Wish Me Tomorrow

CHAPTER FOUR

“MR. ROBERTS?”

Eli noted the time on his phone then glanced up at the Little Red School House’s cardigan-clad secretary. Had forty-five minutes passed already? The emails and pictures he’d been viewing for his graphic-design business had been a welcome distraction from this unexpected meeting with Becca’s principal. He powered down his device and stood. “Ready for me?” he asked, not feeling ready at all.

His cell vibrated. But after a quick check to make sure it wasn’t a call about John, he shoved the phone back into his pocket. His kids were here at school, so they wouldn’t need him. Anyone else would have to wait.

Although, he couldn’t say with full certainty what he would have done if Christie Bates’s number had come up on his phone.

Her expressive face came to mind along with her lilting voice. Why couldn’t he stop thinking about her? It’d been a week since they’d seen each other. Time enough for him to forget a near stranger. But something about her felt familiar. Right.

“This way, sir,” the school secretary prompted, jolting him from his thoughts. She peered at him over rimless eyeglasses then gestured into the suite behind her. A telephone shrilled on a chest-high counter.

He stopped behind her when she grabbed the old-fashioned receiver. “Little Red School House,” she intoned and dragged the cord to her seat, her round eyes on him. “How may I help you?”

While he waited, he glanced around the bustling space. A copy machine whirred in the background, spitting out collated sheets of paper at regular intervals. File cabinets banged open and shut as a clerk filed paper work in overcrowded drawers. He inhaled the fresh smell of percolating coffee. Too bad he couldn’t help himself to a cup. He could use the caffeine boost after pulling an all-nighter putting the finishing touches on the cover design for a novel.

What had Becca done to warrant the school’s cryptic summons? Especially so close to the end of the school year? She’d acted normally at breakfast, relatively speaking. He still hadn’t reconciled the quiet teen downing her Cheerios with the exuberant daughter he’d raised. That girl would have made Tommy a banana-skin hat and drummed on their heads with her spoon.

Before he could think further along that line, the secretary cleared her throat and pointed down the hallway. He rolled his tense shoulders and started down the short, dim hall. Which room was the principal’s? After all these years, it was his first visit to the private office. Becca had never gotten in trouble and was a straight-A student. His eyes narrowed. At least he assumed so. When had he last seen her report card? Keeping up with Becca’s and Tommy’s lives was his priority. But somewhere, he’d let things slip.

“Welcome, Mr. Roberts,” said a diminutive woman when he reached an open door. He recognized her cropped black curls and red, square-framed glasses from last fall’s open house. Since he’d been too tired to wait out the eager parents surrounding the new principal, he’d left without saying hello. Now he wished they’d spoken, met under better circumstances. She strode around an imposing wooden desk and extended a hand. “I’m Principal Luce. It’s very nice to meet you.”

He suppressed a sneeze at her cloying perfume, shook her hand and nodded. “Likewise.”

“Please have a seat.” She was all business in her navy suit and heels.

He sat on the edge of an upholstered chair, his fingers forming a steeple. He couldn’t take his eyes off the open folder in the middle of her green blotter. Did the top sheet say “Becca Roberts. Disciplinary Referral”? Impossible. This must be a mistake. Leather squeaked and he glanced up to meet Mrs. Luce’s steady brown eyes. He ignored the cell phone buzzing on his hip.

“Mr. Roberts, please accept my apologies for calling you in without notice.” She inclined her head. “But the seriousness of the situation called for our immediate attention.”

He shot to his feet. “Where’s Becca? Is she okay?” So help him if anything had happened to his little girl—

“She’s eating her lunch in the study room.” The principal stood and paced to a water cooler beside her bank of windows. “How about something cool to drink?”

“Sounds good.” Relief filled his head like helium. Maybe Becca had forgotten an assignment. It didn’t sound critical enough to drag him here, but still, this was one of SoHo’s best private schools. They took their students’ academics seriously.

