Coast Road (15 page)

Jack closed the drawer on the shower quilt. One by one, he put nightgowns over the facedown pictures in the upper drawer and closed it.

Opening the one directly beneath it, he slid the wedding picture in under a pile of sweaters. When that drawer, too, was closed, he stretched kinked muscles in his lower back and ran a hand through his hair. He needed a haircut. He had always worn it on the long side, but this was pushing it.

It would have to wait.

He glanced at the time. It would be late in New York. But Rachel had been comatose for forty-eight hours, and faults and all, Victoria was her mother In good conscience, he couldn't wait any longer.

Sinking down on Rachel's bed, he lifted the phone. "Two minutes, " he told Sam, "then I need the line." He hung up before she could tell him to use the cell phone, and started timing off the face of his watch.

chapter seven.

WHEN JACK ARRIVED at the hospital the next morning, Rachel was lying on her side with her back to the door. His heart began to pound.

Awake!

He crept forward, cautiously rounding the bed, wondering what those curious hazel eyes of hers would be focused on and what the rest of her face would do when those eyes saw him there. After all, she was the one who had moved out and initiated the divorce. She might not be at all happy that he had come.

But her eyes were closed.

He stole closer. "Rachel? " he whispered, watching her lids for a flicker.

Kara Bates turned into the room. "We've started rotating her. Two straight days on her back is enough. We've also put a pressure mattress under her sheet. It adds a measure of mobility." Jack swallowed down a throatful of emotion. Disappointment was there, along with fear�because what the doctor was saying suggested that with Rachel still comatose after forty-eight hours, they were looking farther down the road.

"Is there any change at all? " he asked, studying the monitor.

"Not up there. I think her face looks better, though. Not as purple.

" Jack agreed. "But if the swelling is going down out here, why isn't it going down inside? " "The swelling inside is encased, " Kara said, cupping her hands a skull's width apart, "so the healing is slower. I was trying to explain that to Rachel's mother, but she wasn't buying.

" "Victoria called here? " "Several times." Jack should have known.

He had left a message on her machine asking that she call him at Rachel's, which she did at five in the morning, all excited, thinking they had reconciled. She was nearly as disappointed to hear that they hadn't as she was upset about the accident. She was in Paris on business, hence the early call. She grilled him for twenty minutes.

When she asked if she should come, he discouraged it. He was hoping Rachel would wake up that day.

"She's an insistent woman, " the doctor said.

"She's an insufferable woman, " Jack muttered, then added a cautious "You didn't tell her to fly over, did you? " "I told her she was stable. The rest is up to you, " she said, peering into the small overnight bag on the bed. "What did you bring? " "Nightgowns. Rachel likes color."

"I was starting to guess that, " Kara remarked, arching a brow at the windowsill. It was crammed with flowers. "Those made it past the I.C.U police only because Rachel's problem isn't infectious or pulmonary." A vague part of Jack had known the arrangements were there. For the first time now, he really looked. There were five arrangements, vases and baskets filled with flowers whose names he didn't know but whose colors he did. They were Rachel's colors�deep blue, vivid reds, rich greens, brilliant yellows. She liked basic and bright. Each arrangement had a card.

We need you, Rachel, healfast, wrote Dinah and Jan. To ourfavorite room parent, with wishesfor a speedy recovery, wrote Hope's seventh-grade class. There was a bouquet of hot-red flowers from Nellie, Tom, and Bev, a tall blue arrangement from the Liebermans, and a vase of yellow roses whose card read, With love, Ben.

"She has lots of friends, " Kara observed.

"Apparently, " said Jack, vaguely miffed. There was actually a sixth arrangement. It was from David. Stuck to the side and behind, it was much larger and less personal than the others.

- - J Kara went on. "We've been getting calls at the desk asking if visiting is permitted. I wanted to talk with you about that.

Medically, there's no reason why she can't have visitors."

