“Lou? This is crazy. I mean, I know our guys are good, but I’ve seen their work before, lots of times. No one comes out of surgery looking better than they started.”
“You did.”
“How’s that possible?”
“Our guys never had this much time before, or such a perfect environment for healing. We knew our surgeons were exceptional, but none of us knew they were
I held up a hand. “Please. Don’t tell me.”
Lou nodded. His assistant showed up with a bottle of Pappy and two glasses.
“Mr. Creed!” she yelped. “I thought we’d never see you again. You look great!”
“Thanks, Linda. Nice to see you, too. Want a drink?”
She looked at Lou hopefully. He shook his head. “Another time, perhaps,” Linda said.
Nadine moved some things off the end table to accommodate the glasses. As Linda placed them on the table, she said, “What’s it like, waking up after all this time?”
“Surreal. For you it’s been years. But in my mind, I saw you less than two weeks ago.”
“That is so weird,” she said.
Linda left the room, Lou poured the drinks.
“You sure you don’t want a pull, Nadine?”
She gave me a world-class frown. “I think it’s a dreadful idea. As for you, Mr. Kelly…”
Nadine abandoned the rest of the sentence, but shook her head with disgust, leaving no doubt where she stood on the subject of Lou’s behavior.
I held up my glass as if making a toast. “Bourbon,” I said, “Is cheaper than therapy.”
Lou grinned. We clinked glasses and began sipping.
“Like heaven in a bottle,” I said.
We were quiet awhile before I broke the silence.
“Why’d they do it, Lou?”
He sipped again, took a deep breath, let it out very slowly. He bit the side of his lip before speaking.
“A lot of decisions had to be made in a short period of time.”
I wasn’t going to second-guess at this point. These decisions had been made years ago, so there was nothing I could do about the time I’d lost or the new face. There was only one thing that mattered.
“Has Kathleen seen me…like this?”
They looked at each other, silently trying to decide who should do the talking. Lou took the lead.
“There’s a lot I need to tell you. But before I say anything, keep in mind, I’m the messenger. I was involved in the discussions, but I didn’t make the decisions.”
“Noted. So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying everything that happened was done because it made the most sense at the time.”
I passed my glass to Nadine. Two sips of whiskey had left my head swimming.
