Kathleen Creighton - The Awakening of Dr. Brown

“Yeah, me, too.” And oh, how proud she was that her voice was light and no more scratchy than normal.

Why, tell me, why…is it so hard to say goodbye?

The lyric blew through her mind like a train whistle in the night, and she felt her entire being shudder with the suddenness of understanding, as if rocked by the gust of the train’s passing. Doveman, you were right-goodbye is hard, and it’s what comes between hello and goodbye that matters.

And this, she was all at once determined, would not be goodbye. If Phoenix had anything to say about it-and she sure as hell did-there was going to be a whole lot more “between” to come before she and Dr. Ethan Brown said goodbye.

“By the way,” she purred as he was reaching across to open the door for her, “if you still want that report on those apartment buildings…” He paused; she heard a soft but unmistakable catch in his breathing, and felt a nice little glow of triumph at the thought that she might actually have made him forget his precious agenda, for even a little while. “I should have it by tomorrow, if you want to stop by.”

“Can’t tomorrow.” He gave a smile and shrug of apology as he turned the knob and pushed the door open. “My ride-along night.”

“Oh-right.” She went ahead of him onto the landing, quelling small twinges of annoyance. Phoenix was not accustomed to having to bend her schedule around someone else’s. “Saturday, then.”

“Uh…can’t Saturday, either.” He closed the door with a tug and a click, then paused with his hand still on the doorknob. She turned to look at him and caught the shadow of evasion in his eyes. “I have plans…sorry.”

“Ah. I see.” Both her nice little glow and the annoyance abruptly faded and were replaced by a cold green greasy lump she had no trouble recognizing as jealousy. Phoenix-jealous? The thought was appalling.

Even more so was her mortification when his eyes softened with understanding. And his smile…oh, how she resented his confidence, especially since she seemed to have so little of it herself, lately.

“Nothing like that. I promised…someone…I’d take him to the park on Saturday. I really can’t cancel on him. Sunday, maybe?”

What could she say to that? The regret in his eyes was real. “Maybe,” she said lightly, turning toward the stairs. And then, trying hard to sound amused, “The park…sounds like so much fun. Especially for your bodyguards. Where is it? Somewhere around here?” The beginnings of an idea were forming in her mind.

The doc looked startled, then frowned. “What? No-over near the clinic, I think.” He gave her a crooked smile. “To tell you the truth, I forgot to ask-how many parks can there be?”

“Right…” Phoenix purred.

They went down the stairs together, side by side but carefully not touching, both very much aware that ever-vigilant Secret Service Agent Tom Applegate was waiting for them at the bottom.

They rode home in the back seat of the SUV, mostly in silence, with Tom driving. And when they left each other, what they both said was not goodbye, but simply, “Good night.”

Piano music greeted Phoenix as she made her way through the darkened studio, the notes floating down from above as if they were a gift come straight from Heaven. Partly she thought that because to her the person making the music had indeed been a gift, whether from God or Fate or some other power she had no way of knowing; and partly because the music itself was so lovely, she thought it might very well have been divinely inspired. Listening to it made her swell inside with an unutterable sadness.

And so, of course, she was smiling as she stepped out of the cage.

“Hey, Doveman-you’re up late.” She crossed to the piano and gave his bony shoulders a squeeze as she dropped a quick kiss onto the bare spot on top of his head. “You shouldn’t have waited for me. I’m a big girl.”

The old piano man chuckled as he shifted on the bench to make room for her the way he always did. “Now, you know ol’ Doveman don’t close his eyes ’til he knows his chick is back safe and sound in her nest.”

Phoenix was silent for a moment, rocking her body slightly to the rhythm of the music. Then she said softly, “You were right-it needed the minor key.”

Doveman nodded, watching his fingers work their magic. “Ain’t nothing harder or sadder than sayin’ goodbye. And it don’t matter how many times you do it, it don’t get any easier. I think maybe it’s even harder when you get old…”

Old… Doveman is old.

Fear came unexpectedly, clutched at her stomach and turned her body cold. Doveman. He’d been both mother and father to her for most of her life. She couldn’t imagine how she would ever do without him. Panic-stricken, she wanted to throw her arms around him and hold on to him so tightly that nothing-not even Death-would dare to take him from her. At the very least, she wanted to put her arm across his shoulders, kiss his white-stubbled cheek. Tell him she loved him.

So, of course, she got up from the piano bench and walked away from him. She went toward the windows, silently rubbing her arms.

Behind her she heard Doveman say softly, “Well, I’ll be goin’ on to bed now.”

She nodded without turning. “’Night… And thanks…for waiting.”

His chuckle was lost in the clanking and groaning of the cage as it sank slowly from view.

Oh, but it’s so hard…hard…hard to say goodbye.

Phoenix stood alone looking out on the spangled city, with the song playing in her mind, at last complete, lyrics a perfect blend with the music…absolutely right. She should have felt a sense of elation. Instead she just felt frightened and lonely.

How could she ever say goodbye to Doveman? When the time came, would she somehow find the strength? The courage? She’d never had to do so hard a thing before.

She hadn’t said goodbye to her mother. She’d never had the chance.

Beyond the window the city lights wavered and blurred. Tears spilled over and ran warm down her cheeks. “Doveman,” she whispered, though she knew he’d long since gone, “I can’t remember my momma’s face.”

Children’s voices drifted upward into the heat-hazy sky along with a golden cloud of dust.

“Hey, battah-battah-battah…”

“Throw it here, throw it here!”

“Throw it-No, throw it to first, throw it to first!”

