Burn for You

She smiled and leaned over and brushed a lock of hair off my cheek. “I’ve never been dying before.”

“You’re not dying,” I insisted, gripping her hand.

“We’re all dying, baby. It’s just a matter of when.” She lifted my hand and pressed it to her lips. “I’ve had a wonderful life. Maybe better than I deserve. I’m not afraid to go, so don’t you be afraid, either.”

I teared up, hard. “How can you not be afraid? I’m so afraid for you.”

This time her smile was truly beautiful. “Because your daddy’s waiting for me on the other side, baby,” she said gently. “Finally we’ll be together again. Being afraid of that would just be plain stupid.”

My lip quavered. My throat closed.

Then I burst into tears.

“Oh, come on now, chère,” she said, opening her arms. I buried my face into her chest and cried. She patted me on the back and kissed the top of my head, chuckling softly. “You always were such a sentimental little thing. Crying over dead goldfish and those Morris the Cat commercials where he’s lost and his owner’s looking for him in the rain.”

My reply came out muffled. “You’re not a goldfish!”

Her sigh sounded philosophical. “Might as well be. We’re all just here for a blip in time, riding on a rock that’s flying through space at a million miles a day in a galaxy that has a hundred billion stars. Me, Jay Z, the president, a goldfish . . . in the end there’s not much difference, chère. We come and go. We live and die. If we’re lucky, we love and are loved.”

She tilted my head up with a finger under my chin and smiled at me. “And I’ve been incredibly lucky, so don’t you waste your tears on me, you hear?”

I wiped my face with the back of my hand. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good girl.” She looked over my shoulder. Her voice turned brisk. “Now where the heck is that male nurse? I feel in need of some mouth-to-mouth resuscitation!”

There was nothing else to do but laugh. I laughed until the doctor pulled me into the hallway and told me in a solemn voice that Mama was going to need chemo for the next seven days straight, have a break for a week, and then another seven days, and so on for the next month . . . and each round would cost almost $3,000.

Which didn’t include lab tests, imaging tests, radiation, or the antinausea and other drugs she’d need in addition to the intravenous chemo.

I was going to need a lot more than twenty grand.

ELEVEN

BIANCA

By the time Jackson’s charity benefit rolled around, I was jumpy as a cat on a hot tin roof.

Doc Halloran had told us what to expect in the way of side effects of the chemo, but neither Mama nor I was prepared for the reality of it. She felt fine for the first few days, and then everything kicked in with one big wallop.

The nausea and vomiting were the least of it. She also had massive headaches, frightful mouth sores, and fatigue so bad she could hardly get out of bed.

I went with her every day to the hospital for the first week, then helped out at the house during the second, trying to get her to eat and fielding all her callers, turning them away with excuses that she had the flu. Even the poor Colonel wasn’t allowed inside. Mama didn’t have the energy to put on her face and pretend, so away he went, shoulders slumped.

I didn’t think it was right she didn’t tell him what was really going on, but it wasn’t my place to make that decision.

But most of all, I dreaded what would happen when she had to go back for the next round of chemo. The first was so bad it seemed likely to kill her before the cancer did.

“Perfectly normal,” said Doc Halloran every time I called him in a panic. “It’s a sign the medicine is working, Bianca. Just let it take its course.”

It’s so irritating when someone stays calm while the world is ending.

In between all that I worked in a frenzy to get ready for Jackson’s charity benefit. I met with the coordinators, ordered all the meat, produce, and alcohol, and added extra shifts at the restaurant to start the food prep.

And I avoided Trace’s calls.

Twice he called the house. Both times I saw the number and let it ring, flipping the bird at the phone. When the answering machine came on, he hung up with a heavy sigh, like I was being unreasonable.

I gave Mama a pass on account of her being sick, but there was no way I was gonna listen to a single word he had to say. I knew for a fact he was only calling because I’d given him the brush-off. Our time together had proven to me in a hundred ways that Trace was the kind of man who only wanted what he couldn’t have. Rejection heightened his interest. His appetite was whetted by the chase. If I’d shown the least bit of tenderness when we’d run into each other on the street, he would’ve gone on with his life without giving me a second thought, as he’d been doing for the past two years.

In hindsight, I should’ve told him I was still madly in love with him and watched the smoke rise from the rubber burns the soles of his shoes left on the sidewalk as he fled. But my heart was still too bruised to play that game. Instead I started carrying pepper spray in my pocketbook in case I saw him again. I had enough on my plate. I didn’t need a lying, cheating, born-again BS artist to contend with.

“So we’re all set with the canapés and cocktails,” said Claudia, briskly ticking off a box on the list on the clipboard she held in her perfectly manicured hands. “The musicians are warming up on the lawn. In thirty minutes I’ll light all the candles, and fifteen minutes after that the guests are scheduled to start arriving.”

She looked up at me and adjusted her stylish black eyeglasses. “Do you need anything from me at this point?”

I shook my head. “No, thanks. I’m all set here.”

“Good.” Claudia looked at her watch. “I’ll check in with you again in fifty minutes. If you need me, I’m on my headset. The number’s—”

“On the schedule,” I finished. “I know.”

The coordinator Jackson had hired to oversee the event was a sleek-haired brunette, lanky as a giraffe and the most efficient person I’d ever met. She had everyone running around like chickens with their heads cut off, trying to keep to her exacting schedule, which counted time in precise five-minute increments. Though she was perfectly pleasant, I got the impression she’d turn into a screaming meemie if her schedule wasn’t followed.

As of now we were two minutes behind, and her left eyelid had already begun to twitch.

“Ladies. How’re we doing?”

Jackson stood in the doorway of the kitchen, looking at Claudia and me. It was the first time I’d seen him since I’d arrived at his house early this morning to start the setup.

“Everything’s under control,” I said. “Claudia’s doing a great job.”

She smiled tightly and adjusted her glasses again. I felt her gratitude for my small show of support. It was obvious how intimidated she was by Jackson. She could barely look him in the eye, probably because he was wearing a scowl as black as his outfit.

But I was used to that by now. I didn’t let it alarm me.

I asked him, “Is that what you’re going to wear?”

Jackson looked down at himself, then looked up at me with his brows drawn down over his eyes.

Seeing his murderous expression, Claudia ran out of the kitchen like her pants were on fire. “Fifty minutes, Bianca!” she called over her shoulder, then disappeared through the French doors.