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  Teresa said nothing as Sandra and the copywriter

  jabbered about the possibility of getting the business. She felt liberated, knowing she wouldn't have to work on it.

  "Prime Life's new C.E.O. says he wants to freshen up their image, do something avant-garde—"

  The copywriter guffawed. "What, we're going to use all caps in the copy? That'll make the front page of Advertising Age."

  Sandra said to Teresa, "All clients say they want avant-garde. All they mean is something slightly different."

  Rayann went briskly on, "Yes, if we all had a dollar for every time a client said 'different — but not that different' — we'd be rich. We have about two weeks to do the proposal and have something to show them that proves that we alone understand their business and have the resources to care for their business the way it deserves to be cared for."

  Teresa thought Rayann was the most cynical person she'd ever met. It was hard to believe she per¬sonally did pro bono work for about two dozen women's and gay charities. Some of the commercials had brought tears to Teresa's eyes. She had thought the brain behind them was reaching out with genuine human caring and warmth. But all Rayann Germaine was good at was manipulating emotions.

  "It's their coffee market they're really looking to boost, and coffee ads are at least by and large aimed at the literate."

  Sandra put her hand over her heart in a mock faint. "Dare I dream? Classical music?"

  Rayann made a face. "The C.E.O. apparently likes Yanni."

  The copywriter screamed while Sandra swooned.

  "Enough, enough," Rayann said. She shoved several thick folders at Sandra. "Here's the back¬ground info they gave me and some I picked up myself. Do a Nexus on the decision makers and pull in anyone else you need."

  Her gaze flicked to Teresa as she said it and Teresa couldn't help herself. "You might need someone to balance out my limited art-school repertoire." She might have gotten away with it if she'd laughed or at least smiled. But she didn't.

  Rayann Germaine blinked, as if she wasn't sure what she had heard or couldn't recall why it was being said. Then she shrugged. It clearly was not important to her. She turned pointedly to Sandra. "I won't be around much to supervise this, so I'd appreciate it if you're careful."

  "I understand," Sandra said. She was actually favoring Rayann with a gentle smile. "Don't worry about it. I'll take care of it."

  Teresa wondered what kind of magic spell the witch Rayann had on Sandra. The knowledge that she had another job took all the restraints off her tongue. She said in a little-girl voice, "And I'll try weawy weawy hard to be creative, because I've been told that's what we do here." As soon as the words were out of her mouth she regretted them. Her stupid mouth. She felt herself reddening.

  Sandra was looking at her with disapproval while the copywriter just stared.

  Rayann Germaine blinked again, as if she had finally realized where she'd met Teresa before. "Is this about the other day? This is the advertising business. If you are easily offended and can't get over it in less than fifteen minutes you'll get an ulcer by the end of

  the month. We don't have time to sulk, and right now I don't need attitude." She glanced at her watch. "And I'm late for an appointment."

  "You won't have to put up with my attitude, since I quit."

  Sandra gawked. "Teresa, what are you talking about?"

  So much for not burning bridges, but she couldn't stop now. "Nothing against you, Sandra. I just want to work somewhere that treats me like a human being and gives just a little bit of respect."

  "Respect is earned," Rayann snapped. She said in a flat voice, "Fine. Best of luck. Sayonara. I just do not have time. Sandra, get Juana on this instead."

  "She'll be perfect," Sandra said, after a gulp.

  Teresa found herself in the hallway with Sandra, who looked both angry and incredulous.

  "You were serious, weren't you? Well, it doesn't matter, it's a done deal."

  "I — I don't know what to say." She couldn't begin to explain what had spurred her behavior. Her stupid mouth had independent wiring sometimes. She swallowed hard and vowed it would be the last time.

  "Never mind," Sandra said. "This was obviously not the right fit. You can tidy up your desk and we'll call it quits."

  "I was planning to work out two weeks' notice," Teresa stammered.

  "It won't be necessary, under the circumstances. I'm sorry this didn't work out." Sandra stalked away.

