Chapter 106

“You should have been a cheerleader,” I said to Liz as everybody got settled in to the new work areas.

“Ha-ha,” she replied.

“That was a great speech,” I said.

“You helped me write it,” she pointed out.

“It wasn’t the words,” I countered. “It was the way it was delivered. You’re excited and it showed. It rubbed off on them. It helps that you believe everything you said.”

“I do,” Liz said, smiling at me. “And I am excited.”

“I could tell,” I answered as I looked down at her chest. Liz’s gaze followed mine then she rolled her eyes at me.

She wore a business suit with a knee-length skirt, a white blouse and a blazer. She looked every bit the young professional on the rise. Everybody in the room looked like a professional – even me.

I had struggled into a button-down shirt even though I continued to wear my jacket only over one arm. For some reason, I felt better in public with the sling hidden. I had left the tie at the hotel. I either had to tuck it into the sling or let it hang out away from my body. Both looked ridiculous.

We stood with Susan while everybody got situated. Rick came over trailed by two people – a large man and the woman that I noticed during the meeting.

“This is Adele and Liam,” he said. “These are the two I want working with Travis for now.”

Susan nodded but I gave her a confused look.

“I’m not actually doing anything,” I pointed out.

“We understand that’s par for the course,” Adele said, smiling at me. She was African-American with an accent that indicated she was from the Northeast – possibly Boston but maybe Vermont, New Hampshire or Maine.

“I meant that my section isn’t actually up and running yet,” I said.

“I know and I was just joking,” Adele said as she extended her left hand to shake mine.

“We’ve heard your name quite a bit in the professional sense not just the personal,” Liam said. He was obviously not American. His accent was either Australian or New Zealander, maybe South African.

“These two likely will come across to you when the time comes,” Rick said. “Adele has experience with promoting off-Broadway shows and Liam came to us from a music label that went out of business. But for now, I’m going to ask them to handle your public relations. It’s like we talked about when you were in the hospital. The requests haven’t slowed down any and they’ve picked up in the past couple of days since you’ve been more visible. Adele and Liam have been in town since things went down in Nashville and they’ve come up with some things I’d like you to think about.”

I glanced at Liz but she just offered a helpless look.

“OK,” I said. “Uh, can we borrow one of the conference rooms?”

Rick gestured for us to take any of the three large rooms that ran along the interior wall.

“I’m going to walk around and get to know everybody,” Liz told me. I thought she wanted me to be able to make my own decisions without feeling pressure.

We had just got into the room when the alarm on my phone went off.

“Shit,” I grumbled.

“No worries,” Liam said. “We can wait until your call is finished.”

“It’s not a call,” I said. “I have exercises I have to do five times a day and it’s time. They take me about 20 minutes but I have other things I have to do this afternoon so we need to do this now if we’re going to.”

“Can you do them while we talk?” Adele asked.

I considered the question. Neither of them took much concentration on my part.

“I need Liz to help me out of this contraption,” I admitted. I turned to go find her but she was already on her way in.

“It’s time for your exercises,” she informed me.

I only nodded.

“Can you help me out here?” I wondered. I had managed to slip my jacket off but the sling was impossible. There were just too many straps in places I couldn’t reach.

Liz had grown adept in removing it and getting me back into it. It took her less than a minute. She gave me a soft kiss on the cheek and then left the room – much to the amusement of the duo left behind.

I put my left hand on the edge of the table and started to dangle my right. The shirt was too tight to give me full rotation and I grumbled.

“Is it painful?” Adele asked. I looked up at her and shook my head.

“I just can’t do it in this shirt,” I said. “I have to be able to extend my arm fully and it just doesn’t work.”

“Take the shirt off,” Adele said as though it was the simplest thing in the world.

“I can’t,” I replied.

“We’re not going to claim workplace harassment,” Liam said with a chuckle.

“Uh,” I answered smoothly. “Well, I didn’t think about that. I have on an undershirt. I just can’t get the hang of unbuttoning sh- ... stuff ... with my left hand.”

Adele and Liam exchanged glances.

“Are you opposed to assistance?” Liam asked.

“I’d be pretty screwed if I were,” I mumbled.

“I only ask because I’ve got an auntie that lost a leg to diabetes,” Liam continued. “She insists that she can do everything herself. She’s fallen loads of times but she won’t let anyone aid her.”

“I’ve gotten over that for the most part,” I replied. “I like to do the things I can do by myself but I realize that other things are going to take practice.”

Liam nodded slightly – and then he helped me unbutton my shirt. I felt as though I was two years old again.

“Thanks,” I said with a red face.

“It’s really no bother,” he said as he unbuttoned my left cuff. I could do the right by myself and I think he recognized that fact. “We ... we all saw what you did.”

