Starting from Scratch (7 page)

H
enry looked behind her, anticipating an invasion by one or both of his daughters. His eyes shifted back to his sister's face. He knew where she was coming from but it didn't help. Nothing was going to help.

“Lower your voice, Lise. I don't want the girls to hear.”

“Because you don't want to upset them—because nothing's going to happen,” she emphasized. “See? You do think the way I'm thinking.”

The expression on his face told her that he wished he could agree, but beneath the optimist had always been a pragmatist.

“No,” he told her quietly as he resumed loading the dishwasher, “because I haven't found the right way to tell them yet. After losing their mother, this is going to be a doubly hard blow for them to deal with.” He turned from the machine, his eyes intent on hers. “Will you take them?”

Frozen in place, Elisha swallowed before asking, “Take them where?”

He smiled sadly, knowing how hard this had to be for her. In his own way, he supposed he was as protective of her as he was of his daughters. But he had no one else to turn to. He'd lost touch with people after Rachel had died, devoting himself singularly to the girls and then to his work. That left no real time for friends.

“Into your house, into your life. Take them as your children.” He took her hands in his. “Lise, I need this favor.”

Elisha pulled her hands out of his grasp and took a step back. She wished she could be the brave soldier that he wanted her to be, but she was intent on offense, not defense.

“I'm not taking them anywhere because you're not going anywhere. Now, I know some doctors at New York Hospital.…”

Her mind felt as if it was racing around like so many disoriented mice in a maze where all the avenues looked and smelled equally alike. She didn't know which way to run first, which way would lead her to where she ultimately wanted to go.

“I've got a top-notch doctor, Elisha,” he told her. “His name is Samuel Epstein. He's an oncologist.”

She tried to process the information. To use it as a building block. “So you're getting treatment?”

His shoulders moved up and down in a half-helpless shrug. “What's available,” he allowed, “but he's not letting me get my hopes up.”

She hated the physician immediately. What right did he have to take away her brother's hope?

“A positive state of mind is important, Henry. I've read that over and over again. The mind is a tool, it can—”

“Peace of mind is important, too,” he told her, cutting in. “I need to know I can tell the girls you'll take care of them.”

She sighed so deeply, it felt as if it was coming from her very toes.

“Of course I'd take care of them.” The next beat, she was back to her mantra. To the mantra she wanted him to embrace. “
If
something happens to you, which it isn't going to because you're going to lick this. Do you understand? You're going to lick this.”

Henry's mouth curved in an indulgent smile. “Yes, ma'am.”

He was humoring her. She didn't want him humoring her, she wanted him to believe it with every fiber of his being. They were going to conquer this.
He
was going to conquer this. “I'm your big sister and I've always known better than you.”

He remembered those days very well. Days of being bossed around, of going along with whatever Elisha said because she was so forceful about her beliefs. “Whatever you say, Lise.”

“Damn straight.” She bit her lip to fight back tears. Emotion rose up in her throat, threatening to choke her. He couldn't be sick. He couldn't be.
I'll never forgive you if you take him from me,
she warned God. “I need you, Henry. I need you well, or some reasonable facsimile of that. I need you every bit as much as the girls do.” She took a deep breath again and exhaled. “Maybe even more.”

He took her hand again in his. “I'll hang around as long as I can.”

“Longer,” she told him in a whisper that was half an order, half an entreaty as she threw her arms around him. “Longer.”

 

Elisha held it together the rest of the evening, although she begged off early. She remained stoic during the ride home from Henry's house to her penthouse apartment, not wanting to break down in front of a stranger, someone who, like as not, fancied himself a part-time psychologist by virtue of his job. In a way, because she was by definition and admission largely an emotional creature, she surprised herself by being able to hold on to those emotions for that length of time.

But the moment she flipped the apartment lock closed, the shaky walls of the dam inside her broke down.

There was no more strength left in her legs.

Her back against the door, Elisha slid down in one slow, boneless motion until she reached the floor. She remained there, huddled, her face buried against her knees, and cried. Huge, body-racking sobs echoed through the foyer as she tumbled headlong into a long abyss.

