by Vera Quinn
Beauty from Ashes: Authors & Dancers Against Cancer Anthology
Contents
Production Acknowledgments
Introduction
Zeke
Penny Anglene
Why Me? Why Now?
CJ Baty
The Playboy’s Pretend Fiancée
Rochelle Bradley
Beauty in It
Chelsea Camaron
The Red Slippers
Ruth A. Casie
A Dance for Lily Rose
Aliya Dalrae
When the Stars Align
AJ Downey
It begins with You
R.S. James
A Spark of Life
Renee Jean
Of Strength & Courage
Mandi Konesni
The Sufferers’ Land
Victoria Perkins
Lulu’s Broken Melody
Ember Phoenix
Healing from the Destruction
Vera Quinn
Fight Like a Girl
Jaime Russell
Mystical Dancer
Miranda Shanklin
To Dance Again
Parker Stevens
Promise to Dance
Chianti Summers
Cupcakes, Kisses & Miracles
Darlene Tallman
Four Days
CJ Warrant
Copyright
Beauty from Ashes: Authors and Dancers Against Cancer Exclusive Anthology
Copyright © 2020 Penny Anglene, CJ Baty, Rochelle Bradley, Chelsea Camaron, Ruth A. Casie, Aliya Dale, AJ Downey, R.S. James, Renee Jean, Mandi Konesni, Victoria Perkins, Ember Phoenix, Vera Quinn, Jaime Russell, Miranda Shanklin, Parker Stevens, Chianti Summers, Darlene Talllman, CJ Warrant
All Rights Reserved
Published in the United States
All stories in Beauty from Ashes are a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book reviews.
Production Acknowledgments
Cover Design by Taylor Dawn @ Sweet 15 Designs
Editing by Maggie Kern @ Ms.Kedits except for
Beauty in It - Editing by: Asli Fratarcangeli from EL Edits and Mandy Smith from Raw Book Editing
Cupcakes, Kisses & Miracles - Editing by: Mary Kern, Melanie Gray, Shannon McFadden, Beth DiLoreto
Photographer: Golden Czermak of Furious Fotog
Cover Model: Caylan Hughes
Introduction
Dancers Against Cancer is a 503c charity that helps the dance community fight cancer. They were started after one of their own passed away from brain cancer. The charity helps dancers, dance teachers or family members of a dancer that has been impacted by cancer not only financially but also emotionally. This charity has such a lasting effect on the dancer and families affected that they become a family of survivors, fighters and supporters for those who have been lost to this disease.
This charity is close at heart because one of our own, Valory Newton, was diagnosed at the age of nine with osteosarcoma to her lower left leg. Valory is the daughter of one of our organizers, Dyana Newton. Valory’s lower left leg was amputated, however, she has not allowed it to stop her from dancing. The charity has supported their family through the journey, and Valory travels around the country to bring hope to others affected by cancer and to show how Dancers Against Cancer has Impacted her and her family’s lives..
You can read more on the charity or see hope stories on their website imadanceragainstcancer.org
Zeke
An Ink Fusion short story
Penny Anglene
Prologue
I wake up to the phone ringing and as I look at the clock, it’s two o’clock in the morning. Picking up the phone my heart starts to beat heavily into my chest almost as if I know it’s bad news. My phone never rings in the middle of the night.
“Hello.”
“Mr. Thomas?” a deep gravelly voice asks.
“Speaking. Who is this?”
“This is Mark Spinelli with the Tennessee State Police. Do you know a Mrs. Brad Short and her husband?” he asks.
“Yes, that’s my mom and my stepfather. Is everything all right?”
“I’m sorry to inform you that there was an automobile accident tonight. Your mom, Mrs. Short, and her husband were killed.
“What about my sister Valorie, do you know where she is?” I ask.
“Your sister is with a babysitter at the house. That is one of the reasons I’m calling. She needs someone to take responsibility for her or I will have to call child services,” he tells me.
“I’m on my way. It will take me a couple of hours to get there,” I tell him.
I blank out as I hear him in the background going on and on about the accident. I can’t believe this. Valorie has already been dealt with so much in her short life. Cancer at the age of nine, the loss of her leg due to the bone cancer, and the chemotherapy that she’s endured as well as trying to still maintain her childhood. She has a prothesis but doesn’t wear it often. Mom told me she would start wearing it when she wanted to.
“Mr. Thomas, are you there, did you hear what I said?”
“Yes, I’m here. I’m sorry for spacing out there for a minute. Please let the neighbor know I’m on my way down. I’ll be there shortly to take care of things.”
“Thank you, Mr. Thomas, and I am so very sorry for your loss,” he tells me.
