“Tom?” queries Ruth, looking around. “I wanted to speak to him.”
“I hope I’m not driving customers away.”
“No. Please keep coming. It’s reassuring to have you here.”
Trina has her head in the sports bag, pretending to check out the equipment, but she looks up as Ruth passes and says cheekily. “I saw that.”
“What?”
“The way you were looking at him over there.”
“How could you?” snaps Ruth, and stomps back to the kitchen close to tears.
It’s the end of November, more than two months since Jordan’s bombshell. Raven still hasn’t returned, and word around the coffee counter is that Serethusa had channelled her the winning lottery numbers. Ruth has too much on her mind to be concerned. “She paid three months in advance,” she shrugs one day when Cindy wonders aloud if the statuesque woman will ever come back.
The Corner Coffee Shoppe has never been more popular. The original clientele has largely remained loyal, though many have started losing weight, and the spreading word has drawn fat-fighters from around the neigh-bourhood. But Jordan’s face falls unexpectedly as Ruth tallies the books at the end of the month and declares in delight, “We made nearly two thousand.”
“That’s good,” he says, like someone making a point with an antonym.
Ruth picks up on Jordan’s lack of enthusiasm, but gets it wrong and assumes he is upset that he won’t be around to share in the success. What to say? It’ll help pay for your funeral!
“I’ve paid your mother and all the bills,” she carries on, with nowhere else to go, though she doesn’t mention the money she owes Tom. But Jordan’s downcast eyes finally get to her and she questions, “What’s the matter?”
“I wasn’t going to tell you,” says Jordan.
“Tell me what?”
Jordan turns away. “No. This isn’t fair. You keep the money. You’ll need it when I’m gone.”
“What? Tell me what,” she demands.
Jordan plays the computer keyboard for a few seconds as he weighs his options, then, with his eyes firmly on the floor, he lays out the situation. The radiotherapy and chemotherapy have had no effect, and despite his outward appearance, the cancer has metastasized throughout his body, eating away at his organs and his mind.
“I feel like killing myself right now,” he angrily admits. “Why should I wait? What have I got to wait for?”
“But I thought you were doing better,” protests Ruth.
“It’s the drugs, Ruth. Without the drugs I’d be finished.”
Ruth stifles the sobs as she sits back thinking, Please wait ’til Christmas. It’s only a few weeks away. But there’s a gremlin inside her saying, That’s right. Tell him to hang on ’til Christmas so you can go through the gift nightmare again, and just think of all the happy Christmases you’ll have in the future.
“There is something I’ve been meaning to ask,” she says, finally plucking up the courage. “I’d like to try for another baby.”
“Ruth ...” he starts, but she persists.
“I know you’ll say it’s stupid, but when you’re gone I’ll have nothing left. If it was a boy I’d call him Jordan, and I’d tell him what a wonderful dad you would have been: a proud and caring man who would have loved him and cherished ...”
“Ruth ...” he tries again.
“And if it was a girl, I’d tell her all about you, how kind you were, and ... and ...” she pauses, then bursts into tears. “You’ve no idea what it’s like growing up thinking your father’s a man in a poster. But you’re not just a picture. You’re real, and If I had your baby he’d be real ...”
“Ruth,” he says gently as she winds down, “it’s too late. That’s one of the side effects. I can’t, Ruth, it’s too late. Although there is ...” Then he stops as she looks at him questioningly and stifles her sobs.
“There is what?”
“Nothing,” he says, looking away, but she grasps his chin and turns him back, demanding. “There is what?”
Jordan takes a few seconds, then tells her about an experimental program with a ninety percent success rate that he’s found on the Internet—two weeks’ intense therapy requiring total isolation as the body is cleansed of toxins with special herbs and minerals.
“Trina was right,” Ruth yells delightedly. “She said you’d find a cure on the Web.”
“Calm down, Ruth,” says Jordan. “It may not work. Anyway, there’s a big problem.”
“What problem? Do it—you must do it. Why won’t you do it?”
“Because it costs ten thousand dollars and I’d have to go Los Angeles, that’s why.”
“How dare you?” Ruth shouts, “How could do this to me? I don’t care what it costs. If you think money is more important to me than your life, you must be crazy. When? When can they do it?”
“It’s not that easy ...”
“What do you mean?”
Jordan takes a few seconds to arrange his thoughts, but Ruth is unrelenting.
“Jordan. I’m asking you what you mean.”
“There’s selection tests and things. They don’t take everybody,” he says, “Then there’s the money ...”
“I’ll get the money; stop worrying. Get on the computer, or whatever you have to do, and tell them you want to try.”
“If you’re sure ...”
Ruth buttonholes Tom in the middle of his morning dash and has him dancing up and down in the middle of the café.
“That’s a lot of money for you, Ruth,” he says sagely.
“I know. I know. But it’s really important. And the café is making good money now. I’ll easily pay it back. Can you lend it to me? Please.”
“I’ll have to talk to my people in London,” he says in all seriousness and even consults his watch before declaring that, with an eight-hour time difference, he just might catch them before they leave the city. “As long as I can get to the little boys’ room first,” he says pointedly, and Ruth blushes as she steps aside.
“Oh yes, of course. Sorry.”
It is a little after three p.m. in the city of London and Samantha Bliss is driving her father past the Bank of England on their way to Daphne’s home in Westchester. If Tom does have any people in London, they’re not amongst the bowler-hatted bunch scuttling out of the building and struggling with recalcitrant umbrellas as they battle the weather and head for Bank tube station.
“Look at this fucking weather,” complains Samantha as she wipes at the condensation on the windshield.
“At least Daphne won’t swear at me all the time,” rebukes Bliss, but Samantha cuts back quickly. “Careful, Dad, or you’ll be walking.”
“Sorry,” he laughs, adding, “I’m looking forward to a few weeks with her, actually—especially Christmas—she’s such a game old bird.”
“I hope no one shoots her then.”
“Very droll, Sam ... Oh. Watch the lights.”
“I can’t see a fucking thing,” she moans as they slide to a halt; then she gives her father a sly look. “Just don’t get up to any mischief with