Time lost all meaning. She wasn't sure just how long she remained there, sobbing, feeling sorry for herself because her life might no longer contain one of the people she loved most in the world. She cried until she was beyond being exhausted, half past dead. The notion of remaining exactly where she was, wet, limp, disoriented, took on serious merit. She hadn't the energy to get up and go to bed. It no longer mattered where she slept.

But that would be giving up. And Henry needed her not to give up. Because he needed someone to be his cheering section.

She raised her head, brushing aside the tears with the heel of her hand. She couldn't give up.

The questions she'd asked Henry told her that he had more or less resigned himself to be vanquished by this hideous disease and if she lay here like some lump, even for a few minutes, then she was tacitly going along with that.

Going along with her brother's death sentence.

No, dammit, if there was some way in heaven—or hell—that she could find something, some procedure, some medicine, some
thing
to prolong Henry's life, to, please God, cure him, she wasn't going to find it lying here, feeling sorry for herself like some heroine out of an eighteenth-century melodrama.

With a shaky breath, Elisha pulled herself together. This wasn't the time to think about herself and what Henry's departure from this world would mean to her. She had to focus on Henry, on getting him well.

One hand on the doorknob, she pulled herself up to her feet. Just then, the phone rang.

Henry.

He was calling to tell her it was all some horrible mistake. An early April Fools' joke, something—

She'd kill him. After she finished hugging him, she promised herself, she'd kill him.

The word
Private
stared back at her on her caller ID as the phone rang again. Private. That could mean it was Henry, or it could be any one of a myriad of people who had decided to hide their identity behind the single, neutral word.

She lifted the receiver, hopeful. “Hello?” She'd almost choked out the words. The tears might have been gone from her cheeks but they were still in her throat, all but clogging it.

There was a pause on the other end of the line, then she heard someone gruffly ask, “Are you all right?”

The voice wasn't familiar.

This time, she cleared her throat before saying anything. “Yes.” Rather than forceful, the word came out in almost a squeak.

“You sound like you're crying.”

And then she recognized the voice. Or thought she did. Its pitch sounded as if it were emerging by being scraped off the bottom of a barrel.

“Mr. Sutherland?”

“Yeah,” the voice on the other end of the line rasped in her ear. He sounded almost uncomfortable. Maybe he was one of those men who had no idea what to do in the face of a woman's tears. Or maybe that would be giving him too much credit, she amended. “Is this a bad time?”

Though she'd hadn't had very many dealings with him and only one as his editor, she'd never heard him sound hesitant before. Did he actually have a human side?

For a second, in the face of kindness, she almost came undone and answered his question in the affirmative. But the admission was much too private a matter and the last thing she wanted was to answer any more questions. If she started to talk about it, about what was bothering her, if his questions extended that far, she'd only begin to cry all over again.

And tears were much too personal to share with a stranger.

But Ryan Sutherland was not the kind of man who could easily be put off. So, taking note of the television program guide on her coffee table, she lied. “I'm watching a sad movie.”

She heard him grunt and mutter something unintelligible under his breath. She could just picture the condescending look that was probably on his face. She hated contributing to what was undoubtedly his less-than-flattering view of women, but ultimately, this was better than having him pry into her life.

“A romance, right?”

Her back stiffened. She read a world of meaning into his tone and took umbrage at almost all of it. Rather than answer, she gave him a nonanswer and let him draw his own conclusions. Someone as opinionated as Sutherland would, anyway.

“Why are you calling me at home, Mr. Sutherland?”
And who gave you my phone number? Or did one of your ex–Navy SEAL pals steal it for you?

“I'm calling you at home, Max,” he said cryptically and she could have sworn she heard papers being shuffled in the background, “because Randolph sent a messenger over to my house with an envelope. Do you know what was in that envelope?”

She wasn't up to playing Twenty Questions. Her head was aching. “No, what was in the envelope?” she asked, displaying a patience she hadn't realized she had.

