The Promised World (46 page)

Thankfully, it had all blown over now. Well, almost. On Saturday, a Japanese television station had picked up the discredited story, and now Matthew was going to Tokyo with a PR exec, just to make sure the newest big market for Galvenar wasn’t having any second thoughts. His job was simply to present the clinical trial data again and emphasize the impressive safety record in the postmarket, while the PR rep, a heavy hitter, played off what the Japanese (and the rest of the world) already believed: that the American media and government seemed to be obsessed with scaring the hell out of everyone, turning our country into a nation of frightened brats.

Matthew was all too aware that Japan and Europe didn’t like U.S. pharmaceutical companies, whose products they considered vastly overpriced, but they didn’t think the companies were Big Meanies. Only in America. He had dreams of telling all these whiners that the solution was simple: just stop taking any of the products from evil Big Pharma. Put your money where your mouth is. See how you feel about dying at forty, the way your great-great-grandparents did.

This point of view, harsh though it undoubtedly sounds, was not something Matthew had chosen to believe; he was sure about that. Of course he would have preferred to see the world the way he had last night on E, but he knew that rosy outlook was deeply and utterly false, a mere alteration in his brain chemistry, not in the way things really operated. Case in point: last night, he’d stupidly tried to help a poor family, and what was the outcome? He’d not only been inconvenienced, he’d been robbed.

He discovered this after his shower, when he was dressed and packed, but he couldn’t find his wallet. He was already planning to wake up the kid and tell him they had to leave, but now he was furious. He grabbed the boy by the hands, lifting him from the hardwood floor (vaguely wondering why the kid hadn’t slept on any of the furniture or even on the thick oriental rug), and said, “All right, you little thief. Where the fuck is my wallet?”

The boy rubbed his eyes. “I tried to warn you. Don’t you remember? I kept shaking you, but you wouldn’t wake up.”

“If I wouldn’t wake up, then how could I remember?”

“I tried to stop her. I even tackled her, but she shook me off.”

He smirked. “You’re saying the baby robbed me?” Then all of a sudden it hit him. The baby was still asleep, tucked into the corner of his leather couch, with throw pillows all around her. Of course he wasn’t talking about his sister; he was talking about his mom, who Matthew suddenly knew wasn’t sick like the little girl. She was sick like an addict. This was why the kid hadn’t sympathized with her last night. Of course.

“You’re telling me your mom rolled me?” He was shouting. “I let you in to help your sister, and you bring along your mom, who you know will steal whatever isn’t nailed down?”

“I wanted to tell you to lock everything up, but you passed out.” The kid’s voice had an edge to it, but then he said, more quietly,

“I’m really sorry.”

“What else did she take? My wallet and what else?”

“Money in the desk drawer. All the prescription drugs in your bathroom. I think that’s it.”

He kept more than five thousand dollars in the desk drawer. His emergency fund, in case of a bird flu–like disaster that would temporarily close down banks and ATMs. The medicines he didn’t care about, except Lomotil, which he always took on trips overseas, for diarrhea. He couldn’t imagine why a druggie would want it. The Percocet he’d gotten for his knee injury last year, the samples of Vicodin for a toothache a few months ago, the Ativan he took for occasional anxiety and sleep: all of those made sense, but Lomotil? Dammit. Now he’d have to pick up Imodium at the airport. Another thing to do, and time was short already.

“I made her leave your driver’s license,” the kid said, pointing at the end table.

“How thoughtful,” Matthew snapped, though he was relieved to see it lying there. He absolutely had to have that and his passport, or he’d miss his plane.

As he walked into his bedroom to get his keys and watch and cell phone charger, he yelled to the kid that everyone had to go now. “I’m leaving and you and your sister are, too. Sorry, but this isn’t a shelter. I have to go to Japan and you’ll have to go back to wherever the hell you came from.”

“How long will you be gone?” the kid said, following him.

Matthew spun around. “Why?”

“Just wondering.”

“This building has the most advanced security system in the city. If you’re thinking you’ll sneak in after I’m gone, give it up.” He snapped the band on his Rolex to emphasize his point, and forced himself not to wince. “The one and only reason I’m not calling the police right now is I don’t have time.”

