Stepbrother At Last Page 4

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Are you hungry? Because I would love a pizza right now,” he said.

  “Oh man. That sounds incredible.”

  “Let’s go, then. Is Darshu’s still the best?” One strange thing about Greenwood was that the best pizza place in town was owned by a guy from India. “My treat,” he said, and grinned.

  “It better be your treat, Mr. Billionaire.”

  “Ugh, you know I hate that word!”

  So we went for pizza. Apparently there’s no law against billionaires eating dripping melted cheese with the rest of us peasants. I got choked up a few times, thinking of my patient, but Nick would just listen and hold my hand. And then make me laugh a little bit. It was kind of bittersweet, though. I kept thinking that if it hadn’t been for the accident, my whole life could have been like this. Hanging out with Nick, going for pizza, laughing with him. Getting to spend every day with him. Of course, you can’t go back, and it was probably better that I found out when I did that I couldn’t count on him. How do you trust a guy who leaves town when you need him most? But still. Don’t you hate your might-have-beens?

  After our early dinner, I expected Nick to drive me home, but he headed out of town.

  “Where are we going?”

  “I want to show you something I found the other day.”

  “So you’re just…what? Going to take me there, without asking? I have a ton of studying to do.”

  “Just trust me, Julia, sheesh.” When he said that, I thought of about ten angry answers, but I didn’t say any of them. What was the point? So I looked out the window. We were driving through some pretty woods, still in fresh late-spring green. After a while, Nick pulled off the road. I didn’t see anything. It was just an empty stretch of road going through a forest.

  He got out of the car. “Come on!”

  “Why’d you stop here?”

  “You haven’t been back here before?”

  “Back where? I don’t know what you mean.” I looked around, thinking there must be a landmark or something.

  Nick took my hand and led me over to a tree stump. “None of this looks familiar?”

  “For god’s sake! No!”

  “Julia, this is the tree we hit in the accident.”

  “What?” My face, my whole body went cold. I tried to pull away from his hand, but he held me tight. “I don’t want to see this! Why would you bring me here?” I was crying. I tried to walk away again, but he caught my other hand and pulled me close to him.

  “Just stop. Stop,” Nick said. He wasn’t yelling, just talking calmly. His hands were warm. “Look. Look at the stump.”

  I looked. It had been cut off at about my waist level, and what was left had a deep, wide crack through the middle. The top, where the cut was, was dry and gray, and if I’d wanted to, I could have counted the rings. All around the bottom, where the stump met the ground, were thin new branches springing up, each one covered with green leaves.

  “When you were telling me about your patient, I thought I should bring you here.”

  “Why? What would possibly make you think, when I was already upset, that you should show me this and get me more upset?”

  “Because, look.” He pointed to the new growth. “Look how tough this tree is. It was almost destroyed, but it won’t give up. Just like you. You lost a lot, but you didn’t give up. And look what you’re accomplishing now! That girl today could be just like this.”

  I took a deep, shuddery breath. He was right, in a way. But he obviously didn’t know how much I’d lost, how much I’d been damaged by the accident. It wasn’t just the physical scars, you know? He was trying to help me, I could see that.

  “And another thing. For me, this is hope. Hope that we can get back what we lost.” He took a breath, like he wanted to say more, but then he shook his head. He took a jackknife out of his pocket, bent down, and cut off one of the new branches growing from the old stump. He pressed it into my hands. It smelled green and summery, from where it had been cut.

  He stood up, and stepped very close to me. I thought he would hug me, but he didn’t. Instead, he rubbed a place on my cheek, near my mouth, with his thumb. “Julia, did you know that while you were in the ICU, the doctors told me that you probably wouldn’t remember the accident? That you probably wouldn’t even remember anything that happened for hours before, or even that whole day?”

  “No. Why would they tell you that? Instead of Mom.”

  “I was there. Your mom must have gone home for a while, and I was the only one there.”

  “I don’t remember you being there at all.”

