by Elise Sax
After we round up the kids, we go inside Rock’s house. “The door doesn’t even have a lock,” I say, amazed.
“There’s no crime here. So, no need for locks. Will you be all right here while I go look for that water leak?”
“Sure.”
The house is beautiful. The ceiling is vaulted with huge log beams. Two story plaid curtains cover the two story windows in the living room. Attached to the living room is a dining room table in front of a massive, stone fireplace. The living room is filled with large, comfortable furniture. Two couches. Four chairs. A long coffee table.
In the back, there’s a large circular staircase to the second floor. I follow Rock to the kitchen, which is both modern and antique. Ornate white cabinets are everywhere. I open a door to find a huge walk-in pantry.
“This is bigger than my bedroom in L.A.,” I tell Rock, who has crawled under the sink, looking for a leak.
“Nothing down here,” he says. “Maybe the leak’s in one of the bathrooms.”
While he examines the downstairs bathroom, I open all the drawers and cabinets in the kitchen. Most of them are empty. In fact, I only find a couple plates, four glasses, and a handful of cutlery. Obviously, Rock hasn’t used this kitchen very often.
But I would love to use this kitchen. Every day. It’s a dream kitchen.
“Nothing in the bathroom,” he tells me, returning. “I need to check upstairs. You want the tour?”
I take his hand. I check on the children, who are happily playing with the couch cushions, and then Rock and I go upstairs.
“I only put in three bedrooms, but they’re large,” he tells me. “Only the master bedroom is furnished. It’s down the hall. I’ll meet you there? I’m going to take a look at the other bathrooms, first.”
I walk down the hall. The master bedroom is incredible. There are high vaulted ceilings here, too, and in the middle a huge chandelier made of deer antlers. The bed is large, but not as big as his bed in Los Angeles. The wall facing the bed is covered in three panes of glass. The two on either side are stained glass, and the center plane is clear with a breathtaking view of the meadows behind the house and the mountains in the distance.
“Nothing back there, either. I’ll dry the bathroom in here,” Rock tells me, walking into the bedroom. He goes into the bathroom and comes back a couple minutes later. “Nothing in there, either. I don’t know what my mother was talking about. Olivia, are you all right?”
“Huh? I’m sorry. I was just enjoying the view. Enjoying the room.”
Rock comes up behind me and wraps his arms around my middle. He kisses the top of my head and rests his chin on it. “You like my house?”
“I love your house.”
“But you look sad.”
“I’m not sad.” I’m so sad. But I refuse to tell Rock, and I definitely refuse to tell him why I’m so sad. I can hardly believe why myself.
The truth is that Rock’s house is making me sad. For the first time in my whole life, I feel like I’m home. Like this house was built for me, the real me. The me of my soul. The happily ever after me.
But it’s not my house. We’re going to look for a leak and leave the house, and I’ll probably never see it again, no matter what Lillian says. And besides, this isn’t Rock’s house anymore. It’s the house of the old Rock, not the billionaire Rock.
“It’s been a whirlwind couple of days. I understand if you’re upset,” he says, totally misreading the situation.
I turn around in his arms and lean into his chest. “I’m not upset. I’m happy. I love it here. I love being with you. I’ve never felt so good, like I’m exactly in the right place. Is it warm in here?”
I push away from him and take a couple of steps back. I tug at my shirt. “It’s warm in here, right?” I ask.
“No, not too warm. Olivia, your face,” he says, pointing at me.
I touch my face. “My face. My face is warm.”
“Your face is changing colors. It’s gray. Now, it’s red. Now, it’s green. Oh, it’s really green.”
I run into the bathroom and hug the toilet. I hate throwing up. I’ll do anything not to throw up. I take deep breaths through my nose and think non-throwing up thoughts, but I know I’m going to throw up.
“You okay in there? Do you need me to help?” Rock calls from the bedroom.
I stick my head in the toilet. “I’m pretty sure I can do this on my own, unless you want to do it for me. I’d love for you to do this for me, actually. Oh, God. Here it comes.”
