Chapter 17

“Hello?” I answered the phone.

“Hello, is this Matthew Russell?” asked the man on the other end of the phone.

“Yes it is,” I said. “How may I help you?”

“Hi, Matthew. I’m Dr. Sam Rivers. I got an email about your case from Scarlett Johansson last week, asking me to look at some photos you sent her. Do you have a minute to talk about your options?”

“Sure,” I said, surprised. “I’ve talked with the surgeon that did the emergency work and she’s made some recommendations, but she admits that cosmetic surgery is outside her specialty.”

“Understandable,” Dr. Rivers said. “Her initial concern was to get you open and fix the damage. I understand you’re healing well?”

“All except my arm. There was a lot of damage there,” I admitted. “The rehab is coming along, but it’s not where I want it to be.”

“Good ... Well, bad about the arm, but you’ll get there,” he assured me. “I don’t have access to your medical records, but from the photos Scarlett sent me, your surgeon didn’t leave you with messy scars to begin with. That’s a good foundation for you and me to look at treatment options. I think you’re a good candidate for scar reduction surgery and I’d recommend it. If you were out here, I’d do it myself.”

“What’s the recovery like on it?” I asked. “If it’s a relatively simple surgery, I can fly out there to do it and not miss a lot of time.”

“Hmm...” he said, considering it. “Yeah, I think we can fit you in for January 29th. I have an opening that afternoon. We’ll have to send you some forms by email and you need to have a parent sign the consent and return them to us by courier. You’d be ready to go home by Monday morning if all goes well.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” I said. “I can pass you off to my mother right now if you want to discuss the matter with her directly.”

“Sure,” he said, pleasantly surprised.

“Mom,” I said. “It’s Dr. Sam Rivers. He’s a cosmetic surgeon. He’s calling to talk about surgery to reduce the scarring.” I passed her the phone and she talked to him for a few minutes, asking questions like how soon before the appointment would we need to be there and how long the stay would be. She gave him her email address and asked a few more questions before they said goodbye.

She passed the phone back and nodded. “We’ll have to book flight and hotel for the trip,” she told me.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” I said, “but I think this is one that I should take Dad on. With you just getting back to work, they’ll probably be a little irritable about taking more time off. Let him chaperon this time.”

She looked at me knowingly. “Planning on going a little crazy when you’re in LA?” she asked.

“I’ll be recovering from surgery,” I shrugged. “I was more thinking that you’re needed here. Cheryl and Lilly will be here. There’s probably a good chance Emma will want to come with and Dad’s taken less time off for family matters lately.”

“The rest of us don’t get to go?” Tabby teased me lightly. I knew she wasn’t serious, but I figured it still deserved an answer.

“It’s not like it’s gonna be a fun trip,” I pointed out. “We’ll be going either Thursday night or Friday morning and I’ll be going to the hospital or wherever their clinic is. I’ll likely be in the hospital until Monday and then catch a flight home late Monday or early Tuesday.”

“I’m just teasing you,” she assured me and I smiled back.

“I know,” I told her.

After that, the mood around the table was a little lighter. I brought Dawn in and she scampered off downstairs to chew on her favorite toy. I sent a text to Emma and asked her to jump on Skype as I followed Dawn downstairs.

I popped on and she was waiting for me. “Hello, Bride-to-be,” I said brightly.

“Hi, Husband-in-Training,” she responded. “What’s on your mind?”

I told her about Scarlett’s offer to help find a cosmetic surgeon and the call this evening from the doctor out there. “So he wants me to come out to get the surgery done on January 29th.”

“Really?” she sounded surprised. “So how did you and ‘Scarlett’ end up talking about the scars?” she asked, using air quotes.

I shrugged. “I talked to her a couple of days before Christmas and she asked about my recovery. She asked how it felt and what they looked like so I jumped on Skype with her and she offered to send out a pic to some surgeons who specialize in that sort of thing. For some reason, the best cosmetic surgeons in the country work in California.”

“So you’re now doing topless Skype sessions with Scarlett Johansson?” she arched an eyebrow. “You’re lucky I love you or I might start getting jealous.”

I chuckled and grinned at her. “You have nothing to be jealous about,” I assured her. “What I mostly wanted to talk to you about was whether this doctor has a good reputation out there and whether you’ll be coming with me on the trip.”

“I’ll ask Mom and get back to you,” she said, turning serious with me, “and of course, I’m going with you. You’d be totally lost without me in LA.” She bit her lip and looked genuinely upset about something.

“What’s up?” I asked, concerned. “All of a sudden, you look like you’re worried about something. What is it?”

