“In this condition, it is. I mean, it needs work, but it’s pretty well cared for.”
I feel my dad adding up the figures in his head, and annoyance snaps at the back of my neck. “The music room is down here,” I say, herding them down the hall. Willow’s violin is on a stand, and papers are scattered all over the grand piano. It’s very much a working space. “You’re not the musician, are you?” Brittney asks.
“No, Willow. She had an album out recently.”
“No kidding. Would I know it?”
I meet her eyes. “Maybe. She’s a folk musician.”
“Such a waste,” my dad mutters.
“What do you mean?” I ask, more snapping along my nerves.
“She was a prodigy. She could have done anything, but your mom just kept protecting her from the public.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” I cross my arms. “She wasn’t a commodity, something to make money on.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
I feel a wave of heat, maybe anger or something like it, coming over me. “Look, I just don’t think I can do this. I don’t want to do this.”
Willow shows up at the door just as my father says, “I’m sorry, Sam. I didn’t mean it. Just let Britt see the rest, will you? It’s a big deal to her.”
“That’s all right,” she says. “We can come back some other time.”
“I think that would be best,” Willow says. Her face is performer blank, and I think she must be furious. She takes my arm. “Come with me. I’ll be right back, you two.”
As we walk down the corridor to my room, she says, “No offense, but that was a very tacky land grab.”
I don’t say anything. She’s right.
“Asher’s back. I’ll send him down.”
“Okay.” I sink on the bed. “Where is Gloria?”
“Uh, we need to talk about that, but give me a couple of minutes.”
“Talk about what?” I ask sharply. “You never did tell me what’s going on.”
“I know, there hasn’t been time, but I will. Let me just go get rid of them, okay?”
I feel a ripple of warning. “Is Gloria sick or something?”
“No. That’s not it. I’ll be right back.”
I nod, thinking of my dad, bringing his wife, the real estate agent. Talking about my sister like she was a check to be cashed.
But where is Gloria?
Chapter Forty-Seven
Willow
My blood is humming as I pop into the kitchen to tell Asher that Sam’s in her room. He’s helping himself to the deli turkey and pickles in the fridge, and I can tell he, too, has showered.
“Did you take care of our little issue?” I ask quietly, meaning the paintings I handed over.
He gives me a sideways grin. “I did, Inspector Gadget. It’s all good.”
I let go of a sigh. He’s wearing a lavender shirt, loose cut, that shows off his skin tone and dark hair. “I like that shirt,” I say.
“Thanks. My sister.”
I smile. “Is she the one responsible for the difference in your clothes?”
He gives me his side grin. “Is it that obvious?”
I shrug lightly, turning on the teapot, feeling bubbles in my head, my throat, and I’m ready to burst. “Guess who just called me?”
He spreads mustard over a sturdy slice of bread. “Who?”
“Rolling Stone !” I squeeze his arm and make a squealing noise. “They want to interview me! And not part of some retrospective or anything about my mom—I asked—but because somebody there is a big folk fan and they love my album.”
He hugs me. “That’s terrific, Willow. I’m so proud of you!”
I suddenly remember Sam’s dad. “Uh, Sam is in her room, if you want to go down there.”
“How is she?”
“Much better, but she might have overdone it with her dad.” I scurry down the hall, but Robert and Brittney aren’t in the music room, where I left them. Their voices come from another room, and I follow them through the parlor out to the garden. They’re standing there, admiring the view, when I come out.
“Sorry, Willow,” Robert says. “I just wanted to show Britt the garden. She’s heard so much about it.”
“I follow Gloria on Instagram,” Britt says. “It’s such a great narrative—she has such a full and beautiful life.”
“Instagram is supposed to look like that,” Robert says.
Pain runs around my ribs; I’ve got to let Sam in on what’s going on before she finds out some other way. The anxiety makes me antsy. “It is,” I say, crossing my arms. “But her life really is like that. Brittney, do you want to see the greenhouse?”
