23
Back at the apartment,I’m a mess. I crave a drink, but am spooked that a team of masked men are about to burst through the front door and haul me off to the airport in an unmarked van. I need to keep my head clear.
So I wander from room to room, wringing my hands and fighting panic, going over everything Chris said to me at lunch and on his earlier phone call.
None of it computes. If he and I were characters in one of my novels, I’d have to give him an inoperable brain tumor the size of a grapefruit for his behavior to make sense.
When a phone rings somewhere in the apartment, I freeze and look around.
It’s not the house phone. And my cell is still where it fell, busted up and silent on the floor. But the ringing persists despite those facts, so I head tentatively to the kitchen, following the muffled sound.
It’s coming from a drawer next to the sink.
Feeling like I’m in a spy movie, I open the drawer and stare at the sleek black cell phone nestled in among a set of tea towels. The phone the size of a credit card that looks exactly like the one James has.
It rings and rings, insisting that I pick it up.
When I do, I realize the thing doesn’t have an Answer button. There aren’t any buttons on it at all. When I turn it over, the back side is as blank as the front. The only way I can tell it’s the back is because the surface is matte instead of shiny.
I shake it. When that doesn’t make the screen light up, I tap my finger all over the screen, hoping that will have some effect. When that fails, too, I sigh and simply hold the phone to my ear, jokingly saying, “Yo,” as if that will make it work.
In return, I hear James’s velvety voice. “Hello, sweetheart.”
I shout, “James!”
“Guilty. I see you found the phone.”
“What is happening right now?”
His low chuckle sends a wave of relief through me. “I noticed your cell had some kind of accident that left it in pieces, so I got you a new one. Do you like it?”
He says “got” not “bought.” For some strange reason, it feels as if that’s an important distinction. “Where are the buttons on this thing? When did you put it in the drawer? Are you already in Germany?”
I’m still shouting. For a moment, I think that’s the cause of James’s odd pause, but then I realize I’m wrong when he answers.
“Yes,” he says softly. “I’m in Germany.”
I go cold with horror.
I’m not supposed to know where he was going.
I’m not supposed to know he’s in clinical trials. Or that he has ALS.
Or that he’s dying.
Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck. Maybe he’ll think he told me where he was headed. I stand frozen with the phone clamped to my ear, my heart up in my throat, and wait for him to say something. What he comes up with doesn’t help matters much.
“Just breathe, Olivia. I can hear you panicking.”
I exhale in a huge gust and hobble over to the kitchen table, where I collapse into a chair. “I…uh…I…” I have no idea how I’m going to get myself out of this mess. Idiot!
“Let me hear you take a breath. A big one. Go on.”
I suck in a lungful like I’ve been drowning in the ocean and just broke through the surface. Tell him the truth. When he asks how you knew about Germany, just spill the beans. Admit everything. Be honest.
All my honking and wheezing makes him chuckle again. He drawls, “That asthmatic duck impression you’re doing is cute. Have you missed me so much? I’ve only been gone a few hours.”
“Yes, I’ve missed you.” I think of Chris at lunch and shudder. “I can’t wait until I see you again.”
He must hear something off in my voice, because his sharpens. “What’s happened?”
“Sweet Jesus, how can you read my mind over the phone?”
He growls my name. Bossy mode is now engaged. At least he’s distracted from the Germany thing. I sigh heavily and slump lower in the chair. “My lunch with Chris happened.”
The silence crackles. “I want to demand you tell me everything, but I don’t want to be a nosy asshole. If you say we should change the subject, we will.”
I love his straightforward way of saying what’s on his mind while also respecting my wishes.
Debating how to answer, I decide that my messy personal life is the last thing he needs to be dealing with right now, away in another country trying to find a cure for the disease that’s trying to kill him.
“We haven’t spoken since we were divorced. He just wanted…” To have thugs kidnap me. I clear my throat before the lie, so hopefully it sounds more plausible. “To check in.”
After another crackling silence, James says, “He’s still in love with you. Seeing me at your apartment can’t have been easy for him.”
I smother the memory of Chris telling me he loved me in the men’s room and ask too loudly, “What makes you think he’s still in love with me?”
James’s voice turns stroking, the softest, warmest caress. “How could he not be? You’re the most perfect woman a man could wish for, Olivia. You’re the brass ring.”
My heart proceeds to do strange things. Weird, twisting gymnastic kinds of things. I swallow, breathing shallowly, letting myself sit with his beautiful words.
“You’re not saying anything.”