Phoenix Heart (21 page)

A three-quarter moon in the southeastern sky cast its bright
light through the French doors in squares of light and shadow. It helped me to
see him, but it was a ghostly light that washed the color from his skin and
deepened the shadows under his eyes. “Please, I’ve got to…” His eyes closed and
his head turned away.

I grabbed a damp cloth and wiped his face, trying to cool
him, but he knocked my hand away again. He thrashed back and forth and
struggled to rise. I pulled the blankets back up over him but he threw them
back again, impatiently.

“I don’t want to stay in bed,” he said irritably. “I’ve got
to get up and go… and go…” He looked puzzled and frustrated. He reached over
and grabbed my arm. “Where? Where am I supposed to go?”

“Nowhere, nowhere,” I crooned. “Just lie still. Lie still.”

He stared across the room as if he were trying to see across
a vast distance. “Beth?”

My hand began to shake as I stroked his forehead and hair. My
other hand rested on his shoulder and I could feel his muscles suddenly tense. “Beth,
no! You promised you’d quit!” His thrashing started again.

“No!” he shouted, suddenly furious. He struggled to rise as
I used all my strength to try to keep him down. He shook his head. “Fine, go, get
out!”

“Please, please lie still,” I gasped. “You’ll start the
bleeding again.”

As abruptly as it came, the anger left and his eyes flew
open in panic. “No!” He looked through me, past me. “Please! I didn’t mean it.
No.”

He reached out toward the phantom running away from him. “Wait,
no, Beth, please!” His eyes were wide and pleading. Tears shone in his eyes.

He struggled and I had to lean hard on him to hold him down.
Tears dropped from my face onto the bare skin of his chest. “Please Andrew, please
lie still,” I choked out.

Though he didn’t seem to hear me, he fell back under my
hands. His muscles went limp and he turned his head away. “Beth, please come
back,” he whispered.

He shivered and I pulled the blanket up, tucking it around
him. I lay down next to him, cupping my body against his side, carefully
wrapping my arms around him. I kept saying something to him, kept talking, but
I don’t remember what it was. Just nonsense words, letting him know I was
there, that I would never leave. After several minutes the shivering stopped
and his breathing deepened.

I didn’t sleep the rest of the night.

In the early morning light coming in through the French
doors, I studied Andrew. As an undergrad, I’d developed an interest in sketching
and found I had a talent for capturing a likeness. Drawing had taught me a
different way to look at faces and I found as I sat by the mattress, watching
Andrew sleep, I was assessing how I would transfer what was essentially and
uniquely Andrew to a piece of paper. Unlined and with no flaws, his high
forehead would be tough to catch. His brows were a bit easier, strong and
somewhat darker than the color of his hair; some dark strokes of the pencil
would place them. His eyes were well shaped and somewhat deep set, thus easier
to mark in because I could make strong lines and wouldn’t have to be tentative
with my charcoal. Long, curling, dark blond lashes would be difficult to get
just right, but I thought with work I might do it. Noses were always difficult,
particularly when they were straight and symmetrical; his would be particularly
hard to shade. The planes of his face and the somewhat prominent cheekbones
would take some work, but I knew that sort of classic shape had been caught by
other artists, so I could get some semblance of it. His mouth would be a
problem; it was a bit too perfect. To get the curve and thickness of the lips
without it looking too ideal would be a challenge. An impression of beard
stubble could be made with quick, short strokes using the point of the pencil.
His neck I would suggest with a few long lines.

I held the sketchpad and drew those lines with my 6B black
lead pencil. As I shaded them in, the black lead became red, which began to
make red lines on Andrew’s portrait. Frustrated, I grabbed my gum eraser to
erase the red, but it only smeared and red began to flow out of the page, out
of his mouth…

I jerked awake, still sitting near the mattress, my hands
trying to throw the dream sketch pad across the room. Andrew lay on the bed
exactly as he’d been. I must have slept for no more than a few seconds, just
long enough to dream.

I checked my watch. Time for another struggle to get one of
the antibiotic pills and some water down Andrew’s throat. I went to get a cup
of water and a pill from the bathroom while I tried to shake the effects of the
dream. Even so, I felt a bit like I was sleepwalking.