“I think we’ve overstayed our welcome,” she says. “Another time, maybe.”
I give Robert a look and lead them through the kitchen, through the servant hallway to the foyer, and just as I’m about to go back to the kitchen, the buzzer rings. I answer it. “What’s up?”
“An FBI agent by the name of Balakrishna is here. Shall I send him up?”
Shit. For a moment, I’m totally frozen, wondering what I should do. What’s right? What’s going to protect Gloria? How far has she gone?
“Sure. Why not.”
Before I can turn around, there’s another buzz. “Miss Willow, a doctor is here to see Miss Samantha.”
Next there will be dancing lions and acrobats. “Okay. Him too.”
My stomach flips a little as I think of Gloria and what I should say to the agent. What does he want this time? I pull my hair away from my face and secure it in an elastic, glancing in the mirror by the door. Even without makeup I can see that I look better, that the hard months of the fall and winter are falling away. There’s color in my cheeks, hope in my eyes.
Rolling Stone. The thought shoots through my terror.
My mom was on the cover of Rolling Stone in 1979. Her song “Write My Name Across the Sky” had just gone platinum, and she’d just returned from a wildly successful tour. It might have been one of the best times in her life. She was living in the apartment, making it into her place, writing a ton of songs. The article talked a lot about her influences and her music and performing but not much about her writing, as if it was the least important thing about her. Sam’s dad had written it, the second one he’d written, and he was clearly enchanted by her, by her potential.
The cover shot is dramatic and beautiful, Billie sitting in a blank area, her knees up in front of her and her beautiful long-fingered hands, covered with rings and holding a cigarette, draped over them. Her neck is long, her head cocked at an angle. She had cut her hair by then, and it clung to her head like a cap, leaving the entire focus on her enormous eyes, lined heavily in kohl, penetrating and steady.
Sam’s dad married her, and they had Sam, and my mom was in a good place for a while. She went on tour and had that fateful fling with some random musician, and I was the result. Robert spent the rest of her life punishing Billie and Sam.
Mostly Sam.
A knock on the door startles me, and I swing it open to reveal both Eric and Agent Balakrishna, who is freaking me out, and it makes me fluttery. He looks grim, and I wave him inside, looking at him from the corner of my eye.
“Hello,” I say, “come in, both of you.” Eric carries a bouquet of flowers, lush pink and white peonies he must have paid a fortune for, Sam’s very favorite in the world. Asher will hate that. I give him a glare. “I’ll take those and put them in water.”
He holds on to them. “That’s all right. I’d rather give them to her myself.”
I can’t exactly rip them out of his hands, though I want to. To Agent Balakrishna, I say, “Will you sit down and give me a moment? My sister has been quite ill, and this is her doctor.”
“Of course, of course.” He sinks down on the bench as if he’s a good student and looks up to the stained glass.
“This way,” I say to Eric.
He follows without speaking. I poke my head into her room. Asher is sitting
beside her on the bed, both of them leaning against the headboard, their feet in front of them. He’s kicked off his shoes, and they lie akimbo on the floor. “Sam’s doctor is here,” I say and leave them, hurrying back to the foyer before Balakrishna can start snooping.
“Sorry about that,” I say. “How can I help you?”
“It’s perfectly all right. How is your sister?”
“Improving, thanks.” I find myself folding my arms defensively and force myself to stop, tucking my hands in my back pockets.
“I’d like to ask Ms. Rose a few questions, please.”
“She isn’t here.”
“When do you expect her to return?”
I shrug. “She doesn’t check in with me. I have no idea.”
“Will you call her, please?”
Her phone is in my back pocket, and I have no idea if the ringer is on or off. I can’t take the chance. My hands are shaking so much I have to shove them in my pockets. “Is she in trouble? Does she need to call a lawyer?”
“That’s up to her, of course. I only want to ask about a few of her movements some years ago.”
