Make Me a Match

by Diana Holquist

  Amy seemed to consider this. Her face went whiter and whiter. She sucked the insides of her cheeks for a long moment. “You think she’s alive then?”

  Cecelia shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  Amy’s eyes went wide. Her mouth dropped open. “What if she’s—”

  “Dead?” Cecelia asked. “Hell. You’re a psychic, Amy. Dead’s never bothered you before.”

  Cecelia climbed the rickety steps from Trudy’s to the second floor. Her heart was pounding. How could such a healthy man be dying? She felt as if she were entering a patient’s room. But Finn wasn’t a patient. She had no medical knowledge to share, no cure. For the first time, she understood the Victorian notion of not telling a terminal patient the end was near. Telling without also plotting a course of action seemed too cruel. But she had to tell him. No lies.

  A door on the landing was slightly open, and a small orange cat slithered through the gap and blinked at her.

  “Is Finn here?” she asked the cat, scratching its ears.

  “That depends who’s asking,” Finn said. He appeared in the doorway in jeans and a ripped T-shirt.

  “Your One True Love as destined by prophecy,” Cecelia said. She tried to keep her voice flat. Don’t run into his arms until you tell him everything, she commanded herself.

  Finn smiled and held the door open. “Oh. And I thought it was just you.”

  “It is just me. I’m your True Love. Amy lied.” She walked past him and into the tiny apartment. “Where’s Maya?”

  “She went to the movies with Trudy. Then they’re having a sleepover.”

  I love that Trudy. The carpet was old, threadbare, industrial grade, and public-bus blue. The furniture was a mishmash of clawed-up castoffs. There was nothing on the walls. “You knew I’d come.”

  “Of course. I’ve been waiting almost an hour. You were the only one who didn’t know.” He took her hand and added affectionately, “Stupid.”

  She fell onto the couch, each individual spring making itself known. She paused, delaying the inevitable conversation. “Did you call her?”

  “Cindy Reidel in Florida? I did.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said congratulations on finding you and when I get back I better redo her porch swing and fix her wheelchair ramp.”

  “Wheelchair—”

  “Well, she is eighty-six. She broke her hip twice in the last three years. Poor Cindy.”

  “You could have told me she was an old lady!”

  “And ruin the fun?”

  They sat side by side. He held her hand.

  “What happened to the lawyer?” he asked.

  “He was gay. Amy called it.”

  Finn shook his head in awe. “Why did Amy lie about us? Why did she say you weren’t my One True Love?”

  Cecelia held her breath. The truth. She walked over to the small dingy window. What if Amy was wrong? Cecelia had checked Finn out. He was fine. Amy could be wrong. “It’s complicated.”

  “Well, we have all night. C’mon. Sit down.”

  She sat and Finn grabbed her legs and swung them onto his lap. Before she could react, he pulled off her shoes and began rubbing her feet.

  She relaxed into the sensation.

  He bent to her and softly kissed her lips.

  Cecelia let the waves of sensation pulse through her. How did he always know just exactly how to touch her? Oh, right, destiny.

  Finn rubbed farther up her ankles, to her calves. Gentle, sure strokes. Then he traced delicately up and down her thigh with his finger. Cecelia tried to control the shock waves his finger was causing. The truth. She watched his finger sneak under the waistband of her jeans. “Wait. I want to tell you everything.” She said it, but she wasn’t sure she meant it.

  “You talk,” he said, concentrating on moving his hand farther inside her jeans in slow, searching circles. “I’ll explore.”

  “Amy’s losing her power. All the voices are fading.” She willed his hand closer to its mark.

  “If all the voices are fading, then I’m not dying?” He didn’t seem to care about the answer. He kissed her again, still moving his hand deeper, closer.

  “Finn.”

  He pulled his hand out of her jeans and she thought, Oh, hell as he stared intently into her eyes. “Cecelia. From the minute I saw you in the park, I knew you were the one. From the minute I made love to you, I knew that I’d never make love to another woman as long as I lived. I don’t want to hear another word about Amy. This is between you and me.”

