by Mia Caldwell
"It's so you," I clarify. Melanie discreetly melts back into the shadows.
"The tabloids are already speculating about my dress," Camilla muses. "They're tossing out all of these names, photoshopping me into these giant, frilly things that make me look like a wedding cake with a head. This? This looks almost...casual."
"Like a day at the beach."
She turns back to the mirror. "It's perfect. I can actually see it now. Standing on the beach with Greg, maybe some fairy lights in the trees?"
I wince a little. Fairy lights are so cliche. "I can see it too," I hedge, and it doesn't involve fairy lights. I am about to share my vision, when she whirls around and impetuously flings her arms around me. "Thank you," she says, her voice catching. "Thank you for knowing what I needed."
I'm momentarily started, but it isn't hard to embrace her back and we clutch each other tightly for a moment. She pulls back, wiping a tear away from where it was dripping from the tip of her nose and laughs again. "Can you do one more thing?"
"Of course," I smile. "I am a full service wedding planner."
She smiles slyly. "Can you give my brother another chance?"
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Sanniyah
I am in a taxi back to my place when my text alert goes off.
"Cammy told me she found a dress."
My stomach gives a lurch that has nothing to do with the cabbie's erratic driving. Is he happy? Sad? Is this business we're talking about here? Am I supposed to act like the hired wedding planner or the woman who he threw over his shoulder and carried to bed? And should I tell him how much I liked that last part?
I decide to play it safe. "Hi," I reply.
"Hi." He writes back immediately, I'll give him that.
"Yes, she looked beautiful," I type.
There is a long pause and I wonder if he is typing, thinking, or if he's put the phone down and wandered away. I stare at my screen, feeling irrationally angry. Camilla told me to give her brother another chance, but he didn't seem all that interested in making it count.
My stop is coming up, and I irritably tuck my phone back into my purse. I need to change, check in on my mom and then sleep for a year, in that order. But just as I am emerging from the cab, I feel my whole purse start vibrating in my lap, right on top of a very sensitive area. Carter Easton won't seem to let go of his hold on me there, dammit.
I shiver and cross my legs, then grab the phone, ready to hit ignore. But I find myself reading in spite of myself.
"She says she told you about our parents. And that you stood up for her at that snooty place and ended up leading her right to the perfect dress. She also says you're a genius and I'm an idiot for letting you get on that helicopter trying to change your mind. I know things were moving fast, but, maybe that’s ok…"
"Miss? We here? Miss?" The cabbie is pulled over and bleating at me to get out and stop staring at my phone in his back seat. I throw some cash at him without counting it and hurriedly slam to the door. I rush up the stairs of my apartment building and lean in the entryway to read it again.
"You there?" he wrote in the interim.
"I'm here," I type. "Getting out of a cab."
There is another pause. "Are you home?" he writes.
The elevator dings open and the old woman from the floor above me scrapes her walker across the hallway. I greet her as I duck in between the closing doors. "Almost," I type.
"You got an early start today."
"Had a late night too," I type back without thinking.
"Oh?" The question mark hangs there like an accusation and I wonder if he's jumped to some wild conclusion about my sex life. Then the phone vibrates again. "Is everything okay?"
I sag against the elevator wall. I am exhausted, too exhausted to keep getting hit with these emotions over and over again. "Not really," I type, before I can catch myself. Don't drag him into this, I admonish myself. He doesn't need to know your drama.
There is another pause, a long one, long enough for me to open the door to my apartment and fall headfirst into the couch.
Otis's health, my mother's grief, Tricia moving...it's all too damn much. I don't have the mental energy for Carter Easton's paranoid brand of courtship. I can't do this.
But then my phone buzzes again. "Is there any way I can help?" he writes.
I blink. I was expecting the third degree, for him to press and offer platitudes like people usually did in the face of sickness. I wasn't expecting...this.
I sit up on my couch and type. "Can you run all my errands for me? Grocery shopping, visiting, cleaning, cooking, all that?"
He writes back immediately. "Give me a second."
I have to laugh. "You're not even on the same landmass."
I wait. Tricia bangs on the wall. "I hear you texts going off like crazy in there!" she yells. "That'd better be your billionaire, otherwise knock it off!"
I look down at my phone. He's not replying. Gradually my smile fades into a frown. "What the hell was that?" I say out loud.
Padding over to my bedroom, I shimmy out of my work clothes and slip into a T-shirt, jeans and a pair of well-worn ballet flats. Trying to tell myself I am not waiting for a text back, I putter around the room, putting away a few books and hanging up my dress.
The phone is still strangely, heavily silent. "Well fine then," I say to myself. Angrily I shove it into my purse and head to the door.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Carter
Money can't buy love, happiness or peace. But it can buy groceries.
My text message alert goes off again.
