Chapter 8 New York, New York #3
AJ automatically backtracked around the corner, but not before she heard her mother say, “It’s so much. How are they ever going to manage?”
“I don’t know,” said Raven soothingly. “I’m putting all the energy on it that I can—”
“Seven hundred and thirty thousand dollars,” gasped Katie Graves. “Our house isn’t even worth that—”
“It’s staggering,” said Raven. “And that’s after the insurance.”
“He still has more surgeries,” said AJ’s mom. “And all the physical therapy…”
“Trust the Universe,” chanted Raven, and AJ heard her mom sob.
Numbly, AJ retraced her steps to the waiting room. Over the past month, Patrick had continued to progress. The spinal fusions seemed to be mending without complications, and he was now able to grip things with his right hand and wiggle the toes on his right foot.
The left side of his body, however, remained inert. He was still bedridden.
AJ had known that it must be costing a fair amount for Patrick to be in treatment at Simmons, but three-quarters of a million dollars was a sum AJ couldn’t even conceptualize.
The most money she had ever seen at once was the $72,826 she had made for her work on Into the Blue, which, like a good Irish girl, she’d converted into the down payment for her apartment.
Elle and Patrick owned their home, but other than that they had no assets. They didn’t lead a lavish lifestyle, but Elle didn’t work, so they were basically subsisting on Patrick’s disability from his job managing a local car dealership.
Seven hundred thirty thousand dollars. A bill half that much would ruin them.
What were they going to do?
When AJ entered the waiting room, she found Libby chatting with her brother’s nurse, Melissa. AJ did a double take—Libby’s smile looked brighter than it had since Pat’s accident. Like she was actually…enjoying herself.
This day just kept getting weirder.
“Oh, Age, I didn’t know you were up, I would have brought you a coffee,” said Libby, swigging her extra-large Dunkin’ Donuts iced. She offered it to AJ as Melissa waved goodbye.
AJ took Melissa’s seat, accepted the coffee, then told her big sister what she’d overheard. Libby seemed mildly annoyed by this, but she did not seem surprised.
“You knew?” said AJ. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Libby tilted her head and blinked once. “It was need to know,” she said with a condescending simper that turned AJ’s blood to napalm. “Lucas knows the system, so we’ve been advising them on how to deal with the insurance carriers.”
“So what do we do now?” said AJ impatiently.
“Nothing,” snapped Libby, taking back her coffee and swirling it. “This isn’t your problem, AJ.”
“Of course it is,” said AJ. If it were AJ in that bed, Patrick wouldn’t rest until he had figured out a way to help. There was no way AJ was going to sit on her hands just because Libby had declared herself Patrick’s health proxy.
Libby’s eyes narrowed. “Oh. I get it,” she said. “AJ saves the day with all her big TV money, is that it?”
“That’s not—”
“Hate to break it to you, Age, but this situation is fucked beyond what you—or any of us—can do,” she said. “You can’t always play the hero.”
Libby took another long sip of her iced coffee and went back to scrolling on her phone. AJ gaped at her, then stalked out of the waiting room.
Without knowing how she got there, she emerged in the hospital’s main entrance, an atrium with a tacky if calming water feature. AJ paused in front of the trapezoidal fountain, watching the pennies ripple at the bottom.
There was no “big TV money.” Like most glamour jobs, SNL paid in prestige. AJ was compensated per episode, amounting to $82,967.23 annually, which basically covered food and her mortgage.
With fresh regret, AJ thought of Molly Magnusson chiding her for giving up her producer credit on Into the Blue. The show’s cultish fan base had given the series a life on DVD, and the Science channel sometimes ran marathons. AJ might have made a decent sum in residuals.
Why hadn’t she known better? Why didn’t people tell her things? Why did someone so beautiful, so bright have to be struck down? Were good people’s lives really so easily destroyed? Or had the wide-open future always been a myth?
AJ covered her eyes with her hand as hot tears soaked her face.
“AJ?”
At the sound of her name, AJ whirled around. Noah Drew stood ten feet behind her, bathed in the muted white light of the atrium. AJ quickly wiped her cheeks.
This was a mirage. The hideous fountain was obviously cursed. Yet those were his hands. Those were his eyes. As AJ’s brain continued to paw at his image, her only thought was It’s you.
He was dressed more formally than he had been at SNL, in black slacks, a black cashmere sweater, and a long wool coat. AJ was more casual, in leggings, a sweatshirt, and sneakers.
The muscle in his jaw tensed as he took in her face. “Are you okay?” he asked, stepping forward.
I really have been through something, AJ thought vaguely as she registered how grief had cowed her body since their last encounter. It had hunched her, made her heavy and sore. Was this how Noah had felt that whole summer, when it had been his mom?
