Coda (Songs of Submission #9)(37)

I’d been sick only once since the surgery, at the end of February. A cold had kept me out of the studio, and as frustrating as that was, it also meant I was relegated to another bedroom until Laurelin cleared me to touch my husband. I cursed her. I yelled at her. I told her that I was leaving for Corfu in three days and I was entitled to see Jonathan before then.

And she reminded me that by infecting him with a cold, I’d send him back to Sequoia Hospital faster than if I hit him over the head with a two-by-four.

That shut me up.

I was smiling about it when the good doctor appeared from behind his shellacked wood door.

“Mrs. Faulkner?”

I didn’t correct him. “Yes?”

“Congratulations. We’ve found the source of your ishy stomach.”

chapter 24.

JONATHAN

The night I decided to shed the yoke of love I carried for my ex-wife, I’d felt so unburdened, I laughed. When I let go of my fear of traveling, I didn’t laugh quite as hard, but I walked home quickly, smiling the whole way.

“Mira!” I said when I saw her. “Pack me some things, would you?”

“Sure, sure. How long for?”

“Few days.” If I stayed longer, I could have the hotel launder them or buy new. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but getting out of this old skin of a house and into my wife’s arms.

“Business or pleasure?”

“Pleasure! A little chilly. Los Angeles in November-ish.”

She smiled widely. “Yes, sir. When are you leaving?”

“Immediately. Go. Jeans and shirts. Two sweaters. Go.” Ailing Mira trotted upstairs as I remembered something. “Mira!”

She leaned over the banister. “Sir?”

“Two leather belts. One narrow, one wide.”

“What color?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

She nodded and went upstairs.

I got on the phone. “Jacques?”

“Hello, Mister Drazen.”

“I need to go to New York.”

“When?”

“Now.”

I was greeted by an unusual pause.

“What?” I said.

“I’m calculating how long it will take to get there.”

“From where?”

“We just got into Chicago.”

“With the plane?” I started my own calculations.

“For the Prima Culture conference. You—”

“Signed off. Shit.” I stood in the middle of the living room and rubbed my eyes.

When I’d stopped flying, I’d freely loaned the plane to anyone on my staff who needed it for business, and months ago, my executive group had requested it. So the Gulfstream was in Chicago, which was three flying hours away. An hour getting a flight plan approved, half an hour prep. Three hours in the air. Redoing it all once he hit Santa Monica, and the last, most unmovable of obstacles was pilot exhaustion. If he flew into Chicago today and came right back, he wouldn’t be able to legally pilot the plane to New York.

“I can get back, but then I can’t take you,” he said.

When did I decide to start hiring such law-abiding staff? Was I going to have to jog to New York? “Is Petra with you?”

“She’s with the baby.”

I’d hit some nerve; I heard it in the edge in his voice. Petra had given birth to their little boy, Claude, weeks ago. Jacques had been manning the plane on his own, which was completely legal and fine up until then. At that moment, it had become a pain in the ass.

“Do you have a nanny?” I asked, knowing the answer.

“She’s breastfeeding, Mister Drazen. I’m sorry. She can’t pilot to New York and back without feeding him.”

I thought there might be answers that had to do with latex nipples and breast pumps, but I knew nothing about them. Jacques probably would have suggested it if it had been a possibility.

And did I need to go, really? What would happen if I waited a day? Exactly nothing. No lives or livelihoods were at stake. But having decided I wasn’t afraid, that I was ready to go anywhere with her, I couldn’t wait another second.

“Listen,” I said, “I’m being a nightmare of a boss, and the fact that I admit it isn’t going to soften this. I need you to get home, and I need Petra to fly that plane. Get a freelance copilot or a nanny, on me, but I need to go.”

“Mister Drazen. We won’t hire a nanny. That’s not how we do it.”

What I enjoyed about Jacques was that he’d never asked me why I suddenly had to go anywhere. He just flew the damned plane. In return, I couldn’t ask him what kind of stupid f*cking rule prevented him from taking care of his son while Petra sat in the cockpit.

I plopped back on the couch, and put my feet on the coffee table, stretching my legs, tensing and releasing.

“How long in the air between here and New York?” I said. “Five hours? Six?”

“Yes. But—”

“I have an idea. Just hear me out.”

chapter 25.

MONICA

I snapped the hotel room door shut and ran to the bathroom, stripping as I went. The mirror in the deluxe suite went from floor to ceiling seamlessly, and it made me look sickly skinny. So when I got in front of it and turned to the side, I felt the same, or worse, because I was knocked up, and to me, I still looked like bag of bones.