The Wolf Of Wall Street Part 26

I could hear him sigh over the phone. "Listen, Jordan, you know what I deal with each day with spinal paralysis, so I've been forced to become an expert on giving bad news to people. But this is complete horses.h.i.+t! Your son has a cold."

I was taken aback. I had never heard Barth Green utter so much as a single curse. Could he possibly be right? Was it plausible that from his living room in Florida he could make a more accurate diagnosis than a team of doctors who were standing at my son's bedside using the world's most advanced medical equipment?

Just then Barth said in a sharp tone: "Put Nadine on the phone!"

I walked over and handed the phone to the d.u.c.h.ess. "Here, it's Barth. He wants to speak to you. He's says Carter's fine and all the doctors are crazy."

She took the phone, and I walked over to the crib and stared down at Carter. They'd finally been able to get an IV going in his right arm, and he had calmed down somewhat-only whimpering now and s.h.i.+fting uncomfortably in his crib. He really was handsome, I thought, and those eyelashes...Even now they stood out regally.

A minute later the d.u.c.h.ess walked over to the crib and leaned over and put the back of her hand to Carter's forehead. Sounding very confused, she said, "He seems cool now. But how could all the doctors be wrong? And how could the spinal tap be wrong?"

I put my arm around the d.u.c.h.ess and held her close to me. "Why don't we take turns sleeping here? This way one of us will always be with Channy."

"No," she replied, "I'm not leaving this hospital without my son. I don't care if I have to stay here a month. I'm not leaving him, not ever."

And for three straight days my wife slept by Carter's bedside, never leaving the room once. On that third afternoon, as we sat in the backseat of the limousine on our way back to Old Brookville, with Carter James Belfort between us and the words It was a contaminant in the sample It was a contaminant in the sample ringing pleasantly in both our ears, I found myself in awe of Dr. Barth Green. ringing pleasantly in both our ears, I found myself in awe of Dr. Barth Green.

First I'd seen him shake Elliot Lavigne out of a coma; now, eighteen months later, he'd done this. It made me feel much more comfortable that he'd be the one standing over me next week with a scalpel in his hand-cutting into my very spine. Then I would have my life back.

And then I could finally get off drugs.

CHAPTER 33

REPRIEVES

(Three Weeks Later)

Just when I actually woke from my back surgery I'm still not sure. It was on October 15, 1995, sometime in the early afternoon. I remember opening my eyes and muttering something like "Uhhhh, f.u.c.k! I feel like s.h.i.+t!" Then all of a sudden I started vomiting profusely, and each time I vomited I felt this terrible shooting pain ricocheting through every neural fiber of my body. I was in the recovery room in the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan, and I was hooked up to a drip that released t.i.trated doses of pure morphine into my bloodstream each time I pushed a b.u.t.ton. I remember feeling deeply saddened that I had to go through a seven-hour operation to get this sort of cheap high without breaking the law.

The d.u.c.h.ess was hovering over me, and she said, "You did great, honey! Barth said everything's gonna be fine!" I nodded and drifted off into a sublime state of morphine-induced narcosis.

Then I was home. It was perhaps a week later, although the days seemed to be melting into one another. Alan Chemical-tob was helpful-dropping off five hundred Quaaludes my first day home from the hospital. They were all gone by Thanksgiving. It was a feat of great manhood, and I was rather proud of it-to average eighteen Ludes a day, when a single Lude could knock out a two-hundred-pound Navy SEAL for up to eight hours.

The Cobbler came to visit and told me that he'd worked things out with the Drizzler, who had agreed to leave quietly with only a small fraction of his stock options. Then the Drizzler came over and told me that one day he would find the Cobbler in a dark alley and strangle him with his own ponytail. Danny visited, too, and told me that he was just about to cut a deal with the states, so there were definitely Twenty Years of Blue Skies ahead. Then Wigwam came over and told me that Danny had lost touch with reality-that there was no deal with the states-and that, he, Wigwam, was out hunting for a new brokerage firm, where he could set up shop just as soon as Stratton imploded.

As Stratton continued its downward spiral, Biltmore and Monroe Parker continued to thrive. By Christmas, they had completely cut ties with Stratton, although they continued to pay me a royalty of $1 million on each new issue. Meanwhile, the Chef stopped by every few weeks-giving me regular updates on the Patricia Mellor debacle, which was still in the process of winding down. Patricia's heirs, Tiffany and Julie, were now dealing with the Inland Revenue Service, Britain's equivalent of the IRS. There were some faint rumblings that the FBI was looking into the matter, but no subpoenas had been issued. The Chef a.s.sured me that everything would end up okay. He had been in touch with the Master Forger, who had been questioned by both the Swiss and United States governments, and he'd stuck to our cover story like glue. In consequence, Agent Coleman had hit a dead end.