“My manuscript. My manuscript with notes penciled in the margins. Notes I didn't put there.”

She held her breath, waiting for more.

And it came. Like a dreadful plague from God. “I want to talk to you.”

No, Elisha thought, judging by Sutherland's tone, the man didn't want to talk to her, he wanted to vivisect her. Slowly. Over an open spit with flames shooting out. But after what she'd heard and gone through at Henry's tonight, whatever Sutherland was able to dish out seemed almost insignificant in comparison.

“Fine, how's tomorrow sound?” she asked.

“Tonight sounds better.”

“I'm sorry,” she lied. “I've got a previous engagement.” There was no way she was up to facing the man tonight. Her asbestos suit was currently in the cleaners.

“With your TV set?” Sarcasm dripped from every syllable.

The flare in her temper surprised her. It wasn't fair that someone like Sutherland was lumbering his way through life like a bull in a china shop while someone as wonderful, as kind, as caring as her brother was given such a limited life sentence. She felt like reading Sutherland the riot act for intruding into her life at a time like this, but she knew she couldn't.

She did the next best thing. “I'm off the clock, Mr. Sutherland. I don't have to answer that.” And for the first time in her life, Elisha hung up on an author.

She blew out a shaky breath, wrapping her arms around herself in an effort to remove the chill from her soul. She wasn't sorry she'd done that. There were larger things in this life to deal with than Ryan Sutherland's ego. Or if not larger, at least far more important.

“Y
ou look like hell.”

Elisha never batted an eye, even though Sutherland's declaration a beat after he opened the door to his apartment caught her off guard. She hadn't expected him to be
that
honest. Though she didn't doubt that his assessment of her was dead on. After all, the man seemed to have an eye for that kind of thing.

“I bet you say that to all the women you're trying to sweet-talk.”

Inside, she looked around as she stripped off her coat in the small foyer. The living space was all wooden floors, scattered rugs and dark, massive furniture. And not much of the latter.

As far as apartments went, it was spacious. The man obviously loathed clutter or the appearance of it. There was one small mess on his coffee table, consisting of papers, several coffee cups and a few books and magazines, all fraternizing with one another to form a collage.

It was the following day, coming on the heels of an almost utterly sleepless night. She knew there'd be hell to pay with Sutherland after she had deigned to place pencil point to paper and edit his manuscript. With that, and keeping in mind what he meant to Randolph & Sons, she'd promised herself that she would treat the man with kid gloves. But at the last moment, the gloves just hadn't wanted to go on.

She was going to be polite but firm. In her bones, she knew that he wouldn't respect a pushover and more important, neither would she. And right now, she needed to have something firm to grasp hold of. Her emotions were in a very precarious state.

For a moment, Elisha regretted coming and wished she'd gone with her first impulse—to call in sick. She hardly ever took a sick day and she was more than entitled to one. But if she hadn't come in, more than likely she would have spent the day the way she'd spent the previous night. In agony. She'd alternated between pacing, praying, feeling utterly helpless and surfing the Net. The latter she'd done in hopes of stumbling across solutions, across little-known instant cures. Hoping to find a miracle on the next Web site.

Even as she'd walked into work this morning, she was still debating turning around and going home. Perhaps with a manuscript tucked under her arm, preferably one that needed a great deal of her attention. It had been a viable plan.

But the first person she'd encountered after the receptionist was Rocky. The executive editor's pallor had brought new meaning to the word
pale.
He'd taken her by the arm, ushered her into her office and then closed the door behind them.

“Sutherland called me last night.” The words had escaped from his mouth like a secondhand declaration of war.

She thought of the call she'd gotten herself. “A lot of that going around,” she'd muttered in response. Very gingerly, she'd uncoupled herself from Rocky's grasp. “He called me, too. The man needs a hobby.”

“He has a hobby,” Rocky'd lamented, losing the battle to sound authoritative. “It's called skinning people who cross him.”