My throat is so dry I have to cough. “Again, I guess you need to come back another time, because she’s not here.”
He measures me for a long moment. “Very well.” He offers me his card. “Please have her give me a call when she returns. It will only take a moment.”
I nod.
As he’s about to leave, he turns. “The painting of your mother—would you ever consider selling it?”
“No,” I say. “It means a lot to all of us.”
“Of course.” He lifts a hand in farewell and ambles out.
For a long moment, I stand with my back against the door and try to think. Can I get a message to Gloria somehow? She needs to know that he’s onto her.
It occurs to me that Balakrishna admired the painting of my mother before, so it has to have been with Gloria. I hurry into the parlor, and there it is in all its splendor. The light is good, making her eyes shine, a hint of a smile on her mouth, as if she liked who she was looking at. Rock star Mona Lisa, I think, and hold up Gloria’s phone. This is the image that should have been on Rolling Stone. It reveals a lot more about her.
I snap the photo, then sit in Gloria’s chair and edit the shot. I have to think about how to get the message through that Balakrishna is asking about her without giving anything away. During the happy days. To the world, she was a rock star. To me she was my little sister. I sometimes think maybe she should have disappeared. Maybe it would have saved her life. This painting is much admired, but we’d never sell it. #rockstarmonalisa #billiethorne #sisters #art #love #missyou #alliswell #rockon
I post it.
A DM pops up, sending my heart skittering. Can she see me? I click to open it, and there are dozens of messages, but the one that just came in is from Malachi Renoir, and it’s such an absurd name I click on it just to see what the troll is saying.
Ma bichette, it says. All is well. You are safe.
Is it her lover from long ago? It makes me ache, both because he sent it and because she will not see it, and I’m mulling over how to handle that when Asher storms up the corridor. I jump up to follow him into the foyer, where he picks up his coat and shoves his arms into it. “I have to go to work,” he says.
“What?”
He sets his jaw, shakes his head, and I step out of the way so he can dramatically yank open the door.
“See you later,” I say.
“I doubt it.” He slams the door.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Sam
Ten minutes earlier
I am dozing when Asher comes in. I only know he’s there because he sits beside me on the bed and strokes my hair. It feels like my dream, and I turn. “Hi.”
“Hi. You can sleep if you want.”
“No, I just didn’t want to talk to my asshole dad.”
“It was nice of him to make sure you’re okay.”
“It would have been nice if that’s why he was here, but he brought his wife, the real estate agent, to see the apartment.”
“Whoa. Ballsy. Is Gloria going to sell?”
I glare at him. “It’s not hers, actually. It belongs to me and Willow.”
“But she lives here. You can’t sell it out from under her.”
“I know that. I was just—” I shake my head, trying to wiggle away from the shame of my motives. “I might have mentioned to my dad that my business was in trouble. I was hoping he’d maybe offer me a loan, but instead, he told me I should sell the apartment.”
“Sam!”
“I know, okay!” I look at him. “I wouldn’t do it. I just—I talked to G and Willow about it, and they lost their minds, and I wouldn’t do it anyway.”
“You sound a tiny bit unsure of that.”
I pluck at the bedspread. “Maybe. I mean, it’s a big apartment for one person.”
“Two. Willow lives here too.”
“Still. Two people in all these rooms? What a waste!”
He’s very still. “I don’t like this side of you, Sam. Gloria loves this place. She would hate to leave it.”
“I know.” I bend over and put my head in my hands. “I just don’t know how to make Jared go away.”
“That you want him to go away is a pretty big sign that you don’t want to sell.”
I let myself smile. “Maybe. That was also the night the idea for the game showed up.”
“Let’s make that happen, then.” He reaches into his leather satchel and brings up his laptop, then settles back against the headboard. I scoot back with mine, and we sit side by side, opening our machines in tandem. His thigh is hot next to mine, and I have a sudden memory of how it felt against mine when—
Focus.