And then there was the family: Carter had finally shaken off his rocky start and was thriving beautifully. He was absolutely gorgeous, with a terrific head of blond peach fuzz, perfectly even features, big blue eyes, and the longest eyelashes this side of anywhere. Chandler, the baby genius, was two and a half now, and she had fallen deeply in love with her brother. She liked to pretend she was the mommy-feeding him his bottle and supervising Gwynne and Erica as they changed his diaper. Chandler had been my best company, as I shuttled myself between the royal bedchamber and the bas.e.m.e.nt's wraparound couch, doing nothing but watching television and consuming ma.s.sive quant.i.ties of Quaaludes. In consequence, Chandler had become a Jedi Master at understanding slurred speech, which would stand her in good stead, I figured, if she happened to end up working with stroke victims. Either way, she spent the greater part of her day asking me when I would be well enough to start carrying her around again. I told her it would be soon, although I strongly doubted that I would ever make a full recovery.

The d.u.c.h.ess had been wonderful too-in the beginning. But as Thanksgiving turned into Christmas and Christmas turned into New Year's, she began to lose patience. I was wearing a full body cast and it was driving me up the wall, so I figured as her husband it was my obligation to drive her up the wall too. But the body cast was the least of my problems-the real nightmare was the pain, which was worse than before. In fact, not only was I still plagued with the original pain, there was a new pain now, which ran deeper, into the very marrow of my spine. Any sudden movement sent waves of fire was.h.i.+ng through my very spinal ca.n.a.l. Dr. Green had told me that the pain would subside, but it seemed to be growing worse.

By early January I had sunk to new levels of hopelessness-and the d.u.c.h.ess put her foot down. She told me that I had to slow down with the drugs and at least try to resume some semblance of being a functioning human being. I responded with a complaint about how the New York winter was wreaking havoc on my thirty-three-year-old body. My bones, after all, had become very creaky in my old age. She recommended we spend the winter in Florida, but I told her Florida was for old people, and in spite of feeling old, I was still young at heart.

So the d.u.c.h.ess took matters into her own hands, and next thing I knew I was living in Beverly Hills, atop a great mountain that overlooked the city of Los Angeles. Of course, the menagerie had to come, too, to continue Lifestyles of the Rich and Dysfunctional Lifestyles of the Rich and Dysfunctional-and for the bargain price of $25,000 a month I rented the mansion of Peter Morton, of Hard Rock Cafe fame, and settled in for the winter. The aspiring everything quickly reached into her bag of former aspirations, pulling out the one marked aspiring interior decorator, aspiring interior decorator, and by the time we moved in there was $1 million worth of brand-new furniture in the house, all arranged just so. The only problem was that the house was so enormous, perhaps 30,000 square feet, that I was considering buying one of those motorized scooters to get from one side of the house to the other. and by the time we moved in there was $1 million worth of brand-new furniture in the house, all arranged just so. The only problem was that the house was so enormous, perhaps 30,000 square feet, that I was considering buying one of those motorized scooters to get from one side of the house to the other.

On a separate note, I quickly realized that Los Angeles was merely a pseudonym for Hollywood, so I took a few million dollars and started making movies. It took about three weeks to realize that everyone in Hollywood (including me) was slightly batty, and one of their favorite things to do was: lunch. My partners in the movie business were a small family of bigoted South African Jews, who had been former investment-banking clients of Stratton. They were an interesting lot, with bodies like penguins and noses like needles.

In the third week of May my body cast came off. Fabulous! I thought. My pain was still excruciating, but it was time to start physical therapy. Maybe that that would help. But during my second week of therapy I felt something pop, and a week later I was back in New York, walking with a cane. I spent a week in different hospitals, taking tests, and every last one of them came back negative. According to Barth I was suffering from a dysfunction of my body's pain-management system; there was nothing mechanically wrong with my back, nothing that could be operated on. would help. But during my second week of therapy I felt something pop, and a week later I was back in New York, walking with a cane. I spent a week in different hospitals, taking tests, and every last one of them came back negative. According to Barth I was suffering from a dysfunction of my body's pain-management system; there was nothing mechanically wrong with my back, nothing that could be operated on.

