by Vivian Wood
I jump as a low voice rumbles overhead.
“Ma’am…” The flight attendant gazes down at me, her blonde brow furrowed. “Is everything alright?”
I don’t know how to answer that question. So, I don’t.
The plane takes off without affording us a minute to breathe, and I exhale as soon as we’re in the air. Takeoff is smooth, our ascent effortless. So unlike my never-calming nerves which jump even now, even as we fly thirty thousand feet towards the city I love and hate most.
A city that’s become so much a part of me. A city I haven’t seen in two entire weeks.
I glance at my watch again, willing time to slow down. I left whatever calm I had left back on that Chicagoan tarmac. I know it. Barely out of a Midwestern winter storm, my day turns as gray as my early morning, each passing mile adding a sheet of shadow to the blue slate that was the sky.
There’s no turning back now, no way to stop the two-hour flight. I try desperately to settle into my first class seat but the message in my coat is burning a hole in my pocket. Sneaking my cell phone from the heavy wool, I read the first few emails, none as daunting as the first two that pop up on the screen.
I open the first:
Violet,
Thank you for keeping me abreast of your schedule. We are so happy to bring you in to your new role at King & Sparrow. As you know, we have a lot of work ahead of us, and I am confident you will fit neatly in to your new role as Junior Partner.
With sincerest regards,
Anna Paleto
I read the last line of her short message:
Human Resources Business Support.
But opening the second e-mail gives me more heart palpitations than the first, and I swipe across the screen with my thumb’s sweaty pad, reading as my finger traces the words, disbelieving every one. My heart skips a beat and threatens to stop.
Vi,
I tried to call you. But I think you’re on DND.
It’s Marilyn.
There’s been an accident.
Come when you can.
She needs us.
Love you,
Elsie
I close my inbox, tapping the button to turn the screen on my phone black, my heart sinking as I re-read the words for the seventeenth time. My nerves are more than shot; they’ve been garroted, hung and left out to die.
But as soon as my fingers touch the glass, the phone goes flying, a sudden bout of plane turbulence making the whole cabin drop at a moment’s notice, my insides sinking with it as my nails clutch into the seat. I gasp.
“Whoa there,” the man an aisle away from me hisses from his seat, seemingly as startled as I am. “I thought we left the storm back in Chicago,” he whispers over the hand-rest.
I thought we did, too. But the sky doesn’t seem to think so.
In fact, I think the storm may just be starting.
The “Fasten Your Seatbelts” sign blinks ominously, and as my fingers fumble to tighten my safety belt, the plane lurches again, this time dipping faster than the last, the ice cubes of a nearby flier’s finished drink bouncing over the edge of the glass and into my lap.
I brush them quickly away, as the cold starts to seep into the fabric over my thighs. The cold is like a lightning bolt, awakening my senses, but then the plane tumbles a few feet, rotating with a sudden twist. The captain comes over the loud speakers as the excited passengers fill the quiet aisles with their sounds of shock, and with a reassuring, calm voice, he makes an effort to quell the rising calamity, his soothing voice doing little to appease my frayed senses.
Senses that were singed the moment I received Elsie’s message. My nerves are quickly seeping through an emotional shredder.
The plane dances for several more minutes, high winds pushing it to and fro. The yelps from the nearby customers finally settle into relieved sighs by the time we hit smooth air, and less than an hour and a half later, we land—at last—on La Guardia’s relatively peaceful runway, each of us worse for wear, a flurry of the winter season’s first snowfall there to greet us as we exit.
I breathe in the New York air the second I step foot on the bridge leading us to our exit gate.
The weather report warning of snow above our heads on the screens is a sign of things to come. I walk through the gate’s dark double doors, praying I don’t receive another message from Elsie—this one more ominous than the last.
I grab my rental car—a far cry from the car I left behind years ago in Chicago, speeding away from the airport, hoping I make it in time. My heart beats hard the entire way.
Chapter Two
HEATH
My heart beats hard the entire time.
