Live for Me (16 page)

A nurse appeared and said things. Things I didn’t remember two seconds after she spoke them as I stared blankly at my grandmother. Her eyes were closed and I felt… nothing. And everything.

My phone beeped with a text from Devin.

Merry Christmas. Xxx

Hugs, but not kisses. I stared at the screen for a second, not sure what to do. The nurse clasped my hand, led me into the hallway. There were Christmas lights twinkling above the nurses’ station and the staff was all wearing Santa caps. A tree was in the corner with red and gold balls hanging on it. I stood in the hallway, looking back over my shoulder at the room where my grandmother lay.

Another nurse came up to me and put her arm around my shoulders. “Is there someone you want to call, hon?”

I shook my head. There was no one to call. It had always just been me and my grandmother. “No.”

There was no ferry to the island at night, so I slept on the chairs in the waiting room, my coat spread over me.

I woke up under the bright lights with Christmas music blaring around me, someone laughing down the hall.

It smelled like antiseptic and I closed my eyes again. Alone.

Sitting in Cat’s living room, I stared at nothing. “I have to go back,” I told her. To Richfield. I didn’t really want to, though I wasn’t entirely sure why. Maybe I just didn’t know what to say to Devin. I didn’t want him to look at me and feel sorry for me. That I had been mistreated as a kid. That my grandmother was dead. To see that he didn’t want a relationship with me after all, because of my lack of sexual and life experience. That friendship and desire would devolve into pity.

So mostly I wanted to drink coffee at Cat and Heath’s and read one book after another. I didn’t want to do anything and I didn’t want to even respond to Devin, whose texts to me were getting increasingly agitated. He’d even called me twice. I hadn’t answered any of them, which was awful and immature. I knew that. But I couldn’t deal with him, not when I was dealing with my grandmother’s death. I didn’t want to admit I’d allowed expectations to grow beyond what they ever should have.

“No, you don’t,” Cat told me. She was lacing up her running shoes. The promised blizzard hadn’t arrived and there was only the usual soft December snow on the ground. She didn’t let that prevent her from jogging. Heath was outside already splitting wood. “You can stay here. Your grandmother’s house is yours, you know. It’s a shithole, but it’s your shithole. You can do online classes like you originally planned.”

“I promised him I’d go back.”

She opened her mouth. Then she just bit her lip and stood, pulling on a knit cap and mittens.

“You don’t think he’ll care, do you?” I asked. I was wearing sweatpants and I plucked at the loose fabric. “It’s the right thing to do, regardless.”

“So go back and resign or whatever. He wasn’t here for you when your grandmother died. You don’t need that kind of guy in your life.”

“I didn’t tell him.”

“What?” She stared at me.

“I didn’t tell him she died. It’s been five days and I haven’t told him.”

“Why not?” she asked, clearly astonished.

“I don’t know.” I didn’t. Maybe it had something to do with me not wanting to have either his pity or his disinterest. I was afraid of his response. I didn’t trust that he would give me the one I needed.

It wasn’t fair to him, truthfully.

And he was clearly worried about me. But I couldn’t unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth. All of this only served to illuminate how different our worlds, our lives, were from each other.

There wasn’t going to be a funeral. My grandmother had already been cremated and she was in a box in a grocery bag I’d taken from the house. I had locked everything up and left it with the heat turned down, doubtful that I could ever bring myself to live there. I wasn’t sure how all the legal stuff worked but hopefully I could pay back the funeral home and ditch the house somehow. There wasn’t even anything I wanted in it.

The only thing I’d taken was the pot holder I’d made. I’d found it in the trunk in my grandmother’s bedroom, along with pictures of my mother growing up.

“I wish you would let people help you,” Cat said. “I mean, whatever Devin is doing, he clearly does care about you.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I thought you said he is playing me.”

She pursed her lips. “He brought you to the hospital. He’s been blowing up your phone. He clearly cares.”

“Yeah.” My grandmother’s words echoed in my head. Rich man’s mistress. The keys to the jeep he’d bought me were still in my coat pocket.

