Sammy Keyes and the Kiss Goodbye

  Sammy.

  Somehow, with her long, maddening asides and wild, rambling stories, she’d taught him to take a deep breath and just listen. And somehow, after years of hating teenagers, he’d learned to like, even love, a teenager.

  And now here he was, surrounded by a little herd of teenagers who turned to him for help.

  Maybe even liked him.

  “Officer Borsch?” a voice was saying.

  “Huh?” the lawman said.

  “Did you find out who threw Sammy off the fire escape?”

  It was Marissa asking, and after a quick refocus on the here and now, Sergeant Borsch shook his head. “No. Sorry. Not yet.”

  “Well, here,” Marissa said, handing over the list they’d made. “We’re hoping this will help.”

  The backup officers had kept walking and were now calling, “See you back at the station.”

  “Ten-four,” Sergeant Borsch responded, then turned again to Marissa. “What is this?”

  “It’s a list of the people who might want to take revenge on Sammy.” And after Sergeant Borsch had studied it a moment, she asked, “Can you find out which ones are in jail and which ones are out?”

  He nodded, then shook the page and said, “Thank you. I was starting a list myself, but I’ve had … interruptions.”

  “Sorry,” Billy said, clearly feeling guilty for the distraction his situation had caused.

  “You, son, shouldn’t feel guilty about anything.” Then Sergeant Borsch frowned and said, “Actually, I was waylaid by the Nightie-Napper.”

  “The Nightie-Napper?” the teens cried. “What happened? Did you catch him?”

  But before he could answer, Cricket and Heather asked, “What’s a nightie-napper?”

  Casey gave them the condensed version and then turned to Sergeant Borsch and asked, “What happened?”

  So Sergeant Borsch gave his own condensed version (to cries of “Mr. Garnucci is the Nightie-Napper?!”) and ended his story with, “So he’s locked up, and once his lawyer’s present, we’ll also question him about last night.”

  “Wait,” Marissa said. “You think he might have thrown Sammy off the stairs?”

  Gil Borsch sucked on a tooth, visualizing the manager dressed as a granny. It didn’t seem too likely, but Garnucci had attacked him with a bike. “I’ll add him to your list,” he said. “But not to the top of it.” Then he said, “Why don’t you kids go back to the hospital while I do some checking on the list.”

  This seemed to be the perfect line with which to make an exit, but instead of heading toward his squad car, Gil Borsch just stood there, studying Sammy’s friends, sucking quietly on his tooth.

  “What?” Casey finally asked after the look and the lack of movement had gotten awkward.

  Gil Borsch frowned.

  He knew that what he was thinking was rash.

  Maybe even stupid.

  These were teenagers!

  And Heather had been an unbelievable thorn in his side.

  Not to mention Sammy’s!

  But she did seem to be trying.

  And she’d sure come through with that video.…

  So, looking around at all the kids’ expectant faces, Gilbert Borsch took a deep breath and decided. “Take out your phones,” he said. “I’m going to give you my cell number.”

  After a moment of stunned silence, all at once all available phones were produced.

  And after Sergeant Borsch had relayed the number, he looked around the group and said, “Do not share it with anyone. It is only for you, got it?” And after a round of got-its were returned, he said, “So here’s what I want you to do with it: Call me if you’re in trouble, call me if you need help”—he took another deep breath—“and if you hear any news about Sammy, call me about that, too.”

  Then he headed to his squad car, wondering what in the world had gotten into him.

  17—LANA

  As the world outside was buzzing with news crews and list making, Lana sat alone in Sammy’s hospital room, looking at her daughter. Like haunting calls into a canyon of regret, thoughts bounced farther and farther into the distance, carrying Lana’s heart along as they drifted back in time.

  “I remember when you were born,” the actress whispered to her daughter. And after a long moment of silence, she said, “That seems like a lifetime ago … and also like yesterday.”

  The monitors silently tracked Sammy’s vitals as she lay bandaged and unmoving but for the steady rise and fall, rise and fall of her chest.