Imitating a jackhammer without end, it nearly beats out of my fucking chest, sending my pulse swirling out of control. I can hear the blood in my ears—an interminable rush.
My bowtie flaps in the wind as I run over the banal white tile of the bland-looking halls, the flaps of my loafers adding to the beat of my strumming body.
I stop before the receptionist with barely a breath left. I look at her through a sheet of building sweat.
“Marilyn Daniels.” I shake my head, clearing it. “I’m sorry… Marilyn Sparrow’s room, please.”
She nods, clicking her pen over a brown clipboard. She checks the sheet with her eyes.
“Room 321.”
“Thank you,” I scarcely wave as I start sprinting.
Room 321 looms on the other end of the hall like a rainbow I’ll never reach. My throat threatens to close as I cut a path through the white-washed corridors, a film of perspiration dripping against my crisp collar. I turn the corner, storming through the open door.
My chest seizes as I almost collide with a pair of strong shoulders. My best friend turns, barely avoiding me as I barrel inside the hospital room.
His hand flies to my shoulder, squeezing, as I wheeze.
“Where—?” I huff, my lungs aching, mouth drier than ever. “Where is she, Brett?”
He moves his tattooed arms, motioning towards the bed, and there, I find Marilyn’s pale form, her figure half-hidden beneath a set of snowy white sheets with more color than her bruised face.
Swirls of purple and red decorate her delicate temples, and I walk towards her slowly, my eyes roaming over her motionless body—still disbelieving.
That’s not my sister. That can’t be my fucking sister.
But it is.
All five-foot-five inches of spunk. Spread out on a stale hospital bed.
Unmoving. Board-like.
Red scratches adorn her tiny hands, and I reach for one, afraid as fuck to hold it. I touch her slightly cold skin, my fingers wrapping around hers when someone clears his throat behind me.
I turn.
“Mr. Sparrow?” A man in a white coat leans forward, his dark brow pinched together. “May I have a word with you?”
Brett glances my way, and I nod stolidly, watching his back as he heads out, a blank stare reflecting in his blue-green eyes. He disappears, leaving me and the nervous doctor alone, the air thicker than the snow starting to build outside.
I exhale, closing my eyes. I open them before speaking.
“How bad is it?”
“Not as bad as it looks.” His quiet voice inspires no confidence. “She’s been through the worst of it, her body at last receiving some rest.” He sighs. “Her brain has swelling, her skull bruised. We managed to get to her in time to prevent a significant blood loss. Her leg is broken,” he continues. “Crushed by the dashboard which collapsed against her in the crash.”
My heart climbs further into my throat with each word.
The day behind me flashes behind my eyes, and I see myself as I was just hours ago, sequestered inside my Hollywood cocoon, caring of nothing…
Or no one.
The smell of rose champagne—sweet and decadent—is still inside my nose, and just ten hours ago, on the other side of the country, I stumbled headfirst into the backseat of my waiting limousine, tasting the m
etallic iron-filled flavor rolling around on the tip of my sluggish tongue.
The familiar taste of blood.
It was as intoxicating as the tequila still in my system, and I swallowed both as I landed on the leather seats, my thoughts spinning along with my vision.
The only items keeping me tethered to earth? The tiny hands that pulled on me. The same ones that had been pulling on me all night. Acrylic-tipped nails scratched at my skin and tailored tux, turning the twitch along my skin into a veritable crawl.
But this wasn’t what I was used to. At least, for the last year.
I was an LA boy now, drunk off its bevy of beautiful women and sin as far as the eye can see.
And the woman in front of me was all sin. Blonde and buxom.
Her buttery skin barely covered by the bits of silk that clung to her most intimate places, she pushed me backwards into the waiting black limo, crawling on top of me. With a shrill “Drive” to the chauffeur, we pulled away from the chaotic scene near the curb, leaving behind a cacophony of flashing photographer lights and drunk celebrities filtering outside of the silver-plated double doors of the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel, the tires skidding loudly as we peel away.
