Fallen Masters (21 page)

“Don’t worry about it,” Pam said. “We are all in this together.”

Charlene made a sound then, and Pam stepped to the door and called out to the attending physician.

“Dr. Vaill! Dr. Vaill, come quickly, please!” Pam said. “I think she is waking up.”

Dr. Elyse Vaill, wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a white coat, was a mature woman with a dignifying gray at the temples who exuded calm professionalism. Pam had made the comment when she first saw her that she looked like a doctor out of central casting; she could have played one on a soap opera.

*   *   *

Charlene was fully conscious now and she looked around, a little surprised to find herself in a bed, in a hospital emergency room.

“What am I doing here?” she asked. “What happened?”

“You’ve had a mild myocardial infarction,” Dr. Elyse Vaill said.

“A mild myocardial infarction? What is that?”

“In layman’s terms, a small heart attack.”

“A heart attack? But isn’t that something that only old people have? I’m in the prime of life,” Charlene said.

“Not necessarily. But unfortunately, while we have procedures and medicines to deal with a heart attack, that isn’t the real problem.” The doctor cleared her throat and looked not only at Charlene, but at Pam and Paul as well.

“In doing the tests to discover what might have led to the attack, we have discovered a tumor behind your heart. It is constricting the blood supply to your head and your lungs.”

“A tumor? You mean, as in cancer?” Pam asked.

Vaill nodded. “I’m afraid so,” she said.

Pam grabbed Charlene’s hand and began squeezing it as her eyes welled with tears.

“How bad is it?” Paul asked.

“It’s not good,” Vaill said. “It appears to have been there for some time, and has already grown quite large. More than likely this is what has been contributing to the lethargy that your friend here says that you have been having.”

“Is it growing?” Charlene asked.

“From the results of the test, it is quite possible that this tumor will continue to grow and, I fear, quite rapidly.”

“You haven’t said the word yet,” Charlene said.

“What word?” Dr. Vaill asked.

“Don’t play games with me, Doctor, please,” Charlene said. “I’m not afraid of the word, I heard it used with Ryan. The word is ‘terminal.’ What I have is terminal, right? How long do I have to live?”

Dr. Elyse Vaill did not, at first, give a verbal response. Then she said, “Other than an increasing tiredness and weakness, you probably won’t experience much pain. And what pain you might experience, we will be able to control. For how long, that I cannot say for certain.”

“Thank you, Doctor, for being up front with everything,” Charlene said.

“I wish I could give you better news,” she said. “I’ll—uh—go now and let the three of you talk. If you need anything, please let me know.”

A long silence descended over the room after Dr. Vaill left.

“We’ll have to tell Sue,” Charlene said. “She’s at home.”

“No, she is here,” Pam said. “She is calling your mother.”

“Does she know?”

Charlene shook her head. “I don’t think so. None of us knew until a moment ago. I called her when you were in the ambulance.”

Even as they were talking about her, Sue came into the room. “I called your mother,” she said. “She’s taking the first flight out of Miami that she can get.”

“Thank you, Sue,” Charlene said.

Sue saw the tears sliding down Pam’s cheeks and a drawn expression on Paul’s face. “What is it?” Sue asked. “What do you know that I don’t know?”

“She…,” Pam started, but she choked up and couldn’t finish the sentence. She waved her hands and shook her head. “She…,” she started again.

“It’s terminal, Sue,” Charlene said.

Sue had been through the diagnosis and quick demise of Ryan.

“Oh, no,” she said. “No, please God, no.”

“Are there news people here?” Paul asked.

“Yes. There were too many people at the auditorium when Charlene passed out,” Sue said. “Also, the EMS people tweeted the news to the local gossip rags that she was being brought in to the hospital.”

“What do they know?”

“Nothing, so far,” Sue said. “I told them that Charlene had been feeling low about Ryan, and hadn’t been eating, and that was what caused her to pass out.”

“I don’t know how long that story will hold up,” Paul said. “I mean, now that she has been diagnosed. And there were witnesses at the lecture who watched Tyler get her heart started again—and the EMTs who helped.”

