Tess Gerritsen - Harvest

"Josh, honey, we brought Uncle Harry from Newbury. He knows all about VCR's. He can hook it up, can't you, Harry?"

"Oh, sure. I do all my neighbours' VCR's."

"Did you bring the right wires, Harry? You sure you got all the wires you need?"

"You think I'd forget the wires?"

"Look, Josh. Three extra-large orders of fries. It's OK, isn't it? Dr. Tarasoft didn't say you couldn't have fries?"

"mom, we forgot the camera! I was gonna take a picture of Josh's scar."

"You don't want a picture of his scar."

"My teacher said it'd be cool."

"Your teacher's too old to use words like cool. No pictures of scars. That's an invasion of privacy."

"Hey Josh, you need any help eating those fries?"

"So Harry, you think you can hook it up?"

"Gee, I don't know. This is a pretty old TV…"

Vivian had managed at last to sidle around to where Abby was standing. There was another knock on the door, and a fresh spurt of relatives pushed into the room, with more cries of He looks so good.t Doesn't he look good? Through the crowd of O" Days, Abby caught a fleeting glimpse of Josh. He was looking their way. He gave them a helpless smile, a wave.

Quietly Abby andVivian left the room. They stood in the hallway, listening to the voices beyond the door. AndVivian said, "So, Abby. To the question of was it worth it? that's your answer."

At the nurses' station, they asked to speak to Dr. IvanTarasoff. The ward clerk suggested they look in the surgeons' lounge. That's exactly where Abby and Vivian found him, sipping coffee and scribbling in his charts. With his drooping glasses and tweed jacket, Dr. Tarasoft looked more like some puttering English gentleman than the renowned cardiac surgeon.

"We just saw Josh," said Vivian.

Tarasoft looked up from his coffee-splattered notes. "And what do you think, Dr. Chao?"

"I think you do good work. The kid looks fantastic."

"He has a little post-code amnesia. Otherwise, he's bounced back the way kids always do. He'll be out of here in a week. If the nurses don't kick him out sooner."Tarasoff closed the chart and looked at Vivian. His smile faded. "I have a very big bone to pick with you, Doctor."

"Me?"

"You know what I'm talking about. That other transplant patient at Bayside. When you shipped us the boy, you didn't tell me the whole story. Then I find out the heart was already assigned."

"It wasn't. There was a directed donation consent."

"Obtained through a certain amount of subterfuge." He frowned over his glasses at Abby. "Your administrator, Mr Parr, told me all the details. So did MrVoss's attorney."

Vivian and Abby glanced at each other.

"His attorney?" said Vivian.

"That's right." Tarasoff's gaze shifted back to Vivian. "Were you trying to get me sued?"

'! was trying to save the boy."

"You withheld information."

"And now he's alive and well."

"I'm only going to say it once. Don't ever do anything like this again."

Vivian seemed about to reply, but then thought better of it. Instead she gave a solemn nod. It was her deferential Asian act, eyes downcast, head dipping in a faint bow.

Tarasoft didn't buy it. He regarded her with a look of mild vexation. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed. Turning back to his charts, he said: "I should have expelled you from Harvard. When I had the chance."

"Ready about. Hard a lee!" Mark yelled, and shoved the tiller.

The bow of Gimme Shelter turned into the wind, sails crackling, ropes lashing the deck. Raj Mohandas scurried across to the starboard winch and began cranking the jib sheet. With a loud whap, the sail filled, and Gimme Shelterheeled to starboard, sending off a clatter of soft drink cans in the cabin below.

"Upwind rail, Abby!" Mark yelled. "Get to the upwind rail!" Abby scrambled across the deck to the port side, where she clung to the lifeline and offered up another fervent vow of never again. What was it about men and their boats? she wondered. What was it about the sea that made them yell?

