Sundays at Tiffany's - James Patterson [58]
And who was that in the hallway mirror. It wasn’t just the dark smudges under my eyes that threw me. I was so thin!
I lugged my valise into the bedroom and sat on the bed. My bleary eyes focused on the nightstand. The gardenias Michael had given me were gone. My housekeeper must have tossed the dead blossoms. Fresh tears welled in my eyes — and I’d thought I was all cried out.
Not even close, Jane-Sweetie!
Suddenly a horrible wave of nausea overwhelmed me. It invaded my stomach and chest, a burning, awful feeling. I barely made it to the bathroom, then knelt at the toilet, throwing up Nantucket’s finest shellfish and clutching my stomach. Finally, the wave subsided and I washed my face in the sink. My hands were still shaking, and I looked pale and faintly green in the mirror. Food poisoning. Just what I needed.
When I felt up to it, I checked my messages, hoping against hope that Michael had left some word, some kind of explanation. But first, of course, there was my mother: “Jane-Sweetie, I’m worried about you. Seriously worried. Please call. Your mother.”
Actually, I suddenly felt as if I did need to call Vivienne. Even though she would be apoplectic about my absence. In fact — and I really mean this — I was surprised she hadn’t sent out detectives looking for me.
I tapped Vivienne’s number on speed dial. It wasn’t answered by either her houseman or her maid and instead went to her outgoing voicemail message.
“You have reached Vivienne Margaux . . .”
As my mother spoke, I rehearsed the message I was going to leave. I heard the beep.
And then I completely fell apart, and my rehearsed speech fled.
“Mom, it’s me. It’s Jane. Listen. Michael’s left me. Please call me. I love you.”
I actually needed one of my mother’s kisses right now. More than I ever had in my life.
I couldn’t speak after that, so I hung up the phone and lay facedown on my bed. Suddenly I was sobbing again, but also coughing, and my throat hurt.
There was no fighting the next bout of nausea. I stumbled into the bathroom and retched horribly. The nausea finally ended. But the coughing wouldn’t stop. I tried swallowing hard, but that only made it worse.
The nausea swept over me again, scaring me now. It was burning and blistering inside. There was nothing left to throw up. Just dry heaves. And cold sweats. I collapsed onto the bathroom floor and rested my head on the throw rug. I was burning up and shaking with chills at the same time. I felt like death. The best I could do was to blink my eyes.
I could hear the phone ringing in my bedroom, but I didn’t think I was strong enough to stand, or even crawl, to answer it. It had to be Vivienne, though, and I wanted to talk to her.
Or maybe it was Michael?
I pushed myself up off the floor, and I started to hobble.
Seventy-two
MICHAEL’S WORRY, his anxiety, his guilt, his lack of sleep, finally caught up with him on the 5:30 ferry ride from Nantucket to the mainland. His eyes had started to burn again, and his cable-knit sweater wasn’t much protection against the damp morning chill blowing off the Atlantic.
His terrible state of worry and confusion continued on the bus ride to the airport in Boston and then on the shuttle from Logan to LaGuardia, and the condition had a strange effect on his vision. It was as if everything he saw was drained of color; most things looked a sickening shade of gray; those that did have a tinge of color were washed-out and weak. Only hours ago he had been in Nantucket, where he’d been incredibly happy with Jane. The happiest he’d ever been in his life. Now everything was changed.
HE ARRIVED at his apartment building and trudged upstairs. He heard laughter coming from inside Owen’s apartment. A woman’s voice. Another conquest? My God, was that what Jane would think she had been to him? Would it seem like that to her? Of course it would.
He dropped his bag inside his apartment, but he couldn’t stay