Five for Forever (29 page)

Hal’s mobile phone rang while he was dissecting the first interior designs of the
Vera
, breaking Rick’s drawings down into a bill of materials to purchase and for detail design. Rick was busy with another client, discussing some design options for a new sloop. The prominent and sexy body of the
Vera
gave some rich folks in Oxnard ideas about wooden boats. Good, they needed that.

“Fine Wooden Boats! This is Hal.”

“Hi, this is Louise, pretend I am someone else if he is around.”

“Hm, hey, Mrs. Kellogg, what can I do for you?”

“Mrs. Kellogg?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“You might prepare for the worst. Josh went AWOL from his Toronto set yesterday.”

“You mean a repeat from what we experienced summer?” Hal glanced over nervously to Rick, but his buddy was busy.

“Yup.”

“Shoot. Just now that the whole thing starts to take shape. We’ve made such great progress!”

“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. How is he?”

“Mrs. Kellogg, I can assure you things have not changed here.”

“That bad?”

Hal whispered. “Let’s put it that way: he has become the most productive member of our team with all the time he pours into his work.”

“If it’s any consolation: like me.”

“I am . . .” Hal stopped. “No, I am keeping out of it.”

“Good luck, guys!”

“We’ll need it.” Hal hung up.

Zuzu’s line went straight to voicemail throughout the day. “I assume this means she is either bombarded with calls from worried business partners or she is on the flight to Belize,” Hal said after the tenth attempt.

Rick sat on his desk, throwing his pencil repeatedly into the air. “Do we squirrel away the money that is still in the account? As a safety precaution?”

“Don’t you think that will look like embezzlement? Remember, the contract says we get the heap of wood down there as security. And no need to squirrel that away.”

Hal occasionally tapped on the bank webpage to refresh the account statement.

“By the way, how is
Mrs. Kellogg?”
Rick asked.

Hal’s ears turned red. “I am such a miserable actor. She works hard, she tells me.”

“That makes two of us,” Rick muttered.

“I am keeping out of this.”

“Hey, shouldn’t you be on my side?”

“I am obliged to. But man, you split up with Louise Waters. That is even bigger than getting together in the first place.”

They closed shop for the weekend with a bad feeling, and together with their lawyer, Jerry, planned for the worst-case scenario on.

On Monday morning, the money in the
Vera
account was gone.

On Tuesday, Flint and Heller Fine Wooden Boats filed for protection under Chapter Eleven.

“What does Chapter Eleven mean, Dad?” Britta asked after their father had informed them on Tuesday evening.

“It means that we cannot pay our vendors or the bank loan. Instead of going bankrupt, and stopping doing business, we are allowed to cut the outstanding debts and gain time to restructure.”

Charles pushed up his glasses. “It is one of the fundamentals of the US system that allows entrepreneurs, people with businesses, to fail. In other countries you fail once, forever, and you have the debts for the rest of your life. Here you are able to start over.”

Britta looked hopefully at her father. “So this Chapter Eleven protection is a good thing, right?”

“Yes, it is. But not for us. We had to go into Chapter Eleven to protect ourselves because our main client, Josh, is not able to pay us anymore. But our business as such has not been working well for a while now. We had losses for the two previous years and barely managed the year before.” Rick looked at his kids. They loved the company as much as he did and were proud of the fine boats it had produced over the years. “So Hal and I have decided to shut down business by the end of year. Maybe there is a buyer for the company as a whole, but we doubt it.”

“Dad, then you are not under Chapter Eleven. Liquidation falls under Chapter Seven,” Charles clarified.

“Are you sad, Dad?” Dana asked, not getting most it.

Rick wrapped his little angel in his arms, it was answer enough for the little girl.

Josh Hancock’s disappearance hit the news on Tuesday evening.

twenty-seven

The Order of Affairs

“When did we have a day out together last, Lou-baby?” Izzy smiled broadly, deftly roaring his open-roofed red Ferrari through the LA traffic, Louise by his side.

“It’s not a day out together, it’s a trip to the doctor,” Louise replied. She wore loose black Armani slacks and a white blouse with a scarf around her hair and big sunglasses on. Even so, now and then another car honked. It was unclear whether because of her or due to Izzy’s racing style.

Five days since Josh had vanished without a trace.

“Do you know how happy everyone is that you were able to join the project? And it even fits the
Sell! Sell! Sell!
promotion cycle. It won’t do three figures at the box office but . . .”

“That’s not important. It gives me work and gets my mind off other things.”

“Sorry about Rick and you. Really am. He seemed like a nice guy. With nice kids. Did you good. Didn’t do me good.”

“No talking about that, remember?”

“Okeydoke, Lou-baby. Got it. Put it behind you. Back to work, back to normal.”

The producers of movies were requesting all sorts of insurances and confirmation that the multimillion dollars that they had poured into the production fund were securely spent. One of those conditions was a mandatory physical checkup of the leading actors. As Louise had jumped in last minute due to the broken leg of the previously cast actress, this was the only outstanding item before the shoot would begin a few days after Christmas.

Louise had had checkups in the small private clinic on Wiltshire Boulevard many times before, and the staff was used to working with movie and music stars.

Louise declined the tea offer and was immediately taken into a spacious and very stylish office that looked more like a yoga studio than a clinic. A nurse greeted her. “Hi, I am Stephanie, and we will be spending the day together.”

