Fairplay, Denver Cereal Volume 6 (29 page)

“
We think Katy figured out
why she was positive on the tissue typing,” Jill said. “And why I
wasn’t.”

“
Why?” Heather
asked.

“
Katy calls it cuddles,”
Jill said. “Basically, I can cure Blane.”

“
What do you mean?”
Heather asked. “You tried.”

Jill nodded.

“
But?”

“
No buts,” Jill said. “We
went in yesterday and were all retested.”

“
Why did you do that?”
Heather asked. “You know how we feel!”

“
Because we love Blane. We
both have deep respect for your life and your decisions,” Jill
touched Heather’s hand. “You know that.”

“
If you respect us so much
why did you go behind our backs?” Heather asked.

“
We knew what you’d say,”
Jill said. “We had to be sure, Heather. That’s all. We had to be
sure for ourselves. We couldn’t let Blane die without turning over
every single rock to see if anything will help.”

“
Oh Jill.” Heather hugged
Jill.

“
We think Katy and Jacob’s
tissue typing will come back negative,” Jill said into Heather’s
shoulder.

“
What?” Heather leaned
back.

“
We think it’s me or
something about me that will help,” Jill said.

Not wanting to cry, Heather looked away from
Jill for a moment.

“
I want you to consider
what I’m saying,” Jill said. “I know you’re heart broken. I know
you’ve had your hopes up before and nothing has come
through.”

Heather’s tear-filled eyes turned back to
Jill.

“
We don’t know how or why,
but we think I’ll be able to help him,” Jill said.

Heather bit her lip and nodded to Jill.

“
Are you mad?” Jill
asked.

“
Desperate,” Heather
said.

“
Don’t feel desperate,”
Jill said. “We’ll work it out.”

“
I hope so,” Heather
said.

Jill hugged her.

“
Okay, you can come out
now,” Heather said.

Tanesha and Sandy ran over to join them.
They each hugged Heather.

“
We’ll work it out,” Jill
repeated.

“
Promise,” Sandy
said.

“
We’re going to do this
thing,” Tanesha said. “You’ll see.”

