Wildest Dreams

“Is it a convenient time to say hello to Mrs. Banks?”

“Come in! Come in!” Winnie called from the dining room table.

Lin Su stepped aside so that Blake could enter.

Winnie was sitting with Charlie at the dining table, both of them with their laptops open. Winnie closed hers and held out a hand toward him. “And how do you do, Mr. Smiley! Charlie told me you might be stopping by.”

“It’s a pleasure, Mrs. Banks,” he said, taking her hand.

“Will you sit for a moment?” she asked. “And now that the formal introductions are dispensed with, can we proceed as Winnie and Blake?”

“Nothing would please me more.”

“Charlie,” she said. “Fetch Mikhail from the deck.” Then she turned to Blake. “Very nice of you to make the effort to visit. It’s not easy for me to get around, as I’m sure Charlie told you.”

“He told me,” Blake said. “I’m so sorry to hear it. Lou Gehrig’s disease, how bloody awful for you. You look positively wonderful. How are you feeling?”

“Until I try to pick up a glass or stand, I feel just fine,” she said, adding a small head shake. “Speaking of glass, what can we get you?”

“Nothing at all, Mrs.... Winnie. I just wanted to meet you. I was shocked to hear two famous athletes were living next door.”

“Yes, but we’re not competing anymore,” Winnie said. “What in the world are you doing here in Thunder Point?”

“I’m still training, but I fell in love with the quiet of the place.” He glanced around. “If you can find a way to move this house to Boulder you can get three million for it.”

“I can’t believe the price was what attracted you,” she said.

“The town did, as a matter of fact. The size, the simplicity, the building around the bay. That’s a great place for me to swim. The hills and lowlands are great bike and running trails. The air is perfect.”

“What’s your next event?” Winnie asked.

“Tahoe,” Charlie answered for him, sitting down again.

“He seems to know as much about me as I do,” Blake said. He stood and extended a hand toward the short Russian coach who had come in from the deck. “How do you do, sir. I’m your neighbor, Blake.”

“An honor,” Mikhail said.

When everyone sat down to visit, Lin Su drifted off to the master bedroom. This was the time of day she put it right for later when Winnie would settle in for the night.

After a nap and a little refreshing, Winnie would spend some time in the living room or on the deck, have dinner with whoever happened to be around—sometimes the entire family, sometimes just Lin Su, Charlie and Mikhail. If Winnie’s daughter, Grace, wanted to help her settle in for the evening, Lin Su and Charlie would go home. Most nights Lin Su would stay for the evening ritual and then take herself and her son home.

Her present home wasn’t exactly a welcoming place. Lin Su and Charlie were renting a small fifth wheel that had been left behind at a rather scurvy trailer park, but it was completely adequate and she had gotten it antiseptic clean. This job with Winnie, while demanding, was also accommodating and paid well. Lin Su was working on a solution to that fifth wheel, but it had been all she could afford at the time—she’d been laid off from the hospital and bills had accrued while she was between jobs. There were also old loans like tuition, moving, some medical expenses that hadn’t been covered by employers. She finally had some savings but she didn’t dare touch it. She was very cautious and the most important thing in the world to her was that Charlie get a good education.

It was all working out, for now. It was Winnie, in fact, who had suggested Charlie come to work with her every day and therefore attend school in Thunder Point. Winnie’s son-in-law, Troy Headly, taught history there and Winnie’s next-door neighbor, Spencer Lawson, was the athletic director and football coach. She wouldn’t have to worry about Charlie being picked on by bigger, tougher kids, and for that she was so grateful.

She drew back the comforter and smoothed out the sheets—six hundred thread count—fluffed the pillows and made it inviting. She shook out and refolded the throw that Mikhail used when he slept in the big leather chair at Winnie’s bedside. He thought no one knew. That made her smile. Mikhail was so devoted, but he disappeared before Lin Su arrived in the morning so no one would know he was that protective. Lin Su dusted the room, removing the water glass from the bedside table, tidied the books and magazines Winnie kept nearby. The bathroom just needed a lick and a promise plus fresh towels and facecloths. Tomorrow she would change the sheets and wash some linens. She would love to sleep in such fine bedding but she wouldn’t trade places with Winnie for the moon.