After taking the proffered foam cup, he sat. “Thank you.” He drained the cold liquid. “If I’d known she’d gotten behind on her work, I would have—”

“I’m afraid it’s more than that,” Mrs. Luce cut him off smoothly and returned to her seat. She pressed a button on a round black machine. The sound of calling birds and water tumbling over rocks filled the room, competing with the click-clack of two suspended silver balls knocking against each other.

Was the machine her attempt to soothe him? He thought of Christie and wondered if she tried this stuff with her patients.

“There’s more?” Eli echoed.

“Take a look at this.”

A jagged piece of paper appeared before him. Becca’s right-tilted handwriting popped from the page.

“‘Keep it up and you will—’” he read aloud then stopped, the last word too extreme, too improbable, to speak. Eli shoved the note back across the desktop. “That’s not hers.”

Mrs. Luce raised her eyebrows and lowered her square chin. “I think we both know that it is.”

“Becca would never write that.” His lips pressed into a firm line. Mrs. Luce needed to understand. She was new. Didn’t know that Becca wasn’t some troubled kid. “She’s never had a disciplinary referral. Ever. If you look at her report card, you’ll see she’s a straight-A student.”

Mrs. Luce’s nostrils flared. “Have you seen her report card, lately?”

He swallowed back the rising guilt. “Not recently, but she had a 4.0 GPA last...last...” His mind skimmed back and stopped at Christmas. But that couldn’t be right. Had it been that long? The distance between him and Becca yawned before him, a football field of sullen silences and monosyllabic answers.

“Semester. Yes. She was one of our top students. But she’s currently incomplete in living science and health.” She handed him the transcript. “And coupled with this recent threat on another student’s life, I’m afraid we will not be able to recommend her for enrollment at our affiliate, Elisabeth Irwin High School.”

The edges of the paper bent beneath his tense fingers. He perused her grades and double-checked the name at the top. This had to be a mistake. A misunderstanding. Becca would not flunk out of school. Not on his watch.

“Can we get Becca down here?” He dropped the paper as though it burned. “She’ll clear this up.”

Mrs. Luce chewed on her bottom lip then picked up the phone. “Please escort Becca Roberts to my office, Cynthia.”

Escort? He suppressed a snort. Was his daughter a criminal? What had happened to innocent until proven guilty? He and Mrs. Luce stared at each other, the silence stretching to its breaking point. Moments later, footsteps sounded in the hall. The door opened. Becca.

He strode to the door and opened his arms. Becca must be scared. Would need his assurance. But she took a far seat without acknowledging him, her eyes darting everywhere but in his direction. She couldn’t have looked guiltier. He pulled out his chair and dropped into it. Was she responsible for the note? The incompletes? He rubbed his temples.

“Becca,” Mrs. Luce began in a stern voice. “Please look at your father and tell him what you told us.”

Her wide pupils turned her blue eyes black. “I wrote the note,” she croaked. Her fingers fidgeted with the tulle band wrapped around her braid.

“What?” His mouth fell open. He pointed at the paper scrap. “That’s yours?”

Becca nodded and studied her crisscrossed flip-flops.

“Why?” His voice came out hoarse and low. He hated that it had taken a stranger to make him pay attention to his own daughter. “Why would you tell someone they were going to die? You...of all people...after what we’ve gone through.”

Becca’s ashen face jerked away. “Yeah. What would I know about death? We’ve never talked about it, right?”

His silence on the subject had been to protect her, not hurt her. The disposable cup bent in his hand. “That’s no excuse to threaten to hurt someone.”

“Is that what you think?” Becca stomped to the door. “That girl’s a smoker. I was warning her about dying of cancer. You know—cancer? I think you might have heard of it, Dad. I didn’t want her to end up with our sucky life.” He flinched at her bitter tone.

The metal doorknob rattled in her hand. “May I be excused, Mrs. Luce?”

“Of course, dear. You may return to the study room.”

“Thank you.” Becca slipped through the door without a backward glance.

His hands gripped the chair’s plush arms. This was worse than he’d imagined. Would Becca fail eighth grade? Leave her friends, change schools? He’d fought hard to keep his kids’ lives as unchanged as possible, to maintain the life they’d had before his had fallen apart. Would this event bring everything tumbling down?

