“What are you doing?” Jas asked, interrupting my exploring.
“Nothing.” I got to my feet and dusted my knees. I’d keep my eye on that hole. Even a doorway that small worried me.
I went into the kitchen to throw away the trash, and Jas followed me to pour Tommy a glass of water. My eleven-year-old niece, Ariel, sat the table creating a triple-decker, peanut butter sandwich. She offered a smile that contrasted with her dyed black hair and ghoulish makeup. Now that it was summer, I’d tried to get her to wear something other than her black T-shirt and jeans, but she refused. She clung to her Gothic persona the way other kids clung to their teddy bears.
“I have a favor to ask you,” I said to Jasmine. “I’d like the apartment to myself tomorrow night.”
“Why?”
I had to broach this carefully. I didn’t want Jas jumping to conclusions. “I’ve invited someone over for dinner.”
“It’s not Corrine from downstairs is it?” Ariel asked. “Because I don’t like her. She wears too much perfume and is always trying to get me to wear pink.” She took an enormous bite of her sandwich.
“No, it’s not Corrine. His name is William.”
Jasmine’s eyes lit up. “Lilith! Are you serious? You actually have a date?!” She and Ariel high-fived one another. “What’s he like? Where does he work? Is he cute? How long have you been seeing him?”
I cringed under Jasmine’s rapid-fire questions. This was exactly what I’d wanted to avoid. “We’re not exactly seeing each other,” I said. “It’s more like we’re good friends.”
“Friends with benefits?” my niece asked around a mouthful of sandwich.
“Ari!” I said, shocked. “No, definitely not. We’re just friends.” Although, that wasn’t quite the right term for a man who made my stomach flutter pleasantly every time I thought of him. “We want to take things slow.” Or, rather, I did. If only to prove to myself that William cared enough about me to wait.
“Well, I’m glad for you,” Jasmine said. “You deserve to be happy.”
She was right; I did deserve it. After I’d walked into my bathroom and found the model/actress who my ex-husband was banging taking a bath in my bathtub, my life had fallen apart. It was about time that I had a little happiness. And William certainly made me happy.
The alarm clock on Jasmine’s cell phone rang. She went back into the living room. “Time for your meds,” she told Tommy brightly. Now that Jas had made it her mission to take care of him, she lived by her alarm clock. In fact, his meals, appointments, and medications were so strictly scheduled it sometimes seemed like he was in prison. “Then after your meds, we’ll go on a walk.”
“Not today, Jas,” Tommy pleaded. “I’m not up for it.”
“He looks exhausted,” I said. “Let him take a nap.”
Ariel wandered in, a book under her arm. “I wanted to read to him.” Although she was eleven, Ari read at a third-grade level. Over the summer, Tommy had challenged her to improve, and to please him, she’d been painfully working her way through The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It could take her almost an hour to finish three pages, yet somehow, Tommy always listened to her without becoming impatient or falling asleep.
“You can read to him later.” Jasmine sat on the arm of the couch and kneaded his shoulders. “And he doesn’t need another nap. He needs exercise. Dr. Cantor said…”
I groaned. “Enough with Dr. Cantor, already!”
“You aren’t the boss of him.” Jasmine glared at me. “I said I’d take care of him, and I’m doing that.”
“He’s a grown man and not a little kid,” I said. “Let the poor guy rest if he’s tired.”
“I’ll read him to sleep,” Ari offered.
Jasmine marched over to me. “Listen! I’m only doing what the doctor told me to do, and you’re not helping. You’ve even been giving him coffee, haven’t you? Coffee, Lil? Really?”
“He asked for it so I made him a cup.”
“You shouldn’t have given in. This is for his own good!”
“Stop smothering him!”
“I’m not smothering him!”
“Ladies!” Tommy had gotten to his feet and stood next to the couch, leaning on it for support. We all fell silent. “Look, I can’t take all of this attention anymore. I’m starting to feel like your pet boy.”
I wanted to argue that he wasn’t our pet, but thinking about how we fed and watered and coddled Drinking Tea, my cat, made me realize we’d been treating Tommy exactly the same way.
Jasmine, chagrined, carefully put her arms around his waist. “I only want you to get better.”
“I know. And you’ve been doing a really good job of taking care of me, but I need some space. That’s why I’m moving in with Neil for a while. He’s picking me up tonight.”
I’d met Tommy’s best friend Neil a few times at the hospital. He owned a tattoo and piercing parlor called Midtown Ink.
“You can’t stay there!” Jasmine protested. “Where are you going to sleep?”
Neil was married and had three kids. His family lived in a tiny, two-bedroom house near Midtown.
“There’s a couch in Neil’s office. I can crash there,” Tommy said.
“You’ve only been out of the hospital for a few weeks,” Jasmine argued.
“Yes, but I’m going crazy here. No offense, but all of this sacral energy is getting on my nerves. I need some time to rebalance my chakras.”
I didn’t understand the spiritual gibberish, but the bottom line was clear. He was suffering from estrogen overload.
“You hate us,” Ariel said. Tears shimmered in her eyes.
He touched her shoulder. “Of course I don’t.”
Jasmine crossed her arms over her chest. “If you live at Midtown, you’ll be tempted to get another tattoo. I just know it.”
He avoided her eyes. “I won’t.”
“You will! You’ve been drawing in your sketchpad again, and I know what you’re thinking. But you heard what Dr. Cantor said: no more tattoos or piercings until you’re fully healed.” She touched his arm. “Please, you need to get well first.”
“She’s right,” I said. “Let your body heal one thing at a time.”
He held up his hand Boy Scout-style. “I swear to you I won’t get another tattoo until I’m fully healed.”
I wanted to believe him, but even when he crossed his heart with his index finger, his eyes wandered to his sketchpad.
That afternoon, while Tommy napped, and Jasmine and Ariel watched an old horror movie on TV, I retreated into my bedroom. From my nightstand, I took out a small notebook that Grace had given to me at Christmas. On the cover was a picture of a tiny kitten meowing in