Читать книгу Almost Home - Debbie Macomber - Страница 17

Inside the truck was Gina’s son, Reuby.

“Drag your limp butt out of the car right this minute or I’ll use my slingshot against it!” Gina yelled at him.

Reuby slouched on out.

Brenda and I stood up. “What’s wrong?” Instant fear clutched my gut. I could tell that Reuby had been crying. Gina was angry enough to spring an intestine. “What is it?”

Gina jabbed her pointer finger at Reuby. Stomped her foot. “Speak, you troublesome rebel son!”

An anguished Reuby pushed back his blond curls and whined, “I’m sorry, Chalese, dude! I’m sorry. I took pictures of the drawings with my new cell phone and put them on my MySpace page. I thought they were so funny, so cool. They were the animals, dude, from all those kids’ books I read when I was a kid. The Authority Figure never told me you were the author who did the Jasmine Farm Animal books. I didn’t know! I didn’t know that you’re Annabelle Purples! But that’s sick! Sick and awesome!”

My blood dive-bombed toward my feet. “What are you talking about? Which animal pictures?” Oh, please, not the Bridger pictures. “Where did you put them?”

“I thought I’d show the pictures to a few dudes, that’s it! I didn’t know all this would happen. I didn’t know that you were trying to keep yourself secret! Can I still come over and walk the dogs?”

“What?” I could hardly speak, my brain mass flogged with panic. “What pictures?”

Reuby scuffed the ground with his army boots.

Gina glared. “I’m sorry, Chalese. My own son may become a stray animal when I’m done with him.” She whacked him on the head. “Chalese, Reuby wandered up to your studio the other day when he was petting the cats.”

“I couldn’t find Elizabeth I and Clover. I figured they were upstairs. And that’s when I saw all the funny pictures. Dude, you’re hilarious!”

“Do not call Ms. Hamilton ‘dude’ one more time or you will be sleeping in the barn with the cows.” Gina yanked a flower out of her hair and threw it to the ground in anger.

“Sorry, Authority Figure!” He pulled on his eyebrow ring.

I found my tongue. “Are you telling me …” I gasped for air. “Are you telling me my drawings for my book are on the Internet?” Gasped again.

Gina burst into tears, then whacked her son on the head again. Two red flowers fell from her hair. “It’s not your regular pictures, sugar, not the ones for the book. They’re the ones of …”

“Of?”

I heard Brenda beside me gasp and then swear, the swear word long and low and crude.

“Of Goose as a hooker,” Reuby said exuberantly. “Man, that was clever! And Herbert with all the aces saying he’s tired of screwing everyone, and of the fox flashing the puppies, I couldn’t stop laughing at that one, heck yeah, and Cassy Cat smokin’ in a bar—she was always my favorite character when I was a kid …”

No breath. I had no breath in me. I squeaked out, “Please tell me you did not put those pictures on your MySpace page.” My mind about set itself on fire imagining all the possible, truly unspeakable ramifications.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, chastened. “Yes, ma’am, but I’m sorry. I didn’t know—”

I took in a ragged, rough breath before I passed out. “Take them off! Now! Take them off your MySpace page!”

Reuby squirmed, pulled at his scraggly hair. “It’s too late,” he whispered.

“What do you mean ‘it’s too late’?” I shrieked, my arms waving through the air. “It’s not too late! I don’t want anyone to see them!”

“I mean, ma’am, dude, they’re on my MySpace page, but they’re also …”

“They’re what?”

I heard Brenda moaning as she linked an arm around my shoulder. “I’ll take you shopping in Zimbabwe, that’ll make you feel better. We’ll buy you some high heels, those lacy bras and underwear you need so bad, we’ll bring two bottles of wine—”

“I have tequila, Brenda, in my car,” Gina hissed. “Does she drink tequila?”

I put my face six inches from rebel Reuby’s. “They’re what?”

I saw his Adam’s apple sliding up and down. “Dude, I’m sorry,” he rasped. “But my MySpace friends sent them to their friends, and they sent them to their friends, and now those pictures …”

“What?”

“They’re all over the Internet, man. They’re out there. I mean, they’re out there.” He scratched an arm pit. “Who’s Aiden Bridger?”

I staggered away, my hands to my forehead, then screamed. And swore. And screamed again.

My editor called, hysterical.

My agent called, hysterical

My public relations gal called, hysterical.

It wasn’t good. It would get worse.

My privacy was now toast.

A little digging here and there, and the reporters had my connection to Aiden Bridger nailed down via the Carmichael Children’s Book Award.

The reporters called, they sped on over to the island that night, they were nosy, pushy, insistent. What could have been one article by Aiden about me had now morphed into something uncontrollable, huge, and nationwide.

I moved out in the middle of the night and into Christie’s house. Brenda said she would bravely forfeit her high heels for my work boots and take care of the animals. “That’s how much I’ll sacrifice for you, my best friend. I’ll even put on those dirty garden gloves of yours and wear a floppy garden hat. Hoo boy.”

