Joe Burke's Last Stand Part 52

"Hi, Gert." She raised her eyebrows in greeting and whispered something he couldn't hear. He bent closer.

"Call Ginger."

Patrick nodded and said, "I will." Ginger was her niece. She lived in St. Louis.

"Patrick."

"Yes?"

"That chest--treasure chest--don't let her see it . . . Mine . . . "

"O.K., Gert, O.K. I'll take care of it. But, you'll be home soon." She smiled faintly and shook her head no.

"My love . . . " she whispered. For a moment she looked young.

"I'll take care of it, Gert." She nodded and closed her eyes. Patrick left, stepping carefully around monitors. He thanked the nurse and went out to the parking lot. It was still light. An ambulance pulled up to an admissions door. It didn't seem right that things outside should be so normal.

He sat unmoving for five minutes and then realized that he was hungry.

The Park Diner was on the way out of Kingston, heading towards Woodstock. When Patrick was upset, he ate to settle himself down. He had a steak sandwich, apple pie, and coffee. He was still in shock. How could someone be running around one day and then be totaled the next?

Probably she was older than she looked. d.a.m.n. There was nothing to do but go home and call her niece.

Climbing the hill to the village green, Patrick had an urge to drive to Willow's, but he decided against it. He had to call Gert's niece, and it wasn't his truck. He parked behind Mower's Market and walked directly home. He found the number in a small book that Gert kept by the phone.

"Ginger?"

"Yes."

"This is Patrick O'Shaunessy calling from Woodstock. I hate to tell you this, but Gert is in the hospital." Ginger said that she would come as soon as possible. She thanked him and hung up. What else could he do?

He left a note for Bob, explaining the situation, and walked back into town. He kept seeing Gert--that clear shake of her head, no. Claude had left the Depresso. Patrick reconsidered driving to Willow's and again decided that he shouldn't. He drank a beer and went home. As he settled into bed, he realized that even though he hadn't seen Willow, she had been there in some sense. He could have seen her. If he had, she would have been helpful. Thinking of that wasn't as good as having her next to him in bed, but it was still good, more than he was used to. "Night, Baby," he said and fell asleep.

8

Willow brought home strawberries and made a shortcake. "Real whipped cream," Amber said.

"Of course." Willow reached into the refrigerator. "Trumpet flourish, please."

"Ta da, teedle-oop tee tooo," Amber obliged. "Champagne?"

"A modest vintage, as AhnRee would say. I celebrate. We celebrate."

"You got laid--that's obvious."

Willow poured two gla.s.ses. "Biology," she toasted.

"f.u.c.king," Amber said. "Yumm."

"G.o.d," Willow said, licking her lips, "strawberries and champagne . . .

Truly, it was a revelation."

"It, Patrick?"

"Patrick, yes. The whole thing."

"It wasn't the first time," Amber said.

"It might as well have been." Willow's face lit up.

Amber took another bite of shortcake. "Art's taking me to Nantucket."

"Far out! Moby d.i.c.k."

"Shrimp c.o.c.ktail, gin and tonic--a great way to end the summer. Want to come?"

"End the summer?" Willow blinked. "No. I mean, I'm working. I don't want to end the summer. A terrible idea."

"It is." Amber sipped champagne gravely. "It isn't really the end. Art doesn't want to go until he finishes the outside of his barn. Two weeks, he thinks. But after that, it will be the first or second week in August. We might as well see a few things on the way home--and have a week or so before school."

"School?" Willow twirled her gla.s.s. "I'm not going back," she said.

"Let this be a formal announcement: I hereby renounce Stanford AND the privileges a.s.sociated thereunto AND all obligation to write useless papers AND all requirements to be stuck in crowded rooms with people who are dumb, bored, or lying."

"How sweet of you," Amber said.

"Present company excepted, of course."

"I would think long and hard on this one," Amber said. "It's the privileges part. And your family will freak out. What are you going to do?"

Willow put _Highway 61 Revisited_ on the stereo. "That's it," she said.

"That's the point. I don't know what I'm going to do. But I'm going to find out. I'm going to do what I want and not what someone else wants."

"Is it Patrick? Has he caused you to lose your mind completely?" Amber smiled as she asked, and Willow saw that Amber had already accepted this new reality and was being a good friend, playing devil's advocate.

"It's about finding my mind."

Amber came over and hugged her. "I'll make enough for both of us," she said.

Willow felt a weight lift from her shoulders. She had been thinking about this all day, but it hadn't felt real until she told Amber. It was as though a door opened; a breeze blew around the back of her mind, and the light was brighter. She began to cry. "Hold that door," she said.

"Hold the bottle--is what I'll hold," Amber said, squeezing her. They each knew that they had come to a fork in the road, and that the distance between them would inevitably broaden. They talked late into the night. Amber volunteered to rea.s.sure Willow's parents when she returned to California, and Willow promised to write letters from the wild world.

Willow went to bed tired but feeling honest and sure of herself. "It's a new ball game, squirrelie," she said, turning her head toward the woods.

In the morning, she waited anxiously for Patrick in the deli. She rehea.r.s.ed various greetings, but when he came through the door she took one look and asked him what was the matter.

"Gert is in the hospital."