Getting to my sister took me about three hours. I thank the neighbor, and I sit up with my sister holding her after explaining what happened. As the days pass, I had Ms. Pearl, the neighbor, watch her while I took care of the legal shit; it was a long process, and I was gone from work for about three weeks. During that time, I put Dad and Mom’s house up for sale, and packed and weeded shit out. I scheduled an estate auction for the stuff we didn’t want or need. I took my sister with me to the reading of the will. My parents gave me guardianship of my sister and left a sizeable trust fund for the both of us. I locate all the papers for Val’s Doctor’s appointments and such. Looks like I’ll be making trips every so often for her check-ups. I did take her to her regular doctor and got copies of her medical records for a doctor closer to Henderson. It took a while but things started to settle down and Valarie settled into a new normal routine with me, and what our lives would be like.
Chapter One
It’s been a couple of months since Valorie came to live with me. Things are settling into a routine and we are learning a lot of each other’s quirks. She was enrolled into school and started dance here in our area. I’m so very lucky to have Erin’s family who have stepped up to help me with her. Valorie adores Erin. I’m so happy we’re really good friends. She calls Erin’s parents, Mammy and Pappy. Valorie is thirteen going on twenty-five. I don’t know if I will make it through these girly teenage years.
Today she came down the stairs with so much makeup on she looked like the happy hooker down on Main Street. We argued and she stomped back upstairs to wash her face. Last weekend she wanted to go on a double date with her friend Madison. Hell no, that’s no
t happening until she’s twenty-five if I have my way about it.
Her birthday is coming up, and she wants a coed birthday party. Maybe with a chaperone for each kid, I’ll consider it. I have more gray hairs than an old man at seventy.
“Hey, Zeke? Zeke…” Erin says.
I glance up from straightening up my work area. “Hey, Erin, you need something?”
“You okay? You look like you have a lot on your mind. Everything okay?”
“She had on makeup so thick she looked like a happy hooker. I made her take it off and we had it out again. She wants to double date and I don’t know what to do.”
“I’m assuming you’re talking about Valorie. You have to remember her hormones are all over the place. She’s growing up. Have you sat down with her and had the talk yet?”
I sputter, choke, and my face feels flushed. “The talk? Are you out of your fucking mind? She is fucking thirteen years old. No, I’ve not had the talk. God, please, just shoot me now.” As I look up towards the sky, I say a small prayer to my mom. Help me, please.
Erin looks at me laughing with tears rolling down her face. “What the hell are you laughing at, Erin? You know what this is doing to me. I have more gray hair than my dad had.”
She chuckles. “It will be okay. She is growing and soon she will be out and getting married. Enjoy this time that you have with her. You’ll miss her when she’s grown and moves away,” She tells me with a serious expression. She pauses with something on her mind then tells me, “You have a lady here to see you. Says her name is Julia?” Erin tells me.
My eyes go wide, and I look toward the floor, my mind going a thousand different directions. She’s the woman I’ve always loved, from the very depths of my soul. What is she doing here now? Is she back for good like she promised when she left me? We were set to get married two years ago and I haven’t seen her in over two years. It’s been over a year since the last time I’ve heard from her. I look up at Erin. “Are you okay?” she asks.
“I’m not sure. She is and always has been my everything,” I tell her.
“Then get out there and see her.”
I walk out of my room, slowly making my way to the front of the shop. I glance around and there she is looking at the pictures on the wall. I stop and watch her. “Julia, is that you?” She turns and smiles that smile I’ve not seen in so long.
She walks toward me, and we wrap each other up in our arms. God, she smells so good. “What are you doing here? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? I would have picked you up.” I take a small step back to get my bearings.
“I’m back home for good. I want to be here, and I am so tired of running,” she tells me, pausing. She looks down, then back up at me. Her eyes a little watery.
“How is everyone?” Julia asks me.
“A lot going on, so much has happened. We haven’t spoken in so long. Mom and Dad were killed in a car accident a few months ago. I have Valorie.”
I see tears traveling down the side of her face as I grab her, wrapping my arms around her again, tightly. It feels as if the last two years have disappeared.
See, she is the love of my life. She’s the reason I breathe, to live every day like it’s my last to its fullest.
“I love you, Julia. So very much. Are you really back for good?” I ask.
She looks me in the eyes, tears pouring down her face. I hear the sob coming from the back of her throat. She nods. “Yes, for good. You still going to marry me?”
I bend her over my arm, kissing her like there is no tomorrow. I love her and she has made me the happiest man alive. She’s finally come home for good—like she promised.
I holler out to everyone at the shop, “She’s going to marry me. Everyone meet Julia, the love of my life.” I look up and see everyone around us smiling, clapping.
“Let’s go home,” I tell her.