“Go, go, GO!”

“Way to go, man, way to go.”

“Oh, man…”

“That’s okay, we’ll get the next one… Hey, battah-battah…”

“What about it?” Ethan said. “Want to stay and watch awhile?”

Beside him, Michael shook his head and restlessly joggled the basketball he carried in his arms. His face wore a look of disdain.

“You know,” Ethan pointed out, “Michael Jordan played baseball, too.”

Michael threw him a startled look but recovered in time to say with a sniff and a carefully offhand shrug, “Yeah, but he stunk at it.” Still, he lifted one arm and pointed. “Basketball court’s over thataway.”

“Right…” Ethan sighed inwardly. He’d figured he could probably hold his own when it came to baseball, but basketball…that was another story.

As they crossed the grassy verge that separated the baseball diamonds from the jogging path, inspiration struck. “Hey, Tom,” he called to the tall black man who happened to be coming along the path just then, “you ever play any basketball?”

The Secret Service agent was wearing jogging shorts, a loose-fitting tank that neatly hid his weapon, a towel around his neck and a shine of honest-to-God sweat. He paused to wipe some of the sweat from his face with one end of the towel before he said without any discernible signs of amusement, “You’re kiddin’ me, right?”

White, liberal, awash in chagrin, Ethan stammered, “Well, uh…I mean, I just thought-”

“I’m six foot seven and black-what do you think?” Tom Applegate looked down at Michael, who was gazing up at him in utter awe, and winked. “North Carolina Tar Heels-NCAA champs my senior year.”

Not one to allow himself to be intimidated for very long, Michael put a hand on his hip and stuck out his jaw, aiming it upward in the general direction of the Secret Service agent’s altitude. “Hey-you know Michael Jordan?”

Ethan shrugged Tom an apology; forget those Tar Heels, man-this was the only test that mattered. He didn’t know who was more surprised-him or Michael-when Tom nodded and said, “Sure I know Michael. Played basketball with him, too. We went to high school together.”

Michael’s mouth was hanging open. He didn’t have to close it to say, “Uh-uh!”

He looked for verification to Ethan, who again shrugged his shoulders. “Hey-if Tom says so, it must be true. Secret Service agents never lie.”

Michael slanted Tom a suspicious look with one eye closed. “What’s a… S-Secret Service agent? Is that like some kind of cop?”

“Sort of.” Tom plucked the basketball from Michael’s arms. “So, you want to go shoot some hoops, or not?”

He gave Ethan a look, and as they began to move along the jogging path together, Michael sandwiched between them, muttered under his breath, “Sir…straight ahead, about…ten o’clock? Just to the left of that tree…”

His heart rate mysteriously accelerating, Ethan followed the agent’s directions. A woman was standing there, casually watching them from the shade of some pin oak trees, one shoulder leaning against a lichen-encrusted trunk. She was tall and willowy, and wore a long white skirt of some kind of gauzy material that started low on her hips, with a white stretchy top that left her shoulders and most of her middle bare. A white cowboy hat worn straight on her head shadowed her face and completely hid her hair.

Ethan looked back at Tom, eyebrows raised in question. Tom lifted a hand and spoke briefly to his wristwatch, then nodded. “Go ahead-Carl’s got you covered.”

Ethan muttered, “Thanks,” gave Michael’s shoulder a squeeze and added, “Catch up with you in a few minutes.” then angled off the path, jogging across the grass toward the trees. The smell of crushed grass drifted up from his feet, filling his senses and adding itself to the list of things he knew he would ever afterward associate with Phoenix.

Still twenty feet or so away from her, for reasons he didn’t entirely understand he paused, bent down and plucked a dandelion from the grass. He straightened and stood looking at her, holding the stem of the fragile white puffball in his fingers.

He didn’t know what to make of her-or of himself, and the way he felt, seeing her. He thought of all he knew about her-and how little. He knew that, however unintentionally, he’d made her want him, that last night’s kiss had been as real for her as for him. But real for whom? Whom had he kissed last night, Joanna, or Phoenix? The way he understood it, Phoenix wasn’t even a real person, she was a persona, an invention, a collection of personalities that could be changed at will to fit the demands of a fickle record-buying public. A man would have to be insane to allow himself to fall for one of them, when she might be gone tomorrow…like a dandelion in a puff of wind.

And as for Joanna…he had no idea in the world who she was, much less how to find her again.

She smiled when he started forward again, but crookedly. “I wondered when you were going to notice me.”

He smiled back, the same way, and nodded, taking in her costume. “Another nice disguise.”

She hitched one shoulder as she pushed away from the tree. “I prefer to think of it as protective coloring.”

“Whatever it is, it didn’t fool Tom for a minute-he’s the one who spotted you.”

“Yeah, well, that’s his job.” She held out her hand when she saw the dandelion. “Is that for me?”

He offered it to her with a curious reluctance, his heartbeat tapping in quick time at the base of his throat. “If you want it,” he said. She took it from him, holding it as he had been, with the delicate stem between two fingers and thumb. He expected that she would immediately lift it to her lips and blow it to pieces.

She did raise it to her face, but instead of blowing the fluff away, cupped her other hand around it as if to protect it from stray breezes while she studied it. Her features were grave and still. Then her lashes lifted and her eyes came back to Ethan, and he was caught off-guard by the sadness in them. “It’s so perfect, isn’t it? By tomorrow it will be gone, you know.”

He nodded, a lump coming into his throat. “That’s true.” What was she telling him? A warning? That whatever this was between them would be gone tomorrow, too? That, he already knew.