Something to Talk About (40 page)

“How are you doing?’ she asked as he gave her a quick
and
discreet nuzzle on the neck.

“Just fine, baby.
Being with you makes everything just about perfect. I couldn’t imagine a nicer evening.” Alicia kissed him back and told him that Nina had asked to have lunch with her on the next day. Adam raised his eyebrows as
he looked down at her. “
That’s interesting. I thought she was kind of aloof. She didn’t seem like the type to make friends, if you know what I mean.”

“Well, it seems like you’re wrong about that
.
It looks like she wants to get better acquainted at least
.
”

“That’s nice.
I can’t wait to hear
how it goes.”

“Oh, you know I will. I can’t keep anything from you, now, can I?”
She smiled up at him and he tightened his arms around her, smelling her fantastic hair as he did so.

“Can we go now? I need to be alone with you in the worst way,” he whispered.

Alicia giggled and told him to behave. “It’s going to be a long time before we can do any of that, so chill. I promise to make the wait worth your while, though.”

Only
partly
mollified, Adam agreed to behave. “But when we’re alone all bets are off, so get ready, baby
.
”

***

Roxy’s eyes were huge and full of concern for her friend. It was the day after the baseball game and Alicia had called her in the early afternoon asking if she could
come
talk to her.

“Of course.
I’m at home all day today waiting for the movers, so come ahead.” Roxy had, with her usual efficiency, procured a lovely condominium that faced the man-made lake in the middle of the complex, and she was in the process of moving in. When Alicia arrived she found Roxy surrounded by boxes and furniture that looked like it had just been taken off a truck and dropped, which Roxy admitted it had.

“Their feet were so dirty I didn’t want to risk my carpet,” she said, indicating the brand-new snowy-white Berber. “So I had them get in and out as quickly as possible.”

Alicia nodded distractedly. “How are you going to get everything in place?”

Roxy smiled mysteriously. “Help is on the way. Now what’s troubling you, Alicia? I could tell by your tone of voice that something is wrong.”

Alicia’s eyes filled with tears and she looked around for something on which to sit. She ended up sitting on a big box and wrapping her arms around her middle before answering. “John Flores is dying, Roxy. He has a liver disease that will kill him in a very short time if nothing is done about it
.
”

Roxy went to Alicia at once, dropping to her knees and putting her arms around her friend. “That’s awful, Alicia. How did you find out?”

Alicia pulled out of Roxy’s embrace and stared at her with big sad eyes that showed the strain of trying not to cry. “I had lunch today with that friend of John’s, that Nina Whitney. She’s the one who told me. She found out by accident
;
John doesn’t even know that she knows. But the reason she told me is that John can survive the disease if he gets a liver transplant,” Alicia said in a voice choked with emotion.

Roxy looked relieved. “Well, that’s something. Maybe Andrew can use his pull to get him on a list or something. With both Andrew and John being prominent doctors, maybe something can be done to expedite the situation,” she said with hope in her voice.

Alicia was shaking her head even as Roxy spoke. “It’s not like that,
Rox
. First of all, John wouldn’t even consider preferential treatment. I don’t know him very well, of course, but I can’t see him allowing himself to be pushed to the head of a list somewhere; he’d never put his life in front of another person’s.” She sniffed and took a deep breath before continuing. “The other thing is this,
Roxy,
it can’t be a cadaver transplant. In order for it to work the transplant has to come from a living donor.”

Roxy looked both repulsed and fascinated by the information. “But how can you take the liver from a live person?” she asked with a shudder. “I thought that was an essential body organ.”

“It is essential, but it will also regenerate. You can take half a liver out of a living person and put it into a person with a diseased liver and both people will end up with a whole liver because it will grow back. The only thing is the donor has to be about the same height, weight, and age as the person receiving the liver.
Which makes Adam
…
”

“The perfect donor,” Roxy breathed. “Oh my God, Alicia, is that why she wanted to have lunch with you, to ask for Adam’s, Adam’s ...” She couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Yes, that’s just about it. She wants me to talk to Adam so he’ll agree to do it and I couldn’t say yes to her. First of all, I couldn’t possibly try to influence Adam in something like that. With all he’s been through lately, how could I possibly try to talk him into doing something like that for someone he hardly knows? I understand her concern for the man, but dang, that’s a bit much, don’t you think?” Alicia wiped her eyes and continued. “She’s either crazy in love with the man or she has no sense of propriety whatsoever. But she did do her homework. I now know more about partial liver transplants than I ever cared to know in this life.”

“Maybe it’s a little bit of both,” Roxy said gently. “Maybe she’s in love and desperate. You know you’d be doing the same thing if Adam’s health was in danger.”

Alicia had to agree with her friend. “Girl, I’d not only ask for the stupid liver, I’d be trying to take it out myself with a melon bailer if I had to. I couldn’t just sit by and do nothing, which I why I feel so bad about the second reason I can’t talk to Adam.”

Roxy braced herself for the worst. “What’s that reason, Alicia?”

“Because I don’t want him to do it,” she whispered.

***

Adam glanced at the caller ID on his cell phone and was mildly intrigued to see it was a call from California. “Hello?”

The voice on the other end wasted no time in getting to the point. “This is Nina Whitney and I’d like to talk to you if you have some time.”

“Sure, Nina.
Are you out of town? My caller ID read a California call,” he said with curiosity.

“I’m calling you from
my cell phone. Do you mind if I come to your place?”

Adam raised an eyebrow. Thi
s woman meant business, apparentl
y. “Sure, when can you stop by?”

