The Perfect Homecoming (Pine River) (6 page)

The drive out to the ranch had perked Cooper up. It was about eight miles out of Pine River, an old mining town that had sprung up on the valley floor high in the Colorado mountains. The mines were long gone, and the town had turned itself into a tourist destination for summer mountain sports. As the ski valleys were too far away to be considered convenient to Pine River, winter was the off-season for Pine River.

The ranch setting was a gorgeous location, a perfect postcard of welcome to the Colorado mountains. The house itself was set in a stand of alder trees, up against the mountain and Ponderosa pines. It was old and in obvious need of repair, but it still had its charm. The roof was a collection of steeply angled pitches over various rooms and floors. The ground floor of the house was built with stone, and the second story, which looked to have been added on at some point, was made of tongue-and-groove logs. Large plate-glass windows lined the front of the house and reflected the snow-capped mountains rising up across the valley.

In between the house and a red barn was a grassy area enclosed by cottonwoods. Faded Chinese lanterns had been strung through the trees, and three picnic tables were situated under the branches. From one tree, a tire swing spun lazily.

The only jarring element to the picturesque setting was the empty tent pads and partially constructed cabin.

Cooper had another look at them as he drove away from the ranch.

He drove out the gate marking the entrance to the property, and down the narrow, two-lane road that wended down to the valley. He passed beneath pines, spruce, and cottonwoods, past empty meadows. Eli was right—there could be some great opportunities for TA here. As the weather was abnormally warm and dry, Cooper was going to enjoy poking around once he was through with Emma.

Minutes later, Pine River came into view. Cooper entered the older part of town where houses sat beneath towering elms on streets laid out on a grid. It looked like Anywhere, America, with bungalow houses and neat yards. Cooper tried to imagine Emma Tyler living in this town, but he couldn’t see it. She didn’t fit. Cooper wasn’t sure where Emma fit, actually, but it damn sure wasn’t Middle America. It occurred to him that she might require her own planet.

She’d been shocked to see him, perhaps even a bit frightened, her eyes going wide. She had seemed to him even skinnier than the last time he’d seen her, and he wondered, why didn’t the girl just eat? He didn’t understand what was in her head. She was beautiful. He guessed that she pulled down a very good salary given her status at CEM, and was obviously good at what she did. She had everything going for her, but had a reputation for sleeping around, having a strange, distant demeanor, and merely tolerating everyone and everything around her.

All of those rumors were so wildly incongruent with the package of her that it intrigued Cooper in a don’t-get-this sort of way. Maybe because he’d had a very different experience with her at the Applebaum bat mitzvah. She’d been sunny and engaging, and he’d really liked her
. . .
until that bizarre ending in the kiddie lounge.

And then, the kicker. There she’d been, in Reggie’s limo. He would never forget her in the window of that limo, or her expression, framed in his mind’s eye now. She’d looked resigned. Distant. Like the Emma of the kiddie lounge had checked out, and had been replaced by a sullen Barbie doll.

She’d obviously been unpleasantly surprised by him today. So why hadn’t she just handed over the damn medal and sent him on his way? That’s what he’d do if he were in her shoes—he’d just give the thing back and get on with life. Surely she knew he hadn’t come all this way on a hunch. Surely she knew that he was certain she had it.

Cooper found Elm Street easily enough. The houses on this street looked a little older and more weather-beaten than some of the newer houses Cooper had seen on the edge of town. The houses were a midcentury style, with shutters and window awnings, their garages detached and suitable for only one car. He spotted a green house at the end of the block, a chain-link fence bounding the property. In the drive was a maroon-colored passenger van with elaborate flames painted up the sides. Cooper wondered idly what sort of business that was supposed to represent.

As he pulled to a halt in front of the house, he could see the recent addition to the structure. The paint wasn’t quite a match; the owner apparently had declined to paint the whole house. Decking had also been added around the house, including a wheelchair ramp. That ramp, along with the flaming van, stumped Cooper. He couldn’t begin to guess what sort of job Emma would have here.

He unfolded himself out of his rental, smoothed his hair back with his hands, and walked through the gate. But before he could make it up the walk, a man stepped out onto the porch. He wore a sweat-stained garden hat on his head and slowly came down the steps to meet Cooper, eyeing him warily. “Can I help you?” he asked gruffly, his blue eyes shining out from skin creased by mountain sun.

“I sure hope so,” Cooper said amicably. “I’m looking for Emma Tyler. Is she here today?”

The man squinted at Cooper. “She’s in trouble?”

“Everyone keeps asking me that,” Cooper said with a chuckle. “Not that I am aware. I just have a message to deliver.”

The man considered that for a moment, then offered his hand. “Bob Kendrick,” he said. “Emma’s inside with my son, Leo.”

Judging by the man’s age, his son was likely somewhere in his twenties or early thirties. Was Emma hanging out with some mountain guy? Was
that
what was going on here? That didn’t seem her type, but then again, what did he know? Cooper supposed nothing about her would surprise him now.

“Come on, I’ll show you in,” Bob Kendrick said.

FOUR

I don’t have a lot of time to fill you in on how Emma Tyler became vice president of Leo Kendrick Operations, because I’m, like,
super
busy.

