Dead Dreams (14 page)

So, Lilly was there after all.
Dad’s condition must have gotten worse.
“I’ll talk to her when I get there.”

Mom let out a long sigh, which was something I was
not
going to miss. I felt bad enough as it was. Not to mention worried.

Thao accepted my resignation with her thin upper lips in a grimace. She seemed to have more on her mind than my news. In her clipped Vietnamese accent, she said, “As you wish, Brianna.”

Everyone was hounded by troubles. That was life.

Take Peter, for instance. He was obviously too sick even to answer my text messages. I thought about which friend or associate I could call or text to say farewell in my last few hours as the “uncomplicated Brie,” the not-wealthy but still-honest Brie with the simple life.

After today, Sarah and I would have to restrict our contact with everyone. But, besides my immediate family, I’d lost touch with most of the kids I’d hung around with at church, in high school, and even those from the private ballet academy I’d used to frequent. Everyone who was worth hanging out with had accepted huge loans from their parents, the bank, or both, and moved on to college, having started a new phase in life. Except me. I’d toyed with the idea of getting a student loan with the low government interest rates. But at the end of the day, debt is debt, and I didn’t want to start a career with a noose around my neck. That was why this windfall from Sarah could right my path. Make up for lost opportunities. Prove that I could make my dreams come true without help, without intervention from well-meaning parents.

Maybe I could confide in Jackson about Sarah’s plan. He was, after all, on her side. Besides legal implications, why wouldn’t she want Jackson to know? We could use him as a hedge, in case things went wrong. But, could I trust him not to use the information I confided in him against me?

Not pursuing my gut feeling and not researching more about Jackson was one of the many slip-ups I made.

From my jeans pocket, I worked out Jackson’s card—the one I’d snatched from Sarah’s dresser and now was crumpled—and stared at it before punching in the digits after his name, instead of redialing the number from the call I’d made to him earlier. Maybe subconsciously I wanted to see if I could connect with him at this other number, too, after the failed first attempt in the toilet stall.

“Anderson and Partners, Attorneys-at-Law. May I help you?” It was the same Southern woman’s voice. Probably Martha, the secretary Sarah had mentioned.

“I’d like to speak with Mr. Jackson Anderson, please.”

“May I know who’s calling?”

What if Jackson had given me his private line for a reason? Maybe he didn’t want anyone, not even Southern -belle Martha, to know he’d contacted me. Would I get into trouble if I left my name?

“Can I just speak with him?” Of course, they’d have my cell phone number now, what with caller ID.

“Hon, this is a law-yer’s office.” Martha’s drawl conjured pictures of Scarlett O’Hara dressed in her voluminous ball gowns as in
Gone With The Wind
. “If you want ta speak ta a law-yer, you’d need ta at least share your name.” She sounded impatient, despite the drawl.

I hung up the phone.
What an idiot
. I should have just called the number that was already in my recent call menu. Before I could press the speed dial, a call came through. I somewhat recognized the number.

“Yes?”

“Brianna? This is Pastor Perry again.” No wonder the number was familiar.

“I can’t talk right now. I’m at work.”

“Your mother told me to get you. I’m outside Stay Fit this very moment.”

“Shucks! I mean, never mind. I’ll be out. Wait out there.” If he came in and found out I’d quit, that would complicate matters.

I grabbed my yellow duffel and breezed out the door.

“Hey!” Thao hailed me as I bolted to the main entrance. “That’s it? You not coming back, and no good-bye hugs, even?” Her Vietnamese accent was more pronounced. Stress could even affect speech. I rushed to my cubby hole, snatched the brown envelope from Jim, stuffed it into my duffel, and almost bowled Thao down with my bear hug.

“I’ll call you,” I hollered, rushing out the door. Someday. One day.

Pastor Perry stood by his white, one-ton Dodge van. It could carry twelve passengers. When I’d asked why he needed something that big, seeing as there were only him and Mrs. Michaels since Sasha’s accident two years earlier, he’d said he used it to sleep in when he made cross country trips.

I waved to him and headed toward my Mini Cooper parked five cars down the street. “I’ll see you at the hospital,” I hollered.

“I’ll drive you there and back.” He pointed toward the van’s passenger side. Its door was already open. “You look too tired to be driving, anyway.”

I shrugged. He can be so persistent. No way could I get out of this one.
Better be agreeable.
I quickened my steps and strode toward him. “How’s Dad?” I swung myself into the passenger cab of the Dodge as he revved the engine.

“He’s a fighter. Keep praying.”

I felt guilty. I’d only whimpered out that poor excuse of a prayer. What good would praying do, anyway? When it was time to go, it was time to go, right? That was what I’d heard from Christians and non-Christians alike.

Maybe Pastor Perry was a mind reader.

He said, “Prayer works, you know. I have so many stories, I should write a book on miracles. But, enough of me. How’s life? Gotten used to not staying home? Must be different staying by yourself, with a new roommate.”

He was chatty today.

“Life’s pretty good.” After all, I was about to have an heiress share her identity, and inheritance with me. “Until now. I’m worried about Dad.”

“God has a reason for all things.”

