“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “Besides, it’s called a ‘tactical withdrawal’ these days. We don’t say ‘retreat.’ It’s bad for morale.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Don’t you have a class to go to?”
* * *
Christy’s treatment team met with her the day before the girls and I were scheduled to fly home. They discussed her treatment so far and agreed to a discharge date.
“How do you feel?” I asked when she told me.
“Scared.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
“Keep loving me?”
“You know I will.” I paused and then added, “You know I do. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”
“What about the girls? You should’ve seen the way Em looked at me.”
“When?”
“When you first got here. I thought she wanted to kill me.”
“She picked up a lot of the slack when you were drinking,” I said. “Laurie just retreated into her room.”
“I know. I thought she was just being helpful—Em, I mean—but…” She sighed again. “Do you think they’ll ever forgive me?”
“I know they will,” I said. “But let’s take things one day at a time. We’ll worry about tomorrow when it gets here.”
She nodded and leaned toward me, and I put my arm around her.
“We’ll get through this,” I said.
“I know. Only… I’m still scared.”
“Don’t be. You have lots of people who love you.”
“But… what if I start drinking again?”
“Then we’ll deal with it.” I kissed the top of her head, but it took her a long time to relax.
* * *
I returned to Palm Springs by myself a week later. Harold and Anne drove up from San Diego and met me at the clinic.
Christy was waiting for us with her suitcase. She looked as healthy as I’d ever seen her, tan and rosy-cheeked, like the happy girl I’d married, not the haunted woman who’d stormed out of the house two months earlier. She wasn’t a blushing bride, but I still felt like we were starting anew.
Back at home, we gave her time to settle in before we invited family and friends for a party. We kept things deliberately low-key. Trip and I grilled steaks and portobello mushrooms, and Wren brought every kind of juice imaginable. Christy was subdued at first, and people treated her with kid gloves until Rich put things into perspective for us.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, she isn’t going to break,” he said. “She grew up with five older brothers. If anything, she terrorized us.”
“I did not!” she squawked indignantly.
“Did so, Sis.” He grinned and said to his audience, “She even gave Danny a black eye once.”
Christy bristled, a little blonde hedgehog. “Nuh-uh! You did.”
“Maybe. But I did it on your orders. I’m tellin’ ya, folks, don’t let her looks fool ya. She’s a tough little thing.”
“She is,” I agreed. “And we’re glad she’s home.”
“Hear, hear,” Trip agreed. He raised his cup, and everyone followed suit. “To Christy. Welcome home.”
“Welcome home!”
* * *
Christy went back to work, although her apprentices started with an impromptu gallery show. Gabby, Peregrin, and Winter were artists in their own right, and they were eager to show Christy the things they’d been working on.
“Oh my gosh,” she told me that evening, “some of their pieces are really good. Gabby’s going to need her own show soon. She’s perfect for San Francisco. Winter still has a way to go, but Peregrin’s been working on…”
Christy began taking commissions again too. Fred and May had told her clients she’d had health issues, unspecified but not life-threatening. An investment bank had canceled their order for four pieces, but the others had been fine with the delay. Her agents knew the truth, although they hadn’t felt the need to make Christy’s private life public without her consent.
I went back to work as well. I hadn’t been on vacation the entire time, but I still had a lot of catching up to do. Whitney had returned by then, and she’d kept all of my projects moving forward. Alex Austin had overseen the design group as a whole. He was an engineer without a lick of artistic ability, but he was a good manager.
Trip agreed. “It’s the sign of a healthy organization when one of the principals can step away and things keep functioning smoothly.”
“So you’re saying you don’t need me?” I teased.
“God, no! Everything runs better when you’re in charge. Even the designs are better. I can’t explain it. I sat in on some of the meetings and tried that trick you do—”
“Trick? What trick?”
“You know, where you tell someone it’s good but you think they can do better. I don’t know how you do it, dude.”
I did, but it wasn’t something I could share—at least, not with Trip. He was too competitive, so he always wanted to be the best. He could accept when he wasn’t, but he still grumbled about it.
I wanted the people in my group to be better than me, and they usually found creative ways to do it. Joska had done the same thing when I’d been an undergraduate, although it had taken me years to understand it consciously.
“Speaking of which,” I said in the present, “I’ve been thinking. We need to start an intern program. Not the AXP, but real interns, summer interns.”
“College students?” Trip said.
“Yeah. Third- and fourth-years.”
“What for? They don’t know anything.”
“Hear me out,” I said. “You remember back with mega-corp? The interns were the only part of that job I actually enjoyed. I want to do the same thing again, but for students. I want to help shape the next generation of architects.”
He made the connection right away. “You wanna be Joska.”
“Exactly.”
“Makes sense. And it’d be a good recruiting tool.” He nodded and warmed to the idea. “Even better, we don’t have to pay them.”
“Oh, no,” I said immediately, “that’s corporate slavery. We’ll pay them about what we’d pay a regular intern—”
“Dude, no way!” It was his usual reaction to spending money, and he did his usual about-face when he actually considered it. “On second thought… yeah, all right. How many are you talking about?”
“Two to start.”
“Two people for three months,” he mused, “and we aren’t paying them a full intern’s salary? Yeah, we can swing it. I’ll tell Shari to pull up the numbers, but—”
“I’m thinking 75 percent,” I said helpfully.
“That’s still a lot of money, but… If you’re sure?”
“I am.”
“Okay. You’re the people person.”
I planned to wait and see how the first interns worked out, but then I wanted to expand to four. And I’d find a way to build a small apartment complex, so they could live nearby without paying exorbitant rent. My long-term goal was eight or even twelve interns, spread across multiple disciplines. But I didn’t want to give poor Trip a heart attack in the meantime, so I’d have to build up to it gradually.
“All right,” he said, “I’ll make it happen on my end.” Then he leaned close and said in a low voice, “Do me a favor. Will you at least hire one hot girl?”
“Sure,” I said without hesitation.
He eyed me suspiciously before his shoulders fell. “Aw, c’mon, dude. Please?”
“Hey, you said—”
“You know what I meant. A straight one.”
“Oh, in that case—”
“I don’t know why I put up with you.”
I merely grinned. He wasn’t upset, not for real. Besides, it felt good to banter again, even if it might get us in trouble with HR.
“Whatever,” he said at last. “It’s great to have you back.” He clapped me on the shoulder and turned to go. “Drinks later? I’ll fill you in on the latest projects.”
“Projects, yes. Drinks, no.”