  She looked into the smoky depths of his green eyes. No Amy. Forget everything but the two of them. “Good. We’ll both shut up.”

  He kissed her again, as if starting from the beginning. His finger began to sneak back toward its goal.

  “Oh, hell.” She sat up.

  “You’re talking,” he reminded her.

  “I know. But I have to say this: when I’m around, Amy hears all the names clearly. Except yours. Yours is still fading. You’re still dying.”

  Without missing a beat, he said, “Good, then let’s make love like we might never make love again.”

  “Finn!”

  “Oooh, I think I’m dying! Tend to me!” He threw himself back on the couch, his hands over his heart.

  Cecelia swatted him.

  He grew suddenly serious. “Cecelia. I’m not dying. Stop with Amy. Believe what you see.” He took her face in his hands and kissed her so thoroughly, she felt light.

  He was right. She knew it with every cell in her body. No more Amy. Amy, after all, was a proven liar.

  Without a word, Cecelia opened the buttons on her shirt one by one.

  Finn pushed back the shirt. He let his hands trace the lace of her bra. Then he pushed down the lace, and traced her nipple with his tongue.

  She leaned back as he gently teased her. He emerged just long enough to murmur, “If I did have to die, this would be the way to go.” He thoroughly kissed her nipple until she was moaning with pleasure.

  “You’d better not expire until you’re done, mister.”

  “Then we better hurry.” He eased her out of her shirt, tracing her collarbone with his fingertip. “I love you, Cecelia Burns.”

  She felt his words to the core of her soul.

  He undid the clasp of her jeans and she wiggled out of them. He took her hips firmly in his hands and pulled her onto his lap.

  She pushed against him with her hips. She was lost in the feel of his rough jeans through her panties. She took his face in her hands. “I love you, Finn Concord.” The words were like lightning, illuminating them both.

  He scooped her into his arms. “I’m not having the last sex of my life on this awful couch. C’mon. I’m taking you into the bedroom.”

  She clasped her arms around his neck.

  “Sorry, Leslie.” He shut the door on the cat. “This is between Cecelia and me.”

  Chapter 36

  Cecelia awoke to the bass of the jukebox thumping in the bar below. I’m lying in a cot over a beer bar listening to Bad to the Bone and I’ve never been happier in my life.

  Finn was sitting in a chair by the window, staring out at the blackness. She watched him in the dim light. He was her One True Love and she’d love him no matter what. She’d love him, as the song went, until the day he died. She’d stay beside him, always, in sickness and in health until death do they part.

  She shook off her feeling of dread. People said those words all the time, and yet they said it without thinking. Bad things happened to other people. They didn’t happen to good people. She curled deeper into the sparse covers.

  He turned when he heard her stir. “Hey.”

  “Hey yourself.” She pulled herself out of the rickety bed and crossed the room. “There’s something we need to talk about.”

  “This better not be about Amy.” He took her into his arms.

  “No. It’s about my other sister.”

  He traced her collarbone with his finger. “Another s
ister? I don’t think I can take another Burns sister.”

  “I think I need to find her.”

  “Where is she?”

  “That’s the thing; I don’t know. When I was immersed in my second year of medical school, Jasmine came back from India. We hardly knew her. She left with my mom for India when she was two and came back when she was sixteen. We were supposed to look after her.”

  “You guys? The con women with the helpless dad? How’d that go?”

  She shrugged. “Not so well. I was too busy with school. Amy let her in on our cons, but she was a disaster. She was really shy. In fact, she could hardly speak without blushing. She was an interesting person. But I was way too busy to get to know her.” Guilt tugged at her, but she shook it off.

  Finn leaned in and kissed her neck.

  “Actually, I guess I was pretty jealous of her. She grew up with my mom. Amy and I didn’t treat her so well. We weren’t mean. We just weren’t as nice as we could have been.” Cecelia let her mind wander back to her timid sister. She was so quiet. Sometimes they would forget she was there and talk about her as if she weren’t. “When she left, she left a note. It said she’d be fine. Not to worry. And we didn’t. That was the awful part. We should have worried, gone after her, found her, but we didn’t.”