Like delaying me from becoming sweetly wealthy?
I stared out the window and thought I saw Keith’s yellow Corvette rounding a corner. “Is Keith there?” I twisted my shoulder and craned to look at the speeding car.

“Said he was on his way.”

“Did you see that Corvette?” That must have been Keith. The license plate was “2BO…” I didn’t catch the rest of it. Keith’s’ license, “2BOR02B,” stood for “To be or not to be.” A true Shakespeare fan.

The car must have been his, unless there was another banana-colored Corvette with the same first three letters on the plate. Except, if it
was
him, why was he heading toward
my
place? To pick me up?

Suddenly, knots formed in my stomach. If Keith met Sarah and saw the state of my apartment, he would suspect something. My suitcase was in the living room, bursting with things I planned to take with me. Black garbage bags of our stuff stood piled in the corner of the kitchen. The thrift store was to pick up the day after tomorrow, and Sarah’s twin friends, the K brothers, were to take the donations down to curbside for them, so as to avoid suspicions, in case someone I knew popped by and saw our furniture downstairs before we left. Sarah had explained to the twins we were going for an extended vacation. They were oblivious about our upcoming switch.

“Hey!” Pastor Perry’s voice jerked me back. “I said I didn’t notice any Corvettes. A nickel for your thoughts?”

“Might not be worth that much. My thoughts, that is.” I let out a chuckle, which sounded more like a snort.

“I know you don’t believe in the things I believe in, but we should chat sometimes. You might be surprised at how much we could actually agree on.”

What would he say about me skipping town? I doubted he’d agree with my plans. “We can get together someday. Hopefully not at the hospital, next time.”

Dad’s case must have been worse than Pastor Perry had let on, as my mother was in tears. Grandma Linelle, my Dad’s mother, was slouched there on the white plastic molded chair, and she looked exhausted, and her white hair poofed at the sides, which was unlike her usual coiffed self. My grandpa, Grandma Linelle’s husband of over fifty years, had died when I was three.

“There you are!” Mom rushed to me. She almost collapsed when I hugged her. She was at least five inches shorter than me, so I felt like the parent consoling a younger child. I’d inherited my height from my six-footer dad.

“He’s still unconscious, Brie,” Mom said. The skin under her eyes looked papery thin with blue lines faintly visible.

“Can I see him?”

“Doctor Chen says only for a few minutes, and only one family visitor at a time. He’s so fragile.” She broke into a sob.

My sister, sitting next to Grandma, briefly glanced at me, and looked down at her Mary Jane shoes, which she
tap-tapped
on the linoleum floor. I wanted to hug Lilly and cry together with her, but I couldn’t bring myself to look her in the eye. It was better I pulled away from her now, I lied to myself. She was young. The more distance she felt from me, the more she’d realize she could live through problems without me, and the better for her when she awoke one morning, soon, and found her sister had left without a trace. Not even decent enough to give her a proper good-bye. It’s only for a season, I consoled myself, as if that made me feel better and I smiled at her. But inside, I felt like a scumbag.

“Hi, Lilly!” I said when I walked past her and gave Grandma a peck on the cheek. My grandmother looked fragile, too. What had happened to everyone?

“Holly misses you,” Lilly said, her eyelids heavy with fatigue.

I smiled at her. “Give her two extra hugs and a pat from me.”

She nodded.

Nothing prepared me to see my “Doctor Dad,” as I’d jokingly called him so many times in my past. Dad’s hospital room was dark and smelled of Pine-Sol, the kind of clean scent that dug its way deep into your nostrils and smarted your eyes. The only light came from the blinking red and blue bulbs on a dashboard, some kind of a monitor with wires coming out of it, like an electronic octopus with a rectangular head. Some of the tubes and wires were attached to my dad’s arms and nostrils. Except for the machines bleeping and a soft whooshing that came from another contraption attached to Dad’s chest, the room was quiet. Peaceful, even—that is, if you couldn’t hear the thumping of my heart rebelling against the sight before me.

When had time and age stolen my strong dad from me? Replaced him with this frail imposter? Where was the father who’d borne me on his shoulders as we’d struggled up the steep streets of San Francisco’s China Town, watching turtles swim in Chinese restaurant displays, wondering how we could save them from certain death?

I squinted and blinked rapidly a few times to control my emotions. A nurse stood in a corner, reading a chart. She was very still, like the sentry guarding the Buckingham Palace I’d seen on television.

“You want five minutes with your father?” She spoke with an English accent. Before I could nod, she walked toward the door, eyes still on the chart.

“How is he?”

“His cardiologist will explain later. They’re still running tests.”

When I heard the door close with a wheeze from the hydraulic pump, I slid to my knees next to my father. When had he become so small? My doctor daddy. My strong daddy.

“Dad?” I whispered.

His eyelids didn’t even flutter. Nothing.

I ran my finger up his hairy arm, the one without the IVs and without needles or tubes attached. Could he hear me? Surely they’d have told me if he was brain-dead or something. People got better from strokes all the time. I knew a mother of five who’d suffered a stroke and had recovered within six months, even though she’d been unable to walk or speak for a couple of weeks after it hit her.