Miracle (30 page)

He spoke the words as if they were a mantra. Amy watched him in fascination. He swiveled toward her, then
slicked a quivering hand over sandy-brown hair that was fashionably short but comfortably mussed. “Baby boomers, baby,” he said, smiling at her in a tight, nervous way. “I’m going to own them.” He snapped his fingers in a silent, manic rhythm.

Elliot Thornton, Kansas City native, childhood asthmatic, Michigan State graduate in education, and outrageously spoiled only offspring of a dentist and a lawyer, was obviously scared to death of going on stage. Amy could see a blue vein throbbing in his all-American cheek.

He needed her to be his assistant tonight, to hang around with him and soothe his nerves. He’d said so at the radio station that morning, after a crazed, brilliant interview with Parker.

He’d said so again during a lunch of hotdogs and onion rings at the Athens Varsity. He’d said so once more on the card that came with the pink roses that were delivered to her house after she returned from her afternoon classes.

She was needed. She was the calm one. She could barely believe it. She was thrilled.

Amy patted his arm. “What you’ve got out there tonight are
Southern
baby boomers. Hush-your-mouth-and-pass-the-quiche types. I call ’em Hush Yuppies.”

A grin cracked his tense expression. “Hush Yuppies, Hush Yuppies. Hmmm. That’s great, baby.”

“Thank you,
baby.
”

“Ready, Mr. Thornton?” the emcee asked, stepping out of a hallway that led to the back of the club. The emcee was a tall black guy who traveled the regional college circuit doing bad impressions of Jimmy Walker and opening for comics who had a much brighter future than his own.

“Yeah.” Elliot wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. “And hey, you shouldn’t call me Mr. Thornton.”

“Thanks.”

“
Massuh
Thornton will do just fine.”

The emcee grunted like Mr. T. “I’ll chew up your ass and spit it in your ear, white boy.”

They shook hands cheerfully, and the emcee went on stage. He worked the crowd with professional control, and
Amy was mesmerized. She loved watching from this viewpoint; she loved the curious, respectful glances the waitresses gave her and Elliot as they walked past on their way to the kitchen; she loved the undercurrent of anticipation in the audience because of Elliot. She loved being Elliot Thornton’s assistant, for whatever it was worth.

He was nice. He hadn’t put any moves on her, so even though Mary Beth had voiced the opinion that he was looking more for a piece of ass than an assistant, Amy felt comfortable with him. There was, after all, only one man who had the power to overwhelm her good sense, and she hadn’t seen him in almost three years. He was in France, with his wife. She had dreamed about him again, one of her painful, erotic, desperate dreams, only the other night.

The emcee finished his routine to respectable applause. Elliot paced back and forth in a space no more than a yard long, practically pivoting in a circle. Amy discovered that her heart was pounding with excitement, as if she were the one going on stage. This was so perfect, being part of the anticipation without suffering the terror.

“Please welcome Elliot Thornton!”

As cheers and applause flooded the stage and swept back into the wings, Elliot grabbed her in his arms and gave her a dry, compressed kiss on the mouth. His body was as tight as an overwound spring. “I’m going to be top dog, baby. Wish me luck.”

“Arf.”

“God, you’re perfect.”

He left his real self behind and sent a new persona into the spotlight. It was the Elliot Thornton she’d seen on
The Tonight Show
and cable comedy shows, the nonchalant wiseguy with hands shoved casually into the pockets of his pants, his mouth set in a confident smirk. “Well, hello there,” he said into the mike, with a look of boredom so grand that people began to laugh. “What we have here is a room full of southern baby boomers. I see a lot of hush-your-mouth-and-pass-the-quiche types. Yeah. Southern yuppies.
Hush yuppies.
”

The laughter swelled, mixed with applause. Amy stood in the wings with her mouth ajar. Surprise gave way to
delight. He had liked her comment so much that he’d put it into his act! And he’d made it funny!

Two shows later, tired but giddy with joy, she went to Elliot’s motel room with him and a group that included the emcee, the club manager, and a few students who worked part-time at the club. The manager brought along sandwiches and beer, which he spread on a table. People produced small bags of grass and began rolling joints. Elliot was the first to finish eating and light up.

Carrying a soft drink, Amy secluded herself on the room’s balcony and pretended to be interested in a dark, deserted parking lot and a hill covered in kudzu. She frowned in consternation. The sweet smell of pot and the burnt-grain scent of beer would always remind her of Pop’s bad moods. She didn’t like what drugs and booze did to people.

But a part of her craved acceptance from Elliot, and that part remembered what it had been like to stand in the wings with him and then hear him tell her joke on stage.
That
was the drug she needed, that and the comfortable looniness of his world.

“Hey, baby, what have asphalt and kudzu got that I haven’t got? I’m smooth and hard. I can grow on you.”

Elliot stepped outside and swaggered to her, twirling the tip of an imaginary mustache. He didn’t have the joint anymore, and Amy studied him in pensive confusion. “I don’t do drugs,” she said slowly.

His amusement fadded, and he looked down at her thoughtfully. “You could be good for me,” he said as if speaking to himself. His attention shifted outward again, and he asked, “Why don’t you quit school and come to work for me?”

Amy shoved her soft drink onto the balcony railing then grasped the rail for support. “That sounds great. Thanks. Thanks a lot. But I’ve gotta finish college.” She thought privately,
I can’t let Sebastien down
. And then, hurting, she corrected it to,
I can’t let myself down
. “I’m the first Miracle who ever went to college. I can’t quit.… What kind of work?”