"In Intensive Care? " "We're a small hospital. Flowers�visitors�we can be flexible. Hearing familiar voices can help, and Rachel isn't in danger of infection. If she was a heart or a stroke patient, we might worry about someone doing something to upset her. Since that worry doesn't apply with coma patients, we restrict guests only when the family requests it." Jack could do without Ben Wolfe and his love bouquet.

But, okay. He and Rachel were divorced. He dated other women. He had slept with other women. Rachel was free to do the same. To live her own life. If friends had come to be a part of it, he had to give those friends a chance to help wake her up.

It was in his own best interest. He had to get back to San Francisco.

Clients needed attention, his associates needed direction, design revisions were overdue. Jill had been a good sport, but she was growing impatient. The whole of the life that waited in the city was starting to make him nervous. If friends visited Rachel, he would at least be free to return to the office. He had been hoping to get a few hours there again today while the girls were in school, but he didn't want to leave Rachel alone.

"Let them come, " he told the doctor.

KATHERINE swept in moments later. Her eyes widened, her mouth formed a hopeful O when she saw Rachel on her side. Jack shook his head.

She swore softly and came to the bed. "I was hoping . . . " "So was I. " She leaned down and talked softly to Rachel for a minute, then straightened and sighed. It was another minute before she looked at him.

"I wasn't sure you'd still be here."

"Oh, I'm here, " he said, but he wasn't in the mood for sparring. He was wondering about those flowers, wondering about the friends Rachel appeared to have made since she had left him. In San Francisco, she had been a loner�independent in that regard, focused solely on her art, the kids, and him. "Who are Dinah and Jan? " "Dinah Monroe and Jan O"Neal. They're in our book group.

You met them yesterday." He had met lots of people yesterday. One face blended into the next.

"Who are Nellie, Tom, and Bev? " "Bridge friends." He had to have heard wrong. "Bridge? As in the game? " "Cards. That's right." He tried to picture it but couldn't. "That's a kicker."

"Why? " "The last thing Rachel would have done in the city was play bridge. It stood for everything her mother used to do while she was waiting to get rich and busy. So what's Rachel doing playing it here?

" Katherine scrubbed the back of Rachel's hand. "Should I tell him? " she asked, looking amused. "The poor guy is mystified, absolutely mystified.

Where's his imagination? " "It's there, " Jack assured her. "I'd never be where I am today if I didn't have it. There are people who say I have too much."

"What people? " "Clients who want a house exactly like one that their neighbor's brother has in Grosse Point, or a library to match a charming little one in upstate New York. I argue with them. I mean, hell, why are they hiring me? Any draftsperson can copy someone else's work. I don't want to give them what's already done."

"But you do, " she said with a little too much certainty for his comfort.

"Is that what Rachel said? " "Not exactly. What she said was that you'd gotten so far into big money that you'd lost your artistic integrity." He felt offended�by Rachel for thinking it and speaking it, by Katherine for repeating it. "That's not true. And how would she know, anyway? She doesn't know what I'm doing now." Quietly, smoothly, Katherine listed the six largest projects he had designed since the divorce.

Jack had mixed feelings about several of those. His initial designs, the ones landing him each job, had been exciting. Not so after developers, contractors and consultants, financiers, regulatory boards, and politicians had chipped away at the plans. That was what happened, the bigger the money. You weren't your own boss anymore. So maybe Rachel was right. Maybe he had lost his artistic integrity.

If so, he wasn't discussing it with Rachel's friend. "What does my artistic integrity have to do with playing bridge? " Katherine smiled.

"Spoken that way, not much. The subject was actually imagination.

I've often wondered why men have so much trouble understanding how women's minds work. You're right. Rachel hated what bridge stood for in her mother's life, but she had been taught to play, and soon after she moved down here, she met Bev, a bridge player who does the most incredible stuff with acrylics on rattlesnake skin, and somehow playing with her didn't sound so bad." Acrylics on snakeskin. It was a novel use of a medium. Rachel would have appreciated that. "Did she meet Nellie and Tom through Bev? " "No. She and Bev advertised in the local paper to complete the foursome. Tom owns the paper. Nellie answered the ad."