“That’s nice,” the kid said sarcastically.

“Why aren’t you waking up your sister?” He had the charger in his briefcase, along with his tablet laptop and the second corporate Amex he was supposed to use only in emergencies, but now he couldn’t find his goddamn cell. It was in his pants when he fell asleep, wasn’t it? Had it fallen on the floor? He knelt down to look and said, “I told you to get out. If you don’t, I’m calling the security guard to throw you out.”

The boy watched him as he looked around the bedside table, under the bed, everywhere he could think of. Then he said, “Have you ever brought kids back here before?”

“You know I haven’t,” Matthew said, because he was suddenly sure this kid did know. This boy’s eyes were cunning, suspicious, nothing like the innocent child he’d seen the night before. Fucking E. He’d never take it again as long as he lived, if he could just get through this morning and on the plane.

“I don’t think you want to call the security guard.”

“Oh, really?” Matthew stomped over to his bedroom phone and picked up the receiver. “We’ll see about that.”

“I mean,” the kid said quickly, “how will it look when I tell him that you brought me back here for sex?”

“What?” he said, though he’d heard the kid perfectly. “You scheming little—”

“I won’t hurt any of your stuff. I swear. It’s just, I have to let Isabelle sleep. Even with all your yelling, she hasn’t woken up because she’s really sick. I can’t take her out yet or she might die.”

“Boo hoo hoo. And how is that my problem again?”

“It isn’t your problem. I know. But I have to protect my sister.”

Matthew was still holding the receiver, but his finger was hesitating on the 7, the number for security. He didn’t know the security guard beyond awkward hellos in the hall and the less awkward giving of frequent tips, including five hundred dollars last Christmas. What if the man was some kind of kiddie advocate? What if he’d been abused by his father or his priest? The world was full of whiners, crying about what happened to them in their childhood. Unfortunately, even a 275-pound security guard might turn out to be one of them.

The boy stood with his arms crossed, watching Matthew. Matthew was watching him, too, and suddenly he remembered the kid’s name. He’d introduced himself last night in the elevator. His manner had been surprisingly formal. “I’m Danny, sir. Thank you so much for helping us.”

Matthew smiled as it hit him that the kid was bluffing. He told him so, looking straight into his eyes. “You won’t do it because you want to be better than your mother. She’s the liar, not you.”

“Whatever you say,” Danny said, smirking like a monkey. A clever monkey; Matthew had to give him that. “But I’m gonna do whatever I have to do for Isabelle. If that means putting you in jail until they can prove you didn’t have sex with me? Guess you’d miss your plane and all, but if you don’t care about that, then—”

“All right, all right, Jesus Christ!” Matthew banged down the receiver. It was 6:49; he had to go. “But you better get out of here before I get on that plane or—”

“I swear we’ll leave as soon as she has a chance to sleep. Just tell me how to lock the door.”

“It locks automatically. All you have to do is shut it when you get the hell out.” As he walked back into the main room, he was still yelling, “Because once I’m on the plane, I’m calling security. I’ll tell them the whole story and you can try your sex lie; be my guest. I’m sure they’ll realize you’re a little shit long before I’m back in the country.”

He glanced at the baby girl as he walked to the closet for his coat. She did look so peaceful lying there, and she had a beautiful face, just as he remembered. For a split second, he felt sorry for her and her lying brother, but then he realized he still hadn’t found his phone. When he asked Danny if his mother had taken that, too, the kid sighed and nodded.

“I really am sorry, mister.”

“Not as sorry as I am,” Matthew said, walking to the door. “And not half as sorry as you’re going to be if you aren’t gone before the police arrive.”

Of course he was furious; he had too many problems to deal with this mess. And he didn’t want homeless people in his house, but as he reminded himself as he stepped on the elevator, who would?

ONCE UPON A DAY

A wise, humorous, and deeply compassionate novel about the risks and rewards of loving when a single day can change our lives.