By the time she returned to the kitchen and dining room, Grace and Troy had come home and there was a great deal of chatter. They had brought dinner from Carrie’s deli and Grace was putting out place mats.

“Please, won’t you stay?” Grace asked Blake. “I can assure you it’s healthy and nutritious. Carrie is very particular.”

But to the disappointment of all, Blake declined the invitation, heading home for some concoction of kale, squash, beef, chicken, quinoa, oil and... Lin Su might not have caught all the ingredients, but he was in training—there was another race in a month.

“Sounds delicious,” Grace said doubtfully.

“Sounds excruciating,” Winnie said, making everyone laugh.

Blake laughed with them. “After the next two races I’ll have a little downtime. I’ll exercise and eat well but the strict training and diet regimen is relaxed a little bit. I’ll eat and drink like a regular person,” he said with a grin.

“Well, when you’re done with the next race, I’m buying,” Troy said, lifting his beer in Blake’s direction.

Two

The size of the Banks household had grown, if only slightly. Now there was a cleaning crew headed by a woman named Shauna Price. There were three women who swooped in twice a week and applied a devoted two hours to cleaning the house, top to bottom. They were friendly without having much to say, charged a lot, carried their own supplies with them and vanished without saying goodbye. Once a week Shauna dutifully asked Lin Su if everything was all right. She didn’t ask Winnie; Lin Su believed Winnie terrified her.

Three mornings a week from 10:00 to 10:45 a.m. Curtis Rhinehold appeared—the physical therapist. He put Winnie through a series of exercises meant to keep up her strength and balance, though whether it did any good was questionable. In his absence, Lin Su continued the exercises because it couldn’t hurt anything and maybe it would give her a little more time and function. Winnie grumbled and complained, though Lin Su was confident if she weren’t getting this attention her complaining might be worse.

The end of summer was pleasant; the weather was warm and dry. Lin Su was warned it was leading into a cold and wet and often windy winter on the bay. Charlie enjoyed his new Thunder Point friends and anticipated the start of school very hopefully. His buddy Frank Downy, an MIT sophomore who shared Charlie’s passion for online research, had headed back east to college in mid-August. Cooper’s young brother-in-law, Landon, had gone back to the University of Oregon to begin football practice at about the same time. With Thunder Point High School starting a new year, Spencer was knee-deep into his own football practice with his team, moaning and groaning about those young men taking a toll on his back and knees. Troy was busy preparing for classes when he wasn’t helping Grace in the flower shop or helping around the house. Charlie wasn’t bored for a second. He had Winnie and Mikhail and was very independent.

And now he had a new friend—the triathlete next door. Charlie saw Blake every day, sometimes just talking on the beach, sometimes hitting the volleyball around or working on his bicycle. One afternoon Lin Su saw Charlie hosing Blake’s deck while Blake scrubbed it with the bristle broom. On another warm and sunny afternoon Charlie took Blake for a hike along the ridge to show him the lookout where he’d see the migrating whales in another month or so.

Lin Su was happy Charlie had a friend, and a good male role model never hurt, but she’d rather Charlie be enamored of Troy or Spencer or even Cooper—nice, stable, married men. It would be a mistake for Charlie to think a man like Blake would take a place of permanence in his life. He was a little too free and easy for Lin Su’s tastes. And their situation—the job and the location—was temporary. With any luck it would stick for a while, but eventually they would have to move on.

They always had to move on.

For now, the job caring for Winnie Banks was ideal. Lin Su put in a lot of hours, but had long breaks during the day while Winnie napped or didn’t need her. And while she would try to play the role of employee and caregiver, always available but at a polite distance and not a member of the family or town, the family and town wouldn’t allow it. She’d been with Winnie since June and they were growing close. Winnie was even closer to Charlie; they’d become thicker than thieves. Lin Su and Charlie were drawn in and embraced; they dined together, visited, gossiped, even played games together.

Lin Su was trying to remember her place.

“I don’t want an agency nurse’s aide,” Winnie said. “Think about this. You take care of my bedding, help me bathe, escort me to the bathroom, help me dress—we are intimate, you and me. If you couldn’t fit in with this odd crew I now call family—a daughter, a teacher, an old coach—I would have to look for someone else. I’m afraid you’re stuck with us.”

