Jo Lisa had forgotten how hot Biloxi could be in mid- July. When she stepped off the bus, the heat combined with the high humidity nearly took her breath away.
She claimed her bag, then went to a vending machine for a cola and a pack of nabs. The last time she'd eaten was somewhere in Texas. She ate quickly, glancing over her shoulder every time she heard footsteps. Biloxi was Deep South, a place where people were always spotting somebody they went to school with or somebody they were kin to or somebody they loved to hate—and then taking great pains to make contact.
But nobody called to her. Nobody knew she was home. Nobody cared.
That was fine with Jo Lisa. She hadn't come home to revive old friendships. She'd come home to save her sister.
The bitter irony of her situation nearly choked her. Or perhaps it was the cola. Even coming out of the machine, it was only passably cool.
She finished the drink quickly, then got the telephone book and scanned the pages. She knew where her mother lived—the same old rat hole she'd been in when Jo Lisa had left. It wasn't her mother she'd come to see; it was her sister. Who knew where the last three years had taken Susan?
Jo Lisa's hand shook when she saw the address. It was the same, the same as it had been five years earlier when Brett had carried his bride over the threshold, the same as it had been four years earlier when they'd all waited in the cramped den, holding back their tears and fixing their mouths in a smile when Brett and Susan brought Jeffy home from the hospital, the same as it had been three years earlier when strangers had come to inform Susan they'd found Brett's car.
Gripping the telephone book so hard her knuckles ached, Jo Lisa closed her eyes. She didn't need any of this. She should never have come back.
The phone book swung on its chain and whacked the dingy wall when Jo Lisa released it. She would get a return ticket and go back to L.A. Back where she belonged.
"Jo Lisa? Is that you?"
She intended to keep walking, but the speaker put a hand on her arm and detained her.
"I said to Mama, 'Look over yonder. I do believe that's Jo Lisa Markham.' Didn't I say those very words, Mama?"
Martha Claire Tigrett Moody stood beaming at her, her smile as artificial as her eyelashes. Two snot-nosed brats hung onto her coattail, and the third rode proudly in the womb that preceded her.
Mrs. Tigrett stood beside her married daughter, careworn and tight-lipped. If her daughter had said any such thing to her, she wasn't going to be the one to tell it.
"Hello, Martha Claire."
"My, my, Jo Lisa. What brings you home after all these years?"
Frost was warmer than Jo Lisa's eyes as she stared at her old high school classmate. She harbored the insane hope that silence would stop Martha Claire.
"We used to hear such glowing reports about you, about how you went off to Hollywood to be a movie star while the rest of us were slaving away at college.
What was that tiny part you played once? Some kind of monster in a black lagoon? Or was it a space alien? I can't seem to remember. Do you remember, Mama?" Martha Claire turned to her mother while her children stared, bug-eyed, at Jo Lisa.
"Well, never mind. It's been so long ago since you've done anything, who can remember? My, my. You haven't changed one little ole bit, Jo Lisa."
Jo Lisa shifted her bag from one hand to the other. "Neither have you, Martha Claire. You're still the same vicious bitch you always were."
"Cover your ears, children," Martha Claire said as Jo Lisa walked off with her head high and her suitcase bumping her legs.
She'd come home to see her sister, and all the Martha Claires in the world weren't going to stop her.
o0o
The parking slot at Blake Medical Center still had his name on it.
Paul eased his Corvette to a stop, then sat in the car until his queasiness passed. Today of all days he needed to be in top form, for inside the giant medical complex were people who would be scrutinizing him and his work for the next two years, watching every move he made to see whether he would succeed ... or whether he would fail.
He'd seen Bill early that morning to tender his resignation, knowing he would receive his friend's blessing. Paul had offered to give two weeks' notice, but Bill had scoffed at the idea.
After he left the Oceanfront Research Center, he drove to his office and spent the rest of the morning and the early afternoon studying current patient records. He'd been safe in his office, hidden.
And now there was nowhere left to hide.
The hospital corridors resonated with familiar sounds —the squeak of rubber wheels on polished tiles as gurneys were wheeled by, the electronic swooshing of the elevator door, the quiet clatter of dinner trays being delivered at an hour when civilized folks were barely dreaming of eating, the comforting footfalls of nurses as they hurried by on crepe-soled shoes to answer calls of distress.
Paul saw a lot of unfamiliar faces as he walked through the long, gleaming hallways. Change. It was inevitable. There were familiar faces, too, and somehow those gave Paul comfort.
When he reached the conference room, he took a deep breath, then pushed the door open and went inside. Five men waited for him, doctors whose incomparable skills and unblemished reputations had, over the years, garnered each of them the title of Chief of Staff. He stood facing the credentialing committee.
They didn't make it easy on him. One alcoholic doctor slaying patients on the table was all it took to blacken the name of a hospital and the reputations of the medical staff who practiced there.
One by one, the committee grilled him, upbraided him, lectured him.
After it was all over, he drove to his apartment to change for dinner. Bill and Maggie were taking him out for a celebration.
o0o
By the time Jo Lisa reached Susan's house, the sun had transformed the water from placid blue to rose gold, while giant oaks were casting purple shadows across the deserted streets and modest houses in her sister's quiet neighborhood.
The taxi rolled to a stop, but Susan never looked up. She was on her knees spading dirt. Pots of red flowers sat all around her, and nearby a small boy sat in his stroller.
Jo Lisa set her suitcase on the sidewalk and stared from the shadows of a tree. An outsider looking in. It seemed to her that she was always watching her family from afar.
The little boy spoke. Her nephew. "Mommy, can I plant one?" His voice was thin and slightly slurred.
The stroke. Her mother had written to her about it.
"Of course you can, darling." Susan gently lifted her child from the stroller, then guided his frail hands toward the fragrant, fertile earth.
Jo Lisa ached with such longing and tenderness and regret that she had to catch an overhanging branch to keep from falling to the ground.
"What have I done to you?" she whispered.
It was not too late to run. Even now, with her suitcase practically in Susan's door, Jo Lisa could still walk away.
At the precise moment she thought of flight, her sister turned around. Trapped, she waited under the tree watching Susan's face reflect all her emotions—disbelief, then uncertainty, and finally acceptance.
"Jo Lisa." Susan came toward her, trailing dirt and red flowers all the way to the tree. "I can't believe it's you."
Warily, they watched each other, sisters who had once been best friends, strangers because of three years of separation.
"If you don't want me here, Susan, just say so and I'll shag my fanny out of here so fast, you'll choke on my dust."
Slowly Susan reached out her hand. "Welcome home, Jo Lisa."