Starting from Scratch (6 page)

I
t wasn't until well after lunch that Rocky ventured to stick first his head, then the rest of his lanky body, into her office. There was a hesitant expression on his face, as if he doubted the wisdom of even asking, but knew he had to.

“So.” The single word hung in the air as he eased the door closed behind him, never taking his eyes off her face. Or possibly it was her hands that he was watching warily. Milo had thrown something at him before tendering his resignation. “I didn't hear any wild screams or robust cursing this morning. How did it go?”

As soon as Ryan had left, Elisha had barricaded herself in her office, determined to read his book from first page to last. She had initially wanted to just get a flavor for what he had written, but editing was second nature to her and the pencil had found its way into her hand by the time she had gotten to page ten.

She raised her eyes from the manuscript. “I'm surprised you had the nerve to show your face in my office.”

Rocky frowned, looking mournful. “That bad, huh?”

As far as first official meetings went, she'd had better. Any one of her first meetings had been better. Ryan Sutherland made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Working with him was going to be a challenge.

“The man doesn't need an editor, Rocky, he needs a lion tamer. Ryan Sutherland gives new meaning to the word
hubris.
” She realized she wasn't saying anything new. Everyone who knew the man probably thought that. Except the bimbos he occasionally squired and only because they probably didn't know the meaning of the word. She sighed, indicating the manuscript she was working on. “Too bad he's talented as hell.”

A spark entered Rocky's brown eyes. “Is that his latest book?”

Elisha nodded in response. “That's it.”

There was nothing but sheer admiration and gratitude in Rocky's voice. She knew if the meeting had gone badly, Sutherland would have taken his manuscript back home with him, a bartering chip to be used in his demand for another editor. Rocky had to be congratulating himself for pairing them up.

“Well, you got more out of him than Paula did, that's for sure. When she asked to see the first few chapters, he refused to show them to her.”

“But she was his editor, not to mention probably his type.” The woman under discussion was tall, leggy and endowed. All the things she had once aspired to be herself, before things like that had taken on a lesser importance in deference to deadlines. And gravity.

“I don't know about his type, but he'd said something about her being more suited to parade around before the judges of a Miss America beauty contest than to touching, much less offering, a comment about one of his manuscripts.”

Elisha sighed. “Sounds like the dear man.” She shook her head. “I'm surprised she didn't threaten to sue him and Randolph & Sons for sexual harassment.”

“She wanted to,” he admitted, perching for a moment on the side of her desk like a sparrow ready to take flight at the first sign of danger. “And it was touch-and-go for a while. But I pulled a few strings and got her a job at Arlington Press—at slightly more pay. The executive editor there owes me a favor.”

“And now you owe him one.”

He shrugged, his thin shoulders rising and falling like a marionette whose strings had suddenly been pulled then dropped.

“It's what makes the world go around.” Repositioning himself on her desk to catch a glimpse of Ryan's latest tome, he asked, “So, how is it?”

She nodded, looking back at what she'd been reading. “Good. Needs a little polish, but good.”

“Tell Sutherland about the good part, skip the talk about the polish.” He rose from her desk and moved over to the window. “I don't have time to attend another funeral this month.”

She looked at him. “Rocky, the manuscript could be better.”

He turned away from the window. There was a note of pleading in his voice as well as in his eyes. “And I could be taller, but I'm not. If the book's readable, and of course it is, we put it out.” He drew closer to her. “Maybe you missed this part, but Sutherland doesn't exactly handle criticism well.”

In her experience, no one liked to be criticized unless they were masochistic. However, good criticism served a purpose. It made you grow. Everyone could stand to grow a little, even Sutherland. Everything but his ego.

“Maybe he should learn.”

Rocky stared at her as if she'd just told him to cut the author loose. Which was what her suggestion amounted to.

“He's the top-selling author we have, Lise. One of the top-selling authors in the country.” His voice had risen several ranges. After clearing his throat, he tried again at a lower octave. “In other words, if it's not broke, don't fix it.”

She frowned, her eyes pinning him where he stood. “Then why did you give him to me, Rocky? Why didn't you just take him on yourself if all you wanted was a rubber stamp?”