Three women Lin Su’s approximate age who were good friends and bonded in many ways were also all showing very nice baby bumps by mid-August. Grace, Iris and Peyton. Iris Sileski was the high school guidance counselor and had sold Grace the flower shop—they’d been friends since the day Grace arrived in Thunder Point a couple of years before. Peyton Grant, the town physician’s assistant who had conveniently wed the physician, made regular visits to check on Winnie’s health as did her husband, Scott. It was only natural, then, that there would be small and regular gatherings of those three—sometimes at the end of the day, sometimes for lunch, sometimes morning coffee, sometimes dinner. They were all due to give birth just before Christmas.

When they gathered in or near Winnie’s house, if Lin Su wasn’t busy, they pressed her to join them. Winnie very much enjoyed having them around, and with Lin Su’s or Grace’s help, Winnie could even join them if they met at Cooper’s bar or in town at the restaurant. Winnie even enjoyed brief trips to the diner, something that made her daughter howl with laughter, accusing that it must have been Winnie’s first diner experience ever.

“True, if it were my diner, it would be decorated far differently and would look more like a salon, but this is fine for me,” she said, lifting her perfect nose slightly. “For now.”

Lin Su knew it wasn’t the diner that drew Winnie and definitely not the decor—it was the women closer to her own age who tended to meet there from time to time. There was Carrie from the deli whose daughter, Gina, managed the diner on the day shift. Carrie’s best friends, Lou, a teacher, and Ray Anne, a local Realtor, were known to meet there, as well. Winnie never asked to be taken to the diner on a whim but if one of the women called or stopped by to say they were meeting for coffee and pie Winnie might ask to go. Better still, if they were meeting at Cliffhanger’s for a glass of wine, she was sure to make the effort, even if she had to impose on Troy or Mikhail to take her, even if she had to rely on her wheelchair for the outing.

“I’ve never had girlfriends before,” Winnie whispered to Lin Su. “You have no idea what a different experience this is for me.”

But Lin Su did know. Her own mother, Marilyn Simmons, would never hang out with a gaggle of women in a small-town diner. Marilyn was her adoptive mother. Her biological mother hadn’t survived long after her exodus from Vietnam, thus Lin Su’s adoption by an affluent white American couple from Boston at the age of three. They liked to refer to it as a compassionate adoption. Marilyn, wife of Gordon Simmons, a well-known attorney, fancied herself something of a socialite. Her biological daughters attended the best boarding schools and universities while she served on charity boards, played bridge, golf, attended prestigious events, supported political campaigns and shopped. No, she had never been seen in a diner with ordinary women.

That was yet another thing about Thunder Point that Lin Su immediately appreciated—people gathered without deference to class or status or income. She knew that Winnie was financially comfortable; most of her home health care patients had been. If they could afford to pay a salary and benefits to a private nurse, they had planned well. And Winnie did look fancier than the town women she’d meet for a coffee or a drink, but the women didn’t treat one another differently.

Lin Su would be lying if she said she wasn’t tempted to fall into familiarity and camaraderie with all of these women—the younger pregnant ones, the older ones she found to be settled and sage. But she was trying to maintain that professional distance that would ensure her job was safe and keep her from being disappointed when the day came that someone reminded her she was a servant. A well-educated and highly trained servant, but still...

Her biggest challenge of all was the triathlete next door. He frightened and intrigued her. He didn’t frighten her because there was anything wrong with him. Indeed, everything seemed too right. He reminded her of the young man she’d loved when she was in high school. The young man who had played rugby, graduated with honors, had a fancy family name and dated Lin Su for months. His parents were friendly with hers; Marilyn Simmons greatly admired the boy’s mother and was thrilled that they were dating. She whispered that it spoke well of them that they could accept an Asian girl as their son’s choice.

But when she had told him she was pregnant, he had said, “Sorry, baby, but I’m going to Princeton.”

She was standing on the deck with Winnie when she heard talking and laughter coming from the house next door, but there was no one on the deck. Winnie was sitting at the outdoor table enjoying the sunshine while she played solitaire to try to keep her fingers nimble. Lin Su looked over the deck rail and saw that Charlie was balanced atop one of Blake’s bikes while Blake appeared to be tightening something on the wheel. Then Blake stood up and Charlie took off down the beach road.

Like a bat out of hell.

Lin Su gasped. Her son flew on that bike. Flew as though he was racing!

