Making a Comeback (6 page)

“I’d love to.” Peggy handed her a plate wrapped in foil. “Cake for breakfast.”

“You’re a bad influence.” She hugged Peggy for longer than she should, but it felt good. When she let go, Jac was there with Max in harness.

Liz stumbled as she stepped from the squishy gravel of the driveway to the street. Holding onto Jac’s shoulder, she took off each sandal and shook out offending pebbles, then tugged them back on. She hooked her arm through Jac’s as they walked the unlit street, another of Carmel’s quirks—no streetlights. “Why aren’t you drunk?”

“Practice.”

“I love all the connections between our families.” Liz hiccupped, then giggled, and hiccupped again. It was glorious to feel happy even if it was alcohol induced. “I wish we’d met as kids. I like talking to you. When you talk. Would you listen to the recordings?”

“You don’t need my help.”

“I love Carmel.” Liz looked for the moon, but all she saw were stars in the pitch-black sky. She could hear the faint sound of the ocean a few blocks away. She let go of Jac’s arm and spun around in a circle, bumping Jac’s shoulder.

“Careful.” Jac steadied her. Such strong fingers.

“I had a dorm mate in college who was blind. Great sax player…” A cat darted across the street and then another one chasing it. The first one leapt over a picket fence, but the second one didn’t and fell back before scrambling over it. Liz laughed, swinging her arms. God, she felt good. “Where was I? Oh, yeah. I tried to use his cane once with my eyes closed and nearly knocked myself out walking into a branch. He was blind from birth. When did you lose your sight?”

“If there was some reason for you to know, I would tell you. Drunken curiosity doesn’t constitute a reason to know.”

The unexpected harshness of Jac’s reply penetrated her awareness. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.” She struggled to keep up with Jac’s lengthening strides. “I’d like us to be friends is all. I’d like—” The toe of her sandal caught, and the next thing she knew she was sprawled face-first on the street. Her left wrist hurt like hell. “Shit.”

“What happened? Liz? Where are you?”

“Here.” Liz cradled her arm as she struggled to her knees. The pain made her stomach clench, and she swallowed to keep from throwing up. Max nosed her cheek.

“Are you hurt?” Jac gripped her shoulder.

“My wrist.” She flopped to her butt and rested her forehead against bent knees as she rubbed her wrist. A sharp pain shot up her arm and nausea hit her again.

“Damn it, I should have brought a flashlight for you. Can you get up?”

“I don’t know.” Tears sprang to her eyes from the pain.

“Take my hand.” Jac pulled her up and gripped her waist. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“I don’t think so.” She pressed her palm to her forehead to stop the spinning.

“Give me your hand.”

“It’s fine. I’ll put some ice on it.” Was this what a sprain felt like?

“You’re a musician, damn it. Give me your hand.”

Jac’s touch was gentle but thorough. “I’m calling Peg and we’re taking you to the hospital. It’s broken.”

“How can—”

“I feel a ridge in the bone that shouldn’t be there.”

“I don’t want to.” Bile rose again. No hospitals. Bad things happen there, her drunken brain said.

“You don’t have a choice.”

“I can’t.” Her voice rose, and she clung to Jac’s shoulder as her surroundings spun. She covered her mouth, but the sob broke through. “I can’t.” When Jac’s arm came around her waist, she turned into her and buried her face against her sweater. It was soft and smelled faintly of perfume, a delicate floral scent. “I can’t.”

“Let’s get you home.”

Tears streamed down her face and her wrist hurt. Bad. It couldn’t be broken. It just couldn’t.

She was holding ice cubes in a towel against her wrist when Peggy and Roger came through the front door. Fear thrummed through her racing pulse, but she didn’t argue about the hospital. She couldn’t move her hand. “I’m sorry I ruined the evening.” Her voice cracked, and she pressed another Kleenex against the flood of tears.

“Shh,” Peggy said, wrapping her in a hug. “I should have had Susanne drive you home. Come on, she’s waiting in the car. Do you want to call your family and have them meet us?”

“No.” The last thing she wanted was her family to have to come to her rescue again.

*

Jac stepped out of Roger’s SUV and rubbed her lower back. She hated hospitals, and Liz’s anxiety had added to the stress. Two hours in the hard ER chair was torture on her back. It throbbed and the muscles were tight bands under her fingers. Hot tub. Stretching. Bed. Maybe a muscle relaxer. She removed Max’s harness and headed across the gravel. He must be as tired as she.