  “You were on painkillers and sedation. But I was there. From the time we were brought in on the ambulance, I never went home. Dad and Lucy brought me clothes and stuff.”

  But I knew the rest of the story. Later he left. And not just to go home and sleep. He left for years.

  “Do you, Julia?”

  “Do I what?”

  “Do you remember the day of the accident?”

  I was quiet. What difference did it make now? A girl in a wheelchair must not have been good enough for him—he made that clear when he bailed. Why hash over all that other stuff?

  I said, “I don’t want to talk about the accident any more. I went to a shrink for a while and talked it all over, and now I’m done. Maybe you should see a shrink if you need to talk about it.”

  He had been looking at me so eagerly, but at that he closed his mouth and turned away.

  “Can you take me home now, Nick?”

  We got in the car, and drove through the twilit woods and farms, me still clutching the branch Nick had cut for me. It was a beautiful night, and the wind washing over us was softly scented with growing things, but we didn’t speak a word the whole way home.

  ~ <> ~

  After walking on the beach with Nick, I felt almost like a completely different person from the one who went down to the edge of the lake and started swimming. That fast, my whole life had changed. Have you ever had that happen? Everything looked different. Colors were brighter, edges were crisper, and objects seemed to give off a glow. Someone was barbecuing their picnic dinner, and it smelled amazing, and that plus the scent of the pines combined to make me want to pull in lungful after lungful of delicious air. To top everything off, I was holding hands with Nick, and our connection felt electric. Like nothing I’d ever experienced.

  We decided to head for home. We couldn’t figure out how to go back to our friends and hang out. When we walked away from the group, we were brother and sister, but we were coming back as so much more. To us, it was the most natural, beautiful thing in the world, almost like it had been fated all along. But we didn’t know how other people were going to react. So we figured we’d better just go—it was getting late in the afternoon anyway. We couldn’t leave without our stuff, though. I personally would have been happy to abandon my towel and bottle of suntan oil, and the paperback novel I was reading, but Nick still needed his car keys.

  So, back we went. As if we’d agreed beforehand, we dropped hands when we got close to our friends. No use, though. Of course Suzanne had seen us kissing.

  She had had a thing for Nick for a while, which I hated of course, but what could I say? I couldn’t tell her my brother was off limits. But she watched everything he did while we were at the lake, and that included what he did with me. While Nick and I had been off in our own little world, Suzanne had been watching and getting ready to pounce.

  “So Juuuuulia!” she said, syrupy-sweet, as we walked up. “You sure do loooove your brother, don’t you? That was some kiss you gave him!”

  “I don’t have a brother, Suzanne.”

  “Who’s Nick then? You guys’ parents are married—sounds like he’s your brother to me!” Of course she was not saying any of this stuff in a normal tone of voice, and soon our friends were listening, plus some other people nearby.

  “Give it a rest, Suzanne,” Nick said quietly.

  “Oh, are
you embarrassed? Don’t you want me to talk about you kissing your sister right out in public? Do you want me to whisper about you FUCKING your sister?”

  “Shut up, Suzanne,” he said.

  “Make me, you filthy pervert. When you fuck your sister that’s incest, and it happens to be against the law!” If you saw a picture of Suzanne, you’d say she was a pretty girl. But a lot of the people who knew her didn’t think so. The poisonous expression on her face right then made her look about as pretty as a rattlesnake.

  “Julia is no relation to me, not that it’s any of your business.” We had our stuff packed up by now, and turned to go. Our friends looked seriously uncomfortable, but they didn’t know what to do. Maybe some of them had seen us kissing, too.

  “Run away, pervert! Go stick your tongue up your sister’s filthy twat, why don’t you?”

  I could feel myself blushing at that. As we walked away, we could still hear her calling her venom after us. “Guess I should have asked your dad to adopt me, Nick. If I knew you were into INCEST!”

  I walked stiffly beside Nick. I couldn’t even look at him. Was this what it was going to be like to be with him? People calling us perverts for the rest of our lives? We got back to the car and got in. It was hot as an oven inside, of course, so we rolled down the windows and Nick got us moving right away.

