Spanish Disco (24 page)

But he was not. Michael Pearton smiled at me from a wheelchair.

I walked to him and knelt down, my knees shaking from fear.

“What’s this?”

“A wheelchair.”

“Don’t be an ass. What’s it for? I don’t understand.”

“First kiss me. Because if you tell me you’re headed back to Florida tomorrow, I want to have at least kissed you.”

He pulled me into his lap, and I wrapped my arms around his neck. He pressed his hands against the small of my back, as if to will us to be one. We kissed for a long time without breathing. Or maybe we breathed each other. And when we finally stopped to look at each other again, I saw his face was as beautiful as in all his pictures. I almost forgot for a moment that the man I had waited all these years to meet was in a chrome-wheeled chair.

“Want to know something funny, Cassie?” he asked, stroking my hair.

“My hair? The weather does nothing for it.”

“No…it’s just that four days ago, I was walking. Tripping a lot, but walking. I’ve got M. S., Cassie. And then when you phoned and said you were coming, I had to clean in record time, and I wanted to have the place not look like a bloody old dark English castle. And I overdid it, and here I am in this stupid thing.”

“M. S. Oh, Michael…I’m so sorry.”

His eyes clouded briefly. “Don’t be, Cassie. I do okay usually. I don’t plan on dying on you or anything like that. But I realize it stacks the whole pile of cards against us. Against you. We can have this weekend, and after that you can leave, and I’ll understand, Cassie.”

“Michael, if there’s one thing by now you must know, it’s that I am a terrible bitch. And if you think this elaborate ploy to get rid of me is going to work, you’re fucking crazy.” I traced my finger down the scar on his face. I
imagined waking up to that scar and to all of him for a very long time.

“I knew I could count on you to stay with me for sympathy reasons.”

“Not on your life. I want breakfast. And I’ll tell you right now I don’t do dishes.”

“Let me guess, you break them when you’re through.”

“I’ve been known to on occasion.”

“And after breakfast?” He raised an eyebrow.

“I’m going to fuck your brains out. And then we’ll read the paper in bed. And then we’ll have soup for lunch.”

“Soup?”

I smiled. “Yes.”

“And how do you want your eggs, Cassie?”

“Didn’t this all start with eggs?”

“What?”

“Your last session of writer’s block.”

“I believe it did.”

“For once, I’ll have blind trust, Michael. Make them any way you bloody want.”

“A girl after my own heart.”

I stood up and walked behind his wheelchair.

“I can wheel myself, Cassie. It’s all right. I feel so stupid ending up in this thing when here you’ve flown from America.”

“I’ll push. Take it as a sign of my undying devotion.”

“My nurse?”

“No. I’ll take it out in trade later.”

“You are a naughty girl.”

“That’s what they tell me, Michael. That’s what they tell me.”

I pushed Michael out into the hallway. Charlie hadn’t moved. He was standing as I’d left him beside my bags.

“She’s here to stay, Charlie.”

“For how long?” Charlie asked.

Instinctively, I found myself gripping Michael’s shoulder. Why had it taken me so long to realize?

“Long enough to call this place home.”

36

Dear Lou,

Another rainy day. I can almost not stand it. No wonder the British lost the Revolutionary War. They were all clinically depressed. I miss the Florida sun.

Michael is walking again, and we’re doing unbelievably well. Happy. Just happy, Lou. Except for the rain.

How is my rabbit? Give José a kiss for me and then give yourself a kiss. And then, get ready to want to kiss me back and do a jig.

Enclosed please find the sequel to
Simple Simon
.

Roland Riggs had it all along. He had written it after his wife died and kept it all these years. It’s full of the raw emotion only love and death can bring to writing. It’s brilliant. You will be wealthy beyond your wildest dreams. Roland told me he had to be sure I was the right person for the book. Now that I am here with Michael, I am that person.

Roland and Maria got married just three weeks after I left. You asked me if I now believe in fate. I do. And Maria is pregnant. Now I also believe in miracles.

In your last e-mail you wondered when I will return. I can’t say. Michael and I will probably come for several months. Go back and forth between my home and his. But even though the weather is a bitch on my hair, and I can’t say I haven’t thrown any plates or threatened to kill him, he is, was always, and forever will be, my true north.

In Roland’s book, Simon falls in love, but the war follows him home. Death is everywhere. It’s in his morning coffee; it lingers on his toothbrush. Roland was ready to let go and believe in love again. He rewrote the ending. Simon is healed.

So am I.

I will call you when Michael and I are coming.

Eternally Yours,

Cassie

P. S. Don’t think because I fell in love that you all can get away with ruining this manuscript. I’ve edited it, and if you or Troy change a single word of it, I’ll have your testicles.

Book Group Questions

1. Many of Cassie’s fears revolve around losing control. How has the author woven this theme throughout the book?
   
2. Cassie’s ex says people who are in love need to be needed. Do you think this is true? What does the “soup moment” say about Cassie?
   
3. How do the themes of life and death permeate the book?
   
4. Disco and tango are discussed in the book, or are danced by the characters. Why disco?
   
5. Cassie’s ex is called the “cock that roared.” That relationship is sexual but not cerebral. Michael Pearton and Cassie have never met. Their relationship is cerebral, not sexual. Which is more powerful? Can you love someone you’ve never met?
   
6. How do each of the main characters grieve?
   
7. What do you think the author is saying about celebrity culture?
   
8. Were you surprised at Michael Pearton in the end? Why do you think the author chose to present him this way?
   

SPANISH DISCO

A Red Dress Ink novel

ISBN: 978-1-4592-4849-6

© 2003 by Erica Orloff.

All rights reserved. The reproduction, transmission or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without written permission. For permission please contact Red Dress Ink, Editorial Office, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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