Pity had stirred her overburdened heart as she looked at her boss and friend. “You do look a little the worse for wear.”

He'd taken her comment the wrong way. “This isn't funny, Elisha. Sutherland said something about pulling his manuscript.” His eyes looked a little red-rimmed as he'd cried, “Do you know what that means? We've already counted his book in for the January lineup. We've got magazine space reserved, TV and radio commercials. Money invested… If he pulls his book, we have this gaping black hole…” Rocky's reedy voice had trailed off, lost as he obviously contemplated his immediate future. He looked a little green around the gills as he announced, “I'm going to have to talk to him.”

He'd said it in the same voice as that of a prisoner having to face the firing squad. She couldn't let him do that. Rockefeller Randolph was not a man to hide behind. His physique was too thin.

“I did this,” she'd told him, abandoning her plan for a quick retreat. It hadn't been very viable, anyway. “I'll talk to him.”

The look in his eyes was that of a man who'd just gotten a call from the governor, staying his execution. “Oh, God bless you, Elisha.”

“That remains to be seen,” she'd muttered with little energy.

Only then had Rocky stared at her more closely. When he did, his face took on a look of concern. “Are you all right?”

Rocky was one of the closest friends she had, but she just wasn't ready to share yet. So she'd just nodded. “Yes, I'm fine. Just a bug going around. I think I might have caught it.”

And now here she stood, in the middle of the three-bedroom apartment that Sutherland maintained in Tribeca. He kept it in order to dispense with the long drive home to his house on the island after a longer night out on the town. On average, he spent about five nights a month in the apartment.

Even as she tried to take in her surroundings, she felt disembodied. Nothing felt quite real. With effort, she tried to muster the words for an apology she just didn't feel was necessary.

An apology, she abruptly decided as she turned back to look at the author, that Ryan Sutherland just wasn't going to get. She
wasn't
sorry. She was doing her job. Letting the manuscript go into production as is wouldn't be doing her job. Not when she saw the potential for more.

Her voice was as emotionless as she could manage. “If you're attempting to intimidate me by glaring at me, Mr. Sutherland, I have to warn you that it's not going to work.”

Sutherland waved an impatient hand at her statement. “Believe me, Max, if I wanted to intimidate you, I would and I could.”

He was less than an inch away from her, standing in her space. Making her feel as if her back was to the wall when, in effect, there was no wall behind her. Elisha felt completely naked under his gaze, and yet, there wasn't anything sexual about it.

Or at least, not overtly. Subtly, though, she realized that she felt just the slightest, distant female-male twinge.

Maybe she was hallucinating. Sleep deprivation did things like that.

Ryan peered at her face. She wasn't the kind of woman who immediately snared a man's attention, unless he was into the prim, proper type, but she was pretty enough, he supposed. There was no question, however, that he had seen the editor looking a lot better. “You get any sleep last night, Maxwell?”

There was no point in lying, seeing as how he'd already made the verbal assessment that she looked like hell. “No.”

He nodded at the information, as if he was absorbing it through his skin rather than the customary route, through his ears. If she hadn't known better, she would have said there was a flash of discomfort in his eyes, but that could have just been the lighting.

“Was that my fault?”

It took her a second to fathom what he was asking. Of all the pompous, self-centered… Did he think the whole world revolved around him? That one harsh word from his lips would send her into an all-night sleepless marathon of defunct TV sitcoms on double-digit cable channels?

“No.”

He seemed not to hear her answer. Or maybe he just didn't believe it. “Because if it was, I'm sorry.” He bit off the word as if it was utterly distasteful in his mouth. Yet he did look sincere, she thought. Did he think she'd fallen apart, worried about her job, because she's incurred his literary displeasure?

“It wasn't,” she said with more feeling than she'd intended. When he looked at her, one eyebrow arched in silent query, she added, “It's a personal matter.”

He seized the word as if it was a battle cry. “So's my writing.”