They were all yelling, all four of them, Mark and Mohandas and Mohandas's eighteen-year-old son Hank, and Pete Jaegly, a third-year resident. Yelling about sheets that needed tightening and spinnaker poles and wasted wind puffs. They were yelling about Archer's boat, Red Eye, which was gaining on them. And, every so often, they would yell at Abby. She actually had a role in this race, a role known politely as ballast. Dead weight. A job that could be performed by sandbags. Abby was a sandbag with legs. They'd yell and she'd run across to the opposite rail where, with some regularity, she'd throw up. The men weren't throwing up. They were too busy scampering around in their expensive boat shoes and yelling. "Coming up on the mark! One more tack. Ready about!" Mohandas and Jaegly resumed their frantic deck dance. "Hard a lee!"

Gimme Shelter turned through the wind and heeled to port. Abby scrambled to the other side. Sails flapped, ropes thrashed.

Mohandas cranked the winch, the muscles on his brown arm rippling with each turn of the handle.

"She's coming up on us!" Hank called.

Behind them, Red Eye had gained another half-boat-length. They could hear Archer yelling at hid/s crew, exhorting them to come up, come up.t Gimme Shelter rounded the buoy and started her downwind course. Jaegly struggled with the spinnaker pole. Hank pulled down the jib.

Abby was throwing up over the side.

"Shit, he's right on our tail!" yelled Mark. "Get the fucking spinnaker up! Go, go, go!"

Jaegly and Hank hoisted the spinnaker. The wind filled it with a thunderous whomp and Gimme Shelter suddenly surged ahead. "That's it, Baby!" Mark whooped. "Baby, baby, here we go!"

"Look," said Jaegly, pointing aft. "What the bell's happening?"

Abby managed to raise her head and look back, towards Archer's boat.

Red Eye was no longer in pursuit. It had turned around near the buoy and was now heading back to port.

"They've started their motor," said Mark. "Think they're conceding defeat?"

"Archer? Not a chance."

"So why're they going back?"

"I guess we'd better find out. Get the spinnaker down." Mark started the engine. "We're heading back too."

Thank you, God.t thought Abby.

Her nausea was already subsiding by the time they morored into the marina. Red Eye was tied up at the dock and her crew was busy folding up sails and coiling ropes.

"Ahoy Red Eye!" yelled Mark as they glided past. "What's going on?"

Archer waved his cellular phone. "Got a call from Marllee! She told us to come in. It's something serious. She's waiting for us in the yacht club."

"OK. Meet you at the bar," said Mark. He looked at his own crew. "Let's tie up. We'll have a drink and take her back out again."

"You'll have to do it without your ballast," said Abby. "I'm jumping ship."

Mark glanced at her in surprise. "Already?"

"Didn't you see me hanging over the side?! wasn't admiring the scenery."

"Poor Abby! I'll make it up to you, OK? Promise. Champagne. Flowers. Restaurant of your choice."

"Just get me off this goddamn boat."

Laughing, he steered towards the dock. "Aye aye, first mate." As Gimme Shelter glided alongside the visitor's dock, Mohandas and Hank stepped onto the pier and tied fast the bow and stern lines. Abby was off the boat in a flash. Even the dock seemed to be swaying.

"Just leave her rigged," said Mark. "Until we find out what's up with Archer."

"He's probably got the party started already," said Mohandas. Oh Lord, Abby thought as she and Mark walked up the pier, his arm slung possessively around her shoulder. More boat talk coming up. Tanned men standing around with their gin and tonics and their polo shirts and their booming laughter.

They went inside the club, stepping from sunlight into shadow. The first thing she noticed was the silence. She saw Marilee standing at the bar with a drink in her hand. Saw Archer sitting by himself at a table, no drink, just a paper coaster in front of him. Red Eye's crew was gathered around the bar, no one moving, no one saying a thing. The only sound in the room was the clatter of ice cubes in Marilee's glass as she lifted the drink to her lips, took a sip, and set it back down again on the counter.