More Than Friends (12 page)

That was actually fine with J.D." who could rationalize not being at the hospital as long as he was with a client. Besides, he could afford to walk as slowly as Stanley wanted. He billed by the hour.

"Shouldn't happen to a boy," Stanley tsked, turning to talk of Michael as they ambled along. "To someone my age, maybe, but not to a boy. Has there been any change?"

"They took him off the respirator this morning."

"Ahhh. Now, that's a good sign."

J.D. wished he could see it that way, but all he could see was Michael's deathly pale face. It was never far from him. "Actually," he told Stanley, "they felt he probably hadn't needed it in the first place. His vital signs haven't changed any since they removed the tube. He's still in a coma."

Stanley tsked again and lapsed into silence. After a bit he said, "And Theodora? How is she?"

J.D. felt a flicker of annoyance. "She hasn't left the hospital since it happened. She just stands by his bed." He didn't know what he expected, but it wasn't that. Her paralysis was unsettling--not only to him, but to Jana and Leigh. They had been impossible the night before, bickering with each other in ways Teke would have known how to handle. Lord knew he didn't.

"Poor Theodora," Stanley mused, and lapsed into another silence. By the time he emerged, they had reached the law firm. J.D. guided him to an empty conference room, where the old man promptly stretched out on a sofa and dozed off.

J.D. returned to his office with the intention of calling the hospital, but he had no sooner picked up the phone than Virginia Clinger appeared at his door. He had known she was coming. She was Stanley Wallace's daughter. In return for a check each month to supplement her alimony, she filled in as his driver when neither of her sisters could make it.

"Hey," she said with a bright smile, "got a minute?" He didn't, and Virginia wasn't his favorite person. As an old family friend, she was a nuisance. As his neighbor, she was a snoop. Unfortunately she was also one of three beneficiaries to the Wallace estate and, as such, was an investment in his future. So he nodded, set down the phone, and gestured her to a chair.

She was wearing a suit with a short skirt the likes of which J.D. would never have allowed Teke to wear. He had to hand it to her, though. She did have great legs.

Wrapped in a cloak of sweet perfume, she crossed those legs, folded her hands demurely in her lap, and faced him with wide-eyed concern. "I keep ringing your doorbell and missing you. How is Michael?" When J.D. told her about the respirator, she gave a huge sigh. "Thank goodness for that."

"It doesn't mean all that much."

"It certainly does," she scolded. "It means he can breathe on his own, which you didn't know before. Is he moving at all?"

"Randomly. The nurse says they're muscle spasms."

"What does the nurse know," Virginia scoffed. "She doesn't know what's going on in his mind. Just this morning I was using the stair machine with a friend at the health club, and she said that her sister in Omaha had a similar experience with a child of hers several years ago. It was a little girl. She was hit coming home from school when a car failed to stop for the school bus. She was in a coma for nineteen days."

J.D. wasn't sure if he trusted anything Virginia said. She was a known embellisher of the facts. Still, he listened. He was hungry for hope.

"Did she wake up?"

"Uh-huh," Virginia said smugly, "but only after my friend's sister got involved in a radical form of therapy. She is convinced that's what brought her daughter out of the coma."

J.D. wasn't into radical forms of anything; still, he wanted to hear more. "What kind of therapy?"

"It's called coma arousal. For hours at a stretch, they banged wood blocks together by the little girl's ears. They shined bright lights in her eyes. They scratched her skin. They say that when a person is in a coma, he is lost somewhere inside his body, and the therapy is designed as a beacon to guide the person back. You should look into it, J.D. I bet Michael's doctors haven't suggested it."

"It's only been two days," J.D. reasoned. "They're concentrating on keeping him stabilized."

"They're too conventional," Virginia said with a twitch of her nose. Coaxingly she added, "This wouldn't hurt. My friend said that her sister would be glad to talk with you. Or with Teke. How is she, by the way? I keep an eye on your driveway, but I haven't seen her coming or going."

J.D. pictured the front window at the end of Virginia's house. It was a large bay and looked out

from the breakfast room, where it seemed Virginia spent most of her time. Many a morning he had seen her at that window watching him leave for work.