“Open your door.”

Adam did so and there Nina stood, slim and resolute, her phone still clamped to her ear.

“Why don’t you come in and have a seat?” he said with his usual dry humor.

Nina didn’t lose a bit of her normal aplomb as she accepted a seat in the cavernous living area. She looked around at the majestic space and commented that it was a very nice place to live.

“I can see why you’re successful, you and Alicia. You made this place into a real home,” she said. She’d said something similar the night before when everyone had gathered there after the ball game, but unlike the night before her mind didn’t seem remotely on the appearance of his loft
.
She obviously had something to say.

Adam encouraged her to unburden herself. “You seem to have something to tell me. What is it?” he asked in a quiet, concerned voice.

“You’re probably going to think I have no business telling you this, but I don’t have a choice. John is dying,” she said in a flat, dull voice. “He has something called primary
sclerosing
cholangitis
; it’s a disease of the liver. Nobody knows what causes it, other than there are some genetic factors involved. He probably inherited from his biological mother, but that hardly seems to matter now. What matters is he doesn’t have long to live. Once the disease takes hold the patient has only a couple of years to live, three at the most
.
There
is no cure; his only hope is a partial liver transplant from a closely matched donor. I think you’re an intelligent man, Adam, you know where I’m going with this.”

Adam was amazed that he was able to follow what she was saying. After her initial words he’d been so stunned that he couldn’t utter a word, he just listened to her dry, unemotional delivery with an odd sort of admiration. She clearly cared a great deed about John and was willing to approach a near stranger and discuss intimate matters if that’s what it took to help him.

“Are you listening to me, Adam?” she asked with intense irritation.
God, what a time for him to be daydreaming.

“Yes, I am. I’m sorry if I looked like I was drifting, but this is a lot to take in. Does John know you’re here?”

“Of course not,” she snapped. “He has no idea I know about his condition. I found out a few months ago by accident.”

“How so?”
Adam asked. There was much more to Nina than met the eye, he was beginning to see that.

Nina sighed in resignation. “I’m not really his assistant, you know. I work for his publisher. John is a brilliant man but his writing skills are somewhat lacking. The publishers were so anxious to put out his book they sent me to help him. I’m a ghostwriter, a person who puts other people’s ideas on paper. I’m not terribly imaginative, but I’m quite skilled in writing so it’s a perfect match. John is so smart it’s scary, but he’s not the most organized person I’ve ever met,” she said with the slightest hint of a smile. “In order for us to work together I had to get him organized while his real assistant was on maternity leave and it ended up with me doing a lot of things a ghostwriter normally wouldn’t do. I was answering the phone for him one day and he picked up the extension at the same time, so I overheard something I shouldn’t.” She paused, clearly reliving the moment when she found out his prognosis.

“After that incident, I felt no compunction about nosing around and I found what I needed to know in his files. Now, I don’t know you or any of his new family well enough to ask you this, but I have to take the chance. I’m sure all of this has been upsetting and made you rethink your life and your relationship with your father and question everything you’ve ever been taught, but I want you to stop thinking about that for now and answer me one question. If you could stop him from dying, would you?”

Adam stared at her for a minute and was deeply impressed by what he saw. Her passion and intelligence showed clearly, and so did her anxiety. She was nervous, so nervous that her voice was shaking, but it didn’t stop her from laying her cards out on the table. He had no idea what made him blurt it out like he did, but the words just leaped out of his mouth.

“You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”

Nina rolled her eyes and gave him a baleful stare. “What
is
it with you people? Are you all just in love with being in love?” Her voice was full of scorn and she waved her hand
impatiendy
. “I’ve never seen so many grown people drooling over each other the way you Cochrans do. I’m really not trying to be critical, but you all are way too adorable for me. All that kissing and hugging and lovey-dovey stuff you all do is just too much. It’s like being in a very long episode of
The Cosby Show,"
she blurted, and then blushed from her chest all the way up to her hairline.

“I’m sorry, that was really rude of me. Please accept my apologies because I’m not trying to disrespect your family. Y
’
all are a
bit
too charming for me, but that’s my problem. And John’s problem is the most important thing to me right now. I’m not in love with him but I care about him. He’s a good man, a really good man, and he doesn’t deserve to die this young.”

“You don’t need to apologize, Nina. I don’t think I’d be any more diplomatic if I was trying to save my friend’s life, either. This is why you wanted to have lunch with Alicia, isn’t it?”

Nina nodded. “I thought maybe I could get her to
come
talk to you, but she, um, she ...”

Adam finished her sentence for her. “She said she couldn’t do it because I was already being torn apart by this. Or words to that effect,
am
I right?”

Nina nodded again. “I was pretty hard on her,” she confessed. “I said some things that were rather harsh. I hope she can forgive me for it.”

Adam waved a hand to indicate it was of
no
importance. “When you get to know Alicia you’ll understand that she’s one of the most forgiving and understanding people you’ll ever meet
.
It’s one of the reasons I love her so much.”

“See, that’s what I’m talking about,” Nina burst out. “You Cochrans and this love stuff, I’ve never seen anything like it
.
Y
ou
all make the
Huxtables
look like the Simpsons, but that’s beside the point. What I want to know is if you’re willing to help John. He didn’t ask for any of this and he doesn’t deserve it,” she said with a touch of desperation in her voice.

Adam looked at her, her long slender fingers twisting in her lap and an errant piece of hair falling from her normally perfect hair. Before he could utter a word she leaned forward and asked him again if he would help John.