“Mr. Roberts, when we first questioned Becca, she simply confirmed that she’d written the note. In light of this...” Mrs. Luce cleared her throat “...clarification, we might need to reconsider our decision not to recommend her for promotion if she can make up her work.”

“You think?” he asked rhetorically, furious with himself and sorry that Mrs. Luce had been put in the middle of this mess. He grabbed the annoying, clanking silver balls and stilled them, guilt heavy on his shoulders.

“Mr. Roberts,” she began, pulling the apparatus out of his reach. “We see this every day. Children acting out in school when something is wrong at home.”

“Everything’s fine,” insisted Eli, wishing he felt as sure as he sounded.

“Your family is facing a devastating crisis.”

He shifted in his seat. Someone must have told her about his cancer. The guidance counselor. What was her name? The one who smiled a lot. Sort of like Christie without the charm.

“Mrs. Kevlar,” he murmured and pulled out his twitching phone. He powered it off without looking at the screen.

Mrs. Luce nodded. “Yes. Mrs. Kevlar told me of your health issues. And of your wife’s...absence. Is there some chance that she might be of help?”

Absence? Was that the euphemism used for being dumped? He passed a hand over his eyes. “Let’s leave her out of this. She won’t want to be involved.”

“But surely, as a mother, she’d—”

“She was never a mother to them.” And it was true. He’d changed their diapers, read them to sleep, made their lunches, ordered their birthday cakes. As the eldest child of twelve, his ex had once told him she’d already done her share of parenting.

Mrs. Luce’s face softened. Did she pity him? Now, that he couldn’t stand. His family might be having a tough time, but they’d get through it. They always did.

“And have you been engaging Becca and Tommy? Talking to them about everything that’s going on? Encouraging them to express their feelings?”

Now she sounded like Christie.

“We’re going to counseling today,” replied Eli, certain now, more than ever, that he’d been right to make that appointment. If only he’d done it sooner. Prevented Becca from digging herself this hole. He noticed a penny by his loafers. It was heads up. Christie would say that was good luck, though fate was hardly on his side today.

Mrs. Luce rested her head on the high brown back of her chair. The rain-forest sounds quieted, replaced by the muffled thrum of Manhattan traffic. After a long moment, she leveled her gaze on him.

“Given the extenuating circumstances, I believe we can work out a plan so that Becca still has a chance of attending Elisabeth Irwin this fall.”

His heart sped as he leaned forward. “It would mean a lot.” He would do whatever it took to get his family back on track. But for right now, he needed Mrs. Luce on his side.

The principal hit another button on her sound soother and set the metallic balls back in motion. “If you agree to attend family counseling until school starts in September, and Becca makes up her work over the summer, I will recommend her promotion to ninth grade.”

Relief flooded him. “That’s generous. Thank you.”

She pointed a gold-tipped pen. “I’ll need to see signed documentation from your counselor along with Becca’s completed assignments. You can pick them up tomorrow.”

“Will do.” He glanced down at the gleaming copper penny. He almost left it on the floor then discreetly pocketed it instead. Not that he believed in crazy superstitions. But it would remind him of how close he’d come to losing touch with his daughter.

“Would you excuse Becca and Tommy so they can leave with me? Our appointment is at Memorial Hospital in an hour.” No way was he taking a chance they’d be late.

“Of course. And, Mr. Roberts?”

He stopped at the door and turned.

“Good luck.”

* * *

CHRISTIE’S ACHING FEET carried her down the hallway of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Counseling Center. A pink-and-white-checkered dog leash drooped by her side, Sweet Pea trotting on the other end. Where did her pet’s boundless energy come from? After working seven days straight, she couldn’t wait to hang up her monkey-ears stethoscope and head home. Not that Sweet Pea worked every shift. As an Angel on a Leash therapy dog, the spaniel accompanied her two times a week and during their monthly Toward Tomorrow group forum.

“Paging Nurse Bates. Nurse Bates line 224,” crackled the PA system.