  Finn pulled her into his lap. “Okay. So how do you find a missing sister?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve got to figure that out. I guess I hire a detective.” Cecelia’s stomach tightened. What if Jasmine wasn’t okay? What if something had happened to her?

  “Okay,” Finn said. “Hire a detective. But not now.” He let his hand slip under her hair. “Now, you’re busy.”

  “Am I?” she murmured, letting her head fall back into his hand. “Hmmmm . . . I suppose I am.”

  Cecelia raced home the next morning to change before her 6:30 A.M. rounds. Her message machine blinked at her insistently.

  The first message was the co-op board. They needed her to vacate and empty her apartment by next week. The investment banker in Hong Kong had a new buyer. The prospect actually cheered her. Get done with the past. All of it. She’d move into Molly’s house. They all would.

  A family.

  The second and third messages were from Ellen, at Elliot and Stan’s office, asking her to please call. She deleted them both. Whatever they wanted, it would have to wait.

  The next message was from Dr. Parsia. She wanted to confirm their meeting tomorrow to discuss final details about Cecelia joining their East Baltimore Neighborhood Clinic. Cecelia grinned. All her past, exorcized. She could start again, all over, a new life with Finn and Maya.

  The next beep was followed by Elliot’s familiar voice: “Cecelia? Listen, Ellen’s been trying to get in touch with you. We got a bad blood test back for one of your patients. Somehow, it slipped through the cracks. He didn’t have a proper file. But we finally hunted it down, and we can’t locate him. The address he gave is phony. His name is Finn Concord. We’re screwed if we don’t get a certified letter to him on this pronto. Call me. Bye.”

  Cecelia stopped the machine and replayed the message. With each word, her heart sank lower. She felt numb. Amy’s always right.

  She called back Ellen, but slammed down the phone in frustration when she realized it was too early, the office was closed. She considered waking Elliot, but what would he remember at six-thirty in the morning about a blood test?

  Okay, she had to pull herself together. If it was a bad blood test, it wasn’t an emergency. In fact, maybe it was nothing.

  Or, maybe, it was destiny.

  Five hours later, Cecelia sat in her office reviewing Finn’s test. Extremely high white blood cell count. Sure sign of infection. But what kind? He could have been sick when they took the blood, but fine now. A high white cell count could mean nothing—or everything.

  She would just redo the test. That was all. It was standard practice in an asymptomatic case. False positives were common. She’d see Finn later tonight. She’d just get him to go to the lab to draw some blood.

  There was nothing at all to worry about.

  So why did she feel like crying?

  No. She wasn’t going to cry. She had work to do. Important work. She picked up the phone and dialed.

  “Hello, Edison Detective Agency,” said the deep voice on the other end of the line.

  Amy brought the strawberry margarita to the woman at table number six. “Here you go. Your food’ll be ready in a minute.”

  “You don’t look Mexican,” the woman at the table said.

  Amy shrugged. And you don’t look like the strawberry margarita type. But she restrained herself. These old, lonely diners turned out to be the best tippers at Santa Anna’s, the restaurant where she waitressed five nights a week. The place was almost empty at this late hour. Plus, Amy never minded a conversation, especially about herself. “I’m half Irish, a quarter Swedish, and a quarter Roma. You know, gypsy.”

  The woman nodded. “I could tell there was something spiritual about you.”

  “Nope.” Amy flattened her round tray to her stomach mashing her black flounced skirt and her red and green blouse. What a stupid uniform. “Nothing going on here but what you see. Guess the Swedish won out.”

  “That’s not true,” the woman said. “I can see that you used to have a power. What happened?”

  Amy studied the woman closely. She was over seventy, bent, her knuckles gnarled and chapped. She wore a dark, woolen dress that was worn shiny at the elbows. “Who are you?”