I throw up into the toilet. Then, I do it again.
And once more for good measure.
I flush and hug the toilet, pressing my cheek against the cool porcelain.
“Olivia?” Rock calls.
“I’m okay,” I moan. “I might die, but it’s okay. Everyone’s gotta die sometime. I guess this is my time.”
“Olivia?” he calls again.
“What!” I yell with my last ounce of strength. “I told you I’m fine. Fine for a dying person.”
Rock sticks his head in the bathroom. “Olivia?”
“Look, I think it’s sweet that you care about me, but I need to just sit here a while. I don’t know what happened. It came on so fast. I’ll be fine. I mean, after I die.”
“Olivia, I hear something downstairs. I think it’s the kids. Can you go check?”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m definitely hearing something down there,” he says, worried.
“Rock, look at me.”
He looks at me. “You’re beautiful.”
“Thank you. Do you notice anything else?”
“You have beautiful hair?”
“I’m sitting on the floor of your bathroom, and I’m hugging the toilet,” I tell him as patiently as I can.
“Will you be there long?” he asks. “I’m pretty sure I hear them downstairs.”
“Oh, in that case, I’ll just jump up and run downstairs and check it out. Or here’s a thought: you could go see what’s what, and I can stay right here and die.”
Rock looks behind him. “So, you’re going to be there for a while?”
I answer by throwing up again.
Chapter 12
Olivia
Men are strange creatures. They can see a woman dying on the floor, but they still think she should get up and take care of the kids. In this case, I don’t really blame Rock. He’s a chivalrous guy. He would do anything for me. But he’s more scared of the children than he is of scorpions eating his face.
In fact, he would probably prefer to have scorpions eat his face than take care of my kids. But right now, he doesn’t have a choice. I’m completely laid out, prone on the tile floor of his bathroom. I don’t know what’s hit me, but it’s hit me hard, and I’m not going to take care of my children. I can’t even make it down the stairs or out of the bathroom.
“Maybe they’re fine,” Rock says, as I hear Ronnie and Bianca start to cry.
“Go. Check. On. Them,” I moan, still lying on the floor. Wave after wave of nausea hits me. I’m sure I’m dying, but I wish I would die faster. “I promise they won’t hurt you. Much.”
“Okay,” Rock announces after taking a moment to gather his courage. I hear him leave, and I focus on trying to fight back my waves of nausea. It’s no use. I curl up in the fetal position and try to convince myself that this is temporary and I’ll get better. But I don’t believe myself. I’m in a cloud of misery, and there’s nothing I can do to get out of it.
Bianca and Ronnie’s cries are getting closer, until Rock appears at the bathroom door, holding both of my youngest children in his arms.
“What do they want?” he asks me.
“Are they bleeding?” I ask him.
He does a cursory check. “No. They keep crying. Do you want to hold them?”
“I’m dying. I’m lying on the floor of the bathroom. Do you understand the situation?”
“I guess I could call your mother or my mother or the paramedics…”<
br />
“Those are all good things,” I say. “Do all of that.”
There’s a crash downstairs, and I hear Mick screaming at his brother Keith. “What the hell?” Rock complains. “It’s like herding cats.”
“Ha! If only they were cats,” I say and close my eyes, willing myself to feel better.
Rock walks quickly away with the children in his arms. I hear him go downstairs. “What the hell?” I hear him yell and then the kids cry louder. “Sorry. Sorry. What do you want? What can I do to get you to stop crying? I know! The dogs.”
I hear him open the front door and let the dogs in. The crying stops, immediately. Rock comes back upstairs and stands in the bathroom doorway. He seems much more relaxed, now that he’s not holding two children. “That’s done,” he announces like he’s the conquering hero. “Taking care of kids isn’t that hard. You just need a bunch of dogs.”
He pushes some buttons on his cellphone. “My mother’s not answering,” he says. He tries my mother, Rosalind, Bessie, Beatrice, and even Cole. Nobody’s answering. “Maybe it’s the zombie apocalypse out there,” he says.
