had a repugnance for illegal drugs which had spilled over into wariness of prescription medication. But despite her best efforts to disguise her fears, after a virtually sleepless night, David had seen that she was pale, tremulous and agitated.
‘I’d like you to take a very mild tranquilizer,’ he’d said, expecting her to refuse. ‘It won’t give you any loss of control, but it will help take the edge off your anxiety.’
‘How about two?’ Mildred had said.
‘That won’t be necessary.’ David had smiled.
‘I wasn’t joking,’ she had said.
She already knew, from television programs, how much these places had changed since her last visit to an eye doctor’s office.
That had been in her first ‘respectable’ life as Mildred Bleeker. Long before she had met Donny, her first love, had given up everything to become his fiancé, and had then lost him and, with him, her very identity, becoming a homeless person, sleeping on a bench down in South Beach. Which was where she had found a whole new Mildred Bleeker, a woman with the kind of perspective on life that only a person living on the edge of society could achieve.
Where she had first met Sam Becket, the tall, broad-shouldered African-American detective who had become her friend.
Where she had come close to losing her life – after which she’d met Dr David Becket and the rest of his family.
Her family now.
The tranquilizer was keeping her in Dr Sutter’s office, but neither the doctor nor David were in any doubts as to her high level of anxiety.
‘I don’t know if it helps,’ Dr Sutter had told her, ‘but I can assure you that you’re by no means alone. I’ve encountered many nervous patients in my time.’
Mildred had thanked him, and the doctor had suggested they keep questions for later, and get the exam over and done with first, and she knew it ought all to have been easy as pie, but she had hated every second of it, though she’d just about managed until it came to the slit-lamp examination.
Dr Sutter asked her to rest her chin and forehead on a support, and Mildred had already done that several times, but perhaps the tension was cumulative, because suddenly she didn’t know how much more she could take.
He inserted dilating drops, which stung a little.
‘A small waiting period now,’ Ralph Sutter told her. ‘The drops can take fifteen minutes or a little longer to work.’
‘I don’t know,’ Mildred said.
‘It’s necessary,’ David said, ‘so that Ralph can see the back of your eye.’
‘It may be necessary, but it doesn’t mean I can tolerate any more.’
‘If you can’t, Mrs Becket, that’s OK,’ the doctor said. ‘Though now the drops are in, it would be a shame to miss the opportunity to complete the exam.’
‘I can taste them,’ Mildred complained. ‘How come I can taste them?’
‘They drain down from your tear ducts,’ David told her.
‘I wasn’t asking you,’ she said.
She knew she was behaving badly, but she couldn’t seem to help it, and the truth was that her vision had been growing foggier for a while now, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that she could still read, she might have feared she was going blind.
She’d dealt with it in a manner she’d grown expert at during her years as a homeless person. Some things you dealt with head-on, even if they were tough. Sometimes, though, there were things you just could not face, and if you thought you could get away with it, you simply buried your head in the sand.
Which did not, of course, make you wise.
But she had married a wise and sensible man.
So here she was.
Didn’t mean she had to like it.
Paperwork Tuesday for Sam and Martinez.
The last two weeks had been quiet for Violent Crimes. One armed robbery with a firearm – suspect placed under arrest within hours. One sexual battery – suspect arrested at the scene. One felony battery, also with a result.
Good jobs.
Detectives Cutter and Sheldon were seeking an armed carjacker. On the streets and in a couple of nightclubs, people had been getting in fights – the usual – but if anyone had pulled or used a knife or a gun lately, it had not been reported to MBPD.
Maybe not love in the air, but peace of a kind.
And a lot of paperwork to complete.
The usual.
Grace called from Zurich at five after one.
‘I’m about to have an early dinner with a few of the delegates,’ she told Sam. ‘I don’t know where we’re going, but they seem a nice bunch.’
She was hungry for details about Joshua, wanted to check on the rest of the family, to know how Sam’s rehearsal had gone.
‘Your day first,’ he said.
‘It’s been good – interesting session on parenting, tougher afternoon dealing with serious depression in adolescents.’
‘Certainly your territory,’ Sam said.
‘I did contribute,’ Grace told him.
‘How did that feel?’
‘Good,’ she said. ‘Stimulating, I guess.’