“I should have thought to do that,” she admitted. “I knew how much the scars bothered you. I should have asked Mom weeks ago about who’s the best out here.”

I shrugged. “You were more worried about me being okay. Pretty was a secondary concern in your head,” I reminded her gently.

“Yeah. It really doesn’t matter to me how you look,” she said. “I look into your eyes and I think you’re the most beautiful man in the world.”

I blushed and couldn’t contain the grin on my face. “You’re gonna have to come home early if you keep talking like that,” I told her. “I don’t think I can handle another week without you.”

“You’ll do just fine,” she said, but she was grinning too. “How’s things going back there?”

“Good, but I do have one small thing I need to talk to you about.”

“Oh? Sounds ominous.”

“Not really,” I assured her. “Have you told your parents about the Sorority at all?”

“Of course. It’s Hollywood. Things like that are relatively common. It’s just kept WAY off the public radar. Why?”

“Well, I had a thought about this summer that we might want to see if we can rent something for the summer so we can all go out. I doubt your family wants to have all of us wandering around their house, getting in the way.”

She thought about it and shook her head. “I don’t think it’s gonna be a problem,” she told me. “Barry’s not planning to be here. He’s moving down to Santa Monica with his girlfriend, so his room’s up for grabs. Mom’s going to be gone most of the summer. She leaves for a movie shoot on the 10th of July and she doesn’t get back until late August. Daddy and Danielle are gonna be the only people here. I’ll talk to them and see how they feel about it. You talk to the girls and see how many of them want to go and we’ll work it out.”

“You’re sure there’s room?” I asked. “I’d rather we looked at a rental if we were gonna get in the way there.”

She laughed. “How many bedrooms do you think we need?” she asked. “The Sorority only needs one: my room. Tabby, Collie, Hanna and Cheryl come free of additional relatives. Patty and Dan might want to come or might not. Your mom and Lilly. Maybe Tricia’s dad and Gina’s parents and brother. There’s twelve bedrooms here. Mom and Daddy have the Master, I have one that we’ll share, Danny has hers, and Barry’s moving out. That leaves a lot of space.”

“That seems like kind of a shitty thing to do,” I said uncomfortably. “They invite me and I show up with an entourage of nearly twenty? Dick move. I’d feel more comfortable if we were gonna rent something so we wouldn’t be underfoot.”

“Don’t be silly. I’ll talk to them about your doctor and the plans for summer and see what they have to say. I’ll call you in a little while.”

“Alright, but I’m not bringing it up to anyone until I hear back from you.”

“Fair enough,” she said. “Love you. Bye!”

She logged out and I was left to consider how many people might be interested in going. I took out the small weight and worked out my shoulder. It didn’t feel any different than it had the night before. I was kind of exhausted by it before the end. I put it away and my phone rang as I was getting ready to go upstairs.

“Okay,” Emma said from the other end. “They assumed you were coming with the girls and at least your Mom and Lilly if they were interested. We have the space and no one’s gonna wreck the place. They even know about the baby. You’re good to start offering people the summer in Malibu.”

“Alright. If they’re sure we’re not gonna be a pain in the ass,” I surrendered. “I’ll be glad to spend the summer learning to surf from you and learning from your dad the rest of the time.”

“Oh, I’m not done with the good news,” she said with a grin. “Mom said Dr. Rivers is one of the best out here. He’s worked on a lot of high-profile people that have been in accidents or need work done for other reasons. He comes highly recommended. She’s gonna put in a good word for you with him. I have one other thing to tell you though. Daddy’s going to be working on something pretty big, so he’ll want to put both of us to work for part of the summer. He’ll need the extra help. I told him that you’ve never touched any of the tools or techniques. He’s concerned about that, but I told him you’d catch on right away and he’d be able to teach you to avoid all the bad habits he hates in other people.”

“That sounds awesome. So he wants me to stay away from Mark and Char?” I smirked.

“No, I told him about your secret project. I think he’s curious what you’re planning.”

“Well, if he calls me when you’re not around, I’ll tell him about it,” I promised.

“I’ll give him the phone right now so you can talk about it. He’s promised not to spoil the surprise.”

I laughed. “Alright then,” I said. “Go get him and I’ll talk to him.”

I could hear her walking through the house for a few minutes and then she handed the phone off to her father. “He says he’ll tell you what it is if you promise not to let me in on it,” she giggled as she handed over the phone.

“Hi Matt,” he said lightly. “Merry Christmas. We were thrilled with the sketch you did of Emma. Thanks for that.”

“Merry Christmas,” I said happily, “and you’re very welcome. I’m glad you liked it.”

