Infamous (31 page)

“You’re not drunk now, son,” I said. “I’m real and you know it. I just wish Alison—”

“Yeah,” he said tightly. “I wish Alison, too. But I don’t blame her, I would’ve done the same thing. Get the lunatic out of the house, as quickly as possible. I’ve been sitting here, waiting for security to show up and escort me off the set.”

I wanted to tell him that she’d come ’round, but I wasn’t sure that she would. I’d scared her, badly, with that jolt. That was piss-poor judgment on my part. “I’m sorry, kid.”

“I was living in Golden Gate Park,” A.J. said. “Sleeping in the daytime, walking the city at night. I learned a lot of tricks
in the army, ways to stay hidden, because sleeping in the park wasn’t legal. But the more I drank, the less I cared about keeping to a schedule or staying out of sight. I just didn’t give a damn.”

This was hard to hear. I knew about it, but this was the first time A.J. had spoken to me about any of this. I tried not to squirm though, because I didn’t want him to stop talking.

“One day I passed out, not too far from the Japanese Tea Garden, and I woke up to find myself getting hit in the ribs by a boy with a length of pipe. He was with four other boys, and I knew right away that this was some kind of gang initiation—that they were going to kill me.”

A.J. turned to look at me. “I was dead,” he told me, his voice matter of fact. “I knew I was dead, and in that split-second before that kid tried to bash in my head, I felt regret. I didn’t want to die. You know, I hadn’t been alive, not really, for close to a decade, but when it came to the end of the line? I honestly didn’t want to go.

“So I fought back,” A.J. continued. “I didn’t exactly win, but they didn’t kill me. My rib was broken and I looked like I’d been hit by a car, but I was alive. I managed to crawl to a sidewalk, where I knew someone would find me. And then someone
did
find me. Which is where it got a little weird.”

“You saw a ghost,” I surmised.

“Sort of,” he said. “I saw Tom Fallingstar. He’s the shaman—”

“I remember Tom,” I interrupted. He was the spiritual leader of the local Inuits up in and around Heaven. His son Charlie had married A.J.’s sister, Bev. “But … he’s still alive.”

“Yup,” A.J. said. “Still, I was lying there, waiting for someone to find me, wishing I had a bottle of tequila to numb the pain in my side, and wishing that I had the strength to never touch another bottle of tequila again, and guess who appears out of the fog?”

“Tom Fallingstar,” I said.

“Yup,” A.J. said again. “Old Tom sat down next to me and just chatted for a while. It was nice to see him—it had been years since I’d been home. He told me that my mother
and Bev were worried about me—that nobody knew where I was. And then he gave me a hundred-dollar bill. He said it was bus fare. He told me that now that I’d decided to stop drinking, I should come back to Alaska. And I said,
Wait, I didn’t decide anything
, and he said,
Yeah, I’m pretty certain you just did
. He told me there was a good rehab clinic in Fairbanks—a place called Renata Hospital—and that they had a special program for vets. The VA wouldn’t pay for it because of the way I’d been discharged, but Tom said he’d lend me whatever I needed to cover the cost. He knew I was good for it. He said,
See you in a few days
, and then he disappeared.”

“He tracked you down,” I told him. I’d always liked that Tom Fallingstar, and now I liked him even more.

But A.J. was shaking his head. “He never left Alaska. His uncle was ill. Tom was with him, almost around the clock, for months before he died.”

“Maybe,” I suggested, “you
were
so drunk you were hallucinating.”

“Then where’d I get the bus fare? A hundred-dollar bill—it was in my pocket.”

“Maybe one of those boys felt bad about trying to kill you.”

A.J. shot me a look, and yeah, I know. It was a ridiculous idea. But at the same time, even if Tom had tapped into some kind of superhuman ability to spirit-surf away from his body, how would he have managed to bring along that money?

Unless, of course, he was spectacularly superhuman.

“And how come there was a bed already waiting for me at Renata when I called?” A.J. asked.

“Well, what did Tom say when you asked him about it?”

“He just smiled,” A.J. said, “and told me that he’d dreamed I was coming home.”

“The world is full of mysteries and miracles,” I told him, as there, right in front of our eyes a daily miracle occurred. The sky turned all shades of yellows and golds and pinks and blues and purples as the sun poked its head over the distant horizon, and a new day dawned.