I knelt by the mattress with the water and pill.

“Andrew?”

He didn’t move.

“Andrew? Can you wake up? Just enough to take this pill.”

No reaction. He’d been fitful most of the night, but now he
seemed to be sound asleep… or…

“Andrew!” I said louder. I laid my hand on his forehead. I
might as well have been cupping a hot mug of coffee.

“Andrew?” My voice came out high and thready. I put down the
water and took his shoulders and shook him. “Andrew!”

No response and the blue sweater felt like a heating pad
turned to high.

I jumped up and ran for the bathroom and soaked a washcloth
and a towel, then ran back, stripped off the sheet and blanket, and started
pulling at the blue sweater. As I moved his arms and tugged at the sleeves, he
didn’t react. His head lolled from side to side, but only because of my
movements.

Please, please, please, please…

“…please, please, please.”

I peeled the sweater up, gently lifting it over the bandage,
and then worked his arms out and pulled the hot material over his head. I threw
it aside, and laid the wet, folded towel on his chest. He groaned slightly at
the touch of the cold cloth, but then quieted. I looked at his jeans, bit my lip,
told myself to stop being a ninny, and slipped my fingers under the waistband
and pulled at the button. I couldn’t quite shake the feeling of unreality from
my dream, and perhaps that contributed to what happened: it was as if, for a
short time, I split. Terrified at the heat coming off his skin, I struggled to
get the denim off him. Yet also, I stood back in utter astonishment watching as
I undressed Dr. Andrew Richards, slipping the button through the buttonhole,
pulling down the zipper, and tugging at the blue denim to peal it down those
long, muscular legs.

Stop it! Focus!

The jeans seemed fairly new and were stiff. I had to pull
and shift them, trying to get them down over his

so very nicely formed

bottom without removing his knit boxer-briefs. His skin was
so hot

oh my, how can just the sight
of a man’s thighs send that shiver over my skin

and I was terrified by the heat radiating off him. I bunched
up the jeans, threw them on top of the sweater, and then took the washcloth,
laid it over his right thigh, and drew the cloth down his leg to his ankle

I must be still dreaming. I
have to be dreaming.

then did the same to the left leg. The hair on his legs was
the same red-blond shade as that on his head. He had a rather long scar near
one ankle that appeared to have happened a long time ago, probably when he was
a boy. Once his legs were a bit cooler, I moved up his body to his boxer-briefs.

Well, he’s not going to need
to buy a monster truck to compensate for any little thing.

I started to giggle. I looked again and the giggle threatened
to become an hysterical laugh. I shook my head fiercely.

Hold it together, Melanie!

I went to the bathroom and cooled off the washcloth and attempted
to cool off my splintered imagination, then went back and tried to calmly draw the
cool cloth beneath the waistband of his shorts and below the edge of the white
bandage that encircled his lower chest. A triangular patch of dark blond hair led
from his navel to below the light blue boxer-briefs. The sight sent a quiver
through my belly and I no longer had the slightest inclination to giggle when I
thought about what lay under that thin material. My heart beat in my throat.

“Stop it Mel,” I whispered, but oh, how I didn’t want to
stop where my thoughts were leading. Maybe if I’d more sleep or less fear in
the previous twenty-four hours I might have been more in control of my senses,
but my imagination took advantage of my weariness and played out a rather vivid
mind film…

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and then moved up to
try and cool the rest of Andrew’s body. The wet towel I’d placed on his upper
body was warm to the touch when I took it off. I wiped his chest with the
washcloth

he didn’t get a chest like
this in the lab

following the contours of his chest, the bones of his
shoulders, down his arms to his hands. I lifted each hand in turn, wiping the
palm, and then between each finger. Then I moved up the mattress and stroked
his face, each eye, his cheeks, his mouth.

what would those lips feel
like against mine.

He murmured something and the spell broke.

“Andrew?” I asked anxiously.

He turned his head and his eyes opened a bit before closing
again. I tossed aside the washcloth and reached for the cup of water and the
antibiotic pill.