"Is Nellie an artist? " It would make sense.

Charlie. Bev. Nellie.

"Nope. She's a Carmelite."

"A nun? " "A secular member of the order, but devout."

"Okay." Rachel had never been terribly religious. But, hey. His parents had been devout. "And the Liebermans? " Katherine smiled with genuine warmth. "Faye and Bill.

Faye's in our book group. She's one of the golfers. Jan is the other, and a young mother, to boot. She'll be by later." Jack was trying to picture Rachel in a group with golfers, but all he could see was the adamant way she had always shaken her head when Victoria suggested they take up the game. "You're not going to tell me that Rachel plays golf now." Katherine laughed. "No. I doubt either of us would go that far."

"Then how do you come to have golfers in your group? " "Golfers read, " she said, giving Rachel's hand a conspiratorial squeeze.

"Obviously. But what's the connection? If you don't golf, how do you know golfers? " "They come to my shop. I've been doing Faye's hair for years, and we like talking books. Jan has her nails done every Thursday. She heard us talking once and joined in. When Rachel and I decided to form the group, they were both logical choices."

"What about Dinah? " "A travel agent in town. We've all used her one time or another." There was one connection left to make. "And you and Rachel? How did you meet? " "In the gynecologist's waiting room, " Katherine said. With a glance at her watch and a look of concern, she leaned over Rachel's shoulder. "I have a nine o'clock, so I can't stay long. I want to talk to you, Rachel. I miss that." She made a little scrubbing motion on Rachel's back, a casual movement, but the concern remained. "It's Thursday.

You've been sleeping since Monday. How about cracking an eye open for me? " Jack watched Rachel's eyes. The lids were inert.

"Looks like Jack's brought in some of your nightgowns, " Katherine said.

"I've cleared an hour midafternoon to come by and do your hair." She asked Jack, "Shall I get the girls at school and bring them here? " Jack was feeling possessive again. "I'll do it." The corner of her mouth twitched. "I don't think he trusts me, " she told Rachel.

"The girls are my responsibility." She straightened, suddenly sober.

"Then can I make a suggestion? Buy a new car. Rachel's is totaled, so she's going to need another anyway, and you can't keep driving around with Hope stuck in that itty-bitty thing you call a backseat. If you want to risk your own life in a car that size, that's your choice, but I don't think you should take chances with the girls." Jack was startled by the intrusion. "Is this your business? " "You bet.

Rachel can't say it, so I'll say it for her."

"Good morning! " Steve Bauer said, crossing the threshold and approaching the bed.

Katherine pushed off. "Bye, " she said in a lighter voice, with an open-hand wave to no one in particular.

The doctor watched her exit. "Don't leave on my account." But she was already out the door before Jack could wonder why the sudden rush.

JACK needed to work. His laptop was full of messages each time he booted it up. There were more on Rachel's answering machine, and papers piling up by her fax. He had driven north from Big Sur that morning intending, in logical geographical order, to drop the girls at school in Carmel, visit Rachel in Monterey, and continue up to San Francisco. Now that he was with Rachel, the urgency had left.

Bracing his elbows on the bed rail, he studied her face. Even with the vision of fading purple on the left side, he thought it a beautiful face. Always had. He used to tell her so all the time. They were art students then, sitting hip to hip in life drawing class, which he had taken solely to be with Rachel, since it had little to do with architecture.

e had used whatever clout he had as a graduate student to wangle credit for it, but it was far from a gut course for him. He had to struggle far more than Rachel to reproduce, in the most minute detail, the face of the model.

"She's the beauty, " Rachel used to whisper, pink-cheeked and pleased, if adamant. "Widespread eyes, strong cheekbones, clear skin, no freckles." But Jack had always loved Rachel's freckles. His father, who had a negative take on almost everything, condemned them as the excess of spirit in a highly spirited person. Rachel had always been highly spirited, all right. Jack took pride in that. When he first met her, freckles had danced unchecked over the bridge of her nose to her cheeks.