"I'm not sure :( ." Cammy's use of emoticons drives me crazy.
"Well can you check? Maybe it's in the contract you signed?"
There is a pause and I sit back in my office chair, tapping my pen impatiently. When Cammy texts me back, I grab the phone, my fingers poised to type. "Here it is! :) :) :) 561 Grange St. Apt 6F."
"Do you have a ZIP?"
"No :( . "
I growl a little. "Never mind, I can look it up." I open another tab on the browser window and navigate to Google maps. The little arrow plunks down right in the heart of the city and my heart does this weird palpitation.
"Okay, I'm good, thanks sis."
"Go get 'em tiger. ;) ."
Shaking my head, I set the phone back down and click the order button. Then I choose the time window and pay for the order.
Four PM. I need to be there at four PM.
Standing up from my desk, I stretch a little, rolling my neck from side to side and hearing the pops and twinges. I'm too keyed up. I need to work out if I'm going to have a prayer of making it to the mainland without having a breakdown.
There is a light mist falling, seemingly centered just over Annika Island, but it feels good against my face as I push myself to do wind sprints in the sand. When my heart is ready to burst and my legs are twitchy and weak, I am ready.
Turning to face the mainland, I clear my head, counting backwards from ten and mentally relaxing each muscle. "I am ready," I remind myself.
Time to go.
Chapter Thirty
Sanniyah
They moved him to a bigger hospital room. I am pleased to see that much.
My mother is in the straight-backed chair, head leaning slightly backwards, hands clasped, her lips parted a little. She looks like she is asleep, but I know she is praying.
When I walk into the room, her eyes flutter open and a bare smile flickers across her face. "Hey baby."
"Hey mama," I say, bending to kiss her cheek before holding out the cardboard tray. "I brought you a latte."
She smiles wider and reaches eagerly. Her rise from abject poverty has marked my mother in a lot of ways, but one of the strangest is her lasting devotion to fancy coffees. I used to jokingly ask that if it came down to a choice between Starbucks, and me, what would she do?
"You don't want to tempt me on that," she would say, fixing me with a glare over her white and green cup.
She cups her hand greedily around the latte and inhales. "How'd you know I needed this?" she sighs tiredly.
"Daughterly intuition," I reply, leaning against the clacking radiator. "How is he?"
"They're keeping him sedated. Something about letting his brain rest," my mother sighs, leaning back.
"You should go home mama, get some rest."
She shakes her head vehemently. "I'm not about to have him wake up alone in a hospital. Mmmph, Lord, he won't have any idea what happened or why he's here." She reaches out and strokes the top of his hand, gingerly avoiding the IV line that snakes out of a mass of tape and tubes. "No, my place is right here," she says softly, looking at him with such love that my heart hurts.
I feel the avalanche of words coming. I need to do something. "I'll sit with him a bit, mama. You go stretch you legs. Have you eaten? Do you want me to go to your place, bring you a change of clothes? How about Otis, you think he might wake up and want something comfy from home? I can grab his robe for you, bring you some stuff."
Mama turns with a strange look. "There you go again," she says, freezing me with one stare.
"What?"
"Stop tryin' to figure what's next, Sanniyah. Does you no good to worry yourself to death."
I straighten up. "I'm not worrying mama, I'm trying to plan for you."
My mother's glare should have burned me to ashes. "Listen to me really carefully Sanniyah Rose. I...don't...want...your...plans. Do you hear me? You can't set out a timetable and delegate responsibility and all of that other stuff you love to do. Not right now. Right now we live, moment by moment, and we spent time with Otis. That..." she bares her teeth at me, "is...it."
Her tirade has sent me backing into a corner. When my hand brushes against the wall, I have to fling it out to steady myself. "I was just trying to help," I whisper. She stares at me, not forgiving me, but not dismissing me either. "I want to do something, mama," I plead.
She shakes her head sadly. "It's in God's hands now, honey," she says softly. "We can't control this, okay?" She opens her arms and I go to her, a child needing her mother, and we cry.
The tears are wholesome and clean, and I feel myself strangely renewed for having shed them. I look up at my mom, who is brushing my hair back with a look of pride. "I don't think I've seen you let yourself cry like that since you were a child," she says, in a tone of wonder. "You always make me feel bad for being the emotional one."
I laugh and wipe away the tears with the back of my hand. "I think I've cried enough in the past twenty-four hours to make up for lost opportunities."
My mother grips my shoulders. "It's okay to cry. This is sad. You don't have to do anything else than that, you got it baby girl?"
"Yeah, I think I do, mama."
My mother nods, her point made. She leans back in her chair and sips the coffee I brought her. We sit in silence for a moment. Crying has made my eyes tired and puffy, and I find myself stifling a yawn.
"You sleep last night?" my mother says sharply, without turning around.