  Teresa sat down in a daze. She hadn't really made any new acquaintances — there was no one she felt obligated to say good-bye to. It would be as if she'd

  never been here, which felt strange. But wasn't that what she wanted?

  Well, she certainly hadn't wanted to lose two weeks' pay. Making the next rent was going to be tough, and all because of her lack of control. All because some other lesbian had treated her badly. The Queen of Mean was an understatement — and cheating her out of two weeks' pay!

  She gathered up her few belongings and stormed out of the building, working herself up to raw fury. That she might have been even partially responsible for her predicament only made her more angry. She was most of the way home when she realized that Carla Hascom might be very glad to have Teresa start tomorrow — she'd make the rent after all.

  But that did not make Rayann Germaine any less a bitch. And as far as the world of advertising was concerned — it was the Seventh Circle of Hell.

  She was well out of it.

  2

  "Under the circumstances, you're doing a great job."

  "It's not good enough," Rayann said. "And I have to be honest, Tony. I don't want to be here. I'm only here because I told her I would." Through the window behind him, she could see the shadows lengthening. Another day ending that she should have spent with Louisa.

  Tony Hand pressed his lips together, seeming to choose his words carefully. "I understand, you know that."

  "I know — Aaron made you go to work, too."

  "And I did not want to be here. And all things considered, looking back, nothing truly lasting or good came of my being here instead of with him."

  She had been holding on to the hope that it was for the best that she continue to work instead of spending all her time with Louisa. Tony was telling her it wasn't. She made the decision her heart was longing to make. "Memorial Day was like a gift — an extra day with her that I didn't have to come here. Holidays and weekends are not enough, no matter what she says. We don't have enough of them left. So I'm going to try to change her mind."

  Tony nodded, then he took on more of his head honcho demeanor. "You know that time marches on in this place like nowhere else. There are at least seven people itching for your job."

  "I know. I was hoping I could take a leave." Tech¬nically, it was her right to take up to four months' leave without jeopardizing her job.

  "That's what I'll announce, that you're on in¬definite leave." He sighed. "The lawyers tell me not to say things like this, Ray, but you know I can't guarantee that you'll be at the top of creative when you return."

  "I know that. I accept it."

  "I don't want to lose you, and I'll do my best when you're ready to come back."

  "I know that, too." She blinked back tears, caught off guard by a rush of tenderness for Tony, all out of proportion to their working relationship and workplace friendship.

  He cleared his throat. "Go get Lou to agree."

  The drive to the hospital was so well known by

  now that she didn't take note of anything along the journey from the financial district of San Francisco to Oakland's pill hill. There were the usual stalled cars blocking lanes and trucks driving way over the speed limit. Just like every weeknight for the last eight weeks, the end of her journey from work was not home, but Louisa's hospital room.

  How could it be almost two months since she had put down the phone in her office, not believing what she had just been told? It was a hoax, she had thought. A policeman with a sick sense of hu
mor.

  Her first thought was to call Teddy, Louisa's son. He was probably at the courthouse, he could get to the bottom of this .. . this impossibility.

  She gave a garbled account of the phone call to Teddy's assistant, who said, "Oh my God," and hung up after promising to get Teddy as soon as possible.

  In a minute, maybe two, her private line rang.

  "Ray, what's going on?" Teddy's voice was abnormally high.

  "I think it was some kind of joke. A police officer, someone who said he was from Oakland P.D., said your mom was hit by a truck. That's nonsense. She was only going over to the lake. It has to be a joke. It's someone else."

  "Did you call the bookstore?"

  Of course. What a simple solution. "I'll do it right now."

  "Keep me on the line."

  As the speed dial pulsed she could hear Teddy very faintly repeating, "Oh my God, oh my God."

  The bookstore line rang until the voice mail picked up. "Lou, I need you to call me. Right away. Let me know you're okay. Call me, it's important."