Fair enough, I thought. No choice but to crawl up to the royal bedchamber and die. A Lude overdose would be the best way to go, I figured, or at least the most appropriate since they had always been my drug of choice. But there were other options too. My daily drug regimen included 90 milligrams of morphine, for pain; 40 milligrams of oxycodone, for good measure; a dozen Soma, to relax my muscles; 8 milligrams of Xanax, for anxiety; 20 milligrams of Klonopin, because it sounded strong; 30 milligrams of Ambien, for insomnia; twenty Quaaludes, because I liked Quaaludes; a gram or two of c.o.ke, for balancing purposes; 20 milligrams of Prozac, to ward off depression; 10 milligrams of Paxil, to ward off panic attacks; 8 milligrams of Zofran, for nausea; 200 milligrams of Fiorinal, for migraines; 80 milligrams of Valium, to relax my nerves; two heaping tablespoons of Senokot, to reduce constipation; 20 milligrams of Salagen, for dry mouth; and a pint of Macallan single-malt scotch, to wash it all down.

A month later, on the morning of June 20, I was lying in the royal bedchamber, in a semivegetative state, when Janet's voice came over the intercom. "Barth Green is on line one," said the voice.

"Take a message," I muttered. "I'm in a meeting."

"Very funny," said the obnoxious voice. "He said he needs to speak to you now. Either you pick up the phone or I'm coming in there and picking it up for you. And put down the c.o.ke vial."

I was taken aback. How had she known that? I looked around the room for a pinhole camera, but I didn't see one. Were the d.u.c.h.ess and Janet surveilling me? Of all the intrusions! I let out a weary sigh and put down my c.o.ke vial and picked up the phone. "Hewoah," I muttered, sounding like Elmer Fudd after a tough night out on the town.

A sympathetic tone: "Hi, Jordan, it's Barth Green. How ya holding up?"

"Never better," I croaked. "How about you?"

"Oh, I'm fine," said the good doctor. "Listen, we haven't spoken in a few weeks, but I've been speaking to Nadine every day and she's very worried about you. She says you haven't left the room in a week."

"No, no," I said. "I'm fine, Barth. I'm just catching my second wind."

After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, Barth said, "How are are you, Jordan? How are you you, Jordan? How are you really really?"

I let out another great sigh. "The truth is, Barth, that I give up. I'm f.u.c.king done. I can't take the pain anymore; this is no way to live. I know it's not your fault, so don't think I hold it against you or anything. I know you tried your best. I guess it's just the hand I was dealt, or maybe it's payback. Either way, it doesn't matter."

Barth came right back with: "Maybe you're willing to give up, but I'm not. I won't give up until you're healed. And you will will be healed. Now, I want you to get your a.s.s out of bed right now, and go into your children's rooms and take a good hard look at them. Maybe you're not willing to fight for yourself anymore, but how about fighting for them? In case you haven't noticed, your children are growing up without a father. When's the last time you played with them?" be healed. Now, I want you to get your a.s.s out of bed right now, and go into your children's rooms and take a good hard look at them. Maybe you're not willing to fight for yourself anymore, but how about fighting for them? In case you haven't noticed, your children are growing up without a father. When's the last time you played with them?"

I tried fighting back the tears, but it was impossible. "I can't take it anymore," I said, snuffling. "The pain is overwhelming. It cuts into my bones. It's impossible to live this way. I miss Chandler so much, and I hardly even know Carter. But I'm in constant pain. The only time it doesn't hurt is the first two minutes I wake up. Then the pain comes roaring back, and it consumes me. I've tried everything, and there's nothing I can do to stop it."

"There's a reason I called this morning," said Barth. "There's a new medication I want you to try. It's not a narcotic, and it has no side effects to speak of. Some people are having amazing results with it-people like you, with nerve damage." He paused, and I could hear him take a deep breath. "Listen to me, Jordan: There's nothing structurally wrong with your back. Your fusion is fine. The problem is you have a damaged nerve, and it's misfiring-or firing for no reason at all, to be more accurate. You see, in a healthy person, pain serves as a warning signal, to let the body know there's something wrong. But sometimes the system gets short-circuited, usually after a severe trauma. And then even after the injury is healed, the nerves keep firing. I suspect that's what's happening with you."

"What kind of medication is this one?" I asked skeptically.

