“Wrap it up, mister,” I said. “No raincoat. No ride.”
He sighed and let my leg drop, then rummaged through some drawers until he found a foil-wrapped condom packet. I watched him slide it down his length, then grip himself. He grinned, and kept grinning, while we knocked a few dirty bottles and god knows what else to the floor from our brief exertions.
After I dressed, when I was trying to locate my bag from the night before, poking among the sleeping men and women and detritus, a hand grabbed my ankle. “Hey,” a female voice said from under a pile of arms and legs. “You going? Wanna share a cab?”
I frowned. I wanted to leave now, not wait for some chick to get her crap together. “Hurry,” I said, dropping into a large rattan chair with a batik fabric cushion to wait, trying to re-focus, and grateful when I remembered I had a two-day break between the long Sunday double show and a Wednesday night performance.
A phone was buzzing somewhere. That’s what finally burned through the X and booze to wake me up. It was my ringtone, and it kept going and going, as if whoever was trying to reach me was damn well not gonna stop.
Just before I got up, the ringing stopped. Then started up again. I followed the relentless noise until I located it under a pile of jeans and T-shirts. I pulled my hair off my face and fastened it with the band I always kept around my wrist, staring at the number that had, indeed, been calling me for the better part of an hour. I went ice cold all over at the sight of it.
When it buzzed and rang again, echoing in the now mostly-empty room, I put it to my ear. “Hello? Aiden? What’s wrong? Why the hell are you …?”
I thought my youngest brother was at a writing school out west. I hadn’t talked to him in months. Of course I hadn’t bothered to go home at Christmas, either, having landed a gig on a Disney cruise as a dancing princess. I got to be the ethnic one from Aladdin, thanks to my bronzed skin and long dark hair. It had been a crazy three weeks. Those Disney people sure knew how to party. But more important, it had been utterly devoid of Love family BS, which had been my goal.
“It’s Mama,” my brother said, his voice crackly, either from a bad connection or worse. I dragged my fingers through my ponytail. “She’s sick, Angel. Cancer. The doctors told me to tell you to …”
I hung up on him, clutched the phone to my chest, and sank to the floor.
Chapter Four
A few hours later, having made it to my apartment without any further distractions or detours from my new pack of friends, I took a real shower in my miniscule but clean bathroom. Wrapped up in a robe, I popped some vitamins and a prophylactic dose of antibiotics I kept handy.
My roommate had gone to work, thank God, because I was not in a chatty mood. My head was all echo-y and strange. My nasal passages felt clogged up, and my throat hurt.
I sipped from a hot cup of cinnamon spice tea—a treat courtesy of my mother. Her care packages came at regular intervals, sans any messages other than the stuff in the box—all of which were my favorite things although I ignored some of them on principal. After a few minutes of stalling, I dialed the Love family home number, figuring one of them would answer. After six rings, the old-fashioned answering machine clicked in. I listened to my mother’s brisk message, and then hung up.
I tried Antony’s number first, not really wanting to hear it from him, but reverting to a reliance on my eldest brother for this bit of information. I really wanted to get hold of Kieran, my second oldest, much calmer, and most favorite brother. When Antony didn’t answer, I started to panic. Scrolling through my calls from the past few months, I found a Florida-based number I thought might be Kieran’s since he’d returned home after the disaster of his brief NBA career.
“Hey, Angel?” His voice sent a bolt of relief across my twanging nerve endings. “That you?”
“Yeah. Hey. So … uh what’s going on?”
“She’s real sick, honey. You need to come home.” I covered my face and listened to the phrases stage four and breast cancer, already concocting excuses in my head, piling them up like stones in a fortress wall. “Daddy needs you here, Angelique. You’re the only one who can calm him down.”
“I’m … I can’t.”
“Get your ass home, baby sister,” my easygoing sweetheart of a brother demanded in a way that made me sit up and take notice. “This is the real thing. And it’s real bad. Do you need money for a ticket or gas or … whatever?”
“No, I can get myself home, Kieran. How did this just happen all of a sudden?”
“It didn’t. She’s kept it to herself, but Daddy got us all together and … just come on home. Please?”
“Fine,” I said, trying to come up with a way to wiggle out of it even as I pulled out my wallet so I could book a flight.
“Aiden’s here,” he said, his usually steady voice a little shaky, which pulled me even further into the surreal freak-out I was experiencing.
“I know,” I said, trying to be the calm one for a change. “Where’s Dominic? He around these days?”
“Guess you’ll find out once you get here. Let me know when and where to pick you up.” He hung up, shocking me, and giving me my first taste of real terror at the potential reality of a universe where Lindsay Halloran Love might no longer exist.
Four hours later I’d quit the lame show, collected a half month’s pay, and caught a plane, once I figured out that was only about twenty-five bucks more than a bus ticket. I sent Kieran a text before I boarded, smiling at his response.
KL: Sorry I was a dick earlier. It’s kind of stressful right now.
Me: No worries Red.
KL: C u soon. I’ll pick u up.
Me: Bringing the future Mrs. Redhead?
KL: No
I frowned at that. Antony had told me in an email Kieran was engaged and he was ga-ga over her. So his one-word answer to my leading question seemed odd. I shrugged, settled into my seat, and slept the entire two and a half hours it took to deposit me smack in the midst of Love family chaos. I deplaned and found the single suitcase I’d packed, figuring I’d be returning in a few weeks, once whatever was going to happen happened. Then I walked out into the warm Kentucky summer evening and almost burst into tears at all the familiar sensations bombarding me from every direction.
“Angel!”
The sound of my brother Kieran’s voice did it. I turned and ran straight for him, pressing my nose into his chest and clutching the back of his polo shirt. He let me sob it out, stroking my hair and grabbing my suitcase before it toppled over. After a few minutes, I looked up into his distinctive Halloran family features. “Sorry. Thanks for coming to get me.”
He grinned and let go. “All better?”
I sniffled and pulled my carry-on strap over my shoulders. “Yeah. How is she?”
“Well, apparently we are having a big old family dinner meeting tonight. My guess is that’s when we’ll get the lowdown.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and frowned at whatever he saw on the screen.
“So who is she, this future sister-in-law I have yet to approve?”
Kieran threw his arm across my shoulders and we headed for his car. He tossed my stuff in the trunk, hit a button to open the ragtop, and then opened my door, avoiding my question. Once we were out of the moderate Louisville airport traffic, I stuck a cigarette between my lips and went fishing in my bag for a lighter.
“Not in this car.” Kieran snagged it out of my mouth and let go of it overhead, sending it sailing out into the universe.