Changes (33 page)

“How come?”

“My contract is up in October, and I like getting started nice and early outlining what I want for the next one.” He admired the way she handled her work. In fact, there was a lot more than that he admired about her.

“You must be able to call your own shots by now.”

“To some extent. Not entirely. But anyway, I want to sit down with him sometime in the next couple of weeks and see what he thinks.”

Peter grinned, in a silly mood, the end-of-summer madness was beginning to touch them all. “Why don't you just quit?”

“And do what?” She didn't find the idea quite as funny as he did.

“Move to California.”

“And sell tacos on the beach?”

“No, this may come as a shock to you, but we have television there now too. We even have news.” He was smiling and she thought he had never looked more handsome.

“Do you? How intriguing.” But she didn't take the suggestion seriously for a moment until he reached out and touched her arm, and she saw that he was looking at her strangely.

“You know, you could do that.”

“What?” A chill ran down her spine despite the brilliant sunshine and hot weather.

“Quit and move to California. Someone would put you on the air there.”

She sat up very straight and stared down at him lying in the sand. “Do you have any idea how many years it took me to get where I am here at the network? Do you have even the remotest idea of what Buffalo was like at twenty below, or Chicago? I worked my ass off for this job, and I'm not giving it up now, so please don't joke about it, Peter. Ever.” She was still upset when she lay down in the sand beside him again. She didn't find the suggestion even remotely amusing. “Why don't you give up your practice and start fresh in New York?”

She saw that he was looking at her intently, and she was sorry her tone had been as sharp. He looked hurt. “I would if I could, Mel. I'd do anything to be near you.” And the accusation was that she wouldn't, which wasn't fair.

“Do you understand that it's no easier for me?” Her voice was gentler now. “Leaving New York would be a step down for me now, wherever I went.”

“Even to L.A.?” He looked suddenly depressed. Their situation was hopeless.

“Even to L.A.” And then after a moment's silence when they both stared out to sea licking their wounds, “We'll just have to find some way to be together.”

“What do you suggest? Weekends in Kansas City?” This time it was Peter who sounded angry and bitter, and he looked down at her now with fire in his blue eyes. “What do you think this will be when it grows up, Mel? A holiday romance? We meet for long weekends with our kids?”

“I don't know what to suggest. I can fly to L.A., you know, and you can come here.”

“You know how rarely I can leave my patients.” And she couldn't leave the girls all the time, and they both knew it.

“So what are you telling me? That I should give up now? Is that what you want?” Suddenly, she was frightened by the gist of their conversation. “I don't have the answers, Peter.”

“Well, neither do I. And something tells me you don't want to find them.”

“That's not true. But the reality is that we both have important jobs at opposite ends of the country, and neither one of us can just dump what we're doing and move, nor would we want to. And we're not ready to yet, anyway.”

“Aren't we?” He looked angry again. “Why not?”

“Because we've only known each other for four months, and I don't know about you, but that doesn't seem like very long to me.”

“I'd have married Anne five minutes after I met her and I was right.”

“That was Anne.” She was shouting at him now, but they were alone on the beach. The children had all gone to play volleyball somewhere else and Matt was with Raquel looking for seashells. “I'm not Anne, Peter, I'm me. And I'm not going to follow in her goddamn footsteps. Even if you did take me to Aspen, which is where you went with her every year.”

“So what, dammit. Didn't you like it?”

“Yes, I did. But only after I overcame the creepy feeling I had every time I thought that you'd been over every inch of that place with her, and probably even slept in the same bed.”

He was on his feet now and so was she. “It may interest you to know that this time I ordered a different condo. I'm not as totally insensitive as you seem to think, Miss Adams.” And after that they both stood very still, and suddenly Mel hung her head.

“I'm sorry … I didn't mean to hurt you …” She looked up at him again then. “It's difficult, sometimes, knowing how attached you were to her.”

