A Week at the Lake (17 page)

Bob Fortson's mouth dropped open briefly. “Georgia?” he said awestruck. “Emma Michaels and Georgia Goodbody in one place?”

Mackenzie sighed. This, of course, would make her the chopped liver.

“You don't have any camera gear tucked away there anywhere do you?” Serena asked the young man.

“Oh, no, ma'am.”

Mackenzie smiled at Serena's sigh. She might be chopped liver, but Serena had just been “ma'am-ed.”

“But I am a huge fan!”

Serena turned to Mackenzie and raised an eyebrow.

“He says he's a physical therapist prescribed by Dr. Markham and paid for by Eve.” Mackenzie wasn't sure what should happen next. “I was going to call Glens Falls Hospital to follow up on the list of referrals in the morning.”

“But Eve beat us to it,” Serena said. “First the nurse, now the PT. How weird is that?”

“Extremely,” Mackenzie said. In all the years they'd been friends with Emma, she'd only spoken about her mother when pressed, and what she'd shared had been almost always negative. It was hard to imagine Eve Michaels with an altruistic agenda. Or even one that put someone else first. “She's asleep right now,” Mackenzie said to the young man. “And regardless of who's paying, we'll need to see your ID and references.” There was still that small possibility that they'd let him inside and the only equipment that would come out would be a camera. She looked to Serena for confirmation.

“Agreed.”

“You want I come interrogate him?” Nadia stood on the stairs. “Make sure he who he say he is?”

The physical therapist blanched slightly at the disembodied voice.

“No, thanks, I think we've got it, Nadia,” Mackenzie called up to the nurse. “But, I think Emma needs at least one transition day before she gets started.”

“And let's see that ID and references now,” Serena added. “Otherwise we'll have to turn you over to our resident former KGB agent.”

Bob Fortson's eyes got big. “Sure. No problem.” He pulled out his wallet and showed them his hospital ID. “There's more information and references on the website.” He handed Serena
a business card and pointed to the URL. “We have an occupational therapist on staff, too.”

Mackenzie looked up to gauge Nadia's reaction. The nurse shook her head slightly. “Nyet.”

“I'm pretty sure Emma already has an occupation,” Serena said drily.

Bob chuckled. “Wow. You're as funny in person as you are in cartoon.”

Mackenzie wondered if he was about to pull out a pen and paper and ask for an autograph. Serena was apparently thinking the same thing. “There's just one thing, Bob,” she said. “Emma needs privacy and quiet in which to recuperate and regain her strength. And it looks like you're going to be a part of that recovery.”

He smiled happily, apparently not yet hearing the steel beneath Serena's honeyed drawl. “But if you tell a single person that Emma is here, or share anything you see or hear while you're in this house no matter how small or seemingly unimportant, I'll personally make sure that you regret it.”

“Y-ye-yes, ma'am,” the physical therapist stammered as he backed away from the door. “But there's no chance of that. I take the HIPAA promise of privacy very seriously. My lips are sealed. Mum is the word.” He'd reached his fingers to his lips and started a zipping motion when Mackenzie closed the door.

“Well done,” she said to Serena with unfeigned admiration. “I've never seen anyone scare another person so sweetly.”

S
erena tried not to worry about the fact that Emma slept much of their first full day at the lake and a good part of their second. When Em was awake Nadia brought her out onto the upper balcony for fresh air and so that she could feel a part of what was happening.

Zoe did as she'd promised and spent most of the daylight hours in her bathing suit either in the lake or sunning on the swim platform. Serena and Mackenzie stayed within hailing distance of the house so they could join Emma when she wanted company, but they, too, wore little more than bathing suits, oversized T-shirts, and flip-flops. No one unpacked a blow dryer, curling iron, or makeup bag. Only Nadia remained fully clothed, starched, and shod.

In those first days they began a routine that revolved around morning coffee, afternoon drinks and snacks, and dinner on Emma's balcony. It was agreed, if unspoken, that as long as she was too tired to come to them, they would come to her. And that no one was going to bring up Eve's “gifts” unless Emma specifically asked where her nurse and physical therapist had come from. Together they began to work their way through the homemade offerings that Martha had stuffed into the refrigerator and freezer. They sat around the wrought-iron table eating, talking, and staring out over the lake while Nadia proved herself adept at seeming to disappear while remaining within earshot, a surprising accomplishment for someone built like a tank and with the personality of a steamroller. Unless,
of course, their jokes about a possible past in the KGB weren't jokes at all.