“Take him on myself?” he repeated incredulously. “Because I'm already taking tranquilizers and Sutherland makes me nervous. Really nervous. Almost as nervous as my father does.” He seemed to reconsider that. “Maybe even more. There's blood between my father and me. Sutherland was known for spilling blood in the days before he began to write. Besides,” he protested, “you're good with people.”

“People, yes, not demigods.”

Drawing closer, Rocky watched her writing along the margins of Sutherland's book. His eyes widened. “What are you doing?” he asked in the same tone someone might have used to someone caught with a brush, hovering over a da Vinci painting.

She looked down at the page then back at Rocky. He was acting even more skittish than usual, she thought. “I'm making notes in the margin, why?”

Taking the manuscript and turning it so that it faced him, Rocky began to flip through the pages. “Were there others?”

Had stress made his mind snap completely? “What? Notes? Yes.”

“In pencil?”

Elisha glanced at what she was holding to make certain. “Yes.”

He sighed with relief. “Good, you can erase them.”

She pulled the manuscript back around to face her. Just in case he got any ideas and tried to undo her work. “I don't want to erase them. I want Sutherland to read them.”

“Lise,” he began patiently, “the public would plunk down their money to read the man's grocery list.”

She thought of the earlier meeting. Sutherland had created less than a stellar impression on her. She was pretty certain the feeling was mutual. “Then they'd be wasting their money. I doubt if Sutherland eats anything but nails.”

“My point—” Rocky took her hands in his “—is that you give him his lead. I just need a figurehead who can last.”

She could be stubborn when she wanted to and she wanted to. “I'm making it better.”

“He won't want ‘better,'” Rocky insisted. “He thinks he
is
better.”

She drew her hands away from his and picked up her pencil again.

“Rocky, you made me his editor, and until you ‘unmake me' his editor, I am going to edit. Now, this is a very entertaining book, just like his others, but, just like his others,” she repeated for emphasis, “his main character could stand a little work, could be a little deeper.”

He stared at her as if she'd just uttered a heresy. “He's an action hero, for God's sake. What kind of depth does he need? I haven't read it, but if it's like his other stories, the hero's a literary version of G.I. Joe. Fortunately, that's all the public wants.”

She wasn't satisfied. “But is that all Sutherland wants? There's a depth to the man that could be in his work. Everyone can improve.”

Rocky's expression changed from frustration to horror. “And you're going to tell him this?”

“Yes.”

He sighed, shaking his head. “How long have you had a death wish?”

“My only wish,” she enunciated carefully, “is to make each book I work on the best book possible. And this—” she moved the manuscript slightly “—could be better. I'd be doing Sutherland a disservice as his editor if I don't say so.”

“You might be doing yourself a disservice if you do.”

“Why? He's not going to burn me at the stake.”

“I don't know. The man breathes fire when he's angry. You might just be burnt to a crisp once he gets going.”

So Sutherland would rant and rave, that didn't worry her. She could hold her own in a verbal exchange. “Sticks and stones, Rocky, sticks and stones.”

Rocky laughed shortly, his brow furrowing into grooves of concern. “He might have those in his arsenal, too.”

After putting her pencil down, she pushed away from her desk and focused her attention on the man who was desperately trying to make her give up her principles. “Rocky, you know I have a great deal of affection for you—”

“But?”

“I was just curious. How is it you can continue to walk around without a spine?”

“It's a congenital thing. I taught myself how a long time ago.”

She was about to comment on that when her cell phone began to ring. Elisha almost ignored it, then decided to take the call. Holding up her hand to indicate that she didn't want him to leave and that the conversation was not over, she took the phone out and flipped it open.

The name that appeared on the tiny screen was her brother's.

Her pulse accelerated instantly. “Hi, Henry, what's the good word?”

“The test results came in today.”

Her throat tightened involuntarily. She tried to glean some sort of hint as to the test's outcome from his tone and failed.

“And?”

“Can you come by for dinner tonight?”

The question rang in her head.
This can't be good.
But she couldn't get herself to ask. Her tongue had frozen against the roof of her mouth.

She didn't even hear the door close as Rocky slipped out to give her her privacy.

E
lisha stared out the rear passenger window of her taxi as familiar-looking houses moved by on either side.