“I don’t know. I guess it’s time I hired a secretary. Let’s try this. ‘Take a letter, Ms. Miracle.’ ”

“I’d like a vowel, please.”

He groaned and drummed a rim-shot in the air. “But seriously, folks—”

“I want to get a job on my own, without anyone doing me a favor.”

He grabbed his head with both hands and yelled to the night sky, “Why is she so difficult? Women are supposed to do anything I want them to do now that I’m rich and famous!”

“You’re not that rich and famous yet.”

“She’s stabbing me in the heart! My ego is deflating! I’m melting! Melting!” His voice became high-pitched. “Melting, melting! I’ll get you, Dorothy!” His knees buckled slowly and he sank to the balcony floor. “You, and your little dog, too!”

Amy laughed helplessly. He was one of the few men she’d ever seen who could be ridiculous and yet charming. He was a handsome clown, but a puzzling one. He was six years older than she, but it didn’t feel that way. She felt as if he needed someone to take care of him. On the other hand, she understood this kind of man, she’d grown up with this kind of man.

“I guess we should just see what happens,” she told him. She wasn’t naive anymore; she didn’t daydream about impossible futures. “I mean, you’re gonna be in town a whole
two
days. And then you’re going to New York. Might as well admit that I’m a passing fancy, bub.”

“Her cynical tone of voice wounds me,” Elliot said to an unseen audience. On bended knee he grasped her hands and kissed them. “I honor a mere college student with my affection and she taunts me. Me, the next superstar of comedy. Oh, woe. Woe. Such arrogance.”

Amy sat down cross-legged in front of him and, keeping her hands in his, returned his warm, insistent grip. “It’s not arrogance, ol’ boy. It’s self-defense. Just be honest with me, okay?”

Subdued, he settled quietly beside her. “Okay. Maybe I’ll see you again after tonight, and maybe I won’t. I like you a
lot, baby. You’re definitely unique. I’d like to know you better. That’s all I can guarantee.”

“That’s enough.”

“Let’s sit here and talk, for right now. In a little while I’ll chase the party vultures off. And then maybe we’ll do some of this.” With comical lechery he poked his forefinger through a circle made by the opposite forefinger and thumb. “Or maybe some of this.” He contorted his fingers in absurd ways and wiggled them. “Or even some of
this—
”

“You stole that from Steve Martin.”

He frowned in exasperation. “Have you memorized every comedy bit in the business?”

“Not all. I’m still working on the early Milton Berle shows.”

He put his arm around her and kissed her. There was nothing electrifying about it, no burst of shivers inside her and no desperate greed to have him, as there had been with Sebastien. But it was pleasant. Very pleasant. It was enough.

The next morning she woke up lying on her side with Elliot draped across her as if he’d tried to crawl the width of the bed and she were the obstacle that had stopped him. Amy maneuvered onto her back, and he began to snore. His face was buried in the sheets. One arm was flung upward so that his forearm lay between her breasts and his hand nestled against her chin.

“Sleepin’ with you is like mud-wrestling with an octopus,” she told him.

Amy studied his naked body, and her own. Tears slid from the corners of her eyes, and she wiped them away quickly.

He was sweet and funny and gentle. She was happy to be here with him, and she hoped this wouldn’t be their only time together. She shut her eyes and covered them with the heels of her hands, forcing back more tears. There was a sense of letting go, of saying good-bye, of putting useless daydreams aside and replacing them with memories that could be cherished instead of regretted.
Oh, Doc
, she thought sadly.
Adieu
.

J
ust as Sebastien had suspected, Philippe de Savin was not in danger of dying. In the two years following his surgery he remained in good health, according to the various medical tests that were performed on him regularly. He continued his regimented life of running the family businesses, marshalling exclusive social events, and spying on Sebastien.

Sebastien wasn’t surprised at the surveillance, and it gave him vicious pleasure to ignore it, and his father. That he now found himself waiting in the anteroom of his father’s business offices was due to a remarkable turn of events.

One of several secretaries in the room answered a softly buzzing telephone. “You may go in, now,” she told him. Sebastien nodded to her as he strode past and through a set of heavily paneled doors. Entering a room where the heavy carpet silenced his footsteps, he stopped in the light of tall windows and watched his father rise from a desk. Looking into Philippe de Savin’s angular, lined face with its thick cap of white hair, Sebastien saw himself in thirty years.

“So you’ve finally come,” his father said, his mouth hard and amused. “Hoping that your sister’s reports of my good health are inaccurate?” He slipped a finger into the collar of his shirt and pulled the material down to show the lurid
pink indentation on one side of his neck. “I appreciate your concern. However late it may be.”

“I have no need to see you. I need only inquire about you from all the people who watch me at your request.”

Philippe de Savin settled his tall, long-limbed body into a leather chair. With his fingers resting lightly on the arms, he seemed secure in his superior status. “They say you’ll be appointed head of the new transplant unit. They also say, however, that you’ve made enemies among the other physicians.”

“I’m not in favor with people who cling to old techniques, no. When tradition harms patients, I say so.”

“I approve of your aggressiveness. It would serve you well here.” He raised a hand and gestured gracefully at the surroundings.

“Annette is doing brilliantly.”

“She is madly in love with Giancarlo Costabile. She’ll marry her Italian airplane designer and bear his common Italian children. She has chosen her life.”