  “So what do you think, Julia, was Suzanne maybe a little bothered about something back there?”

  I laughed and said, “I don’t know, she’s just no fun anymore.” We both started laughing, much harder than our lame jokes deserved. It blew some of the tension away.

  Nick said, still laughing, “What a bitch she is! You were right about her.”

  Then I remembered what I’d said earlier and stopped laughing. “Yeah, but the bad part is, she’ll spread it all over town.”

  “She will. Shit. I guess we do need to tell Dad and Lucy before they hear it from their friends.”

  “Wow. This got serious pretty fast, huh?”

  Nick held his hand out to me and I took it. We laced our fingers together. Being with him was worth it, no matter what people said about us. I leaned my head back against the seat, still looking at Nick while the wind blew my hair around.

  “I’ve always been serious about you, Julia. I never wanted anything casual. Even though you were only fifteen that day in the restaurant, I knew I would wait until we were both old enough before I did anything.”

  “So, do you think we’re old enough now?”

  “God, I hope so!”

  “Do you think Mom and Joe will think we’re old enough? I really don’t want the gossip to hurt my mom.”

  “Yeah, me neither.”

  “It was really bad after my dad left. I don’t want her to have to go through that again.”

  Nick was quiet for a while. Then he suddenly pulled the car off the road where a sign said, “Scenic Overlook.”

  “Huh? What’s this?”

  “Come on,” he said. “Just get out.” He ran over to the railing, pulling me by the hand after him. For a minute we looked out over the valley, seeing the patchwork of farmland and woods, and way at the far end, the outskirts of Greenwood.

  He turned to me and said, “Okay. I know how we can keep Suzanne’s gossip from hurting us or our parents. And…we’d be doing this anyway in a few years, right?”

  I was mystified until he went down on one knee in front of me and took my hand.

  “Julia,” he said, and kissed my hand. “I love you so much. No matter what happens, I always will. Will you marry me?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  3

  Nick

  The ribbon-cutting ceremony for the just-finished ICU at Greenwood Hospital was a black-tie affair. I didn’t plan it, it was up to the PR Department of the hospital. I wasn’t thrilled about showing up in my monkey suit, but if it did any good I could deal. All the people were milling around in what was actually a waiting room done up to look ready for a fancy party. They had brought a piano into the room, and a pianist was playing light jazz, which competed with the sounds of talk and laughter. All of Greenwood’s movers and shakers were there. It was hard for me to remember that I was one of them now, not some green kid just getting started. They would come up to me and shake my hand, slap me on the back, congratulate me, all that kind of stuff. And they would ask me questions, like about business, and then actually listen to the answer. But it was kind of a boring party, if you want the truth.

  When I saw Julia, though, I thought I would wear fifty tuxedos to fifty boring parties for the chance to see her dressed like she was that night. Her dress was red, and strapless, held up by magic as far as I could tell. It was made of some kind of material that had a sheen to it. But the thing about it was the way it hugged that girl’s curves. Good god. She had her hair piled up on top of her head, with like a pearl pin in it, and pearls on her ears and around her neck. If I live to be a hundred, I’ll never see anything that looks better. In fact, I hope my memory lasts til the day I die, because I want my mental picture of Julia in the red gown to be the last memory I have on this earth.

  When she walked in, she paused in the doorway like she didn’t know what to do. I gave her a big wave and yelled out her name, which maybe isn’t how people act at black-tie affairs. But Julia saw me, and her face lit up like a kid’s on Christmas morning. We started moving towards each other through the crowd.

  I took both of her hands and leaned in to kiss her, and she turned her smooth cheek towards me so I kissed that. “Julia, you look…amazing. Stunning.”

  She laughed, and I could tell she was pretty excited. “Check you out in the penguin outfit! Pretty slick, Nick!” She used to say that little rhyme to me a lot, so it made me happy.

