Bionic legs shouldn't shake, but that's exactly what they were doing as she stood. Dazed, she wondered what to do with her beer, and decided - stupidly - that she should take a drink as a sort of pathetic acknowledgment of Oscar's single act of hospitality.
Instantly she regretted it. The cold liquid hit her tooth like a wrecking ball, sending a scream of pain through her head right up into her temple, and she had to catch the back of the nearest chair to maintain her balance.
"What's the matter?" he asked, rising to his feet, concern radically altering his tone of voice.
"Nothing." Jaime replied, blinking fiercely, determined to walk out with some measure of dignity. She began to stagger toward the door, only to have him step in front of her.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa." he said, grasping her arms. "What's the matter?"
"Tooth." she admitted, pressing her hand to her face. "Oh...god... that hurts."
"Let me see if I've got any painkillers. Don't move." Oscar said, galvanized into action. Returning empty handed from both the kitchen and the bathroom, he grabbed his keys. "I'll drive into town and get you some - no wait - I know the dentist. I met him the other night. If we can find him maybe we could persuade him to fix you up right away. Come on."
Jaime nodded and followed him to the door. She had officially given up trying to figure out what was appropriate behavior in this strange situation, and was happy to simply follow an order.
"I'm not faking this for sympathy." she mumbled miserably, compelled to defend herself.
"I would never accuse you of such a thing." he replied, guiding her to the passenger side of his elderly blue truck. They bumped along the back lane out to the highway, Jaime feeling as though each jolt slammed all the pain together - the pain in her tooth and the pain in her heart - into one big miserable mix.
"You're in pretty bad shape." Oscar remarked, cautiously placing his hand on her shoulder. She ventured a look at him, and found him completely changed. No longer furious, he looked like himself - except hairier. The sudden transformation was perplexing, and she couldn't imagine what to make of it, or of him. Maybe he had become schizophrenic in the last two months. Maybe he had multiple personality disorder. Of course, the pain in her head was so bad that if her own grandmother had appeared sitting beside them wearing angel wings Jaime would not have been able to greet her equably. She decided to hold off judgment until her tooth was dealt with.
After a mile or two on smooth highway she was able to sit up straight and wipe the tears of pain from her eyes. "It's easing up a little bit."
The sweeping views of golden hills, shimmering lake, and blue mountains in the distance provided her with distraction for the ten minute drive into town. Upon arrival in Polson, Oscar made a right and pulled up to a place that was called, appropriately, "The Polson Tavern". It was the kind of place sensible single women usually avoided - dark and uninviting, with glowing neon Pabst and Coors signs in the windows. She soon discovered the interior was equally dark, but much more welcoming than she would have guessed.
"Hey, Felix." the bartender called. "What're you having?"
"Nothing right now, Bob. Thanks." Oscar replied as they passed by. He lead them to a small group of men in a booth, who seemed surprised to see their new drinking buddy with a beautiful, if unhappy looking young woman in tow.
"Dean!" Oscar said to a rounded character at the back of the booth. "Got an emergency toothache here - would you mind taking a look?"
"Not at all." Dean said, as though it were the most natural thing in the world for him to receive patients in the bar. Two men slid out to let him through, and he stood up in front of Jaime and smiled reassuringly, peering at her through the bottom of his bifocals.
"Tell me all about it, dear."
Jaime explained - the second last upper molar on the left at the back hurt like hell when it encountered hot and cold, and biting down on it was a problem too.
He grunted thoughtfully and swept his hand to the front of the room to suggest she should walk in that direction. There he washed his hands and beckoned Jaime to him. Bob the bartender opened a drawer and produced a flashlight, handing it to Dean with the sober professionalism of a trained assistant.
"Open up."
It was embarrassing standing back there, practically as though she was on stage, with a portly stranger pointing a flashlight into her mouth.
"Does this hurt?" Dean asked, poking the tooth with his index finger. She recoiled and gurgled in anguish.
"Well, dear, I'm sorry," he sighed, flicking off the flashlight, "but this is more than I can handle tonight. That's a good sized cavity in there, and you might need a root canal. My assistant has gone to a baby shower in Big Fork and I have no idea how to get hold of her. You come in first thing tomorrow and we'll get you all sorted out."
Jaime nodded wanly.
Oscar had been watching the proceedings with interest from the other side of the bar. "Can you give her something for the pain?"
"Hmm, drugstore's closed." Dean murmured regretfully, looking at his watch. Jaime's heart sank. "Let me check my briefcase."
One of the men at the table had already held his briefcase up for him by the time he had ambled back to the booth, and after ferreting around for a few minutes he returned with a small bottle.