  The woman sipped her margarita. “I never come in here. Don’t do well with the spices. Then today, I say to myself, go in. Have your dinner there. I don’t know why. But I follow my hunches.”

  Amy watched her last customers slip out of their red booth and toss some money on the table. She glanced around for the manager, who was nowhere in sight, then sat down opposite the old woman. She leaned forward and whispered, “I lost my powers. All of them.”

  The woman nodded. “I know. I can tell. You have that look about you. Do you know why you lost them?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “So you know. Good. Then you also know how to get them back.”

  “I don’t!” Amy cried. She crouched into her seat, then said more quietly, “I’ve tried everything. I’ve lit candles, said prayers. I’ve tried to right the wrongs that I did. Honestly.”

  “Really?”

  “What do you mean?”

  The old woman closed her eyes. Her lids were as thin as onion skins. “Jasmine Burns.”

  Amy’s eyes grew huge. “How do you know that name?”

  “I have a power too. One that I’ve never lost.”

  Amy’s heart was racing. “Tell me.”

  “I can look at a person, and hear the name of the one she’s wronged.”

  Amy was white as a sheet.

  “I can hear the name of your worst enemy.”

  “But, but, she’s—” Amy couldn’t say it.

  “What, darling?” the old woman cooed.

  “She’s not my enemy. She’s my sister. And I’m afraid she might be dead.”

  Finn jostled the pinball game in the back of Trudy’s and it lit up like a Christmas tree. The score zinged up by the thousands. If he could just keep this ball going, then he wouldn’t have to look at Cecelia, and if he didn’t look at her, maybe she’d quit bugging him about his blood and go away.

  “Finn”—Cecelia leaned in, obscuring his view—“you’re not listening.”

  “I told you. I don’t listen to Amy’s nonsense.” He plowed his left hip into the game to keep the ball from rolling down the alley. It was a delicate balance, maneuvering the thing enough to up his score, but not enough to tilt it. Trudy taught him everything he knew, although Maya still kicked his butt at this game. Granny was withholding secrets from him, he was sure.

  “But it’s not Amy, it’s a blood test.”

  The ball ricocheted off a side bumper and shot right between his flippers
. Game over. He glanced at Cecelia and saw the desperation in her eyes. He fished in his pockets for more quarters. “I feel fine.”

  “Finn.” Cecelia rummaged through her purse. She came up with four quarters. She clinked them onto the glass. Then she glanced at Maya, who was drawing a picture at the bar, and leaned in close. “Twelve cc’s of blood. Just come to the hospital tomorrow and I’ll draw it—”

  “No.” He ignored the quarters and headed for a table in the back. He threw himself into a chair.

  Cecelia shook her head impatiently. “You’re like a little kid.” She scooped her quarters into her hand and followed him. She sat down in the chair next to his.

  Finn felt his stomach sink. “I’m not like a little kid, Cel. I’m like a grown man with a little kid. I can’t be sick. That’s all. Because if I am, there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.” He was trying not to become exasperated at her. But she had no idea how hard Sally’s illness had been; dealing with the system, losing to the system. Don’t ever get sick, a kindly nurse had said to him one day. And if you do, stay away from the hospital. It was the best advice he’d ever gotten and he was going to live—and die—by it.

  “How can you not want to know?”

  He watched Maya. One of the bar’s regulars had given her a set of colored pencils and she was lost in her drawing. She was pretty good, actually. “Maya’s been through enough.”

  “But I can help.”

  “No one helps if it’s a lost cause, Cel. You told me that yourself—” He dug into his pockets again. He needed another game of pinball to soothe his nerves. Just talking about being sick made him feel, well, sick. He found one quarter, two dimes, and a Canadian penny. He tossed the change into the ashtray in disgust.

  “You don’t have health insurance,” Cecelia said.

  “I have enough for Maya, but none for me. So, you see, it can’t be done. The system sucks. I’ll take my chances.”

  “That was before. I can figure it out.” She looked so gorgeous in the dim light of the bar. Her hair falling around her shoulders in soft waves, her eyes flashing black. If only she’d stop with the blood test business.