  “Can I get you some champagne?” I asked. She said yes, so I made my way over to the little makeshift bar they had set up and got us a couple glasses. When I got back, she was talking with the doctor that I’d met in the meeting, the first day I’d seen Julia again. When I came up, he shook my hand and thanked me again for donating, but then moved into the crowd, leaving me alone with Julia. We sipped our champagne. It was in those tall skinny glasses that are so narrow it’s hard to fit your nose in the glass.

  Waiters were circulating with trays of canapes, and Julia and I took a couple.

  “What are these?” she said.

  They looked like fluffy piles of orangey foam on top of little skinny pieces of toast. “I have no idea,” I said. “I’m pretty sure I’m paying for this party, and they’re serving me food I can’t identify.”

  “Ha! The caterers were probably like, ‘He’s just some dumb kid with a billion dollars. Let’s see what crazy food we can make for this party!’”

  “Oh, thanks a lot!” I said. “The sad part is, you’re probably right. Well? You brave enough to try it?”

  “Hell, yeah!” We both bit down at the same time. The expression of bliss on her face was so extreme it was almost funny. “Oh my GOD,” she finally said when she’d swallowed her bite. “I don’t care what they are, I just want more. Where did that waiter go?”

  In that moment I wanted to grab her and kiss her. The whole Julia experience was too much to handle with her looking so beautiful. Being with her was the best, but it was also a kind of torture. We were pretending. We were dancing around our feelings, acting like the stuff on the surface was all there was. At least I was. How did she feel? I had no idea. My hopes for how I wanted her to feel got in the way of being able to tell what was really going on with her.

  I decided then that somehow I would get her alone and tell her everything. The hell with what she remembered or didn’t remember. I couldn’t go on just pretending it was okay to be casual friends with her.

  “Julia, this party isn’t going to last very long. After we cut the ribbon, it will be over. I’d love to take you out someplace really nice. Seems a shame to waste that dress on these stuffy hospital people. Would you like to go to dinner at La Maison?”

  Oh, wo
w,” she said. Her eyes traveled over my face for long, long moment, and then she smiled and said, “Yes. That sounds really nice.”

  I took her hand and tried to draw her a little closer, but she backed off and let go of my hand. She said, “Where’s that guy with the little orange thingies? Do you want another one?”

  Before we could locate the waiter, the hospital administrator came up to us and said, “Okay kids! It’s ribbon-cutting time. Just keep your speeches short, less than five minutes is fine.”

  “Speeches?” Julia’s face turned white, her red lipstick standing out like a slash against her face.

  I took her hand and squeezed it. “It’s going to be okay. You just have to say a couple of things, smile, keep looking beautiful.” I took a chance and put my arms around her, and felt her relax into them. “That part should be easy, Jule. You’ve got this,” I whispered.

  She nodded and looked up at me. “I’ll be okay, I guess. Will you talk first?”

  “Sure. And I’ll be right beside you the whole time.”

  She exhaled and straightened her shoulders. “Okay. I’m ready.” She kept hold of my hand as we walked to the front of the room.

  Someone had taped a wide red ribbon across a door that people had been passing through all this time. The administrator stood beside us holding a comically huge pair of scissors. He nodded at me to let me know I should start talking. I hadn’t thought much about what to say.

  “Ladies and gentleman,” I started. “It will be three years ago this August that this young woman here, Julia Winthrop, was brought to Greenwood Hospital in an ambulance. She had suffered extensive injuries in an auto accident. She was transferred from the ER to the ICU, where for three weeks she fought for her life. The amazing doctors and nursing staff of Greenwood brought her from a critical condition, in a coma, to stability and good health. Today, after more surgery, she is the vision of loveliness you see before you.” People clapped, surprising me. “When I left Greenwood, I was just a college kid, and through some events almost as miraculous as Julia’s recovery, I earned a lot of money. I decided to give to the hospital that saved the life of a woman who is very dear to me. Thank you.” People clapped again, harder this time. I turned to Julia, who was giving me a strange look from the corner of her eye.