“I’m going to take a hot bath and contemplate the rest of my evening.” May shuffled off to her room. “Not to mention I’m damn starving.” She reached the doorway and stripped her business clothes off quickly. They landed haphazardly by the doorway, and she kicked them toward the hamper.
May turned her bathroom light on and stepped inside. “I’ll just go to pick up some stone later. Besides, can’t do much with all that rain.” She caught sight of herself in the mirror and stopped. Mirrors ceased to be her friend all those years ago when her young body became scarred and twisted.
May traced with her finger from the side of her neck up under her hairline on the right side. There was a small curved scar behind her right ear. When Sunshine rolled on her, her head smashed against a large rock. The doctors never understood how she survived the accident. She often heard murmurs of disbelief that her injuries were mild. They spoke of brain damage like it had been a certainty. But May woke from her coma with all her faculties intact.
And the doctor wanted to amputate her leg. She remembered it all too well. Dr. Banks had finished an examination and turned to her parents to confirm their worst fears. Nerve damage beyond repair. A useless limb.
Her parents stood there in disbelief and shock. Their golden goose with a clipped wing. How could she possibly perform for them now?
Her mother sobbed into her hands while her father patted her back consolingly. “I believe our daughter will walk again, Dr. Banks.” His hard gray eyes focused on his daughter. “May has never disappointed us. I’m sure she won’t start now.”
And there it was. The expectation she would continue to support her family even though her body lay broken.
And May’s young heart hardened for the first time in her life. Her parents didn’t care about her. They were only concerned with the checks that came to the house. The money she supplied for her father’s cars and her mother’s furs. It had been a bitter acknowledgment she had hidden from herself for far too long.
May didn’t break eye contact with her father. “I will walk again,” she assured him. And then she dismissed him and turned to Dr. Banks. “I need to speak to my family alone, please.”
The physician left, and May eased her body up to a sitting position. Sweat broke out on her brow, but she didn’t flinch. She clenched her jaw to keep from crying out at the pain that racked through her body.
When comfortable, she looked at her parents with a wisdom far beyond her eleven years.
“How much money do we have?”
Her mother ceased sobbing and looked at her with hard brown eyes. A nondescript slender woman who satisfied her self-worth with expensive clothes and make-up. Today, she wore a fox stole that brought out the red highlights in her latest hairstyle. The bright blue silk dress hand-stitched and the shoes dyed to match.
The mouth that had been sobbing a minute ago pinched into a hard line. “What kind of question is that to ask your parents?” she demanded.
Her father watched her shrewdly. “Judy. I believe our daughter is growing up.” He unbuttoned the jacket of his tailored gray suit and eased his muscular body into a visitor’s chair. Grant Fairchild had been a personal trainer for the rich and famous once upon a time. That had been a bit before he helped create his own little rich and famous project. The one who now dared to ask him questions about finances.
“I don’t care.” Judy pouted. “It’s rude.”
“It’s my money.”
The sentence hung in the air like a death dirge.
Her father’s jaw hardened perceptibly. “Your value has obviously gone down.”
May bit back the tears his hateful words caused. She would never cry for either of these two people again. Her hands clenched in the white sterile covers. “How much?” she repeated.
“Enough to pay off the houses and cars.” Grant studied her closely. “But not enough to live on as we’re accustomed to living.”
She nodded. “And how much do the reporters and magazines want for my story? For pictures of my accident?”
A flush rose in Judy’s cheeks. Excitement tempered with caution. She didn’t recognize the girl she dealt with in the hospital bed. Her daughter had been so biddable. The stranger in front of her, another story. “One of the tabloids offered five hundred thousand.” She held her breath.
“And tell me the other offers.”
When her parents finished telling her, May leaned back in the bed and closed her eyes. She felt so damn tired. But she knew what she had to do before she asked for one of those wonderful pain pills that knocked her out and took the suffering away for awhile.
“I will do the interviews that pay the most.” May opened brown eyes glazed with pain and studied the two adults in front of her. “The studio will pay for all the hospital bills. There will be royalty checks from my previous episodes. I want half of every payment from this accident to be put into an account for me and me alone. Neither one of you is to have access to it.”
Judy opened her mouth, but Grant shook his head. “That seems fair.”
“Oh.” May smiled bitterly. “It is. I want it all in writing. If either of you chooses to break this agreement, I will sell my own story and file for emancipation.”
“Quite a little bitch, aren’t you?” her mother bit out with hatred in her eyes. “Is this the thanks we get for caring for you all these years?”
May studied her in silence. All those years hanging around adult television sets paid off with the next sentence. “Thanks for whoring me out, Mother. I’ll never forget it.”
They left quickly after that. May rubbed the scar behind her ear. A lawyer brought papers the next day for her to sign. She had two other lawyers look them over before she signed them. The studio had paid for all her bills. And they paid for years of rehab until May finally walked away from all of it. The years of therapy allowed her to shuffle from one place to the next. But she knew that full mobility would never happen. There had been too much damage.