Unsure of what to say, Heather nodded.

~~~~~~~~

Sunday night—6:21 P.M. MDT

Sandy looked across the main Castle dinner
table at Noelle. Her eyes were swollen and her face red from the
meltdown she’d had only an hour before. Sandy smiled when Noelle
laughed at something Mike had said.

Sandy glanced at Charlie. He’d spent most of
the day anxiously pacing the apartment. He was so distracted by his
worry for Tink that he hadn’t finished his assignment on fairness.
She tried to catch his eye, but he was busy worrying. Since they
weren’t Tink’s family, they only received the most minimal details.
Tink was alive and on life support. The seizure was from the
beating she’d received the night before. She was lucky they were
there when she collapsed. Tink didn’t seem that lucky to any of
them.

Sandy sighed. Aden looked at her. His eyes
asked if she was all right. She nodded. Using his chin, he pointed
to Nash. Noelle wasn’t the only person missing Teddy. Nash kept
looking at his watch. They were going to call Teddy at exactly
eight o’clock so he could listen in to story time. Nash didn’t want
to be late. Teddy was truly a part of their family now.

Sissy’s laugh caught Sandy’s attention.
Sissy and Jill’s mother, Anjelika, were deep in conversation about
ballet. Under Anjelika’s kind attention, Sissy had blossomed. Sandy
could see the prima ballerina just begging for Sissy’s insecurities
to let her out.

At the end of the table, Jacob laughed at
something Katy said. Jill was pretending to be offended. When
Delphie laughed, Jill laughed. Sandy was so happy to see her best
friend so happy. Even Jill’s hair was growing in. Valerie came in
from her latest trip to the bathroom. For such a small person, she
was truly huge with the baby. She stopped to kiss Mike and went to
sit near Sam. They fell into their on-going conversation about some
mine they owned.

Honey caught her attention. She crossed her
eyes at Sam and Valerie’s ongoing argument about the mine. Sandy
laughed. MJ leaned over to say something to Honey and they laughed.
Sandy knew Jacob and Jill had finished rehabilitating an entire
floor of Jill’s old building. They were waiting until every detail
was perfect before surprising Honey and MJ with their new apartment
building for paraplegic people.

So many people. So many worries.

Sandy was always amazed at how much laughter
lived around this dinner table. No matter what happened, they came
together at the table to enjoy each other and laugh. Rachel
squirmed in her sling and Sandy looked down at her.

“
Can I?” Noelle
asked.

When Sandy nodded, Noelle came around to
take Rachel. The baby smiled when she saw Noelle. Aden put his arm
around her and they watched Noelle make Rachel laugh.

Sandy’s phone rang with “Moves like Jagger”,
the latest Maroon 5 song. Sandy gave Nash a hard look. He laughed.
Earlier, he’d snuck “Cheers” by Rihanna on her phone. She’d told
him to get rid of it this afternoon but he’d clearly replaced it
with another pop song. Shaking her head, she answered.

“
Sandy?” Ava’s voice
sounded frantic. Sandy heard airport noise in the
background.

“
Ava? What’s going on?”
Sandy stood up to walk out of the room. “Has something
happened?”

“
Are you off tomorrow?”
Ava asked.

“
Yes, I don’t work
Mondays,” Sandy said. “Did something happen to Seth?”

“
No, no,” Ava said. “Seth
is fine.”

The noise in the background disappeared.

“
Listen,” Ava said. “Seth
got a heads up call from someone at the FBI. They’re coming
tomorrow morning to pick you up.”

“
Why?”

“
I’m not sure,” Ava said.
“Seth called them back but didn’t catch them. I called my friends
there and they said it was ‘nothing good.’”

“
Nothing good?”

“
For you,” Ava
said.

Sandy felt as if all of the light, all of
the joy, and all of the laughter faded. Her awful past had risen up
again to blot out her sun. Ava continued talking. Sandy glanced
into the dining room. Everyone continued eating and laughing.

But all Sandy heard was the pounding of her
own heart. The shadow of her past overwhelmed her. Again.

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED and SEVENTY-FOUR

Straight

Sunday night—8:21 P.M. MDT

Tanesha let herself into Jeraine’s
penthouse. Convinced he was out partying with his friends, she
wanted to slip in, get her things, and leave. She was not going to
be the thing that stood between him and anything. She slipped off
her heels and stepped into the foyer.

“
There you are!” Jeraine
came down the hall and hugged her. She didn’t hug him back. “I’ve
been concerned. I went to the Castle, your Gran’s house; no one
seemed to know where you were.”

“
I was out with my friend
Tres,” Tanesha shrugged him off and went into the penthouse. “I
just came to get my things.”

“
Your things?” Jeraine
asked. “The things we bought? You came to take your
tea?”

“
I left a few personal
things here,” Tanesha said.

“
We’re not coming back?”
Jeraine asked. “Did you and your friend find a house for us? Where
is it? Let’s go!”

Jeraine grabbed his keys and went toward the
door.

“
Should I get my
checkbook?” he asked.