“Dr. Vaill won’t tell anyone anything,” Pam said. “We were talking earlier; she knows the importance of Charlene’s privacy and doctor–patient confidentiality. She’s bound by privacy laws, as are all hospital staff. If they value their careers, they won’t say anything. There’s really nothing we can do about the EMTs and audience except hope none of them run to the media.”

“Of course, when we cancel the show in Mexico City, there will be more questions asked,” Paul said.

“We aren’t going to cancel the show in Mexico City,” Charlene said.

“What? Of course we are. You can’t do a show now. Not in your condition,” Paul said.

“Oh, but I can, and I will,” Charlene said. “I have been grieving for almost two years. I did the pay-per-view event only because I didn’t have to tour and it gave me something to do. Likewise with the albums. It was only the devastation of millions in Turkey that finally roused me to do a public concert at all. You heard Dr. Vaill, and really, when have I not been tired after a show?”

“That was because you work so hard preparing for your shows. And the shows themselves are a drain,” Paul said. “And that’s when you were healthy.”

“But I wasn’t healthy,” Charlene said. She put her hand over her heart. “I’ve had this time bomb ticking inside me now for a long time. Maybe that is what was making me so tired then. And if I was able to do the shows then, I can do this one now.”

“Charlene, I don’t know,” Pam said.

“I
do
know,” Charlene insisted. “Pam, Paul, I want to do it. I have to do it, don’t you understand? This will probably be my last show, and I want it filmed and preserved. It will be my farewell. Think of Michael Jackson, and how he died before he was able to do his farewell show. Don’t you think he would have wanted to do that show? I certainly do. I know that I don’t want to go out like this.”

“You are sure?” Paul asked.

“I am sure.”

“All right,” Paul said. “Pam, Sue, let’s go talk to Dr. Vaill and see what we will have to do, medically, to get ready for the show.”

Pam was pleasantly surprised that Paul wasn’t pushing her friend to do the show. “Charlene probably could use the rest anyway,” she replied.

Charlene watched them leave her room; then she turned on her side, being careful not to disconnect the lines that led to the monitor, and looked through the window. She was in New York Presbyterian Hospital and as she looked out onto Broadway, she was surprised to see that it was daylight.

She looked over to the table beside her bed and saw Dr. Tyler Michaels’s card. He had scrawled his cell phone number on the back. She dialed it on her own handheld and held it to her ear with some difficulty. When a woman’s voice answered, she was surprised, but then the person identified herself.

“This is Rae Loona. Hello, Ms. St. John. Tyler is right here. He was just temporarily separated from his phone!” Rae’s positive energy shone through even on a mobile telephone call. Charlene could hear Tyler snatching the receiver from Rae with mock exasperation, saying, “Why are
you
answering my phone?” and heard Rae laughing in the background replying, “It’s what I do, Mikey.”

Tyler Michaels said, “Hello.”

“You know, Dr. Michaels, I won’t be able to stop thanking you every minute for a while. I hope you’ll forgive me in advance.”

“I am glad I was there to help,” Tyler said. “Really, it’s my job, Ms. St. John.”

“I appreciate that. And I want to invite you and Nurse Loona to the Academy Awards ceremony in March—as my guests.”

“No, really—we couldn’t—”

“If you ask Rae, I sincerely doubt she would say no.”

“Well, I suppose…”

“I’m reserving the two tickets for you, and you better show up. That’s all I’m going to say about it.”

“I’ll tell Rae. Do you want to stay on the phone to hear her scream?”

“I better not. I might have a relapse. Thank you so much, Dr. Michaels.”

Charlene smiled—a big, genuine smile—for the first time in at least several days.

After hanging up, she decided to tweet her fans, who by this time had probably heard she was in the hospital:

Feeling great after a bit of a scare. Doc gives me clean bill of health. On to Mexico City!

But all she could think about was what had happened—not what happened to get her here, but what happened while she was—what? Unconscious? In a coma? In a trance?

She had seen her father and Ryan, had talked to them, had felt her father’s embrace and her husband’s kiss. That long, wonderfully intense kiss. Had she made all that up? Was it just a hallucination?

It had to be. The reality was, she was here, in a hospital, diagnosed with a terminal illness, and all that she had experienced was nothing more than a dream.