“Well, I know it’s the zombie apocalypse in here. Shoot me. C’mon, I know you have a gun. All ranchers have guns. Shoot me with one of them. It’ll be an easy shot. I’m not exactly a moving target.”
Rock snaps his fingers and points at me, like he remembers something. “You need a doctor. Of course. I’ll call the doc, and he’ll be right out. I hope he answers.”
This time, Rock manages to reach someone. The doctor answers on the second ring, and Rock puts the call on speaker, in case the doctor wants to ask me questions. But the doctor doesn’t want to ask me questions.
“It’s nothing to worry about,” he tells Rock. “It’s going around. It’s a twenty-four hour bug, and it’ll wash out of her, and she’ll be fine. Give her fluids, and she’ll perk right up.”
I moan on the tile floor.
“She doesn’t seem very perky,” Rock says. “And there’s a bunch of kids to take care of.”
“Are they sick, too?” the doctor asks.
“I don’t think so.”
“Good. Give your lady friend fluids, take care of the kids, and I’ll check back tomorrow.”
He hangs up, and Rock stares at the phone for a good long while. It’s a man’s worst nightmare. He has to play nursemaid and babysitter all at once. Normally, I would feel guilty, but I’m so sick that I can’t dig up that particular emotion.
“I have to give you fluids,” Rock tells me.
“You have to shoot me. That’s the only thing that’ll make me feel better.”
“I’m sorry you’re sick.”
“Not as sorry as I am.”
“If I could, I’d be sick for you.”
“And I’d take you up on that.” I’m not proud of my attitude, but I think I’ve thrown up half of a lung, so I don’t care.
“Let me take care of you,” he says sweetly. He pockets his phone and scoops me up from the floor, as if I don’t weigh a thing. I’m close to not weighing a thing. I think I’ve thrown up a good five pounds.
He tucks me into his beautiful, big bed, propping me up on two pillows. “There. Is that better?” he asks.
“Yes.” But my body begs to differ. My stomach roils and makes a horrible sound. “Oh my God! It’s going to come out the other side!” I yell.
I push him out of the way and use the last of my strength to make a beeline for the bathroom. This time I slam the door behind me. Stripping out of my pants, I just make it to the toilet in time.
It’s like a scene from the exorcist or some other horror movie. And the sound. Well, the sound is not exactly ladylike.
“I’ll go check on the kids,” Rock calls from the bedroom, diplomatically.
I wonder if his other girlfriends have ever had explosive diarrhea in front of him.
I sit on the toilet for a long time before I finally make it out of the bathroom and back into bed. Downstairs, bad has turned to worse.
“Get back here, kid,” I hear Rock yell. “Don’t do that! That’s an antique! Whoa, what’re you doing? I’m not dealing with that.” There’s a crash and then another. “Get the hell out of here, dogs! Whose idea was it to bring in the dogs?”
I hear the door open. “Not you, kid! You stay in here! And you! Where’re you going?” It takes him about fifteen minutes to get rid of the dogs and keep the kids. “Where did all of this water come from? Oh my God!”
I close my eyes. My head is pounding. I try to sleep, but I’m far too miserable to nod off. Rock returns, and he’s holding a glass of water. His clothes are sopping wet, and it looks like he’s been through a battle that he lost.
“I brought you fluids,” he says, handing me the glass. “Take a sip.”
I take a sip, and my stomach growls in protest. “I don’t know how much I can keep down,” I croak.
“Try to take one more sip,” Rock urges.
“What happened to you?” I ask.
“One of your kids stuffed a cushion into the toilet and flushed about a million times. It’s a swimming pool downstairs, now.”
“Which kid did that?”
“The tallest one.”
“Mick?”
“Is that his name?”
“You might want to learn their names,” I suggest. “Mick, Keith, Ronnie, and Bianca.”
“Why do those names sound familiar?”
“Their father likes the Rolling Stones.”
I take another sip and hand the glass back to Rock.
“I still can’t reach anybody,” Rock tells me. “And you want to hear the weirdest thing? When I opened the front door, there was a box of supplies sitting on the front step.”