There was only a mile left to go. A mile to Henry's house.

A mile before she knew.

She fought against this overwhelming urge to fling open the door, jump out of the cab and run the rest of the way, as if running on her own power could somehow get her there faster. But at the same time, an oppressive feeling of dread rose within her, willing the ride to go on indefinitely so that she would never arrive at Henry's house. Because until she heard the words, she could go on hoping that the news was good. That things in her life would continue just the way they had always been. With her existing in a madly spinning world that provided a trapdoor for her. A trapdoor that would open when she needed to touch upon the threshold of hearth and home and allow her to go see Henry.

Henry was not only her rock, he was her link to the past. Her link to the life that she'd had before the world had gotten so crazy. In Henry's eyes she could almost see her childhood.

The cab had stopped moving and the driver was looking at her expectantly. She realized that he'd said something, probably some inane thing like, “We're here, lady.” He was waiting for his money. Digging through her wallet, she snared several bills and thrust them at him. More than the fare since he smiled.

Taking a breath, she opened the door and slid out. The air smelled like rain. The July humidity seeped into her soul. Her knees felt oddly disembodied as she walked from the cab to Henry's front door.

Please let him be all right. Please, God. I won't ask for anything ever again, I promise. Just let my brother be all right.

When he opened the door to her ring, Henry was smiling.

She felt her heart leap up, enveloping itself in armaments of hope.

It's going to be okay, she thought. Everything's going to be okay. People who had just gotten bad news didn't smile, right?

Elisha clung to that as she kissed Henry's cheek. “Hi.”

He hugged her. She hugged back a little longer than she ordinarily did, breathing in the scent of the aftershave lotion that he used. The same one their father had used. Henry didn't believe in change. Neither did she. More than anything in the world right now, she wanted nothing to change.

“Hi, yourself,” he said, releasing her.

“So—” Elisha tried to sound cheerful, but her voice failed her. It almost squeaked.

The next moment, she saw that the girls were in the room, standing directly behind Henry. Within earshot. His daughters looked cheerful. Happy. Nothing seemed different.

Was everything all right then, or hadn't he said anything to Andrea and Beth?

He hadn't, she suddenly realized. Henry hated to bring sadness into their worlds. He was always looking for that one ray of sunshine trying to push its way through a storm-filled cloud. Telling the girls about their mother's death had been one of the most difficult things he'd ever done. But he had.

And that was when it had dawned on her that her younger brother was so much braver than she was. Because she would have never been able to tell them. Being the bearer of bad news was just not something she could do.

Elisha looked at Henry, her eyes asking him a thousand questions. None seemed to register. They all bounced back to her as if she'd been looking at a painting of Henry instead of someone with a soul.

“Aunt Lise, come see what I did,” Beth cried, pushing ahead of her sister.

Not bothering to wait for a response or for Elisha to follow her on her own, the little girl wrapped her fingers around her hand and began to tug her in the direction of the stairs.

“Come see,” Beth insisted again, more loudly this time. “It's in my room.”

Elisha looked over her shoulder at Henry, who waved her on as if he didn't have a care in the world. “Go ahead. We'll talk later.”

Was it bad news, or good news that would keep? She didn't know.

All she knew for sure was that she had just been given more time to pray. More time to make deals with God, a God she visited on occasion in her mind but who she'd long since stopped having contact with on a regular basis. Church was a place that resided in her childhood. It had been years since she'd attended any kind of Sunday services. When she'd dropped out in the beginning, there was always an excuse handy. Until she no longer felt the need even for that.

 

It was agony, making small talk at dinner, pretending there was nothing on her mind. She was surprised that she wasn't doubled over by the weight of it. But she went along with the charade, knowing it was necessary.

But knowing didn't keep her mind from wandering. Wandering so that at times, when she got to the end of her sentence, she'd forgotten her train of thought.

She wasn't making sense and the girls were looking at her oddly.

“Been a long day,” she murmured, taking refuge in the glass of chardonnay Henry had poured her. She wished it was stronger.

She wished she was stronger.

Finally, the meal was over and the girls scattered, as they always did. Andrea to her homework and friends who seemed to live online twenty-five hours a day, Beth to a miniature version of her big sister's existence.

