Page 18 of Hollywood Undercover
Rosa opened the door. The platinum blonde wore a tangerine pantsuit and a concernedlook.
“Hello. How can I help you?” She looked past Alexandra as she stood at the doorstep. “Are you selling something? I may be able to spare a few dollars. How much is it, youngman?”
“Rosa,” she said. “It’sme.”
Rosa stepped back and peered at her again. Her mouth dropped open in surprise when she finally recognized who was standing in front ofher.
“Alexandra? Oh my gosh! I didn’t even recognize you! What a cleverdisguise!”
Alexandra whipped off the baseball cap with a sheepish smile. Soon her smile became sober. She stepped inside and turned around to face her, thankful Rosa dared to go against Dad’s orders to let her know about hisillness.
“Where is he?” she askedsoftly.
“At Carondelet St. Joseph’s. I was just headed there. I came by the house to pick up a few things for him. Do you want to ride withme?”
Rosa held an overnight bag and her car keys. Alexandra nodded. She hurried back to the limo driver and let him know she would call him sometime the next day. She reminded him not to come with the limo. She jogged over to Rosa’s SUV and climbed inside. As she got into the vehicle, she noticed a neighbor across the street. He was about to get into a pickup truck. He watched them curiously. Alexandra tugged her hat down lower on herhead.
The drive to the hospital was marked by a solemn conversation about her father’s rapidly deteriorating health. Rosa sniffled, retelling how they had initially thought he had a bad cold, until he passed out in the night while going to the bathroom. She nodded, silently noting Rosa’s absentminded confession. She had to have spent the night, and now it was confirmed—Rosa was her dad’s significant other. It all made sense, and easily explained why she was just as shaken by the situation as Alexandrawas.
“How long was he sick before he washospitalized?”
“Over a week. The doctor at the hospital said your father’s immune system was weakened by the medications for his rheumatoidarthritis.”
Alexandra covered her mouth, trying not to fall apart. She did her best to mirror the calm demeanor Rosa was modeling, but inside she was out of her mind with worry. She wasn’t prepared for this. She couldn’t imagine a future without herfather.
I have to hold on tohope.
When they arrived at the private room in the ICU at the state of the art hospital, it all became irrevocably real. Maxwell Storme was a bear of a man when healthy, a burly six and a half feet tall, broad-shouldered and muscular, but his illness had taken a terrible toll on him all of a sudden. In fact, her father looked like an entirely different man from the person she saw six months before atChristmas.
The stark white room was chilly and impersonal. Nurses moved soundlessly through the halls like ghosts. Voices whispered, feet silent. The ICU was eerily quiet for such a busy place. Alexandra wanted to scream. It felt exactly like a place where people came todie.
Stop being so morbid, she silently warned herself.He’s going to befine.
She wished she could take him out of the room and whisk him back home where he belonged. Standing there, she felt like she had when she was fourteen, watching her mother in a similar bed, looking just as depleted. Fate had snuffed out the brightest light in her world. She couldn’t imagine losing her father too. Suddenly the sobs wouldn’t stop, and tears poured down hercheeks.
I might soon beparentless.
It was the coldest, loneliestrealization.
The beeping buzzes of equipment made her skin crawl. Her pulse raced with fear. She stepped forward on unsteady legs, vision blurring as she tried to look at her father. He was frail and small, a shell of the size he had been when she last saw him. His skin was so pale, too pale. It couldn’t behealthy.
She clutched his hand desperately, feeling the bones of his fingers, and after a short while, let out another agonizedsob.
“How could you keep this from me,Daddy?”
He couldn’t answer—there were tubes up his nostrils and down his throat—but he opened his weak blue eyes. He raised his frail hand, and she could tell he was surprised and pleased to see her, from the creasing of his forehead, widening of his eyes, the way his lips curledupward.
“I’m so glad you’re awake, Daddy,” she whispered, trying to be strong. “I wish you would have told mesooner.”
His smile grewslightly.
“This is just like you, getting sick so you can get me to come home,” she said, hoping to lighten her mood andhis.
Rosa stepped up behind her, quiet and still. “He didn’t want to interfere with your music. You were working on a new album, and he wanted to wait and see how things turned out before getting you worried. I’m afraid the wait and see approach didn’t work so well. All of this happened so suddenly. We neverexpected...”
Alexandra choked back a sob. Her father made Rosa hide his illness. He had always fought hard to protect his privacy, and with Alexandra around—as Lexxi Rock, with swarms of media and paparazzo—there would be no suchthing.
“Oh, Daddy,” she whispered with a shake of her head. She turned back to gaze up at Rosa. “Thank you for telling me.” The middle-aged woman smiled tightly and squeezed her shoulder, slipping from the darkened room to give Alexandra and her father some timealone.