Okay, I know what you’re thinking, because Dad looks at me like that, too—like I’m a guy with Motor Neuron Disease who is sipping food from a straw, that’s what I’m so busy doing. And that is totally true. But I’m also busy getting ready to go see the Broncos play the Patriots next week in Denver. That requires a
lot
of high-level thinking and planning for a guy without use of his limbs.

I’m Leo Kendrick, and it’s true that I have MND, and it’s also true that this football game is like the best thing that’s ever happened to me. It wouldn’t have happened at all had I not come at this like the certified genius that I am. That’s no lie, just ask Stephen Hawking, the famous physicist who
also
has MND—anyone who has this disease is probably a genius. To wit: First, I had to convince the Methodist ladies to take me on as this year’s charity case. Check. Then, I had to convince them to get me tickets to the game at Mile High Stadium, which they managed, believe it or not, because someone from Pine River knew someone. Check. Better still, they knew someone important and managed to get me into a
skybox.
I think that’s because I said something like, what is the point of going all that way in a chair if you can’t get into a skybox, and fortunately, everyone agreed about that. Check, check, and checkmate.

So I scored the tickets for me and my friend Dante, who gets his chemo at the same boring hospital where my doctors sit around playing tiddlywinks, but then I suddenly realized that the family van—a former
bread delivery truck
—was not going to carry my ass all the way to Denver, no sir. So I
suggested
to the Methodists that they might want to have an auction to raise money to get me a van, and they did, but they didn’t raise enough, so Libby Tyler stepped in and put together this 5k race to benefit yours truly, and the next thing you know, I am the proud owner of a
sweet
van, man. It’s like a military machine—they roll me into that thing like a nuclear warhead and lock me down.

But you know what I learned? There’s no such thing as true glory without someone coming around to bitch about it. I’m serious as a heart attack right now. Believe it or not, some people actually complained that it wasn’t “fair” that
I
got the van when I’m not exactly a certified charity, and my dad and brother agreed. My dad and my brother are just too proud sometimes, you know what I’m saying? I’m trying to think of something funny to say about it, but honestly, after all my hard work, it totally pissed me off. So I said to myself, okay, Leo, what does a genius do? A genius arranges everything with a
real
charity to make sure this van will be donated to people with MND and other assorted jelly-legged diseases when I’m gone.

Oh, I’m definitely going. I mean, it’s not like I know when or anything, but trust me, the tires will still be new on the van when the MND people get it.

I also learned that being a Dudley Do-Right is
totally
exhausting, and the worst of it was that Marisol wasn’t there to help me. You’ve heard about Marisol, right? The hotheaded sexy Latina who happens to be a nurse here in town? For the last two years she’s been bossing me around and changing my diapers and making sure my bed is set at the perfect angle so I can watch my TV shows. And then she had to ruin it all by having a baby and taking maternity leave, and let me tell you, that little stinker Valentina could not have come at a worse time. But do you think Valentina cares how her entry into the world affects
me
? No way, man. She just cries and curls her hands into little fists and sleeps a lot. I told that little stinker
after
football season would have worked better for me, but you know how babies and saucy Latinas are—they wait for no one.

So here’s where things get interesting. Get this—my dad didn’t have anyone lined up to take Marisol’s place, even though she’d been pregnant for like two hundred years, and he said something dumb like,
looks like it’s you and me, pal,
and I said,
over my dead body,
which my brother, Luke, pointed out is not a good thing to say to Dad, because, you know, he’s going to have to step over my carcass eventually. But I’m not so far gone that I’m going to let my dad change out my tubes and hose me down and other things I won’t mention here because I might vomit. I guess Dad wasn’t too keen, either, because he found this service, and they send these totally hot nurses out once a day to check things out and do all the stuff I am
never
letting my dad do. They’re great, but they are expensive, and we couldn’t afford for them to be lollygagging around all day long. In other words, I needed someone cheap to hang around in case I couldn’t work the remote, and who should show up but Emma Tyler?

I know,
right
? Crazy!

But if you’d lived around Pine River for twenty-seven years like I have, you would know just how crazy life has been for all those Tyler women. It started with their dad, Grant Tyler. Here’s the flat-out truth about Grant—he was a cheat and a player. He hooked up with any hoohaw that would admit him entrance, and there were a few. Emma and Libby have different moms, but at least each knew the other was out in the world. Madeline has an altogether
different
mom, and she was a complete surprise to them. They were to Madeline, too.

That’s not all Grant did. He practically stole Homecoming R
anch from
my
dad, and then he upped and died and left it to those girls instead of giving it back like he said he would. And he left the ranch in worse shape than when he got it, so it’s not worth as much as is owed on it. So when the sisters all met up in Pine River, they had all these expectations, like they’d really dig each other and could agree on what to do with the property. Anyone who knows women
at all
could have told them that wasn’t going to happen, at least not the way
they
thought it would, and long story short, they’re all living up there together trying to get along and figure out what to do with the ranch.

I’m happy to say the Kendricks are out of the running. I mean, sort of. Luke is going to marry Madeline, so he’ll have one foot in and one foot out. But me and Dad? We like it in town.