  “I wasn’t always a bad mom,” Lana whispered. “You may not remember, but I really, really tried.” She slipped her hand over Sammy’s. “Maybe I should have waited a few more years to pursue my dream. No, I know I should have waited. But thirty freaked me out. I went from being a teenager, to being a mother, to waitressing at Big Daddy’s, to being thirty. It felt like my life was over and I’d never really had a chance to do anything.

  “Oh, there was my short-lived move to Hollywood after high school. I was so naïve, auditioning for parts during the day, waitressing at a diner on Sunset at night. My eyes were so full of stars!” She thought a moment as if grappling with how much to share, then said, “That’s where I met your father—has he told you that? He and the band would come into the diner after doing a showcase. He was so charming and Marko was so funny. Marko had amazing hair back then, too. Full and shaggy … it’s still strange to see him bald.

  “Anyway, it’s not like they didn’t warn me, right? They were the Troublemakers! But I fell so hard for your dad. And then”—she heaved a sigh—“well, things fell apart, and I was left with you and a bunch of shattered dreams.

  “That didn’t mean I didn’t love you. But I was back in Santa Martina, and it didn’t take long for me to feel old and trapped and like such an embarrassing failure. Plus, I was working at a truck stop! The tips were good, but you have no idea how demeaning it was to work there! Your grandmother wanted me to take night classes so I could get on to something better, but I couldn’t seem to find the time. Besides, accounting, or nursing, or secretarial skills … it was not where my heart was. And I was tired a lot!”

  Lana paused for a moment, and then the words seemed to want to gush out. Like they’d been waiting for years to be set free. “You were not an easy child, Samantha. I know it wasn’t your fault. You’re like your father—curious and energetic … and a magnet for trouble! Nowhere was safe with you in it. Not the grocery store, not the mall, not the playground … You always managed to knock something over, or get a leg caught, or tackle someone. Why did you need to chase other kids? Why did you need to tackle them? Your grandmother said you were just trying to make friends, but what kind of way is that to make friends? I needed a helmet and a leash for you!” She shook her head. “You were just exhausting.”

  Lana was quiet for a long time. It was as if she’d arrived at a fork on a distant road and was not quite sure which way to go, and when she did at last begin again, her voice was just a whisper. “Do you remember that little one-bedroom place we rented on Hill Street after my dad left us and Mom lost the house? The three of us were crammed into what was supposedly a duplex, but it was really just half of a tiny house where the water heater was in the kitchen and the refrigerator partly blocked the doorway into the bedroom. The neighbor in the other half would be up all night playing loud music, and sometimes it’d be Darren Cole and the Troublemakers, which was really, really hard for me to take. I would be next to you in bed, trying to be quiet while I sobbed, but you would sometimes wake up anyway and ask me what was wrong and wipe my tears away with your little hands and then kiss me and tell me you loved me.” She took a deep, choppy breath, then choked out, “I’m sorry about those nights. I’m sorry for making you worry. I’m sorry I let you see how depressed I was.”

  After another long silence, Lana began again. “Your grandmother was the one who used to sleep on the couch. Do you remember that? It’s pretty funny, now that I think about it. And sometimes the two of
you would sleep on that couch together. It wasn’t big, but I’d come home from my shift, and there you’d be, burrowed into each other with a book dropped to the side. And when I’d try to get you to move into the bed, you’d cling to her for dear life and tell me, ‘No!’ ”

  Lana studied her daughter a moment, then said, “I think I was probably a little jealous, even back then. You and she were always such buddies. With me she was a disciplinarian. With you she was easy. And affectionate. I don’t remember my mom hugging me very much when I was a kid, but you came along and suddenly she was all arms.