"Got any allergies?" She shook her head, and he handed it to her. "There's only one in here. Take it before you go to bed and you should be able to get a decent night's sleep."
"Thanks." Jaime said, with a weak smile. Oscar slapped him on the back as some sort of nonverbal thanks, and turned to guide Jaime out.
"Root canal." he said with hushed horror.
"Listen," she said, as they stepped back into the cool dusky evening air, "I can just go back to my hotel."
"No you can't." Oscar said firmly. "I'll go pick up your stuff from your room. You need looking after."
"You're a very confusing person." she grumbled, sliding into the passenger seat of the truck.
"You think it's bad from out there, you should try being on the inside." he replied, with a rueful grin.
She let him go in and pick up her suitcase and check out, partly because she needed a moment alone to simply be miserable. The pain from prod the dentist had given her was still reverberating in her head - the tooth had definitely had gotten worse. She hugged her knees to her chest and sighed, listening to the silence in the town. Only one or two cars passed as she waited, and she didn't see a single pedestrian - and she thought Ojai was quiet. She was slightly embarrassed by the thought of Oscar up there packing up her suitcase - a rather intimate task - but on the other hand as she had just rooted through his entire house it only seemed fair.
They drove back to the cabin in silence, both still feeling raw and shocked by their argument. Oscar cooked her a large plate of scrambled eggs with tomatoes for dinner which he allowed to cool before he gave them to her, and they ate together on the screened in porch, listening to the lap of the waves on the pebble beach. As she gingerly picked at her dinner, she finally told him of how she had searched his house and found the clues he had planted. He informed her that he had not planted the Manoir LeCavelier brochure, seemed surprised that she had found it, and then reluctantly confessed he had gone there with a girlfriend some years earlier. Jaime beat back the inappropriate specter of jealousy, and asked him about his sanding project. He told her he had to rough up his hands so that it would not be so obvious he had spent the last twenty five years behind a desk. He gave her his hand in demonstration, and she held it for a moment, large, surprisingly warm and impressively callused. She told him he could be mistaken for someone who had always earned an honest living. Though the substance of their argument still burned in the back of Jaime's mind, the hurt dissipated quickly. She didn't have it in her to hold a grudge.
After dinner Jaime built a fire and retired to the daybed to wait for the pain of of eating to dissipate. Wiping his hands on a tea towel, Oscar gazed at her sympathetically.
"You must think I'm being a real wimp." she said.
"Not at all."
"Would you...would you read to me?" she asked tentatively, "It might help me take my mind off it."
"Sure." he said, apparently pleased to have something to do to help. "Let's see," He began to root through a pile of magazines. "Ive got Harper's, Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times from yesterday..."
"Nothing too weighty..."
"How about Unlocking the Secrets of the Two Stroke Engine? No? How about Moby Dick?"
"No Melville, I beg you."
"He's my favorite." he replied indignantly.
"He's hard work."
"The History of Copper Mining in Montana?"
"Definitely not." she giggled.
Looking over her head to the bookshelf, he smiled. "Ah - I have just the thing. Left by the owner for tenants' edification." He pulled down a slim volume - Reader's Digest, April 1963. He looked around the room for a moment, deciding where to sit. His attention returned to the daybed. "Scoot over." he commanded. Kicking his shoes off, he sat down right against her and stretched his legs out. As naturally as if it were routine, Jaime wrapped her arm around his waist and laid her head on his shoulder, grateful for the comfort of his warm body. They had spent so much time together - lots of it in transit - in planes and automobiles for hours at a time - and though she had never put her head on his shoulder before, it felt like a completely reasonable thing to do.
He commenced by reading Let's Dare to Be Square, followed by Listen, My Heart: The Romance of Mabel Hubbard and Alexander Graham Bell, then The Thing From Outer Space and Those Knucklehead Machines. The stories, were varyingly dramatic, spooky, funny, often heart wrenching, and frequently ending with words of comfort and wisdom. Corny, yet palatably so. If only life were like the Reader's Digest, Jaime thought to herself, and didn't have all these loose ends and insoluble problems...
As she reached for her precious pain killer, Oscar said, "Here's a good one for you. Are You a Hypochondriac? " She swallowed the pill, winced as the water passed over her tooth and slapped him placidly. He chuckled. Quite soon, the stories began to run together in her mind, and Jaime confused the The Strange Wedding of Widow Ward with That Empty Chair by the Featherbed. She fell asleep sometime during The Wonderful White Stallions of Vienna, images of Lipizzan horses melding into the comforting intonations of Oscar's voice.