The blonde purred, rubbing her fingers across the cotton at my chest.
“You were magnificent,” Miss Acrylic whispered in my ear. “Just fucking magnificent.”
She ripped at my cummerbund, sliding it to the floor. Another flick of her fingers, and she loosened what was left of my half-bounded bowtie, her toned thighs straddling me as I sank back into the cushions, clutching the only object that made sense in the confines of the luxury car.
My award.
Reality TV producer of the year.
I vaguely remembered drinking out of its gold surface before finding my way into Miss Acrylic’s arms. Several fuck you’s to a couple of angry-looking bouncers and many shots of Don Julio later, and I was heading God-knows-where with a very plastic-looking, life-sized blow-up doll in my lap, my bruised fists and bloody lip just a few signs of all the fun I’d been having.
I smiled, spreading more blood across my teeth. I look up at my unexpected guest with a grin.
“Am I being kidnapped?”
She blinked sweetly down at me. “More like man-napped.”
“Uh huh.” I nodded, my temples starting to throb. “And might I ask the name of my man-napper?”
She kissed the buttons of my white collared shirt, her lips sinking lower as she gazed up at me, her body sliding down mine over the elongated seats. She stared.
“Does it matter?”
I wanted to say “No, it doesn’t.” I wanted to say “Who gives a fuck?” And any other night, I would have, if it weren’t for the niggling in the back of my tequila-soaked mind, a simple thought that told me I was forgetting something. Something damned important.
But I couldn’t think about it that much.
My phone, tucked in the confines of my tux, started blaring and I fished it out of my pocket, just as Miss Acrylic’s pink lips took a detour between my legs.
I answered the call, my eyes sinking closed. “Sparrow,” I grunted.
“Holy fuck, man. I’ve been calling you all day.” Brett’s voice on my speaker breaks the silence.
“I’ve been preoccupied,” I murmured. And getting punched, I don’t add. “I won the producer award, in case you were wondering,” I told my best friend, my teeth tightening. “But you would know that if you actually brought your ass out here to LA once in a while.”
“Sparrow.” His voice sank. “We can talk about that another time. Right now, I’ve got something more important to tell you.”
“What?” I laughed, the sound long and loud. “Have you decided to take me out of my misery with this wedding shit and elope?”
That was what I forgot. The wedding.
My best friend’s nuptials were just over two months away, the pre-wedding events even less so. The grunt I gave when my phone rang turned into a groan, and though my cock was dangerously close to splitting the cavern of Miss Acrylic’s eager lips, the noise that grumbled in my throat was more from anger that I was losing my best friend than arousal.
He exhaled loudly. “I wish, bro.” His silence was deafening as he waited. “It’s about Marilyn.”
His words were the beginning of the end, and in the span of an hour, I’d booked a flight back to the cold streets of New York, not a bag in sight, my bowtie still attached as I ran for the next flight back to the city.
Now here, in the hospital, sweating in a five thousand dollar Tom Ford tux, the laughter has stopped, been twisted and replaced into a strange regret. The regret turns into a hardened rage when a balding man in a suit enters my sister’s hospital suite without knocking, a phony small smile on his wrinkled face.
I know that look. Can smell the lawyer on him. And as he comes closer, I hold out my hand, stopping him from approaching the doctor and me any farther. My frown slides into a scowl.
“Don’t. Don’t you even dare. Leave.” My voice is a grisly growl. I lean towards him. “Now.”
Despite my anger, the attorney in front of me is as cool as a cucumber. His graying blond hair sits proudly on top of his tanned head, and he sweeps a hand through it as he regards me with warm, steady gray eyes. He nods as if understanding.
“I don’t mean to intrude, Mr. Sparrow…”
“Then don’t.”
“But it’s about your father.”
My brow furrows, my hand lowering as the lawyer talks. I blink. My father?
“What about him?”