“I’ll walk down with you,” Peg said when they reached the patio.

“Don’t.” She knew what was coming.

“Why didn’t you tell me about Teri?”

“It wasn’t my place.”

“Just because you ferociously guard every detail of your life doesn’t mean everyone does. I feel bad it came out like that. She seemed to drink more afterward.”

Jac said nothing because there was nothing to say.

“And you knew about her band.”

“Yes.” She didn’t tell Peg it was the second time Liz had lost her chance at fame because of Teri. Losing everything—the dark side of love.

“You didn’t see how defeated she looked when she talked about it.”

As if she needed to see what was clear in Liz’s voice—sadness, loss, fear.

“Can’t you help her?”

“A review of a two-year-old album won’t do her any good.”

“Don’t play dumb with me. Can you at least help her with her CD? It might give her the encouragement she needs to keep going.”

“Why do you care?”

“Why don’t you?”

She opened her front door. This conversation needed to end. “I don’t get involved with—”

“Anyone. I know.” Peg walked away and then her footsteps stopped. “Don’t you miss it?” Peg’s voice held nostalgia she didn’t want to hear.

Memories followed Jac to the hot tub, which did little to relax her back, and then to bed, where she dozed in a half sleep, fighting the tug back to a past she didn’t want to think about. Emotions surged and curled over each other like ocean currents—regret, guilt, and loss in an inseparable swirl. Max lay stretched out along her side, his undemanding presence comforting. No, she couldn’t afford to miss what was irrevocably gone.

She finally got up and took a muscle relaxer. Getting involved was a bad idea. But…the chance to help a talented musician create an album that might be great. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to listen to the recorded material. If it was good…She tugged the down comforter up to her chin and clenched it. No. She did not get involved. Her life worked just fine, and opening it up for any reason wasn’t smart. It would only lead to disaster. It always did.

Liz woke with a dull ache behind her eyes and a fuzzy taste in her mouth—revenge of the old cabs. And a cast on her left forearm. She pulled it from under the covers. Peggy had drawn colorful flowers on it, but Liz found nothing cheerful about this. Lucky, the doctor said. No displacement. It should heal on its own. Then she’d told him she played piano professionally. His expression changed and he’d suggested she see a specialist. She was too scared to ask him questions.

She rubbed her finger where her wedding ring should be. It hadn’t been off since the day Teri put it on. She tried to bend her puffy fingers. Would she ever play again? She groaned and rolled over, burying her face in the pillow. How could she explain this to her dad? To Regan and Sammy? Maybe it was a blessing in disguise. She’d take a break for a while. Regan and Sammy should find another band. She’d tell them today at her dad’s birthday party. It would be better for everyone.

Making coffee with one hand was a new adventure, but her fuzzy head demanded it. Cup in hand, she headed for the shower, a necessity just slightly behind coffee.

She stopped halfway down the hall and looked at the cast. Darn. What had the doctor said? Wrap it in a plastic bag when she showered. She trudged back to the kitchen and tugged a Ziploc bag from a drawer. Not big enough. She pulled a trash bag from under the sink, slid it over the cast, and twisted the excess around it. All the rubber bands in the drawer were too small to fit over the cast. In frustration she took the bag off. A bath would have to do.

As she waited for the tub to fill she wriggled out of her T-shirt. Hers, not Teri’s. She sat down hard on the edge of the tub, tears bubbling up along with the urge to laugh. How had what she slept in become so important?

She lowered herself into the bath feeling numb and lost. Six months next Saturday—she knew without having to count, as if a calendar had been inserted into her brain labeled
Before Teri
and
After Teri
. When had counting the days gone to counting the weeks? And now she was up to months.

She had to sit with her back lodged next to the faucet so she could rest her left arm on the edge. She closed her eyes, knees bent in the short tub. The last time she’d taken a bath, it had been with Teri resting back against her, the week before she died.

She replayed the moment they knew they wouldn’t win the battle with the leukemia this time. For reasons the doctors couldn’t explain, Teri’s body wasn’t responding to the drugs. It had been late at night, and the hospital had moved into its night sounds. Crawling into the bed, she’d cradled Teri, stroking through her hair, desperate to give comfort.