The reality that what she had experienced—or thought she had experienced—was just a dream, hurt more than the news that she had an inoperable malignant tumor. With all that she had been through, how could she have allowed herself, even in a dream state, to be so vulnerable?

“Because I’m a fool, that’s why,” she said aloud.

There was an audible click; then a nurse’s voice came over the intercom. “Did you want something, Mrs. McAvoy?”

“What? Uh, no, nothing,” Charlene said.

What was this? Were they listening in? Was there a TV camera in the room as well as a hidden microphone? The idea probably wasn’t that far-fetched. After all, they had a machine connected to her that could tell some nurse at some distant location what her heart rate was, what her blood pressure was, and how rapidly she was breathing, or even if she was breathing at all. For all she knew, they could tell what she was thinking.

Charlene felt anger, not at the idea that she was being monitored, but because what she had experienced—or thought she had experienced—never really happened at all. The more she thought about it, the more intense her anger became.

She heard the sound of shattering glass and, startled by it, turned to see what had caused it. An elderly white-haired woman with a pushcart of books and magazines from the ladies’ auxiliary was standing in her room.

Charlene glanced down at the floor to see what had fallen, but there was nothing there. Had the hospital volunteer picked it up that quickly?

“What can I do to make you more comfortable?” the woman asked, her voice as old and strained as she looked.

“Nothing, thank you,” Charlene replied.

“Oh, but I’ve so many things here,” she said. “Magazines? Newspapers? I’ve quite an assortment, as you can see.”

“No thank you,” Charlene said again.

“Life Savers?”

“Look—” Charlene read the woman’s name tag. “—Betty Jean. I—I appreciate everything you are doing, but I don’t want a thing. You’ve been so kind. I hope you can understand that.”

“Of course I can, dear,” Betty Jean replied, the smile never leaving her face. “I’ll just let you rest, then.”

“Thank you,” Charlene replied.

The hospital volunteer pushed her cart to the door, then came back to the bed.

Lord, what does she want now?

Betty Jean took Charlene’s hand in hers and, putting something in it, smiled again. For some reason, at that moment, she looked ageless rather than aged. Charlene could almost imagine an aura of light around her.

“Charlene,” she said. The voice was not old or creaky, but resonant and soothing. “Ryan and your father want you to know that it was all real. And you are going to be one for so many.”

“What?” Opening her hand, Charlene saw a roll of Life Saver mints. When she looked back up, the old woman and her pushcart of magazines and newspapers were gone.

“Wait, come back!” Charlene called.

The woman did not reappear.

“Pam! Pam, are you out there?”

Something in Charlene’s voice must have frightened Pamela, for she came running in immediately.

“Stop that hospital volunteer,” Charlene said. “Tell her to come back in. I need to talk to her.”

Pam looked confused. “What hospital volunteer?”

“What do you mean, what hospital volunteer? I’m talking about the old lady who was just in here,” Charlene said. “She just this second left the room—you had to have seen her. Tell her to come back, I want to talk to her.”

“Honey, there was nobody in your room,” Pam said. “I’ve been right outside the door ever since we left you to yourself. No one has come in.”

“But you have to have seen her!” Charlene said desperately. “She was just here!”

Pam shook her head. “You must have dozed off and dreamed it,” she said. “I swear to you, no one entered or left this room. Let alone an old hospital volunteer.”

Charlene opened her hand and showed Pam the roll of Life Savers. “Then, would you please tell me where this candy came from?”

Pam shook her head. “I don’t have the slightest idea.”

CHAPTER

41

On the plane back to Atlanta the next day, Tyler sat quietly looking through the window, listening to the soft whisper of air slipping by the airplane at well over five hundred miles per hour.

“Dr. Zuckerman is not the first person to walk this path. Science and faith are two branches of the same plant, both needing water and sunlight to survive.”

“What?”

Rae looked at him.

“Did you say something?” Tyler asked.

“No. You looked like you needed some time to think,” Rae said. “I didn’t say anything.”

Tyler nodded and looked through the window again. It couldn’t have been Rae, anyway. Whoever it was had spoken in a Swedish accent.

That’s funny. Last night at the lecture, someone behind him had said the same thing, and in the same Swedish accent. What was going on, here?