Peter pulled her slowly toward him. “I was married to her for eighteen years, Mel.”

“I know … but I feel like I'm always being compared to her. The perfect wife. The Perfect Woman. And I'm not perfect. I'm me.”

“Who compares you?” He looked shocked. He had never said anything like that. But he hadn't had to.

Mel shrugged as they sat very close on the sand again. “You … the children … maybe Mrs. Hahn.”

Peter was watching her very closely. “You don't like Mrs. Hahn, do you? Why?”

“Maybe because she was Anne's. Or because she's so cold. I don't think she likes me either.” Mel smiled, thinking of Raquel, and Peter laughed, knowing what she was thinking.

“No, she certainly isn't Raquel, but no one is. Except Raquel herself.” He had come to like her too, but he wasn't sure he could live with her loose tongue in his household. He liked Mrs. Harm's restraint and the way she controlled the children. Raquel was more like a friend with a mop in one hand, and a microphone in the other.

“Were you serious about me moving to California, Peter?” She looked worried as she asked, and slowly he shook his head.

“I guess not. Just dreaming. I know you can't give up your job here. I wouldn't want you to anyway. But I wish there were a way we could be together. This is going to be a terrible strain commuting back and forth.” Grant's words echoed in her ears … dead end … dead end … And she didn't want it to be.

“I know it's a strain to come here. I'll do my best to come to L.A. as much as I can.”

“So will I.” But they both knew that she would do most of the commuting. There was just no other way. She could leave the twins more easily than he could leave his patients, and sometimes she could bring them too. And as though to illustrate the point, he got a call late Sunday night. One of his old transplant patients had had a major heart attack, and he gave all the suggestions he could over the phone. But the transplant had been two years before, and the man's chances weren't great, whether Peter was there or not, but he stayed awake all night, worrying about his patient, and feeling that he should have been there with him. “I have a responsibility to these people, Mel. It doesn't just end when I pull off the mask and gown after the surgery. It goes on, as long as they live. At least that's how I feel.”

“That's why you're good at what you do.” Mel sat next to him on the porch, hugging her knees as they watched the sun come up, and an hour later they got the call from L.A. that his patient had died. They took a long walk on the beach then, saying little, and Mel held his hand, and when they came back to the house he felt better. It was all that he would miss when he went back to L.A. again. He needed her with him.

Monday was their last day together at the Vineyard. The kids had plans for the entire day, and Raquel was busy cleaning up before they closed the house. Mel had encouraged everyone to pack the day before so they didn't have to waste their last day packing. And they had already decided that they wouldn't leave until Tuesday morning. Peter and his children would leave as they had come, on a seven
A.M.
flight out of the Vineyard, which coordinated with a nine
A.M.
flight to Los Angeles from Boston, which arrived in the morning in L.A. The time difference worked in their favor, and Peter could go straight to the hospital and do rounds, after dropping the kids off at home. Pam and Matthew didn't start school until the following week and Mark had three weeks before he started college.

And Mel and the twins would take the ferry to Woods Hole, drive to Boston, return their rented car, and then fly to New York, getting to their home actually later than the group flying to L.A. But as they contemplated leaving on Monday night, there was silence. It was sad to be leaving each other again, they were really a group now. Pam was the first to express her sorrow to be leaving, and Mark quickly seconded his sister's view, holding tightly to Valerie's hand, a sight they were all beginning to get used to.

“Can't you ever pry those two apart?” Peter was still mildly worried, but Mel was beginning to relax about it as they lay in bed on their last night.

“They're all right. I think the less fuss we make, the quicker they'll get bored with it.”

“Just so no one gets pregnant.”

“Don't worry. I'm keeping an eye on Val, and so is Jess. And frankly, I think Mark is a very responsible boy. I don't think he'd take advantage of Val. Not even if she tempted him, which I'm praying she won't.”