“Water?” Teri croaked.

Liz held the straw to Teri’s mouth as she sipped and then spread lip balm over Teri’s lips.

“Promise me something.” Teri’s voice was thick and slow.

“Anything.” She kissed Teri’s head, damp with sweat from the fever.

“Promise you’ll go on with your life.” And then in barely a whisper she said, “I’m not going to make it this time.”

Tears sprang to her eyes and she hugged Teri tight as if she could stop time by the sheer force of her will and her love.

Teri stroked her forearm. “I fell in love with you in the space of a heartbeat. Loved you every moment since. If I can’t have a long life, I’ve had a happy one. Because of you, baby.”

Liz could barely swallow around the lump in her throat as she gave Teri more water.

“Remember the happy times. Let yourself make new happy memories.”

No. She wouldn’t have any happy times without Teri.

“Promise you’ll keep playing.”

She wouldn’t promise that. Not that. Music without Teri? Teri
was
the music. Unable to hold back sobs, she’d buried her face in Teri’s hair, run her fingers through it, kissed Teri desperately on her forehead, on her cheek, and then on her mouth, silencing words she couldn’t bear to hear.

The next day she’d taken Teri home and called hospice. They’d had a few good weeks, laughing together, talking, and even making love. Friends and family had rallied around them, but all the love in the world hadn’t stopped the inevitable. She’d died in Liz’s arms in the quiet of the early fall morning.

“I can’t do it. Not without you.” Holding her arm up, she slid down until her head was underwater, squeezing her eyes shut, seeking comfort in the warm water. Had her grandma cried in this tub for her lost love? Grandpa had died in his sixties, and she’d lived almost twenty years without him. She had no idea how to live without Teri. She got out of the tub. She’d never make it through her dad’s birthday party if she didn’t pull herself together. The doorbell rang as she tugged on a robe.

“You forgot this last night.” Peggy had a foil-wrapped plate in her hand. “How’s the wrist?”

“Broken,” she said humorlessly.

“I feel awful about it.”

“Not your fault. Let me get dressed. There’s coffee.” Of course she’d made enough for two again.

“One-handed isn’t fun,” Liz said, joining Peggy at the ancient table on the patio, forcing her arm through a sweatshirt sleeve. She swallowed a pain pill with a sip of coffee and chased it with a big bite of cake.

“We definitely need to do something with this garden,” Peggy said.

She liked the way Peggy said “we.” She tried to ignore the throbbing in her wrist as Peggy talked about her kids—Jack, a freshman in high school and obsessed with skateboarding. Susanne, a junior and aspiring actress.

When cake and coffee were gone, Peggy carried dishes to the kitchen. “Shall I wash these for you?”

“No. If I’m going to be one-armed for a while, I might as well start practicing.”

Peggy went to stand behind the piano, looking out the corner windows to the garden. “I can’t believe I’m back in this house.” She turned one of the cranberry-glass bowls on the shelf. “I’d like us to be friends.”

“Me, too. I’d like to be friends with Jac, but I think I annoy her.”

“
I
annoy her. Don’t take it seriously. You two have a lot in common. You really should ask her to help you with the CD.”

“I might not do it at all. I decided this morning not to keep the band together.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Peggy looked like she wanted to say more. Finally she shook her head.

She walked Peggy to the door and then went back to the piano and played the right-hand part to the first song she’d written for Teri. It was sweet and full of their new love. Jac would say it was immature. She liked Jac’s decisive opinions.

Notes ran through her head and she plunked them one-handed. Another bit of the melody she’d heard Friday. Some songs came all at once. She suspected this one would take its time.

Liz tried to dampen her irritation with Hannah as she drove the two miles from her condo to her dad’s house through the downtown San Jose neighborhood that was a mix of pre-World War II homes and small businesses. She’d stopped at home to grab a blazer that would fit over the cast. Messy didn’t even begin to describe the state of the condo.

She pulled to the curb in front of her dad’s house on the tree-lined street. The two-story house with the wide front porch had recently been repainted white with black trim, the only colors it had ever been. She was careful not to park under the canopy of the mulberry tree. Her mom hated the messy street tree whose berries stained sidewalks and cars purple in the spring.