Сандра Браун - Adam's Fall

"Why my legs were sunburned. Okay, Adam, let up a bit, then try it again. Come on now, no ugly faces. One more time." She picked up the asinine conversation in order to keep his mind off his discomfort. "My legs are sunburned because I fell asleep beside the pool yesterday afternoon."

"Is that what you're being paid an exorbitant amount of money to do? To nap beside my swimming pool?"

"Of course not!" After a strategic pause, she added, "I went swimming too." He gave her a baleful look and pressed his foot against the palm of her hand. "Good, Adam, good. Once more."

"You said that was the last one."

"I lied."

"You heartless bitch."

"You gutless preppy." Things were swell.

"Elizabeth, drat her, had a perfect arch that our teacher oohed and aahed over. Her dainty foot was always on exhibit, something the rest of us in the class should aspire to. She was a perfect little ballerina with perfect form. She got all the solo roles in the recitals. When she danced, the teacher got tears in her eyes. I was always stuck on the back row. I was swaybacked and looked like a goose trying to dance Swan Lake . The teacher cried when I performed, too, but it wasn't quite the same."

Adam's rumble of laughter vibrated through Lilah's fingertips as she massaged his back. He was relaxed; she was glad. She had really put him through his paces that morning and his muscles were quivering with fatigue.

"When we got to junior high, Mother put us in ballroom dancing. Elizabeth glided through as gracefully as Ginger Rogers. I was head and shoulders taller than all the boys in the class. I spilled punch on my dress at the first dance. I was such a disaster at being a lady, I stopped trying and became the class clown instead. The teacher telephoned Mother and offered her her money back if she would take me out of the class. 'Disruptive element' was the diplomatic phrase I think she used."

"I'll bet you were relieved you didn't have to go back."

Drawing her face into a frown, she didn't answer for a moment. "Not really. It amounted to just one more failure."

Adam raised his head off the mat table high enough to look back at her. "Because you didn't hack it in ballroom dancing?"

"Well, that and about six million other endeavors. Elizabeth made straight A's. I was a solid B student. But that seemed such a tepid second place, so I deliberately started making C's. Just high enough to pass. My sister was an exemplary pupil, every teacher's pet, so I became the scourge of teachers throughout the system. Whatever Elizabeth was, I wanted to be the opposite."

"You resent her that much?"

"I don't resent her at all. I love and adore her. It's simply that I recognized early on that I couldn't ever be like her, so I wanted to become radically different. Otherwise I was afraid I'd fade into the woodwork and nobody would ever see me."

"I seriously doubt you'd ever go unseen," he said with a chuckle.

"Roll over. Come on, spare me the groan. You can do it."

He did, using his arm muscles and those in his hips and thighs that he had gradually regained the use of. He shifted himself from table to wheelchair, then from wheelchair to bed with very little assistance.

"There. That's it for now," she told him once he was reclining against the pillows. "Need anything before I go?"

"Yeah. There is something I could use." Smiling guilelessly, he told her.

In spite of her own pungent vocabulary and ribald wit, she blushed. "I don't do that."

"Ever?"

"Not to patients."

"You offered by saying 'anything.'"

"I had in mind fetching you some fruit juice, a magazine, the TV remote control."

"In that case, no thanks."

"Okay, see you later." She turned to go.

"What's your hurry? Where are you going?"

"Shopping."

"What for?"

"I need some things."

"What things?"

"Personal things."

"Like what?"

"How indelicate! Now, good-bye. The afternoon is getting away."

"Are you taking the van?"

"My rental car."

"Take the van. I'll ride along with you."

Lilah shook her head. "I've got several stops to make. You'd get tired before I was ready to come back."

"No, I wouldn't."

"Yes, you would. Besides, when I finish running errands, I thought I'd spend an hour or two helping out at the rehab center."

"What about me?"

"What about you?"

"How long will you be gone?"

"I don't know, Adam," she said with mounting exasperation. "What difference does it make?"

"I'll tell you what difference it makes," he said angrily. "I'm paying you a thousand bucks a day to take care of me."

"But I get time off for good behavior, don't I?"

"When has your behavior ever been good?"

"I'm leaving," she said in a singsong voice.

"You can't," he called after her. "I might need you here."

"Pete will be here if you need anything. See ya."

"Lilah?"

"What?" She turned back toward the bed again. Her expression was indulgent, but impatient.

"Don't rush off." He had switched tactics. No longer angry, he was wheedling. "Pete's available, but he doesn't sit down and talk to me.

"You and I have been talking all morning. I've run out of things to say."

"We'll play Trivial Pursuit."

"We always fight when we play."

"We'll play poker."

"No fair. You always win."

"Strip poker?"

"No fair. I'd win. You're already down to your skivvies."

"So strip down to yours and we'll start even." She gave him a dirty look. Laughing, he relented. "Okay, if strip poker is out, we could watch a movie on the VCR."

"We've watched all of them. Twice."

"Not the skin flicks."

"I pass."

"Not too prudish, are you?"

"Not in the mood."

"They'll put you in the mood, I promise."

She shifted her stance impatiently. "You know what I mean."

He pulled his lower lip through his teeth several times. "Come on, Lilah, don't run out on me. I'm bored."

"But I'm not a social director. Good-bye, Adam," she said firmly, and left before he could say anything more.

Had she stayed longer, he might have succeeded in changing her mind. Lately she was staying in his room more than necessary. Each time she left, she found it a little harder to go.

"How's the water?"

"Feels terrific. Want to get in?"

"No, not tonight."

Lilah emerged from the pool and reached for a beach towel. As she dried off, she was conscious of Adam's eyes on her. For that very reason, she usually used the pool when he was upstairs resting.

Tonight, however, he had insisted on sitting outside longer than usual after dinner. The moon was up. It was a gorgeous night. After holding out as long as she could, hoping Adam would retire to his room, Lilah had yielded to the pool's temptation, dropped her cover-up, and dived in to swim several laps.

"Any of that mail interesting?" she asked as she rubbed her wet hair with a corner of the towel.

"Not really. Just plentiful. I'll never get finished sorting it all, much less answering it."

"Must be tough to be loved by thousands," she remarked tongue-in-cheek. "What do the piles represent?"

He had formed three hills of correspondence on the patio table in front of him. "The good, the bad, and the ugly," he said, enumerating each pile.

Lilah leaned out of her chaise and dug into the "ugly" pile, coming up with an envelope. She held it up closer to the flaming torch that was burning from the metal pole cemented in the flower bed behind her. "Thad and Elizabeth Randolph," she said, reading the return address on the envelope.

"Oops, they got in the wrong pile."

"I don't think you're paying much attention to that sorting method of yours." Uncaring that the letter had been addressed to him, she worked her finger into the slit of the envelope.