"It's an epilepsy drug, to treat seizures, but it works for chronic pain too. I'll be honest with you, Jordan: It's still somewhat of a long-shot. It's not approved by the FDA for pain management, and all the evidence is anecdotal. You'll be one of the first people in New York taking it for pain. I already called it in to your pharmacy. You should have it in an hour."

"What's it called?"

"Lamictal," he replied. "And like I said, it has no side effects, so you won't even know you're on it. I want you to take two pills before you go to sleep tonight, and then we'll see what we see."

The following morning I woke up a little after 8:30 a.m., and, as usual, I was alone in bed. The d.u.c.h.ess was already at the stables, probably sneezing like a wild banshee. By noon, she would be back home, still sneezing. Then she would go downstairs to her maternity showroom and design some more clothes. One day, I figured, she might even try to sell them.

So here I was, staring up at the fabulously expensive white silk canopy, waiting for my pain to start. It'd been six years now of intractable agony at the very paws of that mangy mutt Rocky. But it wasn't shooting down my left leg, and there was no burning sensation in the lower half of my body. I swung my feet off the side of the bed and stood up straight, stretching my arms to the sky. I still felt nothing. I did a few side bends-still nothing. It wasn't that I felt less pain; I felt no pain whatsoever. It was as if someone had flipped off a switch and literally shut my pain off. It was gone. nothing. It wasn't that I felt less pain; I felt no pain whatsoever. It was as if someone had flipped off a switch and literally shut my pain off. It was gone.

So I just stood there in my boxer shorts for what seemed like a very long time. Then I closed my eyes and bit down on my lower lip and started to cry. I went over to the side of the bed, rested my forehead on the edge of the mattress, and continued to cry. I had given up six years of my life to this pain, the last three of which had been so severe that it'd literally sucked the life out of me. I had become a drug addict. I had become depressed. And I had done things while I was high that were unconscionable. Without the drugs I would have never let Stratton get so out of control.

How much had my drug addiction fueled my life on the dark side? As a sober man, would I have ever slept with all those prost.i.tutes? Would I have ever smuggled all that money to Switzerland? Would I have ever allowed Stratton's sales practices to spiral so far out of control? Admittedly, it was easy to blame everything on drugs, but, of course, I was still responsible for my own actions. My only consolation was that I was living a more honest life now-building Steve Madden Shoes.

Just then the door swung open, and it was Chandler. She said, "Good morning, Daddy! I came to kiss away your boo-boo again." She leaned over and kissed my lower back, once on each side, and then she planted one kiss directly on my spine, just over my scar.

I turned around, tears still in my eyes, and took a moment to regard my daughter. She wasn't a baby anymore. While I'd been lost in my pain she'd given up her diaper. Her face was more chiseled now, and in spite of being less than three, she no longer spoke like a baby. I smiled at her and said, "Guess what, thumbkin? You kissed away Daddy's boo-boo! It's all gone now."

That got her attention. "It is is?" she said, in a wondrous tone.

"Yeah, baby, it is." I grabbed her under her arms and stood up straight, lifting her over my head. "You see, baby? Daddy's pain is all gone now. Isn't that great?"

Very excited: "Will you play with me outside today?"

"You bet I will!" And I swung her over my head in a great circle. "From now on I'll play with you every day! But first I gotta go find Mommy and tell her the good news."

In a knowing tone: "She's riding Leapyear, Daddy."

"Well, that's where I'm going, then, but first let's go see Carter and give him a big kiss, okay?" She nodded eagerly and off we went.

When the d.u.c.h.ess saw me, she fell off her horse. Literally.

The horse had gone one way and she had gone the other, and now she was lying on the ground, sneezing and wheezing. I told her of my miraculous recovery, and we kissed-sharing a wonderful, carefree moment together. Then I said something that would turn out to be very ironic, which was: "I think we should take a vacation on the yacht; it'll be so relaxing."

CHAPTER 34

TRAVELING BADLY

Ahhh, the yacht Nadine! In spite of despising the f.u.c.king boat and wis.h.i.+ng it would sink, there was still something very s.e.xy about tooling around the blue waters of the Mediterranean aboard a 170-foot motor yacht. In fact, all eight of us-the d.u.c.h.ess and I, and six of our closest friends-were in for quite a treat aboard this floating palace of mine. Nadine! In spite of despising the f.u.c.king boat and wis.h.i.+ng it would sink, there was still something very s.e.xy about tooling around the blue waters of the Mediterranean aboard a 170-foot motor yacht. In fact, all eight of us-the d.u.c.h.ess and I, and six of our closest friends-were in for quite a treat aboard this floating palace of mine.