  “And then she got into the Highrise and you were in school and getting so independent, and I … I was going nowhere.” Lana stroked her daughter’s hand. And after several minutes she said, “It was your grandmother’s idea, you know. To have you stay with her in the Highrise? She was the first one to suggest it, and she did it in front of you! So of course you thought it was a big adventure.” She let out a sigh. “And I thought it was only going to last a month or two. Or through the end of sixth grade at the most! I definitely thought I’d be settled and you’d be with me in Los Angeles by the time junior high started. That was my deadline. The beginning of seventh grade. You’d be starting a new school anyway, right? It made complete sense!

  “But … it didn’t work out that way.” She frowned. “I know I should have called more. I know I should have come to visit more. I know I shouldn’t have gotten so wrapped up in myself and what I was doing. But I did not abandon you to become the Gas-Away lady! I cannot believe you ever thought that, let alone said it! It was embarrassing to be the Gas-Away lady! I still cringe about it! But sometimes you have to swallow your pride to get your foot in the door … especially if you have a child you’re supposed to be taking care of!”

  Lana sat staring at her daughter, absorbing her in a way she hadn’t since Samantha had been a toddler sleeping at her side.

  Who was this girl?

  This … young lady.

  How had this … any of this … happened?

  “Sometimes I have trouble wrapping my mind around the fact that you’re my daughter,” she whispered. “How did you become so brave? So resourceful? When I think about the things that you’ve gotten yourself into …” The actress shuddered. “I’ve heard, you know. In bits and pieces over time, I’ve heard. And I can see acting those scenes, but living them? Oooo. You know how I get around rodents and blood—imagine how I’d be around corpses! Or trapped in a basement with poisonous spiders!” She fluttered a hand as if fanning away a panic attack. “I would have died. Or needed serious counseling! Or something! But you just went on about your life like nothing had happened. You never even mentioned it to me!”

  After another long silence, Lana took a deep breath and whispered, “Please wake up, Sunshine. Please come back to me!” And then, like a main line breaking open, she threw herself forward and burst into tears.

  Only there was a problem.

  She couldn’t really reach her daughter because the bed’s guardrail was in the way.

  So she frantically pulled the barricade. Pushed the barricade. Tried to find the release latch for the barricade. But (being both overwrought and not mechanically inclined) she got nowhere.

  Which made her cry even harder.

  And the harder she cried, the more she wanted to wrap her daughter in her arms and just hold her.

  Like she had when Samantha was a little girl.

  Back when she could still protect her.

  And now, once again, the reality of the situation seemed too much to bear.

  What if her daughter never woke up?

  What if she could never tell her she was sorry?

  After the flood of tears subsided and only sprinkles remained, Lana wiped her cheeks, then reached over the railing to try again to hug her daughter.

  But it was awkward.

  Impossible, really.

  So she reached over and kissed Sammy on the forehead.

  But … that was very unsatisfying.

  And it seemed like the wrong gesture completely!

  Like something you would do to an old, tired relative.

  Or a corpse in a casket!

  If you had the guts to kiss a corpse in a casket, that is.

  Which she did not!

  Unless, maybe, it was Samantha.

  No!

  The image gripped her heart, and she fanned away another panic attack as she whimpered, “You cannot die. Samantha, please wake up. Please!”

  But her daughter didn’t wake up.

  And after the next flood of tears came and went, Lana stood there completely drained and overcome with fatigue.

  In all her double shifts at Big Daddy’s, in all her long days on Lords, she had never, ever felt this tired.

  Suddenly all she wanted was to curl up and close her eyes and go back to the time when it was just her and her daughter in the little bed on Hill Street.

  Back to when she could wrap her sleeping child in her arms and feel her heartbeat steady and strong and fearless beside her.

  Back to when life was mostly heartache and struggle.

  But had never hurt like this.

  18—THE ROTATION

  After finishing his interview with Zelda Quinn and making a series of phone calls, Darren went to check on Lana and found her asleep in Sammy’s bed with an arm draped over their daughter.

  “Aw, Lana,” Darren murmured, then marveled at how two people could even fit in the narrow bed, let alone how Lana had managed to fall asleep. (Lana was known for her requisite feather pillows and was, at the moment, crammed up against the guardrail like a board on its side, unsupported by a pillow of any kind.)