  "There's no answer," she reported to Teddy.

  "What hospital did they take her to?"

  "Bay Summit, but it's not her."

  "Ray—"

  "It can't be her!"

  "I'm at the courthouse, and I've got my car. I can be downstairs in fifteen minutes. We'll go together. Stay there. I'll be there as soon as I can. Okay?"

  "Okay." She looked around her office in a fog. It was so silly. She didn't have time for this.

  None of it was happening. But if it would make Teddy feel better, she'd go with him to the hospital. But by the time they got there, she was certain Louisa would be back at the bookstore.

  "Cancel my appointments for the day," she told her secretary as she left.

  Fiona's eyebrows disappeared under her bangs. "What should I tell people?"

  "Something personal came up," Rayann said over her shoulder. "Someone thinks Lou was in some sort of accident, but it's all a mistake I've got to straighten out."

  "You're kidding!"

  "No lie." She held the elevator door open for one more second. "And give anything urgent to Sandra."

  As she stood on the curb awaiting Teddy, she had noticed the sharp smell of pretzels and hot dogs, the creak of an armored car, the cloud of exhaust from a cab. Some tourist was navigating a motorhome down Montgomery Street when noon hour was approaching. The map on the side of the motorhome showed they hadn't yet been to Nebraska. She had noticed it all, would remember it all. None of it had seemed real.

  *****

  She realized abruptly she was parked in the garage across the street from the hospital and that it had been a while since she'd turned off the engine. There was only an hour left until the nurses would kick her out.

  Her original impressions of the heartlessness of medical personnel were long gone. Even the doctors had redeemed themselves, showing caring and affec¬tion. They'd been gentle and kind and willing to talk with Louisa even though her responses took so long.

  She stopped at the nurse's station to check on Louisa's day and found that nothing had changed. Once she had regained consciousness after the accident, Louisa had shown no signs of the steady loss of liver and kidney function the doctors had told them to expect. She was caught between better and worse.

  The beeps, hisses and hums of all the equipment in the room faded away, as they always did when Rayann leaned down so she could talk quietly into Louisa's ear. They had so often talked seriously while tangled in sheets and each other. Recapturing their intimacy, if only for a moment, was like snatching heaven to Rayann.

  "I know you want me to keep on with my life, but leaving you every day is killing me." Rayann had never been able to hide tears, and the mixture of pain and compassion in Louisa's eyes did not help. "I know you don't want me to lose my job. I know you don't want anyone waiting on you. I know you don't want to be a burden, but I can't concentrate, I'm forgetting things, I snap at everybody. My being there makes

  people think I'm actually checking their work. Please let me stay with you." She rubbed the ring Louisa had given her eight years ago. "That's what this was sup¬posed to mean."

  Louisa closed her eyes. She carefully moved her right hand to the language card that helped her com¬municate when she was too tired to talk. Rayann could only guess the fury of helplessness that Louisa felt, reduced to pointing at the word yes on a card because a bastard drunk driver ran a red light.

  "Thank you." Rayann heard Danny come in and she turned, not bothering to hide the tears that Danny had seen too many times in the last two months. Louisa's best friend had become Rayann's steady rock. "I'm not in exile anymore."

  Danny immediately understood. "Lou, you did the right thing. It was killing her." Rayann marveled how Danny could talk and act like nothing had changed. Rayann had discovered a deep core of serenity under the steel gray cap of hair and bomber jacket.

  "Listen, Lou. Ray asked me to check out the funeral home and what they're doing. They tried to talk me into some water-sealed, lead-lined cherry wood job that cost about as much as a Space Shuttle. I practically had to call the Better Business Bureau to get them to admit that you and Ray had prepaid all this stuff with them and that there was no reason why you had to pick again. But now they remember."

  Rayann was so happy Danny had gone instead of her. She would have just cried and yelled and cried some more — her entire repertory of emotions these last two months.

