Page 80 of Nothing Less than Magic
In any event, as long as I’m a passenger and not the captain (God forbid), it’s safe for me to cross the state in an airplane—or even a car, for that matter. I’m going to see Uncle Sylvester and let him fuss over me. It’s not like I’m doing much here anyway. Most days, I sit in my office and stare at a blank screen or search Google in an effort to corroborate my coma dream.
Friday, I once again studied the faculty pages of UC Davis’s website in case I missed something the first three times I did the search. There is no Knox Hart anywhere on its roster. The only Professor Hart I found is a sixty-year-old Karen Hart, who teaches medicine and epidemiology at the university’s school of veterinary medicine.
Just to be sure, I cross-referenced every school and science department in Northern California. I even looked up Old Ranch Road to find Knox’s farmhouse. The house is there. But according to a property records search, it belongs to a Desi and Maureen Coopman and is indeed a working goat farm.
The only logical explanation is that I came across the property pre-coma while driving around Ghost, and its bucolic charm left an indelible mark on my memory. As far as Knox himself, it’s fairly obvious that Michael Hart, my emergency doc and the first one to lay hands on me in the hospital before they induced the coma, was the inspiration for Knox.
There is some evidence that patients can hear what’s going on around them while in a coma, and some can even recover enough to regain a modicum of awareness. Who’s to say whether this happened to me or whether I simply have a robust imagination?
But instead of dwelling on it, it’ll be good to get out of Dodge and immerse myself in a new environment, far from the hospital and Ghost.
It’s a full flight, even in first class, a perk of traveling for a living. I have so many frequent flyer miles that I’ll never use them all.
I’m next to a guy who looks vaguely familiar, like I might’ve seen him on the news. Or for all I know, he’s an actor. It wouldn’t be unusual to share a flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles with someone famous. I once sat next to Jane Fonda. It surprised me that she flew commercial, but it’s probably more convenient. Some of the airlines make the trip between SFO and LAX five times a day.
She was extremely nice, by the way. Offered me her airline snack mix and said she liked my scarf.
I’m not getting a nice vibe from the familiar guy, who has made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t want anyone talking to him. I get it. As a career traveler, plane time is the best time to catch up on work or correspondence. I give him plenty of space.
As we prepare for takeoff, I check my phone one last time, just in case Ronnie or Austin have texted or called. Nothing from Ronnie. But Austin has sent a GIF of a hand waving at an airplane. He’s been up to his ears in alligators these last few days, negotiating the divorce settlement of a high-profile couple. He won’t tell me who it is, only that he’s representing the husband. I am guessing the client is either in tech or venture capital. That’s who our “high-profile” people are. Whoever he is, he has no boundaries, calling Austin after hours and even on weekends. I don’t understand why Austin puts up with it. He has a stellar reputation in the legal community and has no shortage of clients.
The flight is too short for a movie, and I forgot to bring a book. I lift the flight magazine from the netting in front of my seat and flip through it. Familiar guy has his music on too loud. I can hear Leonard Cohen through his earbuds. At least it’s good music.
He also has his window shade open, which I would like to close. Although I’m in an aisle seat, catching even a glimmer of the sky reminds me that we’re 42,000 feet in the air. I tap him on the shoulder and motion for him to shut the shade.
He pops out one earbud. “You want it closed?”
“Yes, please. If you wouldn’t mind? I have a thing about heights.”
“Then why do you fly?”
“Because it’s faster than walking.”
“Good answer.” He pushes down the shade and stuffs his bud in his ear again.
I nod off, and before I know it, the flight attendant is asking us to put our seats in an upright position and to fasten our belts for landing. It seems like just five minutes ago we were served drinks. The cups, cans, and bottles are quickly cleaned up, and in no time, I’m pushing my way through the airport terminal with my small carry-on.
It’s a balmy seventy degrees outside, and the sun hurts my eyes. When I left San Francisco, it was drizzly and cold. I grab a taxi at the cab stand, because it’s faster than Uber, and rattle off Uncle Sylvester’s address in Century City. He still lives in the same penthouse, though he’s remodeled it two or three times since Lolly and I left.
It takes us forty-two minutes to go ten miles. Welcome to Hell A, though San Francisco isn’t much better. The businesses on Santa Monica Boulevard are decked out for Christmas, and the trees are all strung with lights. I can barely remember Thanksgiving, which came and went while I was in the hospital. If it wasn’t for the cafeteria turkey, stuffing, and soggy slice of pumpkin pie, I wouldn’t remember it at all.
The neighborhood has changed a lot since I lived here. Many of the restaurants and shops from my time have been replaced with new ones, trendier ones. And Westfield Century City, a mega shopping mall, is like a city onto itself. It even has a gourmet supermarket.
In the 1980s, Uncle Sylvester used to commute from Century City to Culver Studios, one of Los Angeles’s most iconic studios. It is whereGone with the Wind,A Star Is Born, Rebecca, Citizen Kane,andE.T.were filmed. Last I heard, Amazon Studios had taken over a portion of the campus. Uncle Sylvester still makes the ten-mile commute (thirty minutes in traffic), but he’s at Sony Pictures now.
We pull up in front of Uncle Sylvester’s high-rise, and the cab driver helps me to the door with my carry-on. There’s a new doorman, or at least new for me, who ushers me inside the lobby, then sends me up to the penthouse in Uncle Sylvester’s private elevator. Like the neighborhood, the elevator has also gotten a facelift since the last time I was here. Grass cloth covers the walls where there once was chinoiserie wallpaper. The mirrors, though, are still here. Lolly and I used to try to outdo each other, making funny faces in them when we were kids.
The door slides open into a grand foyer, which I no longer recognize. It has the same grass cloth wall coverings as the elevator and new herringbone wood floors. There’s a huge abstract painting on one of the walls.
“Hello, hello, hello.” Wallace sweeps into the entrance and wraps me in a bear hug. “Look at you.” He steps back a foot or two and gives me a full appraisal. “You look wonderful, my girl. Let me take this.” He grabs the handle of my suitcase and wheels it into Lolly’s and my old bedroom off the hallway. “You’ll unpack later.”
He takes my hand and pulls me through the apartment into the kitchen, where a stunning charcuterie board is waiting. It’s much better than the one I made in my dream. Then again, Wallace owned a catering company for twenty-plus years, so I shouldn’t be so hard on myself.
“Sly won’t be home for another hour.” Wallace is the only one who calls my uncle “Sly.” He’s the only one who has lasted more than five years. All of Uncle Sylvester’s other boyfriends had an expiration date of around three years, except David, a perpetually out-of-work actor who lasted a little more than four.
I’m pretty sure Wallace is the love of Uncle Sylvester’s life. And I’m pretty sure that if Wallace had been here twenty-four years ago, I never would have run off to boarding school.
“Tell me everything, little one.” He pats one of the barstools and fixes me a plate from his charcuterie board.