  “What the …?” came a voice from behind, and before Darren could turn, a nurse elbowed her way past him without so much as an excuse-me.

  The nurse was wearing a Scrabble-patterned smock with various medical terms puzzled together, including such indelicate intersections as BLADDER and VOID, FLATUS and GUT, and (over the upper left front quadrant) HEART and ATTACK. “Did you turn this off?” she asked as she toggled up a switch at the side of the bed.

  “No, what is it?” Darren asked.

  “The movement sensor. It was turned off.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning if there had been movement, we wouldn’t have been alerted.” The Scrabble nurse eyed the still-sleeping Lana. “And if someone climbed in bed with the patient, we wouldn’t know it.”

  “It’s her mother,” Darren explained.

  “Oh, I’m aware,” the nurse said, then reached across the bed and gave Lana a shake. “Ma’am. Ma’am, you’re not allowed to be in the bed.”

  Lana’s eyes fluttered open and she gave the nurse a groggy look.

  “And don’t jolt the patient,” the Scrabble nurse instructed.

  Darren, fearing that Lana might freak out at the sight of her still-unconscious daughter, hurried over to the other side of the bed and let the guardrail down. “Come on, sweetheart,” he said gently. “Come on out.”

  “How’d you do that?” Lana asked, because even in the fog of an interrupted sleep cycle, it registered that Darren had retracted the railing with no effort at all.

  “Come on,” Darren coaxed. “Easy …”

  “I’m serious, Darren,” Lana said as she slid out. “How did you do that?”

  So he dutifully put the rail back up, then demonstrated how to release it.

  “No more getting in with her,” the nurse instructed. “There’s a sensor that’ll alarm.”

  “I set off an alarm?” Lana asked, looking back and forth between the nurse and Darren.

  “No,” Nurse Scrabble said as she inspected the IV bag, “but next time you will.”

  Having slept through the initial part of the whole sensor discussion, Lana didn’t really understand the distinction. She was also distracted by the back of the nurse’s shirt (which had DUODENUM intersecting with CONSTIPATION, GALLBLADDER, and BILE) and was simply glad to see the tastel
ess shirt exit the room. “This is a strange place,” she whispered after the Scrabble nurse was gone.

  Darren (being both male and a rock guy) could see the humor in the shirt, but not in the situation. Instead of dwelling on it, though, he focused on the positive. “I’ve got some good news,” he said, putting an arm around Lana’s waist. “A pediatric neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins is going to confer with Dr. Jha about Sammy’s case. His name is Dr. Kumar, and he is one of the top coma specialists in the world.”

  “Really?” Lana asked, suddenly awake. “When?”

  Darren checked the battery level of his cell phone. “Sometime this evening. He said he’ll arrange to have the brain scans sent so he can review them before he speaks with Dr. Jha.”

  “You talked to him? How?”

  Darren nodded. “Friend of a friend of a friend.” He slipped his phone away and said, “Although why a neurosurgeon would be a fan of mine is something I don’t quite understand.”

  Lana gave him a sweet smile. “Well, I do. And thank you.”

  “It doesn’t change anything,” he said gently.

  “But I feel better knowing that someone with some credibility is involved.” She looked past the curtain, then dropped her voice. “This place doesn’t give me much confidence.”

  Which, for Darren, was it in a nutshell. And while not wanting to alarm Lana by adding fuel to the fire, he did have his concerns and was not about to leave Sammy without supervision.

  Even though ostensibly there was nothing to supervise.

  And theoretically there was nothing he could do.

  It didn’t matter.

  “If you want to take a break, I’ll sit here for a while,” he told Lana.

  But Lana pulled two chairs together and sat down defiantly. “I’m going nowhere,” she said.

  Now, with Lana wanting for the past fourteen years to be going anywhere but nowhere, the irony of her statement hung for a moment in the air.

  But only for a moment.

  Then Darren sat down beside her and held her hand, grateful she was there.

  Grateful to be with her, going nowhere.