There's no use lying to her. "Not very well."
"Go home and sleep, Sanniyah. Turn your ringer on and I'll call you if there is any change."
I am about to protest, that I need to be here with her, but the argument we just had rings in my ears. Worrying is not planning. My fretful presence is only making things worse for her. "Okay mama," I relent. "Call me if you need something. I can still swing by and get your clothes."
"Sleep first. Those bags are going to swallow your eyes whole."
I laugh ruefully. "Gee thanks, mama."
She pulls me down to her level and presses her lips to my cheek. "You're a good girl. The best girl, really. You make me proud every single day."
"Mama, I'm going to start crying again," I tell her stiffly as I pull away.
She shakes her head. "Go home, honey."
Once I settle into the back seat of the cab, I lean my head back, trying to ignore how I am smashing my hair, and close my eyes. I am deliriously tired, to the point of feeling like I'm floating.
I must have actually fallen asleep, because the cabbie shakes me awake in front of my building. I startle and wipe the drool from the corner of my chin. "Thank you," I blush and flee from the back seat as if I could leave my embarrassment there. The elevator ride up to the sixth floor seems like an eternity as my head slumps down to my chest.
But when the doors ding open in front of my door, I snap awake and am instantly on high alert.
It is standing slightly ajar.
Heart pounding, I reach into my purse for my keys, the only weapon I have. I close them into my fist like they taught in self defense class and wield my purse in my left hand like a club. "Who's there?" I shout, as menacingly as I can muster.
"Sanniyah?"
My body knows it's him before my mind can understand. "How the hell did you get into my apartment?!" I demand.
"Erm, that was me." Tricia is behind me, her excitement clearly showing in her incessant movement. "I used the key you gave me. I like him, Yahya," she winks. "And your refrigerator was a sad, sorry state of affairs."
Carter Easton is standing in the middle of my apartment, making everything around him look shabby and worn in comparison. He smiles nervously, and gestures to the open, stocked cupboards. "Hello Sanniyah," he says. "Dinner will be ready in a half an hour."
Chapter Thirty-One
Carter
She looks exhausted. I want to go to her, sit her down and fold her into my arms, letting her fall asleep on my chest as I brush those worry lines off of her forehead. Instead, I clumsily wield a spatula.
"I'm really good at eggs, and not much else," I tell her. "So I hope you don't mind giving me a second chance to make breakfast for you."
Her friend Tricia is gaping openly at me from over Sanniyah's shoulder, but when she hears me say that, she turns red and bolts from the apartment without saying goodbye. She is careful to close the door tightly behind her.
Sanniyah is still blinking at me like she is trying to see an out of focus picture. "You're here," she says at last.
"I wanted to help you," I say simply.
She finally takes in the kitchen. "You went grocery shopping for me?"
"Ah, actually one of Tallarico's stockboys did your grocery shopping. I was just here for the pick-up."
"And now you're cooking me dinner?"
"Breakfast," I clarify. "Since you didn't take me up on my offer in my house, maybe you'll let me cook for you in your house?"
I expect her smile, laugh, or maybe even slap me and tell me to get the hell out. What I don't expect is for her to apologize.
"Carter...," she exhales, sinking to the couch like she's melting. "I'm sorry. I flipped out on you for no good reason. Would it make it up to you if I told you I'm trying to get over my neuroses?"
I go to her and swiftly take her hand. She leans her head on my shoulder and my heart catches in my chest. Sitting next to her, just breathing, just like we did on the log on the beach the first time we met. I let her go that night. Then, when I came to my senses and got her back, I lost her again.
I wasn't about to screw this up a third time.
I cup my fingers under her chin. "I have some shit I'm trying to get over too," I tell her.
She nods a little and veils her eyes. "Camilla told me," she says.
For a minute, I bristle at being talked about behind my back, but then I relax. Cammy has my back, I know this. "The say no man is an island, but I seem to be hell-bent on proving them wrong."
"Carter, stop, don't make fun of yourself. We all have our own way of grieving." The way she says those words makes it clear she's done some grieving of her own.
I lean back into the sofa and Sanniyah cuddles up into the crook of my arm. God, it just feels so damn right, holding her like this. She fits against me like she's the missing piece to my puzzle. It's been so damn long since I've held someone...anyone. Since I've let anyone that wasn't my sister get this cl
ose to me. The swelling in my chest is almost more than I can bear.
Then she brushes her hand lightly up my thigh, and all at once I'm falling victim to a different kind of swelling entirely.
I brush my hand down her arm, her incredible caramel skin making my heart flop around in my chest like a fish. She coos a little, a small sound, but it's enough. Brushing my fingers back up her arm, I cup my hand around the back of her neck, just holding there for a moment. It feels damn good to hold her this way. It feels damn good to hold her...period.