The Games (Private #11)(82)

Roth clapped and Sci seemed pleased.

“Sure you don’t want me back in L.A., looking after things?” Justine said.

“I kind of need you here.”

She smiled, held my hand again, and said, “I’ll stay in Rio as long as you want me here.”





Chapter 105



THEY LET ME out of the hospital two days later. I could walk, but the pain drugs and the holes in the head and the broken ribs ruled out my driving or doing anything strenuous for the foreseeable future.

General da Silva arranged for us to stay in his sister’s two-bedroom rental in Ipanema while I convalesced. Justine and Mo-bot took turns taking care of me. We watched the Olympics and really got into the rowing and the indoor bicycle racing for some reason. Very exciting stuff.

Justine spent a lot of time on the phone with Emilio Cruz, her boyfriend. Cruz works in my L.A. office. I could tell there was some friction over her not returning until the games were over.

“You can leave anytime,” I told her. “I’m feeling better.”

“I’ll leave when I believe you can take care of yourself,” she said.

“You sure?”

“Jack, yes, I’m sure,” Justine said, pushing back her hair. “I almost lost you. I…don’t think I could have…I just have to make sure you’re okay.”

Her eyes welled with tears and she looked away, embarrassed. My heart almost broke because I realized she still carried a torch for me, as I did for her.

“Thank you,” I said, swallowing at the emotion in my throat. “But I don’t want to upset you and Cruz.”

“I thought Emilio and I were good,” she said, sniffing and wiping at her eyes. “But if our relationship can’t stand this stress, then it wasn’t meant to be.”

Justine touched me with her loyalty and with her acknowledgment of the thing that still lived between us, whatever it was. I couldn’t think about that for long. It seemed like I was insulting Tavia somehow.

So for the first time in a long time I started talking. About everything.

Over the course of days, I told Justine all about Tavia and broke down several times in the process. I felt as if I’d really opened up, held nothing back, and as a result we’d never been closer.

“You’ve come a long way,” Justine said early Sunday afternoon, nine days after the crash, as she helped me into a sport-fishing charter boat I’d hired out of the Botafogo Bay marina. “It’s good you’re not keeping it all bottled up the way you usually do.”

“Think I’ve earned a spot on Dr. Phil?”

“Uh, no, but you’re making progress,” she said, smiling with concern. “Sure you don’t want me to come along?”

“This is something I need to do alone.”

“I’ll be waiting right here for you when you come back.”

“What am I? Forrest Gump?”

Justine laughed, said, “Forrest is a lot faster.”

“I think my grandmother’s faster at the moment,” I said and settled into my seat and put Tavia’s ashes on the deck between my legs. “At least go have lunch or an a?aí berry smoothie or something.”

“A?aí berry smoothie it is. Those things are addictive, aren’t they?”

“Massively,” I said as the captain started his engines.

“There’s really no one else?” Justine asked.

I shook my head, said, “She was an orphan.”

The mate threw off the lines.

As the captain chugged us out of the marina, I watched Justine at the end of the dock watching me until we lost sight of each other.

We picked up speed and headed toward the harbor mouth. Sugarloaf Mountain loomed to our right, looking as impossible and breathtaking as ever.

For a moment I thought about the climbers Tavia and I and General da Silva had rescued off the cliffs the day before the World Cup final. It seemed like several lifetimes ago.

When we were more than a mile offshore, the captain slowed his engines and looked to me. I gazed around at the relative position of Sugarloaf, Copacabana, and the lighthouse toward Devil Beach.

I nodded. It looked right.

The captain cut his engines. I picked up the urn and fought my way to my feet and to the side of the boat.

For a moment I looked around again, wanting to be sure, swallowing at the ball of emotion that swelled in my throat.

I unscrewed the lid of the urn and, whispering hoarsely, said, “So here you are, Tavia, right where you wanted to be, a part of Rio forever.”

I had to stop for several moments and breathe not to cry.

“I loved you, Tavia. I miss you, and I always will.”

Then, with shaking hands, I spread her ashes on the water.

There was little wind and they floated on the surface for a few minutes before drifting off into the glinting light toward Copacabana.

I sat down, feeling hollow and alone, before nodding to the captain.

When we reached Botafogo Bay, I got up and stood in the bow, shading my eyes and peering toward the marina.

Justine, my friend, my very best friend in the world, was right there on the dock, smiling and waiting for me.





Acknowledgments




Our gratitude goes out to the Cariocas, the welcoming people of Rio de Janeiro, who went out of their way to teach us both sides of their “Marvelous City,” the glamorous and the rich as well as the destitute and the poor.