"Teke stays at the hospital with Michael," he said. Virginia looked surprised. "All the time? But, what's happening at the house?"

"We're managing."

"She's put all that responsibility on you?"

One part of J.D. was pleased to know that someone else thought Teke could be doing more. The other part felt called upon to say, "She's staying with our son, who is in a coma."

Virginia dropped her eyes. She looked at her hands, turned them in her lap, looked up unsurely. "I'm worried about her, J.D."

"She'll be fine."

"No, not just about Michael. In general. I think Teke is going through something else."

J.D. shot a fast look at the ceiling. "Like what?"

"A personal crisis."

"Come on, Virginia--"

"I'm serious, and I wouldn't say anything if I didn't mean it, because I'm in an awkward position. It's no secret that I was irked when you married Teke. Our families have known each other for years. They had hoped we'd marry each other, and I'd have married you in a minute, but you picked Teke. It was done, I accepted it. I tried to be a friend to her."

J.D. shrugged at the impossibility of that. "You're very different women. She's a homebody, you're a social butterfly."

"We're not so different."

"She loves kids, you love adults."

"I like kids, too."

"She's a one-man woman; you're looking for husband number four."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Is it five?"

"About Teke."

J.D. had no idea what she was talking about. He glanced at his watch. He had a client due in at three thirty and had been hoping to get to the hospital and back in time.

Virginia sat forward. "I think she's having an affair."

"What?"

"An affair."

He laughed. "I thought you'd gotten over me, Gin. Why the sudden bad-mouthing of my wife?"

"I never got over you, which is why I'm worried. She's going to hurt you, J.D."

"Having an affair," he said as though it were the most preposterous idea around. Teke wouldn't have an affair. She wouldn't dare.

"With Sam."

"Are you kidding?" He felt the stirrings of impatience. "Sam is my best friend. He's my law partner. Be real, Gin."

But she wasn't backing off. "I saw them."

"When?"

"Tuesday."

"The day of the accident?"

She nodded. "When they ran out of the house after Michael, they were barely dressed. Teke was tying her robe, and Sam looked guilty as sin."

J.D. stood. Her perfume was suddenly cloying, and he had heard more than enough from her mouth. Aware that he was toying with future business, he kept his voice civil. "I think you ought to leave."

"Ask Sam."

"I won't ask Sam. I won't insult him that way." Still she didn't back off, which annoyed J.D. all the more. "It makes sense," she insisted. "Why did Michael run blindly into the street that way, if not to escape something upsetting that he'd seen? Think about it, J.D. You'll know I'm right."

J.D. started for the door but stopped when a thought struck. He speared Virginia with a look. "Who have you told this to?" She rose. "That's not the point--"

"It is the point!" he shouted. In sudden fury he swung the door shut and faced her again. His voice shook. "You're right. Our families have known each other for a long time, which means that I know you and what you're capable of. You meddle, and you gossip." He raised a finger. "I'm going to say this once and only once. You--saw--nothing. If Michael ran out of the house, it was for a good reason and not because my wife and my best friend were doing something they shouldn't have been doing. Give me a little credit, Virginia. I can satisfy my wife." His voice hardened. "I also carry a little weight with your father, who is beginning to begrudge supporting the cosmetic surgeons of Boston. Stanley could easily be convinced that you have plenty of money without his contribution each month. I promise you--spread your little story around, and there'll be trouble."

More meekly Virginia said, "I'm only trying to protect you."

"By wreaking havoc on my marriage?" he yelled. "No wonder you can't keep a husband." He pointed to his head. "Loose screws. How would sabotaging my marriage possibly protect me? That's the last thing it would do. Particularly with Michael so sick."

"I only wanted to help."

"You want to help? Fine. You can clean house

and do laundry and make dinner, like my wife would be doing if she weren't at the hospital with my son. You want to clean and do laundry and make dinner? Of course you don't. You want hired help to do all that, while you go to the health club and sweat a little in front of the trainer. The trainer. For God's sake, Gin, he's ten years younger than you are. His biceps dwarf his brain. Can't you do better than that?"