Chapter Two
We get to the house; the one we had purchased together before she went away. It feels as if she never left. I hear the front door open just as we bring in her last suitcase. It’s Valorie. I can hear her complaining from our room and it sounds like she’s been crying.
“I need to go check on Valorie. She sounds upset. Come down when you get a chance to catch your breath.” I give her a kiss before leaving the room.
I walk down the hallway and see Val on the couch with tears running down her face. I sit next to her, waiting for her to talk to me. She only talks when she’s ready and not a minute before, so, I wait. We sit quietly for about five minutes before she gets up and crawls into my lap. Now I’m worried. This hasn’t happened since the death of our parents. I wrap her up in my arms, rocking her back and forth like a baby. “I’m here if and when you’re ready to talk,” I tell her.
“I don’t want to go back there. Why are they so mean all the time? They make fun of me. Say I do stuff to get attention. I’m not, Zeke. Having cancer at one time doesn’t make someone looking for attention. I wasn’t. I wish Momma were here. She would know what to do,” Valorie tells me.
“I need to go kick someone’s ass. I’m tired of this. I know I promised I wouldn’t but enough is enough” I growl out. I sit there rocking her back and forth for a few minutes, when she looks at me and asks who’s upstairs.
“Guess who’s here?” I ask her.
“No telling. Is it Toby?” Valorie asks me.
“Nope. Julia. She’s back,” I tell her with a smile.
“Really? For how long?” she asks with doubt in her voice.
“She’s not going anywhere. She’s here for good.”
“Yeah, sure, if you say so. I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“Sissy, you need to have faith. Give her a chance. You two used to be as thick as thieves. Remember?”
“Yes, that might be true, but then she left—just like our parents.”
“Hey, Valorie, how are you kiddo? I sure have missed you,” Julia says out loud.
“Yeah, so much so, you left. You promised you wouldn’t and you did. So forgive me for not believing you now. I want up, Zeke. I don’t want her here. She’s just going to leave again. You know it as well as I do that nobody stays.” Valorie says this defiantly with a sob.
Valorie gets up and runs to her bedroom. I hear her bedroom door slam shut. I look over at Julia with a sad smile on my face. We hear loud country bellyaching, cry-in-your-drink music blaring. “She doesn’t mean it, Julia. She’s going through a hard time right now. She dresses and wears makeup so gobbed up on her face like she’s twenty-five. She misses Mom, and the kids at school are vicious. No, not all the kids. Them little heathen girls are just mean-ass girls. I’ve never seen anything like it. I have no idea of what the fuck I’m doing. I’m sinking fast and don’t know what to do.” I glance up and look at her. “You need to decide if this is really what you want. I won’t put her through someone else leaving her. She can’t do it and neither can I. We’ve lost too much already.”
She looks at me for a few minutes. “I’m back. I never should have left. It took me a long time to figure that out. I understand if you don’t trust me. It was never you, Zeke, and I told you that back then and in between. It was one hundred percent me. I’ve always had to do what I was told—never allowed to do anything I wanted. I had my chance, I took it, the hell with what everyone else went through. It was selfish of me to do that to you and your family. Your mom told me that one of these days I would regret what I was doing. She also told me that I needed to do it for me. I loved your momma more than ever and although she told me I would regret it; she also knew I needed to do this for me,” Julia says.
“She told me that I needed to let you go and to give you time. She also told me you would be back and when you got here it would be for good.” I pause. “She told me that you loved me, but you needed to grow and become you.”
“I did. More than you could ever know. I had to make sure. I am sure and I’m here to stay. You need to let me help with Valorie,” she whispers.
“
You can try, but you probably won’t get through to her.”
“Start dinner and I’ll go talk to Valorie and see if I can help fix some of the mess I made.”
I start dinner. I can hear them in the background talking, sometimes Valorie with her voice raised. I decided on pork chops and baked potatoes because they are easy and simple. It’s also one of Valorie’s favorites. I try to do special things when I know she’s having a rough day. I just don’t know what to do for her all the time. I need to go to the school and get this shit stopped though. I’m sick and tired of them little bitches being mean girls. If that doesn’t work, it looks like I need to go whip some daddies’ asses. I’m pondering everything and decide that I will go Monday and have a long talk with the principal. She needs to put a stop to this or she is going to have one pissed off dad on her hands with me. I won’t tolerate this. She needs stability in her life.
We all sit down for dinner and the conversation at first is a little stilted. I don’t know what they all talked about, but Valorie wasn’t as upset. You could see where she had been crying, but that was all I could see at this point. At least she is here eating; normally if she has a bad day, I can’t get her to eat.
We get done and clean the kitchen together. Valorie looks at me and tells me she wants to dance for this year’s Authors and Dancers Against Cancer charity event.