‘I’m feeling a little sore,’ he told her. ‘All we really did last night was block the moves for the fight, and even that felt like a d
amned workout. Jack Holden might weigh less than me, but he’s no lightweight, I can tell you.’
‘Tell him I said to be gentle with you,’ Grace told him.
And then they both said how much they missed each other.
Both knowing it was true.
Both liking that.
‘Cataracts,’ David told her, ‘are nothing in the scheme of things.’
‘Except they make you go blind,’ Mildred said.
‘If left untreated, yes, they do.’
She had been very quiet on the short drive home, had let David take her arm getting in and out of the car because her eyes were still blurry, had then sat thinking dark thoughts about how much worse things might become if she did not start doing as she was told.
Mildred had never appreciated being told.
David had waited till they were safely back home in the comfortable old living room that had been little altered since his late wife Judy’s days. Not that David hadn’t encouraged Mildred to make changes if she wanted to, but though she had bought some cushions and had expressed a great liking for a painting of South Beach – which David had promptly gone out to buy for her – the room was still much as it had been.
‘I’m not minimizing anything,’ he said now. ‘But I can’t help feeling relieved.’
‘You thought it might be worse.’ She was assailed by guilt. ‘You’ve been afraid for me. I’m so sorry. I’ve been selfish.’
‘You’ve been scared,’ David said. ‘It’s allowed. And I know you’re still scared because of what comes next, but it’s going to be fine. In fact, once it’s done, it’ll be better than fine.’
‘I know that’s true, and I know I’m generally regarded as having good common sense. But now I have to go see an ophthalmic surgeon, and you’ll have to give me two tranquilizers that day’ – her voice shook a little – ‘and then there’ll be the surgery . . .’
‘Which you will know nothing about,’ David said gently.
‘But Doctor Sutter said that most people have cataracts removed under local anesthesia.’
‘He also said that plenty of other people opt for sedation or general anesthesia. And in your case, I can’t think of a single reason why you should have to put yourself through any ordeal that isn’t absolutely necessary.’
Mildred looked at him through the lingering blur of the drops. ‘I’m still a first-class coward,’ she said.
‘No one’s perfect,’ David said. ‘Not even me.’
The waiting room was almost full.
No more than usual in a busy, multiphysician Miami Beach practice. Patients with sore throats or asthma or gynecological problems or sunburn or any number of ailments or issues, waiting for their respective doctors to summon them.
Several women flicked through old copies of Elle, Good Housekeeping and Reader’s Digest. A skinny man of about thirty, dressed in black, appeared immersed in GQ. A visually-impaired woman with dark glasses, a cane propped beside her, popped a green Tic Tac into her mouth. A woman beside her listened to music through tiny headphones, her eyes closed. A man with badly-dyed blond hair read something on his iPad. A woman with retro Rita Hayworth-style red hair stared into space. A couple in their twenties, in T-shirts and shorts, texted endlessly on their BlackBerrys, and once, briefly, the man laid a hand on the young woman’s knee, and she smiled at him.
When the door opened and two newcomers walked in, Rita Hayworth, the man in black and the iPad guy glanced up briefly, then lost interest.
Just a mother and daughter, at least twenty years apart, yet lookalikes, dark-haired with tawny lights, expensively dressed, both slim, both wearing large, dark Tiffany sunglasses which neither removed.
The mom checked them in with the receptionist as the teenage daughter chose a seat, picked up an old copy of Cosmo, opened it, then closed it again and dumped it back on the table.
She waited until her mother sat down beside her.
‘I’m not going in,’ she said quietly.
‘Sure you are.’ The mother’s accent was lightly Hispanic.
‘I’m not.’
‘You promised you’d let the doctor look at you.’
The tension in the mother’s tone carried, made several people glance up.
‘I’ve changed my mind. I can’t bear it.’
‘You’re being foolish.’
‘And who taught me that, Mama?’
Hysteria bubbled under the teenager’s tone, and her mother tried to take her hand, but the daughter snatched it away.
‘I understand, baby, if anyone does, but they’re so sore.’
‘You’re such a hypocrite. You can’t even say the word.’
‘Stop it, Felicia,’ the mother said.
‘Eyes,’ the girl said, and shuddered. ‘Eyes,’ she repeated. ‘You made me a freak, and you’re cruel to make me come here.’
