Something to Talk About (38 page)

Chapter Twenty-four

The next morning Alicia awoke to an empty bed and the sound of one of her favorite CDs. Carlos Santana’s
Borboletta
was echoing through the loft, filling it with the sensual Latin rhythm. She smiled lazily and enjoyed the feeling of utter contentment that permeated every bit of her body. After making love again and again the night before, she and Adam had spent a long time in the big bathtub, luxuriating in bubbles and each other, before finally going to bed and a
deep
, dreamless sleep in each other’s arms. The memory of the passion they shared made her smile again as she rose from the bed.

She brushed her teeth and took a quick shower before changing the sheets and putting the room back to its normal pristine condition. After making sure the bathroom was equally spotless and tidy, she put on one of Adam’s old denim shirts. There was an assortment of items belonging to her in the big mahogany armoire, but she liked wearing Adam’s clothes. She slipped a pair of beaded thong sandals on her feet and went in search of Adam. She was pleased to find him in the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on a huge breakfast. He was moving with the music and looking like every woman’s fantasy
come
true, wearing an old pair of jeans and a
wifebeater
.

“
Hola
, querida,
you’ve been busy this morning,” she said, greeting him.

u
Hola
yourself, sleepyhead. I was going to bring you this in bed,” he told her, giving her a quick kiss.

“You’re too sweet to me,” she murmured, kissing him back and wrapping her arms around his waist. “It’s such a pretty day, why don’t we eat on the roof?”

She took a bottle of cleanser and some paper towels to wipe off one of the glass-topped bistro tables and had set two places with the big square pottery plates she’d given Adam some years before. Adam brought the food out and after saying grace, they began eating a marvelous breakfast of egg
s Florentine, crisply browned fil
et mignon, and blueberry scones, made from scratch from a recipe Alicia’s mother had given h
im. The scones had a hint of subtl
e citrus flavor from a bit of lemon zest; they tasted just as good as her mother’s and Alicia sighed with pleasure as she savored a bite. Adam didn’t feel that breakfast was worth eating without grits and he made great ones, smooth and buttery.

“If we eat like this every day I’m going to get huge,” she warned him.

Adam scoffed. “That’s not going to happen, baby. We run three or four times a week. Besides, you need to keep your strength up if we make love like we did last night,” he said with a satisfied smile.

Alicia grabbed his hand and leaned over to him for a kiss. “You’ve got a deal. You just keep feeding me because I plan to make a lot of love with you. And
a lot of babies,” she said sweetl
y.

Adam kissed her back and smiled sheepishly. “Allie, I don’t know what I’d do without you. You’ve been the most important part of my life for ten years and it’s going to be that way forever. You amaze me, you astound me, you elate me every day, and I thank God you’re in my life. I thought last night would be miserable, but it wasn’t I thought I’d hate John Flores and want to stomp him, but I don’t. He’s a nice guy, Allie, a good man.
 
None of this is his fault, after all. He didn’t ask my father to betray my mother, he’s as much of a victim as she was,” he said with a touch of heat.

Alicia studied their still-clasped hands, admirin
g Adam’s strong fingers and neatl
y kept nails. Th
inking about the
t
hings this hand could do to her made her
she blush
and a fiery heat spread over her lady parts.  She
cleared her throat before meeting Adam’s eyes. “So how do you feel about the situation now, Adam? Do you think you can at least be friends with John?”

Adam was silent for a long time. “I’m not saying I can’t, Allie. I just don’t know at this point. I can’t harbor any resentment toward him, even though I
certainly
planned on it
.  I’d
planned to ignore his existence as much as possible, but that seems kind of impractical since
the family has decided to nestl
e him to their bosom, so to speak.” He laughed grimly, recalling the open affection demonstrated last night as the entire clan made John welcome.

“I just don’t know how I can accept him as a brother or even a friend when I know what the affair did to my mother. I can’t blame John for it, but I can sure as hell blame my father and I do. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to deal with him, Alicia. Right now I don’t know if I can ever look him in the eye again.”

***

John slept heavily and late, waking up feeling just as tired as when he went to bed. He was used to it, this feeling of lassitude and heaviness that plagued him constan
tl
y. The malaise was part of his condition, as was the almost constant itching of his skin. He sometimes felt as if there were a thousand insects inside him trying to buzz their way out. He had various o
intments to use and they helped
for the most part, but the lethargy and loss of appetite were harder to remedy. He’d lost a considerable amount of weight in the year since his diagnosis and it was becoming a source of concern. If he were at his normal weight he’d look just like his brothers, big and healthy. Now he looked like a slender version of a Cochran man.

A Cochran.
Hard as it was to believe, he belonged to them and they were a part of him. He’d been alone in the world and now he had family. It was still hard to get his head around the idea that he was a Cochran, but it was getting easier. He dragged himself out of bed and took a long tepid shower. He liked a hot shower
;
the hotter the better, but his doctor told him that a tepid one
would help ease the itching. He disliked the scent of the special antibacterial soap he was mandated to use, but he had no choice, it was this or
suffer
even more intense skin irritation. He liked to use regular soap, great big imported bars of scented soap. John was masculine enough to admit that he enjoyed his creature comforts. He finally got out of the shower and patted his skin dry instead of the usual brisk rubdown he preferred, another doctor’s order. He dressed in his oldest pair of jeans, launder
ed nearly white and full of littl
e rips and tears. It was Miss Parker’s fondest wish to confine them to the Dumpster, but they were so comfortable he couldn’t let them go.