You fucking deserve to be sick.
Shame bore down on AJ like a lodestone, followed by a flicker of panic. What was Noah doing at Simmons?
“Are you okay?” she asked back.
Noah’s dark eyes probed hers. AJ waited for the energetic thrum that normally accompanied this and felt…nothing. Shit. Their connection was rooted in trust, and she had taken a hatchet to that during their last interaction. They both had.
I’m not the only one who’s sick.
Noah was still searching her. As he took another step closer, AJ’s instinct was to cover herself, but she held her hands at her sides.
“Eudora’s getting some blood work done. Nothing to worry about,” he said at last.
He looked like he had been carved from metamorphic rock, a touch paler than he had been at the Oscars, but strong and whole. And cold. AJ cringed at how she must appear to him.
“This is a far cry from Hollywood,” she said, glancing around the atrium.
“It’s a far cry from New York,” he said warily.
AJ suddenly felt the need to justify her presence. “My brother had an accident.” Tears filled her eyes as soon as she spoke the words.
Noah’s brow creased. “I’m so sorry,” he said in a low voice. “Mike?”
“Pat,” said AJ, tears gushing down her face. Fuck. “Sorry, it happened in January, I don’t know why I’m crying. He’ll be okay, there have just been a lot of surgeries, and he still can’t walk—”
Shut up, shut up. AJ crossed her arms and looked at her feet. She watched Noah’s shoes take another step toward her.
“AJ, there you are!”
AJ’s head whipped up. Raven Mabon-Fay was marching toward them, her eyes glinting at the sight of Noah. “And you must be AJ’s fiancé!”
Noah glared at Raven. “Absolutely not,” he said vehemently.
AJ felt so cut by this she couldn’t breathe. “Raven, no,” she managed. “This is Noah Drew.”
She waited for recognition to dawn, but Raven wasn’t listening. “I can always tell when a couple is in love,” she crowed.
“Noah.”
Eudora had entered the atrium from the other side, a bright-orange Band-Aid visible below her cuffed cashmere sleeve. Her eyes went directly to the two-carat Elsa Peretti on AJ’s left hand.
“Your aura is usually green,” Raven was saying, “but it’s lavender right now, my dear, positively radiant. As is yours,” she said to Noah.
“Noah,” said Eudora, more forcefully this time. “It’s time to leave, dear.”
Noah was still looking at Raven with intense revulsion. Eudora reached him and took his arm in hers. “Nice to see you, AJ,” Eudora said, formally. “And congratulations.”
“Yes,” said Noah, now glancing down at AJ’s ring and back up. “Congratulations.”
With that, Eudora led Noah from the entryway. Raven turned toward AJ, confused. “So that…wasn’t your fiancé?”
AJ stared after Noah, her heart pounding. “No,” she said finally. “It wasn’t.”
That afternoon, AJ could barely contain herself. She had half a mind to get in the car and drive to Brian’s, but the idea of seeing Brian in this agitated state wasn’t at all comforting. At least here, no one was really paying attention to her.
Noah must have come home for Easter. That wasn’t a crime. Technically. But why, of all places, did he have to be at Simmons?
Their entire exchange made AJ want to apply for foreign citizenship. The way she’d blubbered up her guts…then Raven, accusing him of being her fiancé…
Absolutely not.
AJ shuddered. Clearly, his feelings for her were long gone. Of course they were. He was an Academy Award–nominated movie star, and she was a mean drunk.
Mike, who was usually good for a distraction, was up in his room broadcasting a game of Super Smash Bros. to his fans. When Libby’s car pulled in, AJ took that as her cue to leave the house. She grabbed Emily, and the two of them headed downtown to Reel World Video.
“Emily, hi, sweetie!” said Storm, winking at AJ from behind the register.
Emily was mostly into romantic comedies these days. As the twins perused the shelves for one she hadn’t seen, AJ felt the musty scent of the store easing her nerves.
“The Proposal?” AJ ventured.
“I don’t like that one,” said Emily. “The dog gets stolen.”
“Gross,” said AJ, who hadn’t seen it. “Two Weeks Notice?”
“That one has strip poker,” said Emily. She began to giggle uproariously.
“What about Miss Congeniality?” said AJ.
“You seem really determined to watch something with Sandra Bullock,” said a low voice.
Noah was standing in the doorframe. AJ’s brain just gave up.
He had changed into jeans and a plain black T-shirt. Distantly, AJ noticed how well he filled it out. Jeez. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a sexual thought—ever since Patrick’s accident, her body had been running on cortisol.
Noah wore a relaxed expression, his eyes playful, the polar opposite of the austere man who couldn’t wait to get away from her a few hours earlier. AJ tried in vain to sense what it meant.