“I hope you're not overestimating him, Mel.” He put an arm around her shoulders and thought back over the weekend. And then he looked at her with a tender smile. “So when do you come to L.A.?”

“I go back to work in two days, let me see what's happening there and we'll talk about it. Maybe weekend after next, or the weekend after that?” She sounded hopeful, but he looked depressed.

“That's practically October.”

“I'll do my best.”

He nodded, not wanting to argue with her, but her best still wasn't going to be what he wanted. He wanted her there all the time and he couldn't see how he was going to get that. And he wasn't ready to give her up either. Suddenly in the last month he had come to feel that he couldn't live without her. He knew that was crazy, but it was how he felt. He needed her near him to share the joys and burdens of his daily life, the funny things said by Matt, the patients who died, the tears shed by Pam, the beauty, the traumas, all of it. It meant nothing without her, but there was no way that he could take her to L.A. with him. And as they made love that night he wanted to drink her spirit and swallow her soul and remember every nook and cranny of her body.

“Sure you won't come with me?” he whispered before he boarded the plane to Boston.

“I wish I could. But I'll be there soon.”

“I'll call you tonight.” But just the idea of having to call her again, and not see her, depressed him. He had finally found the woman he wanted and he couldn't have her, not because another man did, but because a network thought they owned her, and worse yet, she liked it. And yet he knew that she loved him. It was a lousy situation, but he hoped that in time something would happen to resolve it. He smiled to himself. Maybe she would decide that she couldn't live without him. “I love you, Mel.”

“I love you more,” she whispered, and out of the corner of their eyes they saw Val and Mark kissing and holding each other tight, and Pam made a horrible face.

“Yuck. They're disgusting.” But the boy she had liked on the beach had come to say good-bye to her, and she blushed furiously as she said good-bye to him. Only Matt was left out of the romantic scene, and everyone kissed him good-bye half a dozen times, Raquel, Mel, the twins. And then Mel and Peter kissed again.

“Come out soon.”

“I promise.”

The two tribes waved as the California contingent boarded the small plane unsuccessfully trying not to shed tears en masse, and then the Adamses got into their car and drove toward the ferry, the twins waving handkerchiefs and crying openly, as Mel tried to conceal her aching heart.

CHAPTER 23

The interview that Melanie had done of Peter when they met aired the first week in September and was hailed as one of the most extraordinary documentaries that had been done in the history of television. Everyone felt sure that Mel would win an award for it, and suddenly everyone seemed to be talking about Dr. Peter Hallam. And better yet, since the surgery, Pattie Lou Jones had bloomed. There was a brief film clip of a follow-up on her.

Everyone in L.A. called to tell Peter again and again what a marvelous interview it was, and what a breakthrough for heart transplants and greater public acceptance of them. But repeatedly, Peter gave Mel the credit, and said what a remarkable job she'd done. So much so that when she finally came out to Los Angeles for the last weekend in September, everyone in the hospital seemed to treat her like an old friend, as did Matthew and Mark; Pam still showed a little reserve, and Mrs. Hahn was no friendlier than she had been before.

“It's almost like coming home, Peter.” She smiled happily as he drove her to her hotel. She was staying at the Bel-Air, because it was close to his house and she liked the seclusion, and he was spending the night with her and they could hardly wait. They felt like two kids sneaking off to a hotel, and Mel giggled at the thought. He was going to tell the children the next day that he had stayed at the hospital with a patient, but all his medical contacts knew where he was, in case he was needed during the night. “It's so good to be back.” She strutted around the large cheerful room, peeled off her dress, and sat happily in her slip looking at Peter. It had been three and a half weeks since she'd seen him, but she just hadn't been able to come out sooner, no matter how lonely she'd been for him. And she was. There had been one emergency at the station, Jessica had gotten sick, and it had taken more time than she had thought to reorganize their life in the fall. It always did, but this year she was in more of a hurry than usual. She was absolutely desperate to get to L.A. to be with him.