A.J. was staring out at it, but I wasn’t sure he was seeing it. His gaze had gone inward, and I knew he was trying his damnedest not to cry as he’d thought about the past night and all he’d gained and then lost.

“We’ll figure out a way to get Alison to listen to you,” I told him gruffly, feeling a little choked up myself.

“How exactly are we going to do that?” he asked.

“That,” I told the kid, “is another one of life’s mysteries.
How
doesn’t really matter. What matters is our resolve to get the job done.”

A.J. nodded, but I could tell that he wasn’t quite convinced.

So I zapped him. “You want this girl?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“You don’t know?” I loaded my voice with disbelief.

“Yes,” he said, some of his misery transferring to anger and irritation. “I
don’t
know, is that all right with you? I’m in love with her, okay? Enough to want to protect her from the crazy-ass bullshit that is me.”

“So, what?” I said, trying to sound as if his confession hadn’t made me want to get out of the truck and dance. He was in love with her. I knew it. I
knew
it. That was half the battle won. “You’re just going to make that decision for her? Treat her like a child and not let her make up her own mind about whether her definition of
crazy-ass bullshit
is the same as yours? Everyone has a different threshold, kid. A different line.”

“And I’m on the other side of hers,” A.J. pointed out. “We proved you were real, but she kicked me out. If she won’t let me near her …” He shook his head.

“Right now,” I pointed out. “It’s only right now that she won’t let you near her. Tomorrow’s another day. And there’s another day after that. We’ll do whatever it takes,” I reassured him. “It’s that simple. I’ve faced adversity, too, kid. I know a thing or two about keeping on when the chips are down. Literally. And you know how you start? You don’t quit.”

And with those words of wisdom, the dawn burst into a morning that was astonishing in its brilliance.

Because last night’s soaking rain had made the desert bloom.

“But how do you know,” A.J. whispered, “when it’s finally time to surrender? When the best thing you can do for the woman you love is … to let her go?”

“I’ve been there, too, A.J.,” I reminded him as I remembered the sharply antiseptic smell of the hospital, the grave faces of the doctors, Mel’s thin hand in mine. “I’ve been there, too.”

Sandra Busard was going in Alison’s place, to scout locations with Hugh—and he was not at all happy about that.

“She hates me,” he said, as he followed Alison to the catering tent which, amazingly, had survived the storm.

“No, she doesn’t,” she said, getting in line to get a tray, even though the thought of breakfast made her stomach hurt. But this morning,
everything
made her stomach hurt. Breathing hurt. “
You
hate
her.”

“Because she hates me.”

“Because you
think
she hates you. That’s not the same thing.”

“Couldn’t you just wait to clean out your trailer,” he started.

“Couldn’t
you
just act like a grown-up for once and tell the woman you don’t want her to go with you? You know, other people are dealing with things that are a little more devastatingly awful than a four-hour car ride with someone you’re embarrassed to spend time with because she overheard you being a prick and saying she had the creative instincts of a trained rat in a maze.”

And whoops, she’d slammed her tray down on the metal runners in front of the breakfast buffet much harder than she’d intended. From all around the tent, people were looking in their direction. And Hugh’s mouth had dropped open.

But this was a movie set. Dramatic outbursts were not that unusual, and the attention never lasted for long.

“Sorry,” she said grimly as she took a plate and helped herself to a small pile of scrambled eggs. Maybe some protein would make her feel better, even though she felt as if she’d never be hungry again.

“So … what’s going on?” Hugh asked as he followed her, taking a small mountain of eggs himself, with a bacon side.

Alison just shook her head.

“Devastatingly awful?”
he repeated. “Did things go south with Cowboy McDreamy?”

She took a mug and held it under the coffee spigot and filled it. “South doesn’t begin to describe it.”

“Uh-oh,” Hugh said. “Did you—”

“Yes,” she told him. “Yes. Whatever you’re asking, the answer’s probably yes, even before I’ve heard the question. I did. With him.” She leaned close and lowered her voice. “You know what happened with Kent?”

“Oh, crap,” Hugh said. “The cowboy already
dumped
you?”

“No,” Alison said, “but I’d rather he’d done that than what he
did
do.”