Everyone was listening now, most trying not to stare openly.
‘This is hard for me too,’ the mother whispered. ‘You know that.’
‘So I’ll make it easier for you,’ the teenager said.
And stood up.
‘What are you doing?’ the mother said.
‘Leaving,’ the daughter said.
And went out the door.
The mother took a distraught breath, then stood up, looked helplessly toward the receptionist. ‘I’m very sorry,’ she said.
‘Mrs Delgado,’ the receptionist began.
But she had already gone.
The young couple grinned at each other; the blind woman’s lips compressed a little; the skinny man raised his eyebrows; Rita shook her red head.
The receptionist sighed softly, picked up a pencil and crossed through something in one of her appointment books.
A little after four, Billie Smith called Sam, surprising him.
‘I’m having a bit of a crisis of confidence,’ she told him.
‘I can’t imagine why,’ he said, ‘but how can I help?’
‘You could help me a lot,’ she said, ‘by agreeing to a couple of extra rehearsals of our scenes. Especially our duet.’
‘Small beer for you, surely, compared with the rest.’
‘To be truthful,’ Billie said, ‘what I’m really hoping is that you might help me work through my Act Four stuff with Don José.’
‘Then surely it’s Jack you should be asking.’
‘He’s not as approachable as you are, Sam.’
That surprised him.
‘Have you talked to Linda about it?’
‘No way,’ Billie said.
She sounded horrified, like a teen scared of exposing weakness to a tutor, reminding Sam again of how young she was.
‘I’m sure Linda would gladly organize some extra rehearsals,’ he said. ‘Though it’s Mondays and Thursdays from next week, so that should help.’
‘I’d rather it was just the two of us, just this one time.’ Billie stuck to her guns. ‘So I could really feel I was getting somewhere before next week.’ She paused. ‘I’ll understand if you say you don’t want to, only please don’t.’
It was exactly like talking to a kid.
Sam sighed. ‘You’d have to come to my house. We could work in the lanai.’
And Claudia would be around.
Grace’s sister, who’d been horrifically widowed last year, had moved to Sunny Isles Beach a few months back, close to where Saul – Sam’s adoptive, much younger brother – and Cathy shared an apartment. And with his dad and Mildred just up in Golden Beach, all of them in easy reach of the Bay Harbor Islands, where Sam and Grace lived, they were spoilt for choice when it came to babysitting.
And in this case, chaperoning.
Better safe.
‘That would be just great,’ Billie said. ‘Tomorrow?’
‘I’ll have to run it by my sister-in-law,’ Sam said. ‘She’s staying with us while my wife’s away.’
‘Taking care of your little boy?’ Billie said. ‘Joshua?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Seven o’clock, if it’s OK with her?’
‘Sure,’ Sam said.
May 11
Grace’s address – titled ‘Irrational fears and phobias in the young teen’ – began at nine a.m. on the penultimate morning of the conference.
She was buzzing with tension, her pulse racing, but she took a calming breath, conjured up a favorite image of Sam and Joshua playing, and took in her audience.
Those whose faces she could see looked expectant, interested.
Having no viable alternative, she began. ‘The title of my talk this morning is misleading. One of Merriam-Webster’s definitions of the word “irrational” is “not based on reason”.’
She paused, plucked a single face out of the front row.
Female, fortyish, anonymous.
She talked to her.
‘It seems to me,’ she went on, ‘that any young person has an incalculable number of reasons to experience fear of some sort. Being a still-growing, developing, unfolding human is both fascinating and terrifying. And even those children and young teens most capable of superficial toughness – the ones who appear to skate through – are often deep-down scared.
‘I know I was,’ she said. ‘Weren’t you?’
In the long, narrow foyer just outside the conference room, a young man watched and listened through the slightly open glass doors.
And smiled.
He had wavy brown hair and rimless glasses, and he was dressed in a well-cut gray suit, blue silk tie and perfectly polished shoes.
A middle-aged woman in a navy-and-white-spotted dress came out of the room, moving carefully, quietly, so as not to disturb the speaker or her audience. The young man held the door open for her, and she nodded her thanks.
He stepped inside the room, took out his phone.
Went on listening and watching.
And, every now and then, discreetly, took photographs.
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