Of course, one could never embark on such an inspired voyage without being properly armed, so the night before we departed I recruited one of my closest friends, Rob Lorusso, to go on a last-minute drug collection with me. Rob was the perfect man for the job; not only was he coming along on the trip but he and I also had a history with this sort of stuff-once chasing around a Federal Express truck for three hours during a raging blizzard, in a desperate search for a lost Quaalude delivery.

I had known Rob for almost fifteen years and absolutely adored him. He was my age and owned a small mom-and-pop mortgage company that did mortgages for the Strattonites. Like me, he loved his drugs, and he also had a world-cla.s.s sense of humor. He wasn't particularly handsome-about five-nine, slightly over-weight, with a fat Italian nose and a very weak chin-but, nevertheless, women loved him. He was that rare breed of man who could sit at a table with a bevy of beauties he'd never met before and fart and burp and belch and snort, and they would all say: "Oh, Rob, you're so funny! We love you so much, Rob! Please fart on us some more!"

His fatal flaw, though, was that he was the cheapest man alive. In fact, he was so cheap that it had cost him his first marriage to a girl named Lisa, who was a dark-haired beauty with a lot of teeth. After two years of marriage, she finally got fed up with him highlighting her portion of the phone bill, and she decided to have an affair with a local playboy-type. Rob caught her in the very act, and they were divorced shortly thereafter.

From there Rob started dating heavily, but each girl had some sort of deficiency-one had more arm hair than a gorilla; another liked to be wrapped in Saran Wrap during s.e.x, while pretending she was a corpse; another refused to have any s.e.x but a.n.a.l s.e.x; and still another (my personal favorite) liked to put Budweiser in her Cheerios. His latest girlfriend, Sh.e.l.ly, would be coming along on the yacht. She was rather cute, although she looked a bit like a hush puppy. Whatever the case, she had this odd habit of walking around with a Bible and quoting obscure pa.s.sages. I gave her and Rob a month.

Meanwhile, as Rob and I spent our final hours gathering essentials, the d.u.c.h.ess crawled around our driveway, gathering pebbles. It was her first time leaving the children, and for some inexplicable reason it put her in the mood to do arts and crafts. So she made our kids a wish-box-a very expensive women's shoe box (in this case, the former home to a pair of $1,000 Manolo Blahniks) filled with tiny pebbles and then covered with a layer of tinfoil. On top of the tinfoil, the artful d.u.c.h.ess had glued two maps-one of the Italian Riviera and one of the French Riviera-as well as a dozen or so glossy pictures she'd cut out from travel magazines.

Just before we left for the airport, we went into Chandler and Carter's playroom to say good-bye. Carter was almost a year old now and he wors.h.i.+pped his older sister, although not nearly as much as he wors.h.i.+pped his mother, who could bring him to tears if she took a shower and didn't dry her hair before leaving the bathroom. Yes, Baby Carter liked his mother's hair blond, and when it was damp it was much too dark for him. Even the slightest glimpse of a damp-headed d.u.c.h.ess would cause him to point his finger at her hair and scream at the top of his tiny lungs: "Noooooooooooooooo! Noooooooooooooooo!" "Noooooooooooooooo! Noooooooooooooooo!"

I often wondered how Carter was going to react when he found out his mother's hair was only dyed blond, but I figured he'd work that out in therapy when he was older. Either way, at this particular moment he was in fine spirits, altogether beaming, in fact. He was staring at Chandler, who was holding court for one hundred Barbie dolls, which she'd arranged in a perfect circle around her.

The artful d.u.c.h.ess and I sat down on the carpet and presented our two perfect children with their perfect wish-box. "Anytime you miss Mommy and Daddy," explained the d.u.c.h.ess, "all you have to do is shake this wish-box and we'll know you're thinking of us." Then, to my own surprise, the artful d.u.c.h.ess pulled out a second wish-box, which was identical to the first, and she added, "And Mommy and Daddy will have our own wish-box too! So every time we miss you we're gonna shake our own wish-box, and then you'll know that we're thinking of you too, okay?"

Chandler narrowed her eyes and took a moment to consider. "But how can I know for sure?" she asked skeptically, not buying into the wish-box program as easily as the d.u.c.h.ess might've hoped.