She could have sworn she had only dropped off for a moment when his voice changed - it was anxious and agitated. When she opened her eyes it was as though they were still shut - the fire was out, the room was pitch black, and the air was chilly.
"I think it's a ...'K' an upper case 'K'" he mumbled. "I can't... I'm sorry...just let me think, give me a minute..." The words were stumbling out of him, and he was twitching.
"Hey..." she murmured gently, rubbing his chest. "Oscar, you're dreaming. It's okay. It's just a dream. It's okay."
She heard a sharp intake of breath, and then his body relaxed.
"Are you all right?" she asked. "Awake?"
"Yeah."
"What were you dreaming about?"
"Ah, the usual." he sighed disgustedly. She could hear the rasp of his hand on his beard as he rubbed his face. "I had forgotten the disarmament code for some weapon or other, and the whole damned continent was going to blow up and it was all my fault." He sighed again, exhaling the horror of the imaginary situation.
"You have that dream a lot?"
"Yeah." he said. There was a pause. "I suppose we ought to break this little party up. You can sleep in the bedroom and..."
"No." she interrupted. She resisted as she felt him shift, leaning toward the light to turn it on. "Let's just stay here, like this. Just a little while longer."
"Are you sure? You've got a big day under the dentist's drill tomorrow."
"Yes. I'm sure."
"Okay." he replied, in a don't-say-I-didn't-tell-you-so tone. "Hang on." He shifted out from her loose embrace and got to his feet. The chill raced in to where they had been pressed together, and she shivered. She could hear him fumbling blindly through the room, bumping into objects as he went. She curled up, hugging her knees to her chest for warmth. A moment later he returned with a big wool blanket which he arranged over them. He pulled Jaime close to him again and settled down with a sigh.
"You can't live here all year round, can you?" she asked.
"No. Lyle has a trailer on his property that he says I can move into in October."
"A trailer?" Jaime giggled. Imagining Oscar in a trailer was quite a stretch.
"How's the tooth?"
"Can't feel a thing. It's great."
There was a long silence. She might have thought he was asleep, but she could tell from his breath that he was still awake.
"You know," he said finally, "I made it sound like it was all your fault that I left, and that's not fair. It was a lot of things."
"I figured."
"I guess what is true is that having you around the OSI made it better for me - kept the disillusionment at bay."
"I had no idea you felt that way." Her heart panged with guilt. "Russ told me you lost a two agents." Somehow the darkness that enveloped made it safe to talk, to bring up things that she might otherwise have feared would make him angry.
"Yeah." he replied sadly. "Hugh Bennett and Dave Yamamura. That was a terrible loss. Dave and I had known each other for a long time, since the Navy. He was a very tough, honest, decent guy. When I went to the funeral his wife wouldn't speak to me - and I don't blame her." There was disgust in his voice. "He didn't want to go on that mission and of course I bullied him into it."
A suitable platitude was difficult to find. "It's the nature of the job." Jaime said weakly. "You were doing what you had to do."
"As always." Oscar replied bitterly. "It really got to me. I still feel sick about it. And Parr was all over me. He was already on high alert over your retirement attempt, having figured out that I must have tipped you off about their plans for you. He took that, and the deaths of Dave and Hugh, and a couple of other messes of mine to the Secretary, suggesting that my work wasn't up to scratch anymore."
"Oh Oscar!" Jaime said, "I had no idea."
"You weren't supposed to have any idea. In my mind, you were retired. Anyway, it blew over, but that really bent me out of shape. I was mad as hell - angry all the time, worse every day. I started to wonder if I was losing my sanity. I had the sudden overwhelming conviction that I had to get out - right away - but if I knew if I tried to retire the conventional manner, Parr would use it to support his case against me, and then I'd have to go through a bunch of psychological tests just so I could retire in semi-disgrace to that 'holiday compound' they were going to send you to."
"But I thought you said you would sue them from hell to breakfast?"
"I suppose that's my childish revenge fantasy. I don't quite know what they would do with me."
"So why here?"
"Well, this state is littered with single guys who live without the benefit of a social security number - I figured I wouldn't stand out at all. It's still pretty much the wild west, you know. And they tend to hate the federal government and ignore it as much as possible. That suited me too." He paused, and added cautiously, "So...what's your diagnosis, Doctor? Have I lost my mind?"
"I'm not sure. This afternoon I thought you had, but now I'm not sure."
"I behaved badly - I'm sorry. I was just a little ... shocked... to see you. I thought I had covered my tracks."