She rubbed her forehead. Minutes from a clean getaway. She pressed a hand to her tender back and turned into a nearby nurses’ station. She hooked Sweet Pea’s leash on an unused IV pole and leaned over the gray countertop for the phone.

“Christie Bates,” she said after punching the blinking red button.

“Christie!” exclaimed her friend and fellow grief counselor Joan. “Thank goodness you haven’t left yet.”

She twisted the cord around her finger. “Nope. Still here. What’s up?” She leaned down and ruffled Sweet Pea’s long ears.

“Look, I hate to ask a favor, but Michael is tied up in court and Haylee gets out of school in half an hour. Would you take my last client? We’ve been trying to cancel, but he hasn’t answered his phone.”

Her gaze bounced from the rushing nurses to the furiously scribbling doctors. An intercom buzzed while the receptionist drained her coffee and put a third call on hold. “No problem.” She strove to keep the sigh out of her voice. They were all working on fumes.

“Yes! I knew you’d understand. Thanks so much, Christie. He’s new and the file is outside my office.”

She stepped aside to let a nurses’ aide wheel a blood-pressure machine past her. On the other end of the phone a car honk sounded. “Where are you calling from?” She definitely heard someone shouting about roasted chestnuts in the background.

“I’m already outside. But I can come back in,” her colleague finished in a rush.

“Don’t give it another thought.” Christie seated herself at the desk and pulled a pad from her pocket. “What do you know about the patient?”

“Father’s in remis for osteosarcoma. His teenage daughter’s been withdrawing. Straight-up family counseling. No surprises.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed her eyes shut. She’d suggested that Eli’s kids needed someone to talk to. Could he be Joan’s patient? Heaven help her if he was. “Joan, by any chance...is there a younger son?”

Joan’s voice rose. “Taxi! What do I have to do, wear a fur coat and wave a ten-carat ring?” Her voice lowered. “But yes. The boy’s in second grade. Has a habit of running away.”

The chattering nurses, ringing phones and beeping pagers receded, and a dull roar filled her pounding head. She was not ready for this today. Not when she hadn’t thought about Eli in—she checked her watch—four hours.

“The name?” she whispered. A stack of charts skittered from beneath her elbow and onto the floor. She cradled the phone between her ear and shoulder and picked up the mess with unsteady hands.

“Yes! Finally,” shouted Joan. “Look, I’ve got to get this cab. A lady with a wheelie walker’s heading this way. But I owe you, okay? You’re a doll.” The line went dead.

She stared at the receiver before returning it to its holder. Her hands smoothed her pink scrubs, the puppy pattern matching Sweet Pea’s therapy vest. This was not happening. If the name on the chart matched her suspicions, Joan was wrong. They were all in for a big surprise.

A minute later, she stopped outside Joan’s office, her worst fear confirmed. If she’d known Eli’s family waited behind that door, would she have said no? Despite her best intentions, he’d been on her mind all week, her thoughts replaying their conversation like a favorite song.

Her fingers tightened on his chart. She’d been careful all these years to guard herself from personal involvement in her clients’ lives. Her childhood heartbreak was enough to last her a lifetime. But Eli’s warmth, compassion and strength made her forget those rules and want something more. Something that could rip apart her patchwork heart. She sympathized with his situation, but that would have to be enough. Her shoulders squared. She’d be friendly and professional, the way she treated all of her patients.

She knocked and entered. “Hello, Tommy, Becca.” She swallowed and risked a look at their father. Her stomach executed a triple somersault with a half twist. “Eli. I’ll be filling in for Mrs. Osar today.”

His good looks struck her with an almost-physical force. When he stood to his impressive height, she admired the pull of his fitted white dress shirt across his broad shoulders and the navy tie that set off his incredible eyes. His dark eyebrows rose as he stepped forward and extended a hand.

“Looks like you can’t get away from us,” he said with a wry twist of his lips. Her heart tumbled to a halt. Breathe, she reminded herself. Too much time around this gorgeous man and she’d need the AED machine.