Miss Parker.
He’d have to remember to call her Nina, he supposed, but he loved having a pet name for her. On the rare occasions he watched television, he enjoyed watching syndicated reruns of
The Pretender.
There was a character in the show who reminded him of Nina. She was tough and hard and completely intimidating to everyone, but she had the heart of a marshmallow. Admittedly, Nina showed no such sensitivity, but she had everything else down pat, including the sternly sophisticated look of Miss Parker.

His thoughts were interrupted by a knock at his door. He walked into the carefully neutral, boringly decorated room and opened the door to find a nervous-look
ing young man apparentl
y making a delivery.

“Mr. Flores, I mean
Dr.
Flores, I have something for you,” he said hurriedly.

John smiled to reassure the young man. He was tall and slender with sandy brown hair in neat braids and a smattering of freckles. His green eyes looked both intelligent and anxious. “Are you sure it’s for me? I didn’t order anything.”

“Someone sent it to you, sir. I just work at the restaurant I’m supposed to bring you this,” he said, indicating a large bag with the name of a popular restaurant on it, “and this.”
John took the other big
shopping bag with handles
from the
the
young man. It contained a big bouquet of spring flowers in various shades of red, their color bright and cheerful in the morning light. There was also a copy of the Sunday
New York Times,
the Sunday edition of the Ann Arbor paper, and two
jazz
CDs he’d been coveting but hadn’t purchased. With a big smile, he invited the wary young man to come in.

“Come on in and let me get you something for your trouble,” he said.

“No, sir, absolutely not.
It’s all been taken care of,” he said hastily.

“But I insist. I appreciate all the trouble you went to, I doubt that your restaurant normally delivers.”

“They don’t, sir, but the person, the woman, the
lady
who set it up, she made it worth my while, really worth it, I mean. And she said if I took any money . . .” His voice trailed off.

John smiled, already knowing who’d sent him the wonderful gift. “What did she say?”

“She said she would personally eviscerate me with a salad fork and feed my entrails to the birds, sir. I think she meant it.” He was now bright red with drops of perspiration on his top lip.

John laughed out loud and pulled the terrified college student across the threshold. “Ignore her. Her bark is no worse than a low-level atomic accident, but I’m almost certain her bite isn’t as bad.”

He left the room and came back to find the young man frozen right where he’d left him. He handed him a twenty-dollar bill and insisted he keep it. “She may be tough but she’s not omniscient, she’ll never know.” Wordlessly the boy handed him a folded piece of paper. John burst out laughing as he read the words
Take
that money back if you don’t want to meet the same fate.
It was signed Miss Parker.

“Trust
me,
she’s not going to come after you. You have my word on
it. She just likes to act tough. 
I
t’s
a little game we play.”

“She plays it really well,” the young man mumbled.

With a shaky smile of relief the youth dashed off to his disreputable-looking car and took off. John took his bounty into the dining area and opened the Styrofoam containers to find a plump, piping-hot omelet oozing cheese and full of mushrooms, onions, and peppers, along with crisp bacon, rye toast, hash browns, sliced strawberries, and two giant cups of coffee. There was also a big piece of apple pie, a particular weakness of his. Only someone who knew him very well could have assembled this meal. Someone who knew him well enough to care that he ate well. He said a quick grace and did his best to do justice to the meal and found that he could consume most of it, unusual for him as of late. He cleared the table and got comfortable on the sofa to read the papers and listen to the first of his two CDs, a mellow collection of love songs by Chet Baker. He attempted several times to call Nina, but she wasn’t answering her cell phone. From what he knew of her he figured she would hate being thanked for doing something so special; thus she was avoiding him. Well, she couldn’t hide forever. He’d do something spectacular for her the next day, something that would embarrass her no doubt, but might please her as well.
I knew she had a soft heart,
he thought, gloating.

* * *

The next couple of weeks weren’t what Adam would have expected. After his initial reaction
to
the
revelation
of John’s parentage,
he was prepared for a period of hostility and estrangement, but it wasn’t to be. In a strange way he was closer to his family than ever and he couldn’t quite figure out why. He was sitting in his office at Cochran and Fuentes Design thinking about the events of the past days. He was watching the traffic in downtown Detroit as he went over what had occurred since the big party at Donnie and Angelique’s house.

The day
a
fter, the same day he’d made breakfast for Alicia, he’d gotten a call inviting him to play a round of golf with his brothers. It was the first time he’d had an opportunity to really talk with them since Benny’s big reve
al
, and he accepted at once. He’d gone to Andrew’s house to collect him and drive over to the golf course. While he was waiting for Andrew he had a chance
to talk with Benita. She and Cl
ay were going back to Atl
anta in a few days and she had a few things to say to him before they left.

“Adam, I want you to know how proud I am of you. I know this isn’t easy for you, but you’re handling this much better than anyone has a right to expect you to,” she said as she gave him a big hug.

They had a rare moment alone on the deck to talk and she was making the most of it
They
sat next to each other on a wicker settee with Adam’s arm draped around her shoulder. She stroked his hand and looked into his eyes with loving concern.

“I remember how close you were to Mama. Of all the boys you were her favorite, although she’d never,
ever
say that,” Bennie said hastily. “But she just adored you, Adam. She loved all of us, she really did, and we were all her favorites for one reason or another, but you were her heart and that’s the truth. I know this must feel like you’re betraying her in some way, but you’re not.
 
John didn’t do anything to get
here,
he didn’t ask to be born.”