Coast Road (26 page)

"Thank you, " Jack said.

"For what? " He had to think for a minute. The thanks had startled him, too. "For coming today. For telling me what you did. About Rachel, and about you."

"I haven't told many people. I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't�" "I won't." He hitched his head toward the door and began walking that way. When she joined him, he said, "Thank you for being there for Rachel. She's lucky to have a friend like you who can receive and give."

"That's a nice thing to say."

"I have my moments." On impulse, he gave her a quick hug.

"What was that for? " she asked when he held her back.

"I don't know. It just seemed right."

"I think you just wanted to feel my boobs."

"With my wife watching? " He looked back at Rachel, wondering if she understood the hug. He went still. "Whoa." He strode back to the bed.

Katherine was right beside him. "What? " "Rachel? " He leaned over her, his heart pounding. "I saw that, Rachel."

"What did she do? " "Blinked. Flinched. Something." He took her hand. "Rachel? If you hear me, give a squeeze." He waited, felt nothing. "Come on, angel.

" He held his breath. But there was nothing. "Try a blink." Again he waited. "I saw something. I know you can do it."

"Rachel? " Katherine tried. "Fight it, Rachel. Push your way up. We want to know you're here. Give us a sign. Anything." They stood side by side, leaning in over Rachel.

"Maybe I was wrong, " Jack said. "Jesus. I could have sworn . . . " "Rachel? Talk to us, Rachel. Move for us." From behind them came Cindy's voice. "What's happening? " When Jack told her, she leaned in on the opposite side and chafed Rachel's jaw.

"Rachel! Rachel! " Jack was watching Rachel closely enough to pick up the slightest movement, but he didn't see a thing. They waited and watched. Cindy called her name again. With a defeated sigh, he straightened. "I don't know. Maybe it was a twitch in my own eye. I wasn't looking for it and suddenly it happened."

"It might have been involuntary, " Cindy said. That the words came faster than usual said something about her excitement.

Jack recalled a term Bauer had used. "Posturing? " "Posturing is larger�odd arm or leg movements. I was thinking more along the lines of what we call lightening. It's a gradual waking that starts with the fingers or toes."

"This wasn't finger or toes, " he said, but his hopes were up again.

If Rachel wasn't going to just open her eyes and smile in one fell swoop, he could live with a gradual waking. "It was her face. Could that still be the start of something? " The eyes behind Cindy's thick glasses said maybe or maybe not. And his letdown returned.

"What do we do now? " he asked. "Anything different? " The nurse squeezed Rachel's arm from elbow to shoulder. She was back to being calm and slow. "We keep talking. When you saw this movement, were you saying anything she might have reacted to? " Jack looked at Katherine.

"We had been talking about personal stuff, but we were done. We walked to the door. I hugged you." He arched a brow. "Maybe she was jealous." From Cindy came a quiet "Lesser emotions than that have pulled people from comas." Still to Katherine, Jack said, "She and I are divorced. She wouldn't be jealous." It was Katherine's turn to arch a brow. But she didn't elaborate and he didn't ask. She had appointments waiting, and he needed time to think.

chayter twe[ve FOR A LONG WHILE after Katherine left, Jack sat on Rachel's bed. He traced each of her fingers, and traced the new scar.

He put their hands palm to palm, then fitted her palm to his jaw. He thought about the miscarriage, about the little boy they might have had, and what might have been. He thought about country music and about jealousy. And he thought about what he had never imagined Katherine had lived through.

"We think we know so much, " he told Rachel, and realized that Katherine had said the same thing, in different words, more than once.

So there was a lesson to be learned. He might be slow on the uptake, but he wasn't hopeless.

FAYE LIEBERMAN came at noon. Her smile was as warm as her silver hair.

Her pantsuit was silk and soothing. This time she brought a huge tin of home-baked rugelach, plus a bag containing two sandwiches. "You haven't eaten yet, have you? " she asked, stopping with her arms suspended halfway through unloading the bag.

"Not yet." She held out two sandwiches wrapped in opaque white paper "They're from Eliza's shop. One is turkey with Swiss cheese, lettuce !

and tomato, and mustard. The other is roast beef with boursin.

Choose."

"Which do you want? " She smiled, pressed her lips together, shook her head. "I'm the least liberated of Rachel's friends. If I were you, I'd pick my favorite. You may not be given a choice again." He had felt comfortable with Faye from the start, and felt even more so now.

Smiling, he reached for the one with R/B on the wrapper. "Thanks.

This is a treat." Faye produced two Diet Cokes and handed him one.

"See? No choice." Eyes smiling, she said to Rachel, "As ex-husbands go, he isn't so bad." The smiled faded. She touched Rachel's cheek.

"She'll be fine, " Jack said. "As soon as the bruise inside is healed enough, she'll wake up. It'll be a straight shot home after that. " Faye nodded. For a minute she didn't say anything. Then she pressed a hand to her chest, swallowed, and took a deep breath. After a second one, she said, "Do you know that last Monday night was the first book-group meeting that Rachel ever missed? In five years. That's something."

"It meant that much to her? " "To her, to all of us." He gave her the chair nearest Rachel and pulled up a second one. He was done retreating to the window when her friends came by. They were as much a source of information as Katherine was.

He bit into his sandwich, chewed thoughtfully, and swallowed. "Why? " "Why does it mean so much? " Faye considered it for a minute.

"Because we're good friends. We're all different. We have our own lives and don't always see each other between meetings, but we've grown close. Something happens when you're discussing a book and you touch on personal issues.

You open up. I probably know these women better than some I see every day. I think it's the fact that our lives are so separate that gives us the freedom to speak."

"Instant-rapport kind of thing? " "Not instant. It took a while for some of us to feel comfortable with the confessions that others made in the course of discussions. It took that long to . . . bond." She smiled. "Trite word, I know, but that's what we did. We learned to trust. We're not unique. There are a dozen other book groups in town."

