Free The Owl & Moon Cafe: A Novel (No Series) by Jo-Ann Mapson Page A

she sniffled. “You probably don’t remember Lieutenant Uhuru.”
    “The hell I don’t. She peed on my hiking boots, and bit my ankles whenever we had sex. I have scars.”
    She wiped at her tears and blew her nose. “I can’t cry like I used to. It’s exhausting.” She swiped at her cheeks. “And Uhuru just wanted to protect me.” Allegra remembered how badly she wanted to hear Doc say the same thing. “Uhuru lived nineteen years. Now she’s—” She looked up at him and her eyes welled with fresh tears. “At the Rainbow Bridge, waiting for me to join her. If you won’t release me this minute, I’ll go AMA.”
    “You’ll what?”
    “Leave. You know, like they say on television, against medical advice.”
    Alvin shook his head and smiled. “Same old Allegra.” He kissed her cheek, her forehead, and then, like in the old days, he saved the best kiss for last, delicate and noiseless and right on the tip of her nose. Doc’s kisses used to be about life, but now, not only was she terminally ill, and that part of her life over, she probably grossed him out, which made needing Khan all the more pressing. She cried harder.
    “Allegra,” he said, “I won’t insult you by telling you not to worry. But try not to let it consume you. I’ve had lots of patients sicker than you do just fine.”
    She breathed into his neck, and for a moment, lost herself in his scent. Too soon it was gone, and reality slapped her back to where she was and why. “Doc,” she said, “would you ask my daughter to come in now?”
    Our daughter, she didn’t say, but that was the truth. He just didn’t know it yet.

4
Mariah
    M ARIAH SET DOWN THE People she’d been reading and looked at the wall aquarium in the waiting room. It was filled with tiny, glittering fish. Lindsay would know their Latin names, but Mariah didn’t. She sighed. Nothing with her mother could ever be simple. Allegra might telephone and say, “Why don’t we go out to Point Lobos and watch the pelicans?” and Mariah would fill a bag with stale bread, get in Allegra’s van, and boom, she’d find herself in a picket line for underpaid supermarket cashiers. Her mother loved to tell people that she had a “rap sheet.” She was so pretty that several of the cops who arrested her ended up dating her, if you could call drinking and dancing and doing the horizontal mambo dating.
    When the nurse called her name, Mariah looked up. “Yes?”
    “Your mother’s asking for you. Follow me, please.”
    They walked down a hall lined with colorful prints of the Carmel area. They passed a scale, a counter with various medical-looking items on it, cupboards above, and made a left to the exam room where Allegra sat crying and a bear of a man stood with his hand on her shoulder, rubbing.
    “Mariah?” he said. “I’m Al Goodnough. Your mother and I were friends a long time ago. I’m sorry to meet you under unpleasant circumstances.”
    In Allegra’s shadow, all other women were plain. Everyone loved her. Everyone.
    “Your mother has leukemia.”
    No, she didn’t. Allegra was spontaneous. Passionate. Invincible. Healthy.
    “Your mother and I were friends years ago,” the doctor was saying. “While I wish the occasion were happier, I’m delighted to meet you nonetheless. We need to arrange for some tests and then your mother’s chemotherapy schedule…”
    Mariah had stopped listening and gone into college professor mode. Sociologically speaking, the best medical treatment was reserved for the wealthy. This balding, sandy-haired middle-aged man wore buttery soft Italian loafers. The gold pen sticking out of his coat pocket was a Mont Blanc. The watch on his furry wrist probably cost more than a down payment on a condo. She went to her mother’s side and he moved away.
    “The chemo clinic is at the hospital,” he continued. “She’ll need to be driven both ways. We’ll begin with a five-week course, two days per week, and see how she tolerates it. Some