I couldn’t help getting a little teary.

The flurry of Christie’s home kept me somewhat centered. She was in bed because of pre-term labor problems, her husband was stuck out of town on business, worried sick about her, and I watched the three kids.

I could hide somewhat from the reporters on Christie’s fenced ten acres of property, but I couldn’t hide from the townspeople. The front page of our own newspaper soon ran the story in giant headlines: “Chalese Hamilton is Annabelle Purples, Famous Children’s Story Book Author. Whale Island Animal Lover Center of Online Controversy.”

My sister’s answering machine was jammed. A few people were ticked I hadn’t shared my work with them, others were amused or tickled at this juicy secret. Some were shocked. Overriding it all: was Aiden still my special friend?

I put my head between my legs.

“You gonna throw up?” Wendi Jo asked me.

I nodded. “Maybe.”

She dragged over a pan. “Always throw up in a pan, not on the carpet. That’s what Mommy says.”

“You’re very helpful, Wendi Jo,” I said.

“Yes, I am.” She gave me a hug. “Mommy said you’re in trouble because you drew a bad picture. Did you get a spanking?”

“The parents are having a fit,” my editor breathed. “We may have to postpone your next book. I feel breathless. I think it’s my heart, Chalese! My heart!”

“You may lose your contract,” my agent hyperventilated. “You may be done. Finished.”

“I have a nightmare on my hands,” my public relations gal whimpered. “Why did you have to draw Cassy Cat with a boob job and a cigarette? Why?”

I bounced Jeremiah on my lap as I took the calls. My life had collapsed, and, overriding the whole dismal, nerve-rattling, sickening fear of my family’s past being drudged up again and poured out for American consumption, I was drowning in Aiden-guilt and the unparalleled embarrassment those drawings would have caused him.

I left him a message. “Aiden, I’m so sorry. I’m so very, very sorry. Remember I told you I’m a clumsy elephant, a ridiculous, pathetic, writer. I don’t get out enough, I hot-flash, I talk to my dogs and half the time I expect them to answer back, I hang out with Brenda, who is a menace. Aiden, the pictures were never supposed to be on the Internet. They were private, a way to work out my … this … us … our … me and you … a mess …”

I hung up. What was there left to say, anyhow? That the drawings were a way to work out my bitter hurt, this life-sucking loss? That I wanted to erase my entire self like I did when I drew a caterpillar incorrectly?

“I’m fine, Mom,” I said into the phone. “You’re still in Los Angeles? I didn’t want to worry you, so I didn’t tell you. Yes, I’ll use an organic face cream tonight and lay with cucumbers on my eyes. Thank you for the box of blueberries and the new book on how to organically care for a stressed face …. Love you, too … No, I have no plans to make any more designs for your company right now …. Please, Mom … I’m fine.”

But I wasn’t fine.

Every morning since Aiden had left I woke up and this raging flood of grief came for every bone in my body.

Every evening the flood was still with me, after hanging around all day, making me cry at unexpected moments, my chest heavy, my mind slogging through sadness.

When I turned off the light at night, the grief was worse in the darkness because I was alone and figured I’d be alone for years. Maybe forever.

A forever without Aiden.

I would curl up with my pillow, flipping it several times when my tears soaked it.

Brenda slept with me a few times. “Want to dress up as bunnies or something?”

His voice was so cold, so detached, I thought a glacier had removed itself from the North Pole and lodged between us.

I felt sick with pain and loss. I gripped my stomach. For the first time in my life, I couldn’t eat, which was not helping this calamitous situation, as I felt nauseous.

“Aiden, nice to hear your voice,” I said into my cell phone. “One second.”

I raced to the bathroom and slung my head over the toilet, then leaned my forehead against the rim.

I could hear Wendi Jo on the phone talking to Aiden when I stumbled back into the family room, leaning hard against the wall in my dizziness.

“Yeah, Aunt Chalese is in the toilet. She’s still in her pink doggie pajamas. It’s after Sesame Street, too. Mommy says no one should be in pajamas in the afternoon. I think she’s sick. No, my mommy’s in bed with the babies in her tummy. She’s sick, too. She eats lots of salsa. I the boss now … Yeah, I the boss. You stink, Aunt Chalese. Like throw-up.”

I grabbed the phone. “Aiden?”

“How are you, Chalese?”

“Aiden, I’m fine but—”

“Good. I think we need to come to some sort of agreement here. I know you didn’t want the article written, but we’re both backed into a corner. I’m besieged by reporters wanting to know why America’s leading children’s writer and illustrator hates me so much and how I ended up being lampooned by Cassy Cat and other assorted famous characters.”

“I understand. Please listen—”

“So I’m finishing the article now.”

“What? I thought it was already written.”

There was a deep, heavy silence.

“It wasn’t written?”