That afternoon, they consumed a platter of homemade chocolate chip cookies and rum balls washed down with an assortment of beverages: white wine for Serena and Mackenzie, milk for Zoe, and tea for Emma, whose appetite had not yet returned but whose legendary sweet tooth had begun to make itself known.

“These taste way better than those weird energy drinks Nadia keeps trying to pour down me,” Emma said as she nibbled on a cookie.

“Are you ready for physical therapy tomorrow?” Mackenzie asked after glancing at her phone.

“Maybe it'll help me wake up.” Emma yawned. “I feel like a total slug. I haven't even made it to the lake yet.”

“We'll get you there,” Serena promised, but she wished she knew how long it would be until that was possible. “Even if we have to put you on our backs and carry you into the water.”

Zoe nodded emphatically and popped half a cookie into her mouth. Her haunted look had begun to fade, though Serena saw how often the girl's eyes sought out her mother as if to reassure herself that she was all right. How carefully she studied Emma's facial expressions and movements.

“We could put you in the bottom of a canoe and float you out into the lake like a Viking warrior,” Mackenzie said.

“As long as nobody tries to set me on fire,” Emma said.

There was laughter, all of them glad to see any sign of the “old” Emma.

They talked desultorily, wandering from topic to topic, trying to keep things interesting enough to hold on to Emma's attention. The sound of the ringing phone was jarring in the quiet. Mackenzie sat up and grabbed the cell phone she'd been eyeing for the last two days. It took several more rings before it became clear that the phone that was ringing was Serena's.

Mackenzie put hers down abruptly. Serena, seeing the studio's phone number, got up and moved to the other edge of the porch to answer hers.

“Serena? It's Catherine.”

“Hi.” Serena stared out over the railing to the lake where something, maybe a turtle's head, had just broken the surface. “What's up?”

“Ethan wants to know if you can come in to record. He offered to send his car for you.”

Serena watched the rings in the water that marked the turtle's progress. She'd already been largely unavailable for the last two weeks and now she was looking at at least another couple of weeks up here. Ethan had been great about the time off and everything else. The least she could do was be there when he needed her.

She looked over her shoulder to where Nadia Kochenkov was helping Emma up and escorting her back to her bedroom. Emma was in good hands and Mackenzie might be clinging to a phone that never rang, but she didn't seem in any hurry to leave.

“Of course,” she said into the phone. “I can do that. Can it wait a week? I'd just like to get things settled for Emma.”

They worked out the details and Serena was about to hang up, when Catherine said, “By the way, I've been meaning to let you know that guy who left his number keeps calling.”

“What guy?” Serena glanced over her shoulder once more and lowered her voice.

“The one with the sexy southern accent like yours,” Catherine teased.

“This is the first time I've ever heard a New Yorker call a southern accent sexy,” Serena said, aware that she was stalling. “Stupid, hillbilly, redneck, maybe, but never sexy.” Her heart was skittering in her chest in a ridiculously juvenile way. She ordered it to stop.

“What can I say?” Catherine replied. “I'm a sucker for anything that didn't originate in Long Island or New Jersey.”

Serena drew in a calming breath, determined not to overreact. Emma's situation had almost pushed thoughts of Brooks Anderson out of her mind.
Almost.
She had decided there was no reason to call him. After all, she'd been the injured party. He'd been the one who'd never shown up in New York, who'd married Diana Ravenel, gone to work for her father, had a family. Serena didn't owe him one single thing. Ever. And that included a return phone call.

“I meant to call him back. But in all the excitement over Emma I must have lost his number.” Serena had no idea why she was lying. She knew exactly where the number was and had, in fact, looked at it so many times she could have dialed it from memory.

“Oh, gosh, I'm so relieved to hear that,” Catherine said in a rush. “I was afraid you were going to tell me you didn't want to speak to him. Because, well, I know it's completely against the rules, but he was so sweet and so . . . I didn't mean to do it, but when he said he was going to be in New York and really wanted to make arrangements to see you, I . . . I went ahead and gave him your cell phone number.”

Serena gasped before she could stop herself. Mackenzie and Zoe turned to look at her.

Serena found her voice. “You're joking, right?”

“I'm so sorry,” Catherine said. “I know better, really I do.” Her voice had sunk to a frightened whisper. “He's just such a . . .”

Sweet talker
, Serena thought but did not say. How could she chastise Catherine when she knew just how potent the man's charm could be?