"Well, that's okay." she replied, a little amazed at how easily she could forgive him. "But I need to know - are you all right? Are you really all right?"
"I think so. I'm not sure yet."
"You can't honestly tell me you're going to spend the rest of your life in the backwoods of Montana fixing boats."
"Why not?"
"Speaking of people who are not likely to find happiness behind a white picket fence. I'm not sure you were destined for a quiet life."
"It suits me perfectly." he insisted.
"Then you ought to know how I feel!" she said defensively. "Picket fences are looking pretty good to me."
"Then I guess we've both found a new niche, haven't we?"
"No." Jaime answered forcefully. "You can't fix boats for the rest of your life, Oscar Goldman. It's a waste."
"The boat owners of Flathead lake might not say that."
"It's not going to be enough for you." she replied firmly. "You're used to moving mountains."
"I'm sick of moving mountains."
"I know - I understand - believe me - but hear me out. You are one of the most powerful men in the country, you know everybody in Washington, and you are also the most persuasive person I have ever met. Think what you could do - other than the OSI. All kinds of great things."
"Like what?"
"You could be a lobbyist. You could join a cause and harass politicians to do the right thing - wipe out poverty, or put more books in schools, or help people in the third world."
"I guess." he said uncertainly. "I guess I should ... but...I...I don't want to, Jaime." he blurted. "I can't."
"It's okay." she said soothingly, feeling the anxiety in his body. "I shouldn't press you like that."
"I can't be responsible anymore. I can't take it."
"Okay. That's okay." She instinctively put her hand over his heart, as though to settle it. "Just don't forget that you have a lot to give, and that you have a lot of friends who miss you."
"Well ... thanks. I guess I do feel badly about running out on everybody."
"Glad to hear it." she reproved gently.
"How come we seem to know so much about each other and so little about ourselves?" he asked with a small laugh.
"Ain't that the truth?"
"I never meant to burn myself out like that - but I couldn't say no. I couldn't ever leave the crisis of the day because I needed to take an evening off. Finally I didn't have any evenings off. In the last couple of months I was averaging about three hours of sleep a night."
"You know, I'm almost glad to hear that. At times I have wondered if you were a Dr. Franklin special, controlled from some remote location. The way you've worked yourself is inhuman. Nobody can do that forever. Not even you. At the very least I'm glad that you've realized that."
He ran a hand firmly up and down the length of her back, warming in her a glimmering of arousal. Almost as though he had read her mind, (or was it the change in her breath?) his hand stopped at her midback, and he patted her companionably. Always the gentleman, she thought, half in gratitude and half in frustration.
"So you've... had a good couple of months?" There was caution in his voice, perhaps the awareness that he had earlier cast aspersions on her new goals in life.
"Yes."
"Do you have plans? Anything I don't know about?"
"Not really." Jaime said. "I've been taking it day by day. No matter what you think, I'm loving the routine and the predictability. Did you really think of me as being retired?"
"Sure. I thought you could be active on paper and retired in reality. I can't guarantee that now, of course, but Russ pretty much saw eye to eye with me about you."
"What am I going to do without you?" Jaime asked, her eyes stinging.
"Now don't go getting all sentimental on me." he replied, forcing cheer into his voice.
"In my wildest dreams I never imagined that you wouldn't be there. I hate to admit it...but maybe I have been treating you like a parent... or taking you for granted. I assume I can do whatever I want, but that you'll always be there to pick me up afterward."
"Well, I took it for granted that you wouldn't mind going on every mission I dreamed up for you, so I guess we're even."
"Not quite even - I won't be able to call you. I can't even write you a letter if I want to."
He cleared his throat. "You'll be fine. You've been fine for the last two months."
"I was just taking a breather. That doesn't mean I never wanted to see you again!" The thought that she had been suppressing all along - that Oscar might disappear from her life for good, was now looming in front of her, and she was frightened by it - actually frightened, almost panicky.
"Take it easy, Babe, take it easy." There was a constriction in his voice that betrayed his own feelings, despite his words.
"You think nobody cares. And you're wrong. Dead wrong. You get the weirdest ideas in your head sometimes!"
"Sshhhh..." he said, collecting her into a close embrace.
She gripped him tighter and buried her face in his neck, a few tears squeezing from her eyes.
"Come on, Babe, Easy now." he whispered. "It's going to be okay. We're going to be okay. Everything changes all the time Babe, and we adjust - we don't have a choice."
Though what he said was true, she was not convinced, partly because his tone was so unconvincing. This was all so wrong. Life was supposed to be all sorted out, but she was here she was feeling bewildered and sad.