“So you’ve got some super-secret costume, I hear. Mark told me you want him to locate some more of the same aluminum the shield it made from. Dare I even ask?”

“Iron Man,” I said. “But I don’t just want the plating. I want to build it with tech. On-board computer, servo-controlled plates, LEDs, sound effects, loud speaker, full helmet, the works.

“How would you SEE in it?” he asked. “There’s parts of it that are added in post production.”

“I have a couple of sets of Google Glass smart glasses. They use a prism to beam a computer screen in HD into your eye. If we place the cameras properly and sync the feeds, I should be able to get 3D vision without having to open the helmet. I’d still be able to have the LED eyes since the camera lenses are tiny on them. I just have to play around with the prism geometry a little bit and I have someone that can help me with that. It pays to have friends at Harvard.”

“I’m familiar with the Google Glass,” he said. “A lot of the agents out here have them. They give you a hell of a headache after a while.”

“Yeah, I read that. I figured that if I open the face-plate on the helmet for a little while, I should be fine. I can’t take a drink through it after all.”

“True,” he said. “It’s ambitious. You aren’t planning on wearing it into a fight, are you?”

I laughed. “No, but I wasn’t planning on using the shield in a fight either. That’s why I wanted the same armor plating if he can get it.”

“I’ll let you talk to Mark and Char about it and then I’ll consult with them. I know a guy that can help with the plate geometry. He worked on the film. You haven’t figured out how to make it FLY yet, have you?” He laughed.

“Maybe not this year,” I admitted. “But someday...”

“You should look up flyboards,” he said slyly. “They’re not what you want, but they’d be a great inspiration.”

“Really?” I asked, plopping into my office chair and typing the word into Google. I scanned the results and laughed. “Yeah, I can see that. Maybe we can try them out this summer.”

“Speaking of which, Em said you were worried about overloading us,” he said. “Don’t be. We have the room, we have a housekeeper and the house is mostly empty in the summer anyway, this summer more than most. Emma’s been telling us about this Sorority. We were a little concerned at first, but she told us it was her idea. We’re looking forward to meeting all the people important to her, even the one that hasn’t been born yet.”

“Thanks,” I said, meaning it. “I appreciate the welcome. I’ll talk to everyone and we’ll let you know how many people are eager to make the trip.”

“Good,” he said. “You’re going to be our son-in-law someday. We want to get to know your family too.”

We chatted for a little while about the costume after that and projects he had going on and then he took the phone back to Emma. “He’s the son I never had,” he told her as he handed the phone back.

There was a loud protest of “HEY! I’m right HERE!” in the background and a lot of laughter.

“Barry never had much interest in what Daddy does. He’s Mommy’s little man,” she confided in me. “He likes to act. He’s actually not terrible at it, but he’s still working in the trenches. He actually does more modeling than acting right now. Daddy really likes you though.” She lowered her voice. “Barry might too,” she giggled. “He’s been known to swing once in a while.”

“I heard that!” her brother protested in the background.

“I’m just putting in a good word for you,” she teased him. “But I don’t think he’s gonna be available. When the girls around here get a sniff of him, I’m gonna need reinforcements to keep them off him.”

“He’s not THAT good looking,” her brother sulked.

“You haven’t seen him with that shield,” she told him. “Shush or I’ll tell him you’re mean to me.”

“Are you kidding?” he blurted. “I decided to move out when you said you were coming back for the summer.”

I grinned. I could tell they teased each other like this a lot. “Leave your poor brother alone,” I told her. “You’ve already chased him off and you know I don’t go for guys.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t tell HIM that,” she giggled. “By the way, we’re staying here when you come out for the surgery. How many rooms are we gonna need?”

“It’ll just be you, me and Dad, I think. I don’t want Mom to take off any more time from work if we can help it,” I told her.

“That’s perfect,” she said. “Your appointment is on a Friday, so we should fly out Thursday and shake off the jet lag before your appointment. Mom said his clinic is in Beverly Hills, so it’s an easy commute from here. They might transport you to hospital for the first night, but after that you should be good to come home here for the rest of the weekend so long as you take it easy.”

“That’s good,” I said. “I’m a little nervous about it, but I guess that’s normal.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said soothingly. “Honestly, the only reason it matters to me is that it matters to you,” she told me.

“I know,” I told her lightly. “I still want to minimize the impact Vance gets to have on my life.”

We chatted a little more and then she said goodnight so I could go make some arrangements.

I called Dad and talked to him about it and we agreed that we’d fly out on Thursday and back on Tuesday. I told him I’d book the tickets since I wanted to fly first class on this flight.