Tanesha scowled at him and walked to the
bedroom. She went to his closet and stuffed the few things she’d
left there into a reusable bag.

“
This is the part where
you say I’m missing the point,” Jeraine said. “But I don’t know the
point. Tanesha, what’s going on?”

She turned to look at him. She opened her
mouth and then shut it. She sneered at him and walked into the
bathroom. He followed her.

“
Is your friend Tres the
man you dated this summer? I haven’t met him,” Jeraine said. “I
thought you were friends with the occasional side
benefits.”

“
We
are
friends,” Tanesha said from the
shower.

“
Tanesha,” Jeraine said.
“I don’t have any idea what’s going on.”

“
What a surprise?” Tanesha
asked. “I’m shocked.”

“
And sarcastic,” Jeraine
said. “One thing I always like about you, about us, is that we were
always honest with each other. You’re the most honest person I’ve
ever met. Your friends too. It’s always been hard for me, because
we both know I’m not the most honest person. But in order to be
your friend, I have to be as honest as I can be.”

“
And?” Tanesha gave him a
tiny shake of her head.

“
What’s going on?” Jeraine
asked.

She gave him another shake of her head.

“
Ok, how about I start. I
woke up early this morning to sort out my promises to God,” he
started counting his fingers. “The love of my life came out and
helped me fix everything. She promised me that she would help me
get straight with God. We went to church and I prayed that I would
wake up every day to see her face. Then I had a meeting. After my
meeting I went to the Castle to look for my love. When she wasn’t
there, I went to her grandmother’s house, her father’s
house,
my
father’s house, and finally came here. A couple of hours
later, she showed up to pack her things.”

She gave an impatient ‘hrfmp.’

“
In case you’re
confused,
you
are
the love of my life,” he said.

She didn’t respond.

“
You’re leaving, aren’t
you?”

She nodded.

“
If you’re taking your
things, you better cut out my heart and take it too,” Jeraine said.
“I’m not going to live without you. I’ve done it too long, and I
won’t do it again. I just won’t.”

Her eyes filled with tears and she looked
away from him.

“
What’s so awful that you
won’t talk to me?”

“
That man you had a
meeting with,” Tanesha said. “He’s awful.”

“
He is,” Jeraine
said.

“
But he’s who you chose,”
Tanesha said. “All this time. He’s the one you listen to, not
me.”

“
I didn’t choose him,
Tanesha,” Jeraine said. “He was given to me by the record company.
Did he say something to you? I mean I knew you were mad, but just
being around him pisses me off.”

“
He told me that you
belonged to him,” Tanesha said. “He said I should get out of the
way. That I didn’t have a chance and…”

“
I’m sorry,” Jeraine
hugged her.

“
He told me that my skinny
nappy haired self would never be enough for you. You’d break my
heart and…”

Angry tears spilled from Tanesha’s eyes.

“
Did you know that man set
you up for that girl’s suicide?” Tanesha asked.

“
That’s what Seth
discovered. That Judge? The one I’ve been so mad at? He kept me in
prison to keep me safe from my own damned record company. Can you
believe it?” Jeraine shook his head. “Pretty incredible. I was too
stupid to see it.”

“
Why did you go with him
today?”

“
I have one more event on
my contract,” Jeraine said.

“
Why would you go?”
Tanesha asked.

“
Because I get paid a lot
of money to show up, wave to people, sing one song, and stay for an
hour,” Jeraine said. “We went over the contract today and met with
the club owner.”

“
Why go?” Tanesha
asked.

“
I promised the money to
some kids’ charity. For food, I think. I can write them a check but
they need the publicity. Why are we talking about this stupid
stuff?”

Jeraine sat down on the bed.

“
I’d rather talk about
what’s going on right here,” Jeraine gestured to Tanesha and back
to himself. “Let’s get this straight; get us straight. Then figure
out whatever else. Because if we’re not… I…”

He gave a desperate shake of his head.

“
He said…”

“
He’s a fool,” Jeraine
said. “Whatever he said is wrong.”

“
But he…”

“
He doesn’t know that
every single thing I’ve done since I was ten years old, I did for
you.”

“
And all those
women?”

“
I was trying to replace
you,” Jeraine said. “Not one of those women came even close. He
thinks I’ve lost my mind, I’ll wake up and go back. He doesn’t know
that I thought of you every moment of every day. From the moment I
opened my eyes in the morning until I went to sleep at night, I’d
think – I wonder if T would like this. I wonder if T would like
that. I wonder what she’s doing right now.”

“
Why do you want to be a
doctor?” Tanesha stood her ground. “Are you doing that for
me?”

“
For you?” Jeraine seemed
genuinely surprised. “I’ve wanted to be a doctor since I saw my Dad
help old Mrs. Watkins. She had nothing, but Dad would go to her
house to make sure she was all right. He’d bring her leftovers from
dinner the night before and some music he had lying around. He
helped her by just being there. I always wanted to help people like
that.”