Darling Girl: A Novel of Peter Pan(14)

“Anything you want me to bring you?”

He shakes his head. “Will you see Grandma?”

“I don’t know,” she says. Jane is hard to reach at the best of times. And the thought of explaining to her what’s happened makes the constant pain in Holly’s stomach even sharper. But . . . “I suppose so.”

They’re a block from school when Jack points to the window. “Look, there’s Brett.” Holly leans forward, but she can’t find Jack’s friend in the scrum of khaki-and polo-wearing teens milling toward the building.

“Could you let me out here? Please?”

Holly hesitates. “But I won’t see you for a week. Maybe longer.”

“Mom, it’s one block. Please!” He looks at her beseechingly, his expression almost identical to when he was younger. But back then, he was always begging her not to go. Her pocket baby, she called him, because he always wanted to be in her lap, snuggled under her arm. When she traveled for business and couldn’t take him, he cried every time she left. Once he’d even tried to pack himself in her suitcase as a surprise.

“Mom!”

“Sorry. I was thinking.” She hesitates a second longer, but that little boy is long gone, so she relents and tells the driver to pull over. As soon as the car is stopped, Jack opens the door, but she pulls him back so she can kiss him. She inhales, trying to capture his scent. He squirms away.

“Bye,” he says. He slides across the seat and swings his backpack up in one easy move. In three steps, he’s caught up to the edge of the crowd. She watches, but he doesn’t look back.



* * *





“The airport, Dr. Darling?”

“Yes, please,” she says, leaning back against the seat. She debates calling the cottage again. Starts to punch in the numbers, hangs up. If there was news, they would have called. Tries Jane. The phone goes to voicemail. Holly doesn’t leave a message.

To distract herself, she scrolls through her emails, finds the one from Elliot Benton, and scans it. It’s hastily written, but shows promise. Like Holly, Benton came to the beauty industry from the outside. A biologist with an interest in mollusks, of all things, he can see the big picture and make connections most people can’t—he’d caught her attention at a conference years ago when he told her a quahog clam could live up to five hundred years.

When Barry balks at Elliot’s salary, she points out that Darling Skin Care is one of the few beauty companies to have a biologist. It’s an advantage not many other companies have, and plays into the current trend for products heavy on natural elements. Already Elliot’s work on the Pixie Dust line has paid for itself.

She emails Elliot back, telling him to pursue the modifications in trial form. She hesitates, her fingers poised over the screen. Elliot might know a way to stabilize the proteins in the blood she gives Jack. He could help her synthesize the serum. Could possibly even help her find a way to cure Eden. Slow her growth, wake her up. But bringing anybody in on that is too risky. As tempting as it might be to have someone to work with, to talk with, she has to go it alone.

She shakes her head to clear it. Her days of collaboration with scientists like Elliot are over. The handful of people she’s kept in contact with from before the crash can’t believe she’s happy manufacturing lotions and creams that cheekily promise to defy time. But they’re not in on the irony. And they never will be.

Time stopped for Holly the day of the car crash. She’s been defying death, defying time, for all these years, and she’s not going to stop now.

“We’re here, Dr. Darling.”

She looks up. She’s been so caught in her thoughts she hadn’t noticed they’ve arrived at the airport. And as if on cue, an alert dings on her phone. Her flight has been delayed. While she hesitates, trying to decide what to do, another ding—now it’s canceled.

Shit.

“Give me a second,” she tells the driver. She calls her travel agent. “What’s the best you can do?” she asks. “I have to get to London today.”

There’s a pause as the woman reviews her itinerary. “Your flight was full, and so are the subsequent ones,” she says. “There’s a whole line of storm fronts with high winds coming in, so it’s going to be a while. But there’s a flight leaving . . . let’s see . . . I can get you on a flight at eight.”

“Tonight?” Holly bites her lip in frustration.

“I need to know right now, before it’s gone.”

“Fine. Yes, I’ll take it,” Holly says. “But keep trying for something earlier.”

“I’ll do my best, but I can tell you it’s unlikely,” the woman says.

After she disconnects the call, Holly considers her options and decides to go home. Her head is still sore and she’s exhausted. This way she can rest, get some work done, then have the car service pick her up with Jack’s bags. She’ll surprise him after practice and drop him at Barry’s herself before heading back to the airport. She’s certain he’s still upset that she won’t let him stay home alone, and she hates leaving with tension between them. Maybe she’ll even stop and pick up his favorite pizza as a peace offering along the way.

Traffic is snarled, and by the time she gets home, the rain is sheeting down. She’s soaked in the few steps from the car to the door, and her leg is twinging again. She’s glad she decided to go home instead of to the office—she’ll take a hot bath before she picks up Jack. She’d like to reapply the cream too, but she knows from experience its potency lessens if she uses it too often.