Her parents never came to visit her in the hospital again. They put her up in a house close to the hospital and hired full-time care for her. The first no-nonsense nurse lasted two weeks until May fired her. She had been one in a long line of caretakers in her adolescence.
Judy and Grant Fairchild only came once to visit her. Years after the accident. They showed up on her doorstep with papers to sign. The papers extended her royalties through the life of the show. It had been one week before her fifteenth birthday.
She would never forget the look on her parents’ faces when she entered the sitting room with her walker. Her right leg dragged behind her and made a horrible scraping sound on the wood flooring. They fairly shoved the papers at her and told her she could send them back by messenger. It had been the last time she saw them. The Fairchilds were killed in a head-on collision that left her an orphan at sixteen. May couldn’t help but think her father would be happy at spending his last moments on Earth in one of his expensive Cadillacs.
So many scars.
May traced a path along her throat to her collarbone. A long, thin line cut across her left breast where Sunshine’s bridle cut into her when they rolled. She looked at herself with objective eyes. This is what forty years old looked like. A slight sag to her full breasts. A soft stomach with rounded hips. May turned to the right and looked at the large scar that rose up from the middle of her right butt cheek and curved up to her waist and down her right hip.
The doctors mended her hipbone and repaired those nerves as best they could. It had been a significant success. The only damage they couldn’t heal had been in her leg.
May turned around and walked to the bathtub. She leaned over, started the water, and poured in some bath salts. How long had it been since she even thought about her parents? A long time. They had been relegated to the back of her thoughts for several years. They didn’t deserve her thoughts. May tightened her jaw. She had been a commodity.
The same feeling she experienced with her two flings. They had only bee
n out for what she could do for them. Never mind her wants and needs. And that had satisfied her at the time.
May frowned and eased down into the bathtub. The fragrant hot water washed over her, and she sighed. “Walk up three steps, and I start self-analysis,” she muttered. Hadn’t she closed the door on all that years ago?
“I have,” she said. The words didn’t have the effect she needed. “I have,” she repeated firmly. May pushed the past out of her head and focused on the present.
* * * *
It was late.
May smacked her pillow and groaned. The pizza she inhaled for dinner didn’t last very long. Her stomach growled in protest of her inattention. If she worried about her rounded stomach now, she may as well give it up. There were only six pieces of pizza left. She had eaten the rest of the pizza and a salad before that.
Her mouth watered. “You have got to be kidding,” she muttered. “There is no way I can still be hungry.”
But the proof growled painfully again.
A little after three o’clock, and May propped herself up on her elbows. She blinked in the darkness. “I am going to get out of bed to consume thousands of calories.” The statement didn’t deter her in the slightest.
“Screw it.” May threw back the covers and eased her feet onto the floor. She stood and then became extremely still. Something felt wrong. No pain in her leg. None.
May pulled up the pink flowery satin shorts and traced the thick scar on her upper thigh. She blinked in confusion. There had been pain in some degree for three decades. It ranged from horrific to dull, but it had always been there.
She walked out of her bedroom and into the kitchen. The pink spaghetti strap camisole slid from her shoulder, and she pushed it up absently. None of it made any sense.
May’s stomach growled again, and she scowled. “I hear ya, insatiable. Simmer.” She reached into the refrigerator and pulled out the rest of the pizza safely secured in a large baggy. Oh, it looks tasty. She flicked the kitchen light on and pulled a piece out. No need to warm it up. May ate it standing up with a huge grin on her face. Then she had another.
What the hell is going on? May zipped the baggy and put it back in the refrigerator. Then she walked into the hallway and stopped at the steps. Wilda’s words echoed through her head, and she put her left foot on the first step. “If it gets too bad, I can crawl. No problem.”
And there wasn’t a problem. May walked up the stairs quicker than she ever had before. She paused at the top and pinched the hell out of her arm. The pain jolted her, but she didn’t wake up. She flipped the light switch and looked her fill.
The second story of her house another testament to her love of flowers. Baby-blue carpeting spread through the rooms while artificial flowers adorned the small tables placed along the hallway. May brushed her hands along the eggshell walls and smiled.
Floral landscapes graced both sides of the hallway. May traced a gilded frame and sighed in pleasure. She had forgotten how gorgeous it was. How much care she had put into precisely the right look for her home.
The hall ended at the bathroom but also opened up into two guestrooms and one office. May opened the door of the first guestroom and let the beauty wash over her. Purple and blue irises bloomed along every wall in a trio of paintings that highlighted the subtle beauty of the flower. Irises of every color exploded across the bedspread and tied into the vases on the dressers and nightstand. The dark oak bed showcased the lightness of the flowers to perfection.
May turned on the lamp beside the bed with a smile. She pulled the sunshine yellow curtain back and looked outside. A clear night. The stars shone brightly in the sky. A vantage point she could grow accustomed to.
She started to drop the curtains when a light on the first floor in the house next to her caught her eye. There was no excuse for spying, but May didn’t think of letting the curtain fall back. Chandler sat at a desk next to the window with only a pair of light-blue boxers on. He tapped quickly on the keyboard and then reached behind his ear to grab a pen and write something down. Tap, tap, tap. Write, write, write.