But it’s hard when he smells so good. When all I really want to do is slide down and bring him with me so we can kiss. And more.
“Let’s go back to the branches of play in the forest,” he says, tapping out some notes with his keys.
I look up at his face, the profile I know so intimately, his heavy eyebrows, the beard, his remarkably lush mouth. My own mouth purses with the wish to kiss him, and he looks down at me. For a long second, that’s all we do: imagine kissing each other.
And then, miraculously, he does. He lifts a hand and slides it along my neck, then my jaw, and bends close and kisses me very, very gently. I close my eyes, afraid to breathe, and then he does it again, deeper this time, tilting his head, his thumb at the edge of my jaw.
So gentle.
We might have continued to kiss like that for a while—a long while—but there’s a sudden, sharp knock at the door, and Eric walks in, as if it’s his house and he has a right.
Asher and I break apart, but we’re awkwardly leaning into each other, and I can’t meet his eyes because I’m still feeling dizzy about the heat of his arm against my shoulder.
“Hello,” Eric says. He’s carrying a bouquet of peonies, and the sweet scent of them fills the room. “I thought you might like something to cheer you up.”
“Beautiful,” I say, “thank you.” Rote words, but I hope they don’t sound that way. I’m about to say he can take them to Willow and she’ll put them in water, but he presses them into my arms. Automatically, I bend my head into them, inhaling, and I feel Asher move next to me, standing up.
“Can you give us a minute, Asher? I’ll just do a quick exam and be out of your way.”
“He doesn’t need to go.”
“Oh, no, that’s fine,” Asher says. “I’ll just be on my way, get out of your hair.”
Two red patches burn on his cheeks, a hectic color that shows only when he is very angry or very aroused. I don’t think it’s the latter just now. I hold out my hand. “Will you stay?”
But he has already snatched his coat from the foot of the bed. “I’ll see myself out.”
I think I hear the sound of something tearing inside of me, but it’s hard to locate because Eric is leaning
in. “How are you feeling?”
“Much better. I’d like to go home.”
“Not yet.” He listens to my heart through the V of my T-shirt. He’s close, and I see the little crisscross of scars under one brow and notice that his lower lip is quite chapped. It always stayed that way.
He puts the stethoscope away, then asks, “May I check your lymph nodes?”
I nod.
He sits down on the bed and moves the bouquet out of my arms, which makes me feel weirdly revealed, although I felt perfectly comfortable with Willow and with Asher. I can’t look at him as he palpates my lymph nodes under my neck, down the side, then—“Lift your arm, please”—under my right arm, then under my left, which makes me squirm a little.
Eric smiles. “You always were the most ticklish person I’ve ever met.”
I look up, frowning. He’s looking at me like he sees me, and he’s really too close. I can’t move back because I’m against the wall, and of course nothing will happen because he’s married and this is a professional visit, but the intent is there anyway. I recognize and remember it. I narrow my eyes. “What are you doing?”
“What do you mean?”
I push against his shoulder. He eases back, but the look in his eyes doesn’t change. “I’m not an idiot.”
“That’s the last thing you are.” He sighs and looks at his hands. “I made a big mistake, Sam.”
“What?” I raise a hand. “Okay, no. We aren’t doing this. You need to go.”
“Sam—”
“No.” I toss the flowers at him and pull my knees up to my chest. “Go.”
“But I’m your doctor.”
“Send the info to my regular doctor. I’ll text you the info.”
“You fell in love with Asher, didn’t you? I knew you guys were more than friends.”
I think of that kiss, that moment of beginning that is now ruined. “We aren’t even friends anymore,” I tell him again. I rest my forehead on my knees. “Please just go.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
Gloria
In my hurry to leave before Willow knew what I was doing, I failed to realize that by leaving my phone, I would be leaving not only my Instagram and a way they could trace me but also all my contacts, access to my email, and—worst of all—music.
Write My Name Across the Sky Page 27