His stare slants at me, his skin pulling tightly at the corners of his eyes. His proud shoulders sink as he glances at the doctor beside me. His stare returns back to me.
“They didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
He sighs—a weighty sound. “Your father was in the accident, too, Mr. Suh-Sparrow.” His tongue seems to trip over my name. Maybe because it’s a bitter surname to say. Even to me. He inhales as if needing his next breath more than life, and I watch his face, reading it. As I’ve done with so many others so many times before.
The look in his eyes translates to tragedy. He glances up at me, misery hidden in his rainy irises.
“Mr. Sparrow…your father is in a coma. He’s suffered major brain damage, and according to his living will, he would like for you to…”
But the words are fading from my consciousness. Replaced by a roar that doesn’t end. I blink slowly as my vision becomes blurry and as I glance over the head of the older man in front of me, I swear I almost see a vision. A hallucination. An image in the hallway that can’t be real.
Red hair and long legs pass through my periphery across the open door, and flashes of memories I’d rather forget swirl in with the other images floating through my muddled head. None so powerful as the thought that nothing—not a goddamned thing in my life—will ever be the same.
Chapter Three
VIOLET
The beating of my pulse matches the rhythmic beeping across my wrist.
The ground is cold beneath my feet, especially hard, and as I run across its black surface, I can hear my own breathing, feel my body coming alive.
It’s the December air, the winds of winter.
The early morning air is crisp, beautiful to taste. And though I open my mouth to inhale that New York oxygen, it mixes ominously with the bitter flavor of worry, still sitting on my tongue from last night.
I couldn’t sleep last night. And it shows.
My stride is slower than normal, my gait stilted. Even New Kids on the Block in my headphones can’t drown out the vision of Marilyn—one of my now closest friends—laying in the hospital, nearly lifeless, the blood practically drained from her pretty face.
I turn the corner, my jogging jacket and tights stiff amongst the East Coast cold, and I consider abandoning my morning run altogether when my Apple Watch rings against my wrist, signaling an incoming call.
I answer it, holdi
ng my hand up to my frosty lips as I continue huffing down the beaten paved path. I take a deep breath, releasing it quickly.
“Violet Keats.”
“Violet!” I hear from the other line. My name on the call is more of an order than an acknowledgment, and my body perks up, my pulse peaking as excitement finds its way into my skin, making the air shimmer around me. I haven’t heard this voice in several days. I grin.
“Elsie!” I exclaim, puffs of my tired breath meeting the cold air. “Where have you been?”
My best friend scoffs. “The question is: Where haven’t I been? Brett and I have had so much to do. You know, with the wedding and all.”
I smile, warmth spreading in my body despite the chill. “I know,” I say. “And I can’t wait.”
“You can wait,” she jokes. “And you will. I’m so not prepared for this. Not with everything going on now. What with the case and all…” she trails off, her normally chipper voice turning stale. “And Marilyn.”
I nearly stop, my Nikes sliding against a patch of black ice as I run. I catch myself before I can fall. I exhale loudly. “Have you seen her yet?”
“Not yet,” she breathes, her voice a sullen whisper that I can now hardly hear. “But I will. Brett and I are headed there now.”
“Good.” I nod, my body bobbing as I cross the next set of hills along my Central Park running path, my heart kicking into high gear. “She’ll be glad you came to visit.” I hesitate. “Even if she won’t be awake to see it.” The next sentence on my tongue makes my stomach swirl. I swallow a mouthful of chilled air, inhaling the frigid burn. I blow out another breath. “Have you seen Heath?”
“No,” she answers quickly. “But we know he stopped by the hospital last night. Really, I’m surprised you two didn’t bump into each other. He caught a flight from Hollywood last minute as soon as he’d heard.”
I thank the Heavens that we didn’t collide—a confession I would never tell Elsie, but she cuts me off suddenly, the sound of a voice over a scratchy loudspeaker interrupting whatever she was going to say next. She murmurs in the background before coming back on the line.