“Weird.”
“Are you well enough for me to drive you back to my mother’s house?”
“That depends. Are you driving a hearse?” I ask.
“Point taken. I’d take the kids back and return to take care of you, but I don’t know if anyone’s home. Nobody’s answering. Nobody on the whole ranch.”
His forehead has broken out into a thick layer of sweat. “We’ll stay here,” I croak. “The doctor says it’s a twenty-four-hour bug. It won’t be hard. I can tell you’re a natural with the children.”
Even half-dead and totally dehydrated, I’m a fabulous liar.
“Wock! Wock!” I hear Mick call.
“That’s you, pal,” I tell Rock. “You’re on.”
“What if I break one?”
“Don’t worry. We’ll put them back together easy enough. Go ahead. I think I’m going to fall asleep now. Or maybe I’m slipping into a coma.”
I turn on my side. The truth is that I’m feeling a little better, but whatever attacked me has left me as weak as a limp noodle. Rock leaves the room, but returns after a couple minutes.
“One of them is smelling bad,” he informs me.
“One of them?”
“Ronnie. Ronnie’s got a real bad smell happening.”
“You need to change his diaper. The diaper bag is in the car.”
“Diaper?” he asks, startled. “I’m going to change a diaper? Are you sure you want me to do that? I’ve never changed a diaper before. It sounds like an important job.”
“And change Bianca, too, while you’re at it,” I tell him. “She’s probably due.”
“Two diapers? What about Mick and Keith?”
“They’re potty trained. Just take them to the potty and help them out.”
“When you say potty…”
“And then give them a snack and put them down for their nap,” I order. I yawn and close my eyes, again. “You’re doing great. A real natural. Remember wipe front to back.”
“Oh my God.”
My eyes are heavy, but before I have time to fall asleep, Rock comes back in the room. “I did the diapers and the potty,” he announces.
“Very good,” I mumble, half-asleep. “You’re a wonderful man. Next you’ll invent cold fusion.”
“Don’t worry if you put the diapers on backwards. They still work that way.”
Rock wipes at his face. “That’s good to know. But here’s the thing. You have three kids, right.”
I sit up in bed, and the room spins around. “What?”
“Three, right?”
“No. Four. Four children.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“Maybe not. Let me think…of course I’m sure about that!” I yell. The effort knocks me out, and I fall back onto the bed and hold my head. “Did you lose one of my children?” I croak.
Rock gnaws on one of his fingers. “No. I’m sure he’s here somewhere. He’ll probably show up.”
“Who? Who will probably show up?”
“Ronnie. He’s a slippery devil. I already found him in the oven and underneath the couch. But I can’t seem to find him now. We might need the Army Rangers.”
I crook my finger at Rock, and he bends over so we’re nose to nose. “Find my kid,” I whisper. “Look for him.”
“I’m pretty sure he didn’t wander outside.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” I ask. “Are you trying to calm me down like that? You’re terrible at calming me down. Now, I’m worried I have a child wandering the wilds of Idaho, getting eaten by a bear.”
“He’s a little kid. He can’t get far.”
“Wock! Wock!” I hear. It’s Ronnie.
“That’s the missing child,” I tell Rock. “Follow the voice.”
I fall into a deep, feverish sleep, where I dream that I’m Cinderella, and I’m a triathlete. I’ve finished the bike and marathon part of the race, and now I’m swimming from Los Angeles to Idaho. It’s a hard slog, and no matter how fast I swim, Idaho is getting further and further away. I’m desperate to get to Idaho to win the medal, but it looks like I’m not even going to make it to the finish line, let alone win a medal.
Thankfully, I wake up from the nightmare. My pillow and sheets are wet from my fever breaking in my sleep. I feel much better, but I’m still very weak. I down the glass of water next to the bed and decide to try to go downstairs to get more water.
I stop at the top of the stairs when I hear Rock’s voice singing something. He’s singing it over and over. When he finishes, the children shout “Again! Again!” at him.