  "Then," Danny continued, "get this. They want to know when you're going to need it." She rubbed her

  short gray hair. "I told them, look, she's pretty sick right now and we just want to put her mind at ease on this. She'll probably outlive all of us. I am not making an appointment here."

  Rayann gulped and turned to fiddle with the flowers Teddy had brought yesterday. She had not realized until now that Danny still had hope. Suddenly she knew she didn't have any more hope and the wave of guilt threatened to buckle her knees.

  A nurse came in to check Louisa's vitals and adjust the morphine drip for the night dosage. Louisa fell asleep soon after, the deeply etched lines of pain somewhat relaxed. Danny went home to Marilyn while Rayann made her end-of-the-night phone call to Teddy.

  She had no reason to stay. She had no reason to leave, either. Every night she went home to their empty house. When they'd moved in on Valentine's day they had been full of plans, but the renovations were only half-complete. Faucets dripped, wallpaper sat gathering dust. The impatiens and marigolds they'd planted in the backyard the weekend before the accident withered for lack of water. She could afford to pay someone to finish what she and Louisa had been doing on weekends, but that would take planning ahead and thinking about the future.

  The future didn't bear thinking about. The present was nearly intolerable. She could hardly deal with the past. The past didn't even seem real.

  The nurses had first assumed she was Teddy's wife. The doctor who explained how serious the internal injuries and broken bones were talked mostly

  to Teddy, who took it all in with ragged composure. He had clutched her as if she was his life preserver, while she continued to believe with all her heart that it was one colossal mistake.

  Only when they had finally been allowed to see Louisa — Teddy overrode the doctor's suggestion that only he should go in — did she admit there was no mistake.

  Louisa's luxurious black and silver hair was matted with sweat, her soft skin translucent and clammy. Her right arm and leg were in plaster and traction. The tender, expressive mouth was hidden behind a respira¬tor and masses of tape.

  Rayann could only gasp to Teddy, "It's not her, it's not her," while he cradled her against him, hiding his tears in her hair.

  "She may regain consciousness once the shock sub¬sides, but that could be too much to hope for. Do you know what her wishes are?" The doctor was talking to Teddy again.

  Rayann could not let go of Teddy. She had the papers at home, but couldn't consider leaving to
get them. She said, "Do whatever it takes. The insurance is good — I have money."

  The doctor was shaking his head slightly at Teddy. Later, Rayann realized that the doctor was assuming Teddy would be strong and rational, be a man.

  To Rayann, he said, "It's not a matter of money. She was gravely injured. According to the police, the truck was going approximately thirty-five miles an hour and she was thrown twenty-two feet." He looked

  at Teddy again. "I need to know what her wishes are.

  "Rayann has her power of attorney."

  "That's you?"

  She nodded miserably. "It's at home."

  The doctor was clearly confused. "What is your relationship to the patient?" He looked down at his chart.

  "I'm her partner. Her lover."

  The doctor looked as nonplussed as most people did. "And you have her power of attorney for health care decisions?"

  "Yes, it's at home." After an acquaintance had been ousted from her partner's hospital room by hostile family, they had taken the time to get all their paperwork in order — wills, powers of attorney and joint ownership of the bookstore and the new house.

  The doctor looked at Teddy, who suddenly stiffened. "I am her only child and I'm telling you that Ms. Germaine is my mother's partner and will make all the decisions regarding her care. I don't want there to be any confusion about that."

  "There won't be," the doctor said. "I'm putting it in the chart. But we'll need the document when it's convenient. Soon." He looked at Rayann. "And what are her wishes?"

  "Do whatever it takes," Rayann repeated. Why were they arguing about it?

  "Ray," Teddy said softly, "what if they can't do anything more?"

  She could picture in her mind the X in the box

  next to "Do Not Resuscitate." Lou had been very clear about it. No machines, no heroic efforts, no living as a vegetable. If she couldn't communicate she didn't want to live. Rayann gulped. Louisa's fingers moved slowly, as if she dreamed.