“I'm so, so, sorry!” Serena could practically hear the young receptionist wringing her hands. This was, after all, a firing offense.

“No, it's okay,” Serena insisted as Catherine apologized again. Which made two big fat lies in one phone call. “Really, don't worry about it.” She continued to look out over the lake, but it did nothing to soothe her. “It's fine. Tell Ethan I'll see him next Tuesday.”

As Serena ended the call and tucked her phone into a pocket, she told herself this was nothing to worry about. Her cell phone hadn't rung. It was unlikely he'd ever use the number. They hadn't seen or spoken to each other in twenty years. Why should that change now? And if for some unknown reason he did decide to call her . . . maybe she should put him in her contact list so that he'd show up in her caller ID. Wasn't that why it had been invented? Forewarned was forearmed. There was no reason why she should feel like she had to answer any call.

The past was the past. Dead and buried. Done if not forgotten. She had no interest whatsoever in anything Brooks Anderson might have to say to her today or at any time in the future.

D
espite how fanatically she watched it, Mackenzie's phone didn't ring until late the next morning, not too long after Bob Fortson had arrived and carried all his gear up to Emma's balcony.

She'd watched him set up before heading out to what had always been her favorite spot, stretched out in the hammock strung between two tall pines at the southern edge of the cove. The shade was sweet. The breeze off the lake that skimmed over her bare skin kept the hammock swaying gently.

She'd given up reading the novel now splayed across her stomach and had tuned out Emma's squawks of protest that occasionally reached her, finally falling asleep. It took several rings to wake up fully. Another to find the face of the phone and register the time and the person calling. It was Adam and
it was noon. Which made it nine a.m. in LA. She almost fell out of the hammock as she tried to sit up too quickly. Her book landed in a pile of dirt. Her phone landed right beside it. Frantic fumbling followed.

“Mac? Are you there?” Adam's voice was low pitched and unhurried. When she answered, his apology for taking two full days to return her call didn't sound at all apologetic. “So how's everything going?” he asked when she didn't ask him first.

“Okay,” she said. “Emma's sleeping a lot of the time, but apparently that's to be expected. She started physical therapy this morning.” Mackenzie paused, thinking she'd tell him how beautiful the lake was at this moment, how Emma's nurse was a former Soviet weight lifter who could bench-press all three of them without breaking a sweat, how desperately she'd wanted to believe that the blue heron she'd seen standing on the lawn early this morning was a good omen.

“That's great,” he said the moment she paused to take a breath. “Em's tough. I knew she'd fight her way back.” He said this as if there'd been no doubt, as if the most traumatic thing Mackenzie had ever witnessed or lived through had been a sporting event whose outcome had never been in question.

A silence fell and she knew he was ready to change the subject, ready for her to ask about him. She realized with some surprise that she didn't really want to hear what he'd been up to. What she really wanted to know was why he'd been so out of touch, why it had taken him two full days to return her call, though she supposed those were really both the same question.

But what would be accomplished by a long-distance argument? “So, how are things going there?”

“Great. Couldn't be better.” Adam launched into a detailed explanation of where things were with the script, who'd said what about it and why, and then recited the list of actors that Matthew, Adam's agent, thought might play
the leads if the studio he thought might be interested in the screenplay signed on.

For the first time she could remember, she just wasn't interested. She had spent two weeks with a friend who was fighting her way out of a coma. She'd barely slept or eaten. Even now she worried that Emma might not fully recover. Yet she'd barely gotten two minutes of her husband's attention two days after she'd needed it.

She watched a sailboat prepare to come about, saw the captain push hard on the tiller. On cue the life-jacketed family ducked and shifted as the sail swung to the opposite side. As the sail filled with air and moved off in a new direction, she realized with startling clarity that despite having almost lost Emma, despite all that she'd been through, this conversation with Adam was no different than a million others they'd had in that it revolved almost entirely around what Adam thought, what Adam felt, and what Adam wanted.

How had she never noticed before? Had she really been that busy? Or had she simply not wanted to see?

Without her usual prompts and murmurs of praise and encouragement, his monologue finally ended. “So how long do you plan to stay at the lake?” he asked.

The sailboat receded and her eyes resettled on the opposite shore. It was July. There was no reason to rush home with the theater closed until after Labor Day. There were no longer elderly parents nor were there young children back in Noblesville waiting for her to come home. No husband, either. “I don't know,” she said. “I thought I'd stay until Emma was stronger.”