That’s not the way he had intended it. I knew Devin. He would have given me the jeep regardless. He’d actually ordered it before we’d even shared our first kiss. It wasn’t a manipulation. He could get pussy whenever and wherever he wanted it. With a lot less work and a much more satisfying outcome for him. With women who knew what they were doing. He also wasn’t the kind who manipulated others just to see if he could get his way. He just wanted me, for whatever reason.

I thought about the simple pleasure on his face when he’d given me the box. How eager he’d been.

Pulling my phone out I sent him a text.

Hope you had a good Christmas. Can you pick me up at the ferry dock? I’m ready to come back to Richfield. Sorry it was longer than I thought.

That wasn’t good enough. I knew it wasn’t. Not after going dead silent on him for five days.

Which was obvious when he texted back.

I thought you fell in the ocean. Yes. When?

Tomorrow? Any time you’re free. Thank you.

“I wonder if he went to New York,” I mused out loud. “If he stayed at the house by himself for Christmas, I really am a total jerk.”

“Your grandmother died, Tiffany, I think he’ll understand.”

I hoped so.

I hoped he would understand that this was a path I’d had to follow alone. That our new and fragile relationship, whatever it was exactly, needed to be separate from something as emotional and overwhelming as death. That I’d been unable to trust him.

Or trust myself not to want something he could never give me. Love. A home. Family. Forever. That was what I wanted.

If I had the courage, that was what I would ask for.

Unfortunately, what I wasn’t expecting was Devin to pick me up at the ferry dock with two total strangers in the back seat of his car. I had been standing there for about twenty minutes talking to Marty, the ferry operator, who had been friends with Cat’s brother back in high school. Or Martin, as he told me he now preferred to be called.

“Who the hell is that?” Martin asked when the Lamborghini tore into the parking lot faster than was necessary, music blaring audibly even with all the windows closed. It was a driving R&B beat.

“That’s my boss.” I picked up the bag at my feet and gave Martin a smile. “Thanks for keeping me company.”

“Are you sure you should go with that guy?” Martin adjusted the hat on his head and frowned in Devin’s direction.

He was out of the car now, the music louder. He strode toward me, and I started walking fast, not wanting to introduce them. I could see people in the backseat of the car. Devin looked sulky. I suspected I was going to be punished with bad behavior for my silence. I probably deserved it. I just wished it didn’t mean I had to talk to strangers.

“Hey.” He reached out and took the bag from my hand. “How is your grandmother? Doing better?”

I shook my head.

“No? I’m sorry.” In five steps we were back at the car and I didn’t want to elaborate. “I hope you don’t mind, but I was already picking up Jay and Sapphire at the train station.”

“Um… no, of course not.” I peered into the backseat as we got to the car, trying not to be obvious. “Is that the singer Sapphire?”

“Yep. And her husband, who is a DJ. Jay Ray. Heard of him?”

Unless I lived under a rock, yes, I had heard of them. Of both of them. “Are they staying at the house?” I was seriously regretting my decision to go back to Richfield.

“New Year’s Eve party. There are three other couples already at the house.”

Fabulous. Wonderful. Not. I felt a little sick to my stomach. “I’m sorry, I didn’t meant to interrupt…”

“Don’t piss me off,” he said, opening the passenger door for me. “I’m already seriously annoyed with you. You couldn’t at least text me and let me know you were okay? I was fucking worried about you!”

“I’m sorry. It was emotional.” Then I slipped into the car before he could question me further. I turned to the backseat, feeling small and ordinary. “Hi. I’m sorry you had to come out of your way to pick me up.”

“Not a problem,” Sapphire said, and her smile looked genuine enough.

She was a platinum blonde with a skin tone similar to mine, her eyes heavily made up with blue shadow. She was wearing a cashmere hat and a leather jacket. The guy, wearing a camel colored trench coat, didn’t even look at me.

“Let’s get this party started,” Devin said, jumping in and putting the car in drive.

He didn’t sound like my Devin. He sounded fake. Falsely enthusiastic. “Who wants the first shot of Crown?”

“Oh, God, seriously, G?” Sapphire asked. “You’re such a white boy.”

Jay Ray laughed and I saw he had a gold grill on his front teeth.