"All because of Oprah? " Faye chuckled. "Ours started years before hers. Some of those dozen other book groups have been going twice as long as ours. I've heard of groups that are into their second generation. And ours aren't fan clubs.

We aren't afraid to discuss the downside of books." She frowned.

"There's a need."

"For downside discussions? " "For support." Reflective, she took a bite of her sandwich. When she finished chewing, she set it back in its wrapper. "Sixty-somethings like me know what it means to live in a community. When I was a child, I had grandparents in the apartment upstairs, two aunts and their families across the street, a second set of grandparents down the block. My mother had a built-in support group. Then one by one our parents bought houses and moved to the suburbs, and we went to college and married and lived wherever our husbands took us, and suddenly the support network was gone. So we pushed the kids' carriages through the neighborhood and made friends with other mothers doing the same, and we were fine. Then the kids grew up and we went back to work, and there was no one. Now most young women work. Who's their support group? " Jack pictured Rachel back in San Francisco. "Their husbands and kids?

" Faye smiled sadly. "Not good enough. Men don't know what women feel, and kids are kids. Women need other women." Smiling more brightly, she touched Rachel's arm and asked her if she remembered Plain and Simple.

"It's a little book by a woman who leaves the city to spend time with the Amish, " she told Jack. "There she finds groups of women who live, work, and play in close proximity to each other. They talk all day, help each other with chores, back each other up. It's the kind of support system the rest of us used to have, but lost." Jack had designed a language center for a college in Lancaster. Since that was in the heart of Amish country, he knew something about the sect.

"Would you want to live like an Amish woman does? " "Not on your life, " Faye declared. "I like my luxuries. But there are times when I'm lonely, when my husband is playing golf and I wish there were a clothesline in my backyard and other women in neighboring backyards wanting to talk while we hang out the wash. We all have driers now. " "But backyards are for gossip. Book groups are for intellectual discussion."

"They can't be for both? " she asked, eyes smiling.

"Intellectual discussion can be personal. There are times when we discuss the book, and times when we discuss ourselves. Some books have so much meat in them that we don't get to ourselves at all. Others are only good as facilitators." Jack smiled. Facilitators. He had never heard the term used quite that way before, but he supposed it fit.

"The thing is, " Faye went on, "that we never know until we get there which way it'll be. The promise of the intellectual is what some of us need. Take me. I'm programmed to be home with my husband at night.

I'd never have the courage to leave him alone if it was just to gab with girls. Same with Jan. She has four very young children. Granted they have a nanny�Jan teaches golf at one of the clubs�but the nanny's gone by six. Jan's husband wouldn't dream of baby-sitting the kids without Jan if she didn't have a good reason to be gone."

"What if one of the kids is sick? " "One of the kids is always sick."

She smiled. "Obviously, there are emergencies." She touched Rachel again. "We won't kick Rachel out of the group because she missed last Monday night." She was suddenly sober, suddenly dismayed.

Jack knew what she felt. At times he could take part in normal conversation as though nothing was wrong. Then he looked at Rachel and his insides bottomed out. With the bruise on her face healing, there was more paleness to her. Her freckles stood out, waiting for the rest of her to return to life.

He couldn't conceive of it not happening. But it had been a week. So maybe she had blinked earlier that morning. Since then, nada.

"Book group is a commitment, " Faye went on, sounding deter mined to distract them both. "That was a ground rule. We only have seven members. If half of them don't show up, it's not the same."

"It's still strange to me, " he said. "Rachel was always such a nonjoiner.

" "In the city. It's different in the city. There are people everywhere.

There's noise everywhere. There's action everywhere. Not so in Big Sur.

The canyon is a great isolator. The same thing that Rachel loves about the place is its worst drawback. An artist needs to be alone, but not all the time. I'd guess that Rachel feels more of a need to join a group now than she did in the city."

"Who picks the books? " "Whoever hosts the meeting."

"Has Rachel hosted? " "Every one has.

That's another given."

"Isn't it out of the way for you all to drive to Big Sur? " "No more than it's out of the way for her to drive to us." She let out a breath, suddenly sober again, and Jack knew where her mind went.

"The accident could have happened anywhere, " he reasoned, recalling what the state trooper had said at the scene. "She could have been heading to Carmel for a completely different reason, and it could have been a lot worse. Once she wakes up, she'll be fine." When Faye remained grim, he said, "Tell me what books Rachel chose." As he had hoped, she brightened. He liked it when she smiled. It made reality easier to take.

She was looking at Rachel, mischievously now. "This woman is a romantic at heart. One year, she had us do A Farewell to Arms.

Another year, she had us do Tess of the D'llrbervilles. Both made her cry." Jack tried to remember if he had ever seen Rachel cry over a book.

"Once the girls were born, she didn't read as much. Magazines, yes.

But the girls were little then, and active. If she wasn't doing things with them, she was painting. Five minutes of reading in bed at night, and she was out like a light."

"The city exhausted her, " Charlie Avalon said from the door. She wore another tank top, a short skirt, and high platform shoes. Today, instead of feathers or beads, a shimmer of silver fell from her left ear. The streak in her hair was as pink as before, but she seemed subdued. Her eyes were on Rachel.

Standing there at the door, she looked nearly as young and vulnerable as Hope.

Jack rose. When Charlie didn't enter, Faye went to her. For a minute, they hugged�an unlikely couple on the surface, not so unlikely what with all Faye had said. When Faye returned to the bed, Charlie was with her.

She refused the offer of a chair, though, refused the offer of a sandwich, just stood with her hands on the bed rail and her eyes on Rachel.

"I used to live in San Francisco, " she said. "We talk about it some times."