They started running through a variety of tests in various disciplines, basic physicals, eye and ear exams, and blood and urine samples to screen for sickness or drugs. Then a series of ultrasounds of various internal organs. Louise was always astonished at how tiny and strong the heart beats and the incessant opening and closing of its valves. A wonder. And imagine that this was the same for all mammals big and small. A hundred times smaller in a mouse, pumping away like mad.

The afternoon brought some more examinations, a skin check, another blood test, and then a sort of psychological evaluation with sets of questions, conducted by some bespectacled psych guy. After half an hour of interviewing, they wound down. Louise had had a hard time throughout the test trying to keep a serious mind-set and not to fall into a stand-up comedy routine.

“Mrs. Waters, thank you. Dr. Halliwell will discuss the final results with you later.”

“Did I pass?”

“What do you think?

“Is this a final trick question?”

“Then consider your answer well, ma’am.”

“I am thirty-six, and you are twenty years older. Did you just ma’am me?”

“Did you just avoid answering a trick question?”

“Does that make me a bad person?”
Two can play this game.

“Is that your final answer?” The psych guy gave her a hard stare.

“That was a final question, if at all.”

“Just kidding, Miss Waters. You are fine. A little stressed, I think, but fine.”

“I didn’t need a shrink to know that.”

“Diving into work after a breakup is always a good idea as long as it does not become an obsession, and you find a balance after the movie is made.” They shook hands, and Louise was left alone for a moment. Then the door opened, and Stephanie and Dr. Halliwell came in.

“That was quick,” Louise said.

“I’ll be honest with you: we need to run another series of tests, and we cannot do it here.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t want to scare you. We found some markers in the blood tests that we need to verify. And the best place for that is not far from here.”

“I have to go there now?”

“I must insist. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

Louise nodded and wrapped up her things.

The drive was indeed quick. They entered the new clinic through a side entrance, and Louise saw the sign: “Beverly Hills Cancer Center.” She stared at it. “Cancer, is this what Dr. Halliwell suspects?”

Stephanie swallowed. “I am so sorry, Mrs. Waters.”

“Don’t worry, Stephanie. When I see him again, I will slug him for being such a coward not telling me in advance and sending you along.”

Louise was angry, but it only masked her growing fears. Her father and all her grandparents had died of various forms of cancer. Her mother was an alcoholic, her sister, too.

Great! Cancer and alcoholism predispositions, two great options. Maybe if I got drunk first, I might not remember that I have cancer? Wouldn’t it be an irony if I died of a stroke? Waters, I can’t believe you are turning this into a standup comedy act.

The various nurses and doctors did a lot of things to and with Louise. Blood and more blood, X-rays, CT scan, MRI, and some acronyms whose meanings Louise forgot immediately. Most painful was the biopsy to take marrow from her pelvis. Afterward, Stephanie gave Louise privacy, and she rested in a comfortable chair in a bright and cheery room.

Izzy rang and asked how things were.

“They took bone marrow from my hip. Jesus, Izzy, I swear I heard the crunching noise as the tool drilled into me.”

“Uh, gross!” Izzy said.

“We are done with the tests. They are taking good care of me.”

“Hang in there, girl; we are in it together, rain or shine.”

“Thanks, Izzy.”

Oh, Rick, I wish you were here to hold me. I need your steady rock-solid presence. And your hand to hold. And your kiss. And I could use Charles to tell me every detail about cancer with brutal childish honesty. And little Dana to make me laugh.

She started crying.

The oncologist, a long-legged Cary Grant type, came into the room, saw her crying, and was taken aback. “Now, we have not even talked yet, Miss Walters.”

“This is not about me being here. It’s about my love life,” Louise sniffled. “Or lack thereof.”

Dr. Fenshaw sat beside her. “Tell me about it; I’ve been married three times, and now I hate every single one of my exes.”

Louise had to laugh and got the hiccups. “Any kids involved?”

“Yeah, I’ve been busy. Six of them. But they turned out well, thank God.” He turned serious. “The results are back, and I’m not going to mince words or hold back. You have leukemia, cancer of the blood, already at a progressed stage.”

Louise stared at him, her eyes swimming, her vision spinning, hearing Dr. Fenshaw’s voice as through a long tunnel. “This is crazy. Cancer. Blood cancer?”

“Yes, the variety you have is called AML—acute myelogenous leukemia. It is a version of blood cancer that develops very quickly.”

“But I feel well. I am going through a hard emotional time after the . . . split from my boyfriend. But physically I feel fine.”

“That is possible. You told us that earlier this year, you had felt bone-tired, depressed, without drive. That may have been some sort of early stage.”

“So you can probably guess my next question?”

“Treatment chances. You have positive factors on your side. You have not had any type of cancer before, and the first gene scan did not show any mutations or changes. And you are below sixty.”

“You can tell?”

“Keep your humor, Louise. You will need it to get you through a difficult time.”

“What are my chances?”

“At your young age, we are close to fifty-fifty on the five-year survival rate.”

“That means, I can flip a coin to determine whether I’ll live or to die in the next five years?”

“Not you, but God does, yeah. Chance favors the prepared, and we will do our utmost to influence the chances. But the outcome is impossible to predict, as every patient reacts differently to the various treatment options. We’ll discuss this over the next few hours.”