Elisha waited, mentally counting to twenty to make sure that both girls weren't just out of the room but out of earshot, as well. If anything was wrong, she didn't want to take the chance of having either of her nieces learn something dreadful by eavesdropping.

She pressed her lips together. Henry was clearing the plates as if there was nothing more important in his life than loading the dishwasher.

Was that a good sign, or a sign of denial?

Playing hide-and-seek with the truth was draining her.

Taking up a second load of dishes in her hands, Elisha followed her brother into the kitchen. She put the pile down beside his on the counter. She stared at the back of his head, willing him to turn around. When he didn't, she couldn't take it anymore.

“Henry, if you don't tell me right this second, I'm not going to be responsible for my next move. What did the doctor say?”

“The test is positive.”

She'd always believed that medicine was a strange world, where words like
negative
meant good and
positive
meant bad. The complete opposite of the way things were supposed to be.

Maybe Henry had gotten them confused. It would have been a natural mistake.

Her mouth felt as if it was sandpaper dry. It was hard to maneuver her tongue, hard to form the words. “Positive as in…?”

Her voice gave out. There was only a finite amount of strength in her body and right now, that strength was being channeled toward breathing and toward keeping her heart going. Things like talking seemed to be of secondary importance.

“I have cancer, Lise.”

He still hadn't turned around, so she circled around him until she could see his face. Elisha drew in her breath. For just an instant, Henry's face looked drawn and worn, as if the words he had just uttered had taken their toll on him.

She felt as if someone had just shot an arrow straight into her heart.

From somewhere deep inside her, a flicker of optimism came. “Hey, cancer can be licked, Henry. Lots of people are cancer survivors. There's a woman living in my building…”

She was talking now. Talking as fast as she could, hoping that all the positive thoughts she was generating would somehow negate or deplete the positive results of Henry's test. But even as she was talking, her brother was shaking his head. Her words were falling by the wayside. Conquered.

“Elisha, I've got pancreatic cancer.”

Pancreatic cancer.

All she could remember was that when she was a lot younger, she'd heard that an actor named Michael Landon had had it and he'd died. His face had been on the cover of
People
magazine. She could almost see it in her mind's eye. He'd looked much too young to leave this earth. Too young. The way Henry was too young.

She also remembered reading, or maybe she'd heard one of her parents say it, she couldn't remember. In either case, the words were chilling.

Pancreatic cancer was always fatal.

Elisha squared her shoulders, ready to do battle. Refusing to believe it. Refusing to allow Henry to believe it, either.

“Your doctor could be wrong,” she pointed out with feeling.

Henry's face once more became composed. He was taking this a lot better than she was, she thought. “He's not wrong.”

“He could be wrong,” she insisted. “People make mistakes. Labs make mistakes. You read about it all the time.” Why was he just standing there, taking it? Why wasn't he fighting it? “Embryos get mixed up, for God's sake, why wouldn't lab tests? It's not like yours was the only test being done at the hospital.”

Henry's expression was in direct contrast to the turmoil she felt going on inside her. He almost looked serene, as if he'd accepted everything. As if the fight was all over.

Gently, he placed his hands on her shoulders. “I took the test twice, Lise. There's no mistake.”

She took a breath, changing direction while going ninety miles an hour. “Okay, then we get you treatment. Whatever it takes. I don't care what it costs. I've got savings—”

Again, he stopped her. “Lise, I love you for caring, but I've made my peace with it.”

Her heart twisted inside her chest, twisted so hard it almost took her breath away.

“Well, I haven't, dammit, and I'm not going to,” she declared heatedly. “And neither are you.” She was ordering him and begging him at the same time. She didn't want him just giving up this way. “Miracles happen every day, Henry. People who aren't supposed to live defy the odds and do just that. They
live.
Paralyzed people walk. Things that science and test tubes can't explain
do
happen and I'm not giving you up without a fight, Henry.”

Her eyes were filling with tears. She hated that. Tears were a sign of weakness and she couldn't do battle like this. She was going to put all her strength into the fight. She was going to win. For Henry.

“Do you hear me?” she demanded, her eyes searching his face for a sign that she'd awakened the warrior within him. The warrior that was necessary to conquer this horrible condition.