Good, they were getting away from her and on to his work. Elisha was in no small way relieved to get into something she knew like the back of her hand. In contrast, this pain she was feeling was something entirely new to her and she wanted it gone. In lieu of that, because she knew that it was hopeless to wish it away, she could try to bury it for the time being.

“Every writer feels that way. Moreover, they feel like every single word they put down is an integral part of them and if anything is done to that word, that line, that page, it's like taking a knife and skewering their heart.”

One corner of his mouth lifted slightly in what might have been an amused expression. “Then you're familiar with the process.”

“I'm familiar with improving things.” They had gotten little farther than the foyer. Turning, she went toe-to-toe with him. “Are you willing to admit that nothing's perfect in this world?”

A glint of suspicion entered his eyes. “Never said it was.”

“So if it's not perfect, that leaves an avenue open for improvement. The writing can be tinkered with.”

He resented the word and made no bones about letting her see how he felt. Just what the hell did she think she was dealing with, some hack writer? “Tinkering is reserved for old-model cars left up on blocks in the garage. My manuscripts don't need ‘tinkering.'” He loomed over her. “Do you even
know
how much revenue I bring in to Randolph & Sons a year?”

It wasn't easy, especially since she was in no mood to stand here, trading slings and arrows, when she could be home, looking for a way to save Henry. But she managed to force a smile to her lips. She did her best to make it seem genuine.

“I bet you know down to the penny.”

His eyes narrowed, turning to dark, fearsome slits. “Damn straight I do.”

She drew herself up. At her tallest, in her heels, she was five-seven. He was only four inches taller but seemed much more so. Like a shadow that stretches at first sunrise. She wouldn't let his size intimidate her. She was beyond that.

“This isn't about your book bringing in more money.”

“Then what
is
it about? About your frustrated desire to be a writer? Do you think that the only way you can achieve it is by taking something that's already done and putting your stamp on it? Is that your master plan, Maxwell?”

For two cents, she could see herself punching him. It would undoubtedly sting, but it would also feel good. But getting fired wouldn't. She needed this job right now to keep her head straight. To keep from falling to pieces. So she answered his accusations instead of telling him where he could put them. “I have no desire to stamp your work, Mr. Sutherland. I just thought that you had it in you to be a really good writer.”

She couldn't have insulted him more if she'd tried. His brow turned to dark thunder. “I
am
a really good writer.”

He was breathing fire in her space. She didn't budge. “You write pulp, Mr. Sutherland. Good pulp,” she allowed quickly before he could say anything about her choice of words. “Pulp that sells like hotcakes. But isn't there something inside you that wants to produce something memorable?”

He eyed her, wondering where she drew her bravado from. He wouldn't have thought her capable of it, looking at her. She irritated the hell out of him, but there was something inside him that did admire her moxie. “Not particularly.”

Well, that took the wind out of her sails, Elisha thought. She retreated, feeling oddly saddened at the same time. “Too bad. Because you could.”

Critics hated his books. Readers loved them. Critics got books for free. The public paid. As the old cliché went, he knew which side his bread was buttered on. “If it ain't broke, don't fix it.”

Maybe she'd misjudged the man within. “I thought you liked taking risks.”

“It's obvious that
you
do.” His voice was almost malevolent, but his expression entertained another emotion. “Most people don't stand up to me.”

“And you like that?” she asked, incredulous. “Being a bully?”

“I like having my authority recognized.”

Elisha shook her head. “There's authority, and there's being a bully. Someone like you should know the difference.” She took her coat from the rack where she'd hung it. There was nothing more she could do here. He wasn't going to discuss her changes, he was going to vanquish them, one by one. He didn't need her for that. “There's no point in my staying to talk over my notes. We both know you can go over my head and ignore them. Rocky wants you to be happy and to stay with the company.”

He glared at her. “And you obviously don't give a damn.”

She paused to look at him. “No, you're wrong there. I obviously
do
give a damn. Looks like you're not exactly that much of a judge of character, either.” Turning on her heel, she walked to the door. “Don't bother seeing me out.”

His voice trailed after her. “Wasn't going to.”