“Winnie, will you be all right for a moment? I should talk to Mr. Smiley about Charlie riding.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “I’m not going anyplace.”

“I’ll be right back,” Lin Su said, heading for the stairs to the beach. By the time she got to where Blake stood on the road, Charlie was out of sight across the beach.

“Mr. Smiley, it’s so nice of you to let Charlie have a turn on your bicycle. But maybe that’s not such a good idea.”

“It’s Blake. And why is that, Lin Su?”

“For one thing, it’s a very expensive bicycle. At least, that’s what Charlie tells me.”

“It is. It’s not my primary bike.” He tossed a tool in his open toolbox. “He’s safe. He’s wearing a helmet. We talked about the rules of the road and he understands.”

“Did Charlie happen to mention—he has asthma?”

“No. Is he on medication?”

“Yes.”

“Does he have an inhaler?”

“He’s supposed to have it with him at all times. And sometimes exertion brings on his asthma.”

Blake gave a little shrug. “Then if he gets winded, I guess he’ll stop.”

“Where is he going?”

“I have no idea, Lin Su. I told him not to be gone long. He really likes that bike. He’ll probably ride around awhile.”

“He could get too far away!” she said.

Blake wiped his hands on a rag and contemplated her. “He’s a big boy. He knows how to manage his asthma, doesn’t he?”

“Sometimes he’s not as careful as he should be!” she said emphatically.

Blake dropped a casual arm over her shoulders and turned her in the direction of the town across the bay. He pointed. “See that building over there?”

“Which building?” she asked.

“The one that says Clinic on the sign. If he has an asthma attack, this is a good place to have one. But I bet he doesn’t. You know why? Because I bet he doesn’t like asthma much and he’s fourteen—it probably embarrasses him. Don’t worry. In a few minutes he’ll either come riding across the beach at breakneck speed or he’ll be flushed and walking the bike.”

“You’re a little too casual about this for my tastes, Mr. Smiley. You don’t seem to understand how difficult something like this can be. And I’m the parent here—I’m a nurse, a mother and very well acquainted with Charlie’s condition.”

He took a deep breath and frowned. “Lin Su, my name is Blake not Mr. Smiley. As far as I know there is no Mr. Smiley. And I take things like this very seriously. At the end of the day it could be more beneficial to Charlie to have respect for the asthma, work with it, refuse to let it stop him and get to know his body if he doesn’t already. Being overprotective isn’t going to help. Knowledge helps. Fear doesn’t.”

Lin Su felt her hackles rise. She wanted to take him down. She pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. “Fantastic little lecture, Mr. Smiley. You should do a TED Talk someday. You have no idea what it was like sitting up through the night when he was three years old, doing breathing treatments every couple of hours, holding him while he strained to get a breath, watching him get that blue tinge, putting him in the ambulance. He has to be cautious!”

She saw what clearly looked like sympathy come into his gaze. “You must have been terrified,” he said. “The good news is, he isn’t three anymore.”

Lin Su’s anger grew even though Blake’s voice was gentle.

“Ah, there he is,” Blake said. “He’s really moving.”

Charlie was speeding, head down, peddling madly. He slowed as he came upon them, his grin wide as the sky. He had his mother’s perfect, straight white teeth.

“That was awesome,” he said to Blake. He was huffing and puffing a little. “Mom, what are you doing here? Winnie all right?”

“She’s fine. Are you having trouble catching your breath?” Lin Su asked.

“I’m winded,” he said. “I rode hard. Not long, though. I’ll be fine in a second.”

“Do you need your inhaler?”

“Mom,” he said. “I’m fine.” But then he coughed.

“Charlie, I don’t want you...”

“Charlie, do you have any major plans for that laptop of yours for tonight?” Blake asked, cutting her off.

Charlie shrugged. “No, why?”

“I think you should research famous athletes with asthma,” Blake said. “You’ll run across some familiar names and get some good ideas.”

* * *

Charlie coughed on and off through the rest of the afternoon and because of that Grace offered to settle her mother in for the night so Lin Su could take her son home. On the way home she lightly berated him. “You shouldn’t have taken the hard ride. A long walk or a ride on a paddleboard is one thing—a burst of exercise could haunt you.”