Yeah. I was so out of my element.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, no one spoke to me. They taunted each other over drinking for a few minutes, then the conversation turned to people I’d never heard of who were in Vail for the week, and how maybe they all should go there once the ball dropped. They could fly west and celebrate midnight on New Year’s all over again.

“We can celebrate it in three fucking time zones!” Jay Ray said.

“Let’s do it.” Devin pulled into his garage, parked, and turned around. “I’ll text my assistant and have her set everything up.”

I sat there, painfully awkward, my shopping bag with my grandmother’s ashes at my feet. When we went into the house, I bent down and greeted Amelia, grateful for a familiar face. Grateful to be able to hide mine. There were voices coming from the family room, the kitchen. Laughter. Music. I moved as quickly as possible without attracting any attention, intending to head straight to my room.

“Where are you going?” Devin asked, cutting my escape off. He looked volatile, angry.

“To my room.”

“Why?”

“Because these are your friends and you’re having a party. I don’t want to intrude.”

“I want you here.”

God, why was he doing this? Couldn’t he see how uncomfortable I was? “Why?” Not one of these people would give two shits if I were there or not. Already I could see Sapphire darting curious glances back at us. A woman with an afro, the woman in one of the pictures in that packet that had been delivered, glanced around Sapphire at us as well. They whispered to each other.

I shuffled my weight from one foot to the other, miserable. I should have stayed at Cat’s. That was clear.

“Because I want you here. I’m not asking,” he added, taking the bag from my hand and setting it down on the console table by the garage door. “Now come and meet everyone.”

Except that no one was particularly interested in meeting me. They all briefly glanced at me then went back to their conversations, their elaborate cocktails, their posturing. The women were tall and thin, except for Sapphire, who had bangin’ curves and was tiny, maybe five feet tall. They talked about people in the music industry with affection or cattiness or disdain depending on the subject of gossip. They talked about the future of touring and digital downloads. They did shots and fiddled with their extensive jewelry and walked confidently on thousand dollar high heels.

The men swatted their asses from time to time, or gave affectionate kisses, but they too talked business and did shots, and smoked cigars in their expensive sweaters and jackets and Italian shoes. They were a mix of ethnicities and everyone was beautiful.

I sat in the corner by the Christmas tree and watched, saying nothing. The nine of them mingled, some in the kitchen, some near me, eating little appetizer things and completely ignoring me. At one point, two of the women made tidy lines of coke on the coffee table and sucked it up into their nostrils with diamond encrusted straws. Specialty drug paraphernalia. How Hollywood. Slap a diamond on everything you own.

Devin may or may not have been drunk, I wasn’t really sure. He was louder than I was used to, clapping the other guys on their backs and showing off his surround sound stereo system. “It’s all controlled from my phone or an iPad,” he said, showing Jay Ray his phone. Suddenly the music shot up about ten notches.

“Turn that the fuck down!” the woman named Lizzie said. “I’m trying to talk.”

She was giving me the poorest impression of all the guests. She had porcelain white skin, deep burgundy lips, and a halo of honey-colored curls around her face. Her features were delicate, doll-like, and she was dressed too young for her age, in tiny denim overalls that barely covered her ass, and socks that came up to her knees. But with boots that had six-inch heels and nothing but a bra. It was like pedophile porn star, but with a shitty attitude. Most of the night Lizzie had been scowling or giving an obnoxiously fake tinkling laugh. On two occasions she had met my eye and given me a smug smirk one time, a cold dismissal the other. Her boyfriend was a model who seemed determined to insert his hand up her overalls. She would swat at him without even breaking conversation with Sapphire.

“So why didn’t you bring Brooke?” Lizzie called loudly in the direction of Devin.

I was sitting in my chair, legs tightly crossed, shoulders tense, and at that, I wished the cushion would open up and swallow me. I’d been trying to figure out how to slip out of the room unnoticed. I’d been hoping Devin would take the guys upstairs to his studio in the next stop on his Bragging Tour. But now Lizzie had brought him to the attention of everyone.

And where was Brooke? I admit I wanted to know myself. He’d never said he wasn’t seeing her anymore. He’d admitted she was just a fuck buddy and of course, I knew he couldn’t have seen her while he was at Richfield with me, but had he ever told Brooke they were done? Had he seen her since I’d been gone?