Nineteen years ago, a famous filmmaker disappeared from Los Angeles, taking his two children, Dorothea and Jimmy, to a desolate corner of New Mexico. There he raised them in complete isolation without television, computer, radio—not even a newspaper. Now, at twenty-three, Dorothea leaves in search of her missing brother—and ventures into the outside world for the first time, determined to uncover the truth of her family’s past and the terrifying day that changed her father forever . . .

Read on for a look at Lisa Tucker’s

Once Upon a Day

Currently available from Atria Books

One

S
TEPHEN
S
PAULDING
was very happy, and you can’t say that about most people. He hadn’t sought happiness, but he recognized it. This was his gift: to know what he had.

When it was gone, of course he knew that too. He changed from a man who could smile at strangers first thing in the morning to a man who wouldn’t look anybody in the eye. He’d lost his family in a freak accident, and the rest he let go of as easily as opening his hand and releasing a string of balloons. Good-bye to the family practice he had just started with two friends from his residency. Good-bye to the Victorian house he and Ellen had gone deeply into debt to buy when she got pregnant during his internship. Good-bye to the cradle and the tricycle and the pink and purple birthday party dress Lizzie never had a chance to wear.

More than a year later, he still hadn’t adjusted to the way time itself had been altered. Before there was never enough time, and the list of things he and Ellen had not gotten around to doing was one of many things that still tortured him. The untaken trip to Paris bothered him less than the movies they’d talked about renting. Why hadn’t they watched them? Ellen’s entire list could be watched in a weekend. He knew this because he had done it, several times. He watched the movies his wife had wanted him to, and thought about what she would say if she were there. This was back in the early months, when he was trying to give her gifts, as though she could come back if only he worked harder to make her want this life.

After the accident, there was too much time. Each day stretched before him like a flat Kansas highway, the only landmarks the meals he forced himself to choke down, the few chores he performed, and the occasional walks he took, rarely noticing anything or anyone on his path. He finally bought the old green and white Checker cab not because he needed the income—his compensation from the city would support him forever, especially since he had no desires, nothing he wanted now—but because he could drive it as little or as much as he liked, sixteen hours a day, more if his insomnia was bad.

He wouldn’t have sued, but the city gave him an enormous sum anyway. The newspaper headline called it a “regrettable tragedy.” It was a Sunday in late July; the police were chasing a teenager who had stolen a rusted-out ’84 Toyota from a neighbor’s driveway. The car was worth less than five hundred dollars, but the patrol car that slammed into his family at the intersection had been going over eighty miles an hour. He was driving; Lizzie was in her booster seat in the back, behind Ellen. The teenage thief turned himself in when he heard what had happened. The policeman who was driving took early retirement.

And Stephen, the barely thirty-year-old family practice doc, became a cabbie. What difference did it make? His knowledge of how to heal bodies had done nothing for him anyway. His wife and four-year-old daughter had still died right in front of his eyes.

Now he was learning the quickest way to the airport from any street in St. Louis. How to slide around a bus, and when to change lanes so his customer would feel they were making progress. What times the restaurants and bars closed, and which of his regulars would be likely to drink one too many and need a ride on a Saturday night.

People often mentioned what a safe driver he was. The safest cab driver they’d ever ridden with. He nodded, but he didn’t respond. He never drove without the radio playing. Talk show, pop music, news channel, it didn’t matter. The radio was his excuse not to talk.

The only time he would answer was when a customer asked about the amusement park tickets. They didn’t ask often, even though he’d had the tickets laminated and kept them displayed above the visor, right next to his license. Stephen wasn’t surprised. He knew most people aren’t interested in their cab drivers.

He wasn’t surprised; still, he longed for the question. He longed for another opportunity to tell the whole story of that perfect July day at the amusement park: riding the water slides and the Ferris wheel and the child’s roller coaster; eating hot dogs and ice cream—mint chocolate chip, Ellen’s favorite; trying to win a giant stuffed panda bear, and when he couldn’t make the ring toss (a setup, he was sure), buying the bear for his daughter anyway.

Every time he told the story, he added a few more details. As the months went by, the story often filled the entire drive; sometimes he would still be talking while his customer was trying to hand him money and get away.