“He’s married? The bastard—”

“He’s crazy,” she interrupted him.

Hugh stopped and laughed. “Honey, who’s
not?”
he asked.

“No,” she said. “Hughie, I’m talking scary schizophrenic. Off his meds mentally ill.”

“Oh, crap,” Hugh said again, leading the way to a table in an empty part of the tent. “Are you all right? Did he get, what? Violent?”

“No,” she said. “But he sat there and told me—completely seriously—that he’s being followed around by the ghost of his dead great-grandfather. He sees him and talks to him and … It was … Devastatingly awful.” To her horror, her eyes filled with tears.

Hugh took her hand. “Oh, babe,” he said, his voice filled with sympathy. “That bites. I know you really liked this guy.”

“What’s worse, is he set up this whole elaborate scheme to make me believe that this ghost is real. I haven’t found them yet, but I think he might’ve broken into my house and planted
minicams. At the very least, he broke in and left a Bible on the bookshelf, that somehow opens to predetermined pages. I don’t know how he did it, but the point is, he went to a lot of trouble—a lot—to convince me that this ghost is real. Which it’s not—how could it be?

“The doubly stupid thing is,” she told her friend, “that I didn’t sleep at all last night. I spent the night online, researching schizophrenia and other illnesses that can cause hallucinations. I keep thinking, maybe with the right medication … And then I think, God, no, I don’t want that in my life. I grew up with a mother who was … She was crazy and she was a drunk, and when she drank, she got crazier, and I’ve done Al-Anon and I’ve gone through all the therapy for adult children of alcoholics, and I know, I
know
that her alcoholism was a disease that she couldn’t control, that it was a mental illness, and I’ve forgiven her, I have, but I don’t want that in my life. Except then I think about how great he is … How great he
could
be … And goddamnit, I’m sitting here, and I’m looking around, because there’s this big, sick, enabling, doomed part of me that desperately wants to see him again. Because maybe I can help him, right? Maybe I can save him. Kind of the way my grandmother went to her grave believing that she could somehow save my mother, when she couldn’t.”

“Wow,” Hugh said after sitting for a moment in silence. “Overload. I am never, ever whining to you about Kent again.”

“Kent’s a jerk,” Alison said. “And you don’t whine about him. You just grieve. Loudly. And I think that’s what I need to do.”

Hugh nodded. “I’m so sorry.”

“Please tell me that I can’t save him,” she whispered.

“You know you can’t save him,” Hugh said. “You don’t need me to tell you that. But if you’re only looking for a short-term thing, and the sex was so great that you’re looking for him despite the fact that he has conversations with invisible dead people and breaks in to put Bibles on people’s bookshelves …? Where’s the harm in having a fling?”

Alison pulled her hand away. “That’s no help. I really liked
this guy. I really thought …” She pushed her tray away. Stood up. “Where was the harm in your having had a one-night stand with Kent?”

“But I hooked up with Kent,” Hugh said, standing, too, “dreaming of a Cape Cod summer wedding. Last I heard from you, A.J. Gallagher—”

“Don’t say his name!” Alison hissed, looking around. All she needed was for him to find her talking about him. But he wasn’t in the tent.

“He who shall be nameless,” Hugh substituted, “was, last time we spoke, a con man or a naive yokel who’d been lied to by his family, that you happened to think was particularly hot. What happened? Were you seriously going all traditionally girly on me? After just one night?”

Alison picked up her tray and took it over to the garbage. “I might’ve been,” she said. “I might’ve started … falling for him. I’m a complete moron.”

“Okay,” Hugh said. “I get it. If you’re falling for him, or you’ve already fallen—”

“Don’t say that, either,” she whispered.

“You can’t do the casual thing,” he told her, “if you’re not feeling casual. I shouldn’t have suggested it.”

Alison scraped her untouched eggs into the trash, feeling guilty on top of everything for serving herself food that she knew from the start she wasn’t going to eat. “I don’t know what to do,” she said.

“Yeah, you do,” Hugh told her. His plate was clean. Somehow he’d managed to eat all his breakfast. “You’ll do what I do. You’ll hide when you see him coming and you’ll grieve. And eventually? Honey, you’ll move on.”

A.J. was waiting by Alison’s trailer, leaning against his truck, when he saw her approach from the direction of the catering tent.