"I'm not--"

"Let's get Stanley. He's napped long enough." J.D. threw open the door and strode angrily down the hall, but whereas the boiling should have stopped the instant Virginia and Stanley left, it didn't. A whistle of alarm continued to shrill in his mind.

Carried by the momentum of that alarm, he went into Sam's office, shut the door behind him, flattened his hands on the desk, and, heedless of the fact that Sam was on the phone, said, "What were you doing at my house Tuesday?"

Sam held him off with a finger. "That's right," he said into the phone. "Six defendants in a class action suit." He shot a look at the ceiling while the person on the other end of the line spoke, then said,

"No, I don't believe there has been a similar ruling in another state yet. Look, Hank, can we finish this up later?" He listened again, said a quick, "Right," then hung up the phone.

"Well?" J.D. prodded. When Sam didn't speak he said, "My house. Tuesday. Were you there when Michael ran in?"

It took a long time, but Sam finally nodded.

J.D. had an awful, awful feeling that had to do with the resigned way Sam looked. "What were you doing there?"

Looking for Annie was the obvious answer. But Sam didn't say it.

"Simple question," J.D. prompted, his voice now dangerously low. This was Sam, his trusted friend and law partner. "What were you doing there?"

Still Sam didn't speak. J.D. tried to read the look on his face, but he only saw red. "Want to know what Virginia just told me?" he asked, and was prepared to go on when Sam spoke.

"Probably the same thing she told her kids, who told our kids yesterday in school. She's probably told half the town. Annie and I are going to talk with her later--"

"No need," J.D. cut in. "I just told her to keep her mouth shut. I threatened that I'd influence her father against her, which is an unethical thing to do, but, so help me, I will if she so much as hints again that you and Teke are having an affair." But that wasn't the end of it. J.D. had a need to lay it all out. "Want to know what she said? She said that when Teke ran out after Michael, she was tying her robe, and that you were looking guilty. She said Michael must have barged in on the two of you." He paused, breathing uneasily. "Deny it, Sam. Tell me she's wrong. I need to be able to say that you unequivocally deny it."

Sam looked at him for another minute, then rose from the desk and went to the window. "Teke and I are not having an affair." J.D. waited. "Go on," he finally said. He knew there was more. It was the missing piece of the puzzle.

"I was with Teke when Michael ran in. He saw us before we saw him. He must have misinterpreted."

"Misinterpreted what?" J.D. demanded.

Sam scratched his mustache. It wasn't a typical gesture, which made it all the more meaningful. Sam Pope only scratched his mustache when he was unusually nervous. Not uneasy, or unsure, but nervous. As in guilty.

J.D. gritted his teeth. "You did it, you bastard."

"Not like you think."

"You either fucked her, or you didn't. Or are you trying to tell me it was kinky? For Christ's sake, Sam!" He wrapped a hand around the back of his neck and turned away. He couldn't believe it. His best friend and his wife. He wheeled back. "Why, Sam? Jesus. It never even occurred to me to think of it, that's how dumb I am, but it makes sense. It explains why Michael ran out without talking to her, and why she won't look me in the eye." He tried to grasp the meaning of it.

"How could you do this to me? Teke is my wife. After all I've done for you, all I've fought for you--is this how you pay me back?"

"You're jumping to the wrong conclusions."

"Okay. Set me straight. Yes or no, did you screw her?"

"There was nothing personal--"

"Were you or were you not having intercourse with my wife when my thirteen-year-old son caught you at it?"

"Easy, J.D."

"Yes or no."

"Yes, but--"

"Christ!" J.D. was seized by a fury so raw, his head spun. His first thoughts were that he wanted to hit Sam. His next thought was that it wasn't worth the effort. So he made for the door.

Sam was fast beside him, saying under his breath so that the ears of the firm wouldn't hear, "It wasn't her fault."

"She can tell me that," J.D. muttered as he stormed down the hall.

"She won't. She blames herself."

"Maybe justly."

"No." Sam grabbed his arm. "Don't hit her with this now. She has enough to deal with without it."

J.D. shook him off and strode on. "What about me? Don't I have enough to deal with? I'm the one picking up the pieces. I'm the one trying to keep my family functioning."

"You won't do it this way."