“It’s not an asthma attack. Trust me, I’d know.” He coughed again. “It’ll pass.”

“We’ll do a breathing treatment,” she said.

“I’ll do it,” Charlie said. “I just wish you liked him. Because he’s a good guy.”

“Mr. Smiley?” she asked, though of course she knew. “I like him fine. He was being very neighborly, loaning you the bike for a ride. But he didn’t know about the asthma. That’s your responsibility, Charlie.”

“Then let me have it,” he said tersely.

Mr. Smiley, she found herself thinking, is going to be a problem. He was encouraging this free thinking, letting Charlie learn from his consequences, and he didn’t understand that in Charlie’s case the consequences could be fatal.

Well, probably not, she relented. Worst case, a manageable asthma attack, relieved by a nebulizer and maybe some oxygen. But she was suddenly desperate that Charlie listen first to her.

“It’s not going to kill me, you know,” Charlie said as if reading her mind. “Sometimes I have a little breathing thing, not very often. I haven’t had one of these in a long time.”

“May,” she said. “When everything was in bloom. And it got a little dicey.”

“Because it turned into a cold. This could be just a cold, you know. I felt a little stuffy before I took the bike out.”

Lin Su said nothing as she drove. But she counted his coughs, which had become deep and gravelly. He wasn’t wheezing. Yet. They were almost home when she said, “I don’t appreciate your attitude toward me, as if I’m somehow punishing you. I’m going to make you some soup while you take a hot shower with lots of steam. Then you come out, eat soup and give the water heater time to heat up again and get back in the steam. After that we’ll do a breathing treatment. How many times have you used the inhaler?”

“Just twice.”

“Let’s see if we can nip this in the bud, okay, Charlie?”

He nodded. “Sorry, Mom. The bike was so awesome.”

“I know, honey.” She wanted to carry on about the use of some discretion to keep this asthma in check but she knew he’d heard enough. And maybe Mr. Smiley was partially right—he might learn more this way, from the consequences, than from her harping. He’d heard it all before. But damned if she’d ever admit that.

They carried out the plan—shower, soup, shower, treatment. After all that, he started to sniff a little and she hoped it was a little cold rather than an attack, even though that presented a different set of problems. If these symptoms persisted it would be wrong to take him back to Winnie’s. She shouldn’t be exposed to germs if it could be avoided. With all the people in and through Winnie’s house it was risky enough—her nurse couldn’t bring a known virus into the patient’s home.

Then she had a slightly evil thought. It would serve him right to have to spend a day at home as a result of his less than responsible actions, even though she knew it wasn’t possible for a bike ride to bring on a cold. He should learn to listen to her. So you want it to be a cold, Charlie, and not your overtaxed weak lungs—a cold, it is. And you have to stay home. Away from your playmates for a day.

Lin Su heard every cough through the night. It wasn’t too bad—it wasn’t getting worse, he had no fever, it was a productive cough and he wasn’t wheezing. She gave him another breathing treatment first thing in the morning, checked his temperature, then double-checked with her lips on his forehead. “I think you’re going to be fine. But it’s the responsible thing to leave you home today. I don’t want Winnie and the rest of the family to hear that coughing and get anxious about germs. You understand.”

“Yeah, okay. But will you please tell everyone I’m fine? That I’m not having any kind of attack or anything?”

“Of course. I’ll explain it’s just a precaution for Winnie’s health in case you’re coming down with a cold. Will that do?”

“Yeah. It’s just that... If Blake thinks the bike did it, he’ll never let me try it out again.”

Lin Su doubted that. Actually, she feared that. Blake was coming across as a challenge, as the guy who wanted to let Charlie be a man about it. Her poor little bubble boy—she wouldn’t want to have to live like that, either. But God, what if something terrible happened? And it could—his fragile lungs, his intense allergies, his stressed immune system... “Of course we’ll play the cold card here. And if you get another chance on that bike or any bike, let’s decide here and now that you’re not going to check it for maximum speed. Can we agree to that?”

“That bike is so slick, Mom. No wonder it cost a billion dollars!”

Lin Su sat on the edge of his bed. “Charlie, your health has been good lately. Keep it so. Build up some stamina, get strong, live long. Use that remarkable brain of yours to get ahead and buy a dozen billion-dollar bicycles when you’ve overcome the worst of this. But go slow.”