“Andrew, I need you to drink something.”

His lips moved and a small sound came out, and then he
subsided.

“Andrew!” I said louder.

His eyes opened, but he didn’t really seem to see me. I
lifted his head, so hot, so very hot, put the pill in his mouth, and then
tilted the glass so he could drink. Some of the water spilled down his neck,
onto his chest, but much of it went into his mouth. He swallowed, and I sighed
with relief as I lowered his head back on the pillow. I went to the bathroom,
soaked the washcloth, and went back to him, continuing to cool him until he
seemed to fall into a more natural sleep.

I slipped through the front door, looked up the hall toward
the bedroom and listened for a moment. The only sound came from a lone bird in
the garden chattering at someone or something--probably the large white Persian
cat from next door who had been making regular, ineffectual forays into the
garden in his single-handed attempt to curb the San Francisco bird population.

I eased the door closed, and dropped my purse and the bag
that held my skirt, my poor bedraggled sweater, and my pumps. I pulled off Andrew’s
black and silver cap and shook my hair down, then pulled off his sunglasses. I’d
found a discount store a few blocks down that sold jeans, running shoes and
lovely, neon-pink and Day-Glo-green t-shirts. Cheap, the shirts wouldn’t last
through one wash, and the least expensive twenty-two dollars each. After
leaving nearly all of my traveler’s checks with Doug and Tim for the first
month’s rent and a hefty security deposit, these clothes had taken most of what
was left. I’d been afraid to use my ATM card to get what little cash remained
in my checking account. Afraid they’d trace it.

I pulled at the jeans. They were a little tight; the shirt I’d
bought was a little too large and had a rather eye-straining depiction of a
giant crab dismantling Fisherman’s Wharf. (The giant crab’s rear leg was
kicking over an enormous stainless steel vat. Crabs were spilling out of it
back into the sea, little balloons over their heads with Yippee! Free at last!
One little one sang “Born Free.” The giant crab’s large claw was lifting the
roof off Alioto’s restaurant on the marina as he reached inside. A man and
woman in Bermuda shorts and baggy shirts, cameras piled nearby, crab bibs tied
around their necks, sat at a table. The woman was staring up, her eyes wide,
her mouth hanging open. Her husband was looking across at her as he said, “You
know Marian, I had a whole ‘nother picture in mind, but I gotta admit, that’s
one steamed crab all right.”) It was bright, it was ugly, and it was the first
thing in two days that had made me laugh.

I headed for the kitchen and set the bag of groceries on the
counter next to where I’d left the Saturday paper, still open to the third page
picture spread of Andrew, the fire-gutted lab, Lance, and, to my horror, a copy
of the small photo that had been attached to my graduate school application. As
soon as Andrew’s picture had hit the Friday night news, the Adonis-like
chauffeur had called the police to tell them of the young woman he had driven
to the LA airport, who had directed him to pick up the tall, red-blond man near
the University. The police had then talked to the bank, talked to all the
students in the lab including Chuck, made the connection between Cheryl and me,
and questioned her. From the tone of the article I could tell that Cheryl had
played the dumb blonde to the T, and I blessed the fact that I was lucky enough
to have a friend like her. They’d talked to the Pacific Crest hotel, entered my
room, found the blood stain on the carpet, the remnants of bloody towels, and
heard the story from the maid, the busboy, the plumber, and the hotel security
staff. I read that they’d let Short-Blond and Beer-Belly go, and only afterward
found that their IDs did not check out. I read that the police feared for my
safety, that I most likely had been taken hostage, that I’d been forced into
the scene in the hotel room by Andrew Richards, who most likely was armed and
hiding somewhere in the room. The hotel staff eagerly agreed that I had seemed
nervous and had behaved strangely. And then the worst: they’d called Maggie,
who confirmed that I’d never willingly be involved in anything like this and
that she too feared for my safety.

I’d picked up the paper late Saturday after Andrew’s fever
had abated somewhat. A discount store a couple of blocks over had a stand out
front; after seeing the headline, I went inside, bought a prepaid cell phone,
and called Cheryl from the alley beside the store.