I had on one of my custom-made undershirts and I resumed leaning on the table. I expected the duo to begin their efforts to convince me to become more visible – purely on Liz’s behalf.

Instead the room was silent. I lifted my eyes off the floor to find them staring at my arm.

“Sorry,” Adele said instantly. “I ... I didn’t expect it would be so bad ... the scarring, I mean.”

“No, it’s OK,” I said. “I should have warned you. I’ve seen it enough over the past few days that I’ve gotten used to it. I have to do this crap five times every single day.”

“How soon until ... it’s back to normal?” Adele asked.

I sighed.

“Never,” I admitted.

“Never?” Liam repeated in the form of a question.

“I have a little feeling in my thumb and first finger,” I told them. “That’s all I’ve gotten back. The doctors first were waiting for the swelling to recede. I have a Cryo-pack in my sling that keeps the swelling down. It hasn’t helped. Then the doctors said that I’d get more feeling once I started PT. I’ve been doing this more than a week and nothing. Now they tell me that it might be because of scar tissue here.”

I pointed to my elbow where the incision had either started or ended. I wasn’t clear exactly which direction the cut had been made.

“The injury is permanent?” Adele asked.

“Possibly,” I said. “I still have hope, I suppose, but I think it’s becoming more likely every day.”

“Bloody hell,” Liam muttered. “I ... we had no idea.”

“We’ve kept it quiet for now,” I said. “But I don’t want to start keeping secrets from you guys. You need to have all the information before you can do anything with it.”

“Novel concept,” Adele said, laughing slightly.

“Believe me, it was a hard-learned truth,” I said. “So, what do you have in mind?”

“Do you need to concentrate on what you’re doing?” Adele asked.

“I’m just rotating my arm in a circle,” I said. “It’s not like I’m patting my stomach and rubbing my head.”

“OK, then,” Liam stated. “Mr. Weller – Rick – has told us that he’s made you aware of your media situation. Is that so?”

“To be fair, I was on about seven different painkillers when Rick passed that along to me,” I said, smiling at the pair that was trying their best not to stare at the spectacle in front of them.

“Right,” Adele said, nodding. “Given your background, though, I’m sure that you can understand the media’s fascination with you. You had already become a household name in most places before the incident last month. Rick wasn’t kidding when he said we’d been contacted by almost every major news outlet in the free world – and most of the minor news outlets, as well. At last count, I’d contacted more than a thousand TV stations, radio corporations, newspapers, magazines or web sites on your behalf. I moved here last month – as did Liam. Since we were in town, Rick worked it out to where our employment started early. We’ve been working out of our kitchens. We’re fortunate that we live within a few hundred feet of each other so it worked out OK.”

“Can I assume you told them that I was recuperating and wouldn’t have a statement?” I asked while I took a break.

“We gave them the standard spiel,” Adele replied. “While you were still sedated, we cleared up some rumors that arose.”

“But we didn’t say anything in your voice,” Liam noted. “Rick was handling the communications for Miss Larimer so he dealt with any formal statements. We simply made certain that somebody set the record straight for those that insisted upon making up the facts to fit their theories.”

“OK,” I said as I began my next set of rotations. “That works for me.”

“Things died down slightly after you made your statement at the hospital,” Adele said. “We still got calls from a lot of places but they were down to once a week from each of them.”

“It picked back up Saturday,” Liam added. “Your appearance in public stirred up the interest again. Then the New York papers picked up the story about Miss Larimer’s apartment and the shift of operations to out here. I think you know how that played in the tabloids.”

“Yeah,” I said with a frown. “I used one of my contacts to get that cleared up – not that it mattered. I would have gone through you guys ... but I didn’t know you existed.”

“Understood,” Adele said, smiling at me. She had delicate features that seemed to cry out for smiles. Her entire face radiated when she was jovial. “We understand that you’re used to handling things like this on your own. But...”

Her face took on a pained expression.

“We were told flat-out not to bother you with this,” Liam finished for her. “We were informed that the order came from the highest source. I wasn’t sure if Rick meant God or Liz Larimer – then I figured that they were pretty close to being one and the same.”

“She likes to think so sometimes,” I said. “It’s fine. I really had nothing to contribute. I still don’t.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Adele replied.

I lifted an eyebrow at her. I was hoping for another smile but instead got a look of fright.

“I’m playing,” I said quickly. “You’re free to tell me when I’m wrong. God knows nobody else walks on eggshells around me. Go on, please.”

“I was a bit worried I was about to find myself on the unemployment line,” Adele replied. “I’ve read enough and heard enough to know that you have a sense of humor and that you’re not going to be hard to work for ... but I thought I might have overstepped.”

“Nah,” I said as I sat down and cradled my arm again. I looked around for a surface that was conducive to the next exercise and found nothing. The supine forward flexion was going to have to wait until later that evening.