So
aaaanyway,
Emma was the last one to come into the fold, and I swear I am not lying when I say it was obvious from day one that she had a thing for me. I mean, she kept coming around and hanging out even before Marisol had her baby. I mentioned this to Luke once. I said, “Emma is totally hot for me
,
”
and Luke said I was taking too many pain pills again, because no way would a woman as kick-ass gorgeous as Emma Tyler have a thing for me. He hypothesized that she was bored in Pine River and didn’t have anything better to do, to which I replied with some ideas that are not G-rated, and I begged Dad to throw something at Luke’s fat head, but as usual, Dad refused to participate in “you-boys-and-your-shenanigans” business.

Joke’s on Luke, because it turned out I was totally
right
. I mean, who was first in line to hang out with me when Marisol had her baby?

Yep, Emma Tyler. Good—you’re keeping up.

Dad said, “Look, Emma, we can’t pay you anything,” and she said, “I don’t care,” which totally proves my point, because why would she come to this dump if she wasn’t getting paid? But she started coming around every day, showing up at noon, staying until at least four, sometimes a lot later. Contrary to what everyone thinks (well, Madeline thinks), she’s really nice. But she is a little weird.

She tried to play
Deadly Dungeon Duels
with me, my newest video game, but she kept asking these existential questions, like, why dungeons, why not forests, and other dumb stuff. It was annoying, but it’s okay. About that time, my right hand stopped working, and I can’t do the controller with my left, so it didn’t really matter. Emma and I started watching TV.

Check it—one day, I’m in bed watching
House of Cards
on Netflix, and I’m on episode eight, and it’s totally intense, and who crawls onto the bed with me and lays there like we’re a couple? And I said, “People are going to talk. I hope you’re okay with that, because I sure as hell won’t deny anything happened since I have a reputation to protect.” She said, “I don’t care—let them talk. I have a reputation to protect, too.” Which is why I totally dig her.

But I said, “Well, look, Emma, this is okay as long as you don’t talk or disrupt the streaming video, and for God’s sake, don’t ask me questions during
House of Cards
.” She said she wouldn’t, so we started streaming videos together.

Luke told me it didn’t look good for me and Emma to be lolling on a bed in the afternoon streaming video from Netflix all afternoon. Personally, I think Luke is a little jealous because there was a time back in the day that chicks used to flock to
him.
Those days are over for sure, and even if they weren’t, Luke is going to marry Madeline on New Year’s Eve, and Madeline doesn’t strike me as the type to put up with “shenanigans,” as Dad would say.

During these afternoon video-viewing sessions, Emma’s done a little talking. She’s said things like,
you don’t look at me like other guys.
Which I pointed out was probably because I can’t turn my head. And then she would say this off-the-wall stuff that had nothing to do with the program, like,
sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be someone else—do you?
I can’t snort anymore, but if I could, I would have to that question. It’s not like I lie around wondering why me, why MND, but yeah, the idea of being someone else has definitely crossed my mind a time or two in the last couple of years.

She said some other stuff that I won’t share because I promised Dani Boxer I’d tell her everything first, and I haven’t had time to deliver the dirt. Anyway, I didn’t need my superior intellect to guess where this was all going, so one day, I casually say, “You know, Emma, I’m not going to live forever.” As in, not very long at all, but I didn’t say that, as it tends to freak people out.

As expected, she got all flustered and said, “Why do you say things like that?”

I said, “Because you need to get a grip—I can’t be your boo.”

She said, “You can’t be my
what
?”

And I had to sidetrack a little and explain to her the
Real Housewives of Atlanta
, but then I circled back around and said, “Look, I know you’re totally into me, and that’s okay. Lots of chicks are. And I don’t mind you hanging around at all. But you need to know that it isn’t really going to go anywhere, you and me.”

Emma smiled in this funny way that made me think maybe I’d hurt her feelings. But then she said, “
Obviously
I know that. You’re dying.”

Hey, even I was a little shocked by that. But at the same time, I really dug it, because at least Emma Tyler can say it out loud. At least Emma doesn’t pretend I’m going to somehow miraculously beat this thing and live. No one else around me can face it, much less
say
it. Only Emma and I can.

“Well, that’s kind of beside the point,” I said, because it was. “The point is that I’m just not that into you.”

She sort of averted her gaze and said, “You’re so funny, Leo.”

Yes, I am. But I wasn’t being funny then. And even though she pretended to think I was, I could tell she knew I wasn’t being funny. She got kind of quiet and wouldn’t say anything for a while, and then said she didn’t want to watch another episode of
The Americans,
so you
know
she was pissed.

She got up and left my room, and I could hear her talking to Dad for a long time, and he was probably spelling it out for her:
Leo. Is. An. Ass.

Hey, I wear the mantle proudly.

But the next day Emma was back and she was her same old self, and I thought things were cool and we both knew where we stood. But I didn’t count on Hollywood showing up at my door. Isn’t that the beauty of this life? Just when you think there’s no hope, that things are going to be totally boring for the rest of your life, something pops up to make it interesting again.