I smiled warmly at my daughter. "It's easy, thumbkin. We'll be thinking of you night and day, so anytime you think we're thinking of you we are thinking of you! Think of it like that!"

There was silence now. I looked at the d.u.c.h.ess, who was staring at me with her head c.o.c.ked to one side and a look on her face that said, "What the f.u.c.k did you just say?" Then I looked at Chandler, and she had her head c.o.c.ked at the same angle as her mother. The girls were double-teaming me! The girls were double-teaming me! But Carter seemed entirely unconcerned with the wish-box. He had a wry smile on his face, and he was making a cooing sound. He seemed to be taking my side in all this. But Carter seemed entirely unconcerned with the wish-box. He had a wry smile on his face, and he was making a cooing sound. He seemed to be taking my side in all this.

We kissed the kids good-bye, told them we loved them more than life itself, and headed for the airport. In ten days we'd see their smiling faces again.

The problems started the moment we landed in Rome.

The eight of us-the d.u.c.h.ess and I, Rob and Sh.e.l.ly, Bonnie and Ross Portnoy (childhood friends of mine), and Ophelia and Dave Ceradini (childhood friends of the d.u.c.h.ess)-were standing at the baggage claim at Leonardo da Vinci Airport, when an incredulous d.u.c.h.ess said, "I can't believe it! George forgot to check my bags in at Kennedy. I have no clothes now!" The last few words came out as a pout.

I smiled and said, "Relax, sweetie. We'll be like that couple who lost their bags in the American Express commercial, except we'll spend ten times as much as they did, and we'll be ten times higher while we're spending it!"

Just then, Ophelia and Dave walked over to comfort the doleful d.u.c.h.ess. Ophelia was a dark-eyed Spanish beauty, an ugly duckling that had become a gorgeous swan. The good news was that since she'd grown up ugly as sin, she'd had no choice but to develop a great personality.

Dave was entirely average-looking, a chain-smoker who drank eight thousand cups of coffee a day. He was on the quiet side, although he could be counted on to laugh at my and Rob's off-color jokes. Dave and Ophelia liked things to be boring; they weren't action junkies like Rob and me.

Now Bonnie and Ross walked over to join the fun. Bonnie's face was a mask of Valium and BuSpar, both of which she'd taken to prepare herself for the flight. Growing up, Bonnie was that nubile blonde who every kid in the neighborhood (including me) wanted to bang. But Bonnie wasn't interested in me. Bonnie liked her boys bad (and old too). When she was sixteen, she was sleeping with a thirty-two-year-old pot smuggler, who had already served a jail term. Ten years later, when she was twenty-six, she married Ross, after he'd just gotten out of jail for dealing cocaine. In truth, Ross wasn't really a c.o.ke dealer-just a hapless fool who'd been trying to help a friend. Still, he now qualified to bang the luscious Bonnie, who, alas, wasn't quite as luscious as she used to be.

Anyway, Ross was a pretty good yacht guest. He was a casual drug user, an average scuba diver, a decent fisherman, and was quick to run errands if the need arose. He was short and dark, with curly black hair and a thick black mustache. Ross had a sharp tongue, although only toward Bonnie, whom he was constantly reminding of her status as a moron. Yet, above all things, Ross prided himself on being a man's man, or at least an outdoorsman, outdoorsman, who could brave the elements. who could brave the elements.

The d.u.c.h.ess still looked glum, so I said, "Come on, Nae! We'll drop Ludes and go shopping! It'll be like the old days. Drop and shop! Drop and shop!" I kept repeating those last three words as if they were the chorus of a song.

"I wanna speak to you in private," said a serious d.u.c.h.ess, pulling me away from our guests.

"What?" I said innocently, although not feeling all too innocent. Rob and I had gotten slightly out of control on the plane, and the d.u.c.h.ess's patience was wearing thin.

"I'm not happy with all the drugs you're doing. Your back is better now, so I don't get it." She shook her head, as if she was disappointed in me. "I always cut you slack because of your back, but now...well, I don't know. It doesn't seem right, honey."

She was being rather nice about it-very calm, in fact, and altogether reasonable. So I figured I owed her a nice fat lie. "Once this trip is over, Nae, I promise I'm gonna stop. I swear to G.o.d; this is it." I held my hand up like a Boy Scout taking an oath.

There were a few seconds of uncomfortable silence. "All right," she said skeptically, "but I'm holding you to it."

"Good, because I want you to. Now let's go shopping!"