He must have finished something because he sat back with a satisfied grin and pumped his fist one time in the air. May chuckled. Apparently inspiration and hunger sometimes struck at the same time.
She looked her fill at his broad chest with a smattering of golden chest hair that disappeared into the front of his blue boxers. Chandler sat there for a minute and tapped his fingers on his desk. Then he tapped some more on his keyboard.
May’s pulse raced as she watched him work at his desk. His biceps flexed in the glow of his desk lamp. And she could make out the top of his muscular thighs. Chandler’s hair stood on end, and she soon saw why. He would come to a stopping point and grab little tufts and give them a small yank.
“He’s frustrated,” she whispered with a small grin. “How cute.”
May leaned farther against the window and then froze.
Chandler paused in his typing and looked up.
Her heart tripped in her chest. She couldn’t deny the intimacy of his gaze. A smile spread across his face, and he raised his hand to wave. May fought the urge to throw the curtain closed and run. She brought her hand up and returned the wave.
Chandler moved his hand back to the keyboard and continued typing.
May let the curtain fall and slowly backed away from the window. She turned the lamp off and walked out of the guestroom quickly. Images of Chandler’s half-dressed body flickered behind her eyelids. She pressed her hands to her jumping stomach. That whole scene would make for a fun next meeting.
“Yes, Chandler,” she admitted. “I stared at your half-naked, defenseless hot body. And I mentally masturbated. Hope you don’t mind.” May fought the laughter that bubbled in her chest. “Oh, God!” she snickered. And that was all it took.
May leaned against the side of the wall while tears poured from her eyes. She tried to regain control of her runaway emotions but couldn’t. The laughter turned to sobs that took her to the floor at the top of the landing.
She rocked back and forth and buried her face in her hands. The crying jag eased off slowly, and May sniffled and rubbed her hands across her watery eyes. “What in the hell?” She blinked and stood slowly. No pain in her leg. May rubbed a spot over her heart. And she felt lighter.
The stairs were no problem on her way down.
May paused at the bottom and brushed her hair back behind her ear. Maybe fantasizing about her neighbor had healing properties. She chuckled. An image of herself sitting on Chandler’s lap while he sat at his desk flooded her mind, and her knees nearly buckled.
“Go to bed,” she told herself. “And no more pizza for you. Geez.” May walked into her kitchen and stroked her new plant’s leaves and smiled. “You go back to sleep, too. I’m done acting like a complete idiot. I think,” she murmured. May turned off the kitchen light and walked back into her bedroom. Thank goodness Tuesday would be a slow day. The real fun looked to begin on Wednesday.
May lay down and absently traced her scar. “Thank you,” she murmured sleepily. But she had no idea who she thanked.
* * * *
May yawned lazily but refused to open her eyes. God knows, it was probably raining again. No need to be in a hurry this morning. She reached inside to find the time, and her eyes flew open in alarm.
“Shit!”
How could it be eleven o’clock? May threw back her covers and swung her legs over the bed. A sharp pain raced up her right leg, and she gasped.
“Damn it,” May moaned. The pain damn near excruciating. She rubbed her thigh and winced. Some of the worst pain she’d had in months. Her left leg trembled, also.
“For the love of all that’s good.” May bit her lip and focused on standing slowly. The pain steep and brilliant. Stars danced behind her eyes before she steadied herself.
If she could bring herself to make it to the bathroom, she would take one of the damn pain pills. Sure, she would. The day would disappear, but s
o would the pain.
Last night’s foray scurried through her mind before the pain shuffled it back out. She felt only a deep ache that needed to be silenced.
May shuffled painfully into the bathroom and clutched the bathroom sink with white knuckles. She glanced up and looked at herself in the mirror. A comparison to death warmed over would have been a compliment. May reached out with a trembling hand and opened the medicine cabinet.
There were several bottles of pills on each shelf. She rubbed her temple and then grabbed the bottle nearest to her. The top popped satisfactorily, and she groaned in relief. With this type of pain, it wouldn’t be uncommon for her to break a bottle trying to reach a specific pill.
May dropped the first pill down the sink and cursed fluently. The second pill gave her no problem, and she hurriedly washed it down. Back to bed. Please, God.
It felt like roughly two miles to her bed, but May reached it eventually and sank down with a sigh. The medicinal cocoon wrapped around her and smoothed the edges quickly. Goodbye, Tuesday. May drifted off to sleep.
* * * *
The ringing annoyed her now. May sighed and slowly opened her eyes. Let the answering machine catch it. The ringing didn’t stop after the fourth ring. Maybe all the storms had knocked her machine off-line.
“Ugh,” she moaned. May sat up slowly and blinked. A little after seven Wednesday morning. Tuesday a horrid nightmare of a memory. One powerful narcotic, and she could simply kiss a day goodbye. The thought didn’t please her.
She rubbed her right thigh with gentle circles. Tolerable pain. The ringing stopped abruptly, and May sank back against her pillow with a groan. She had a small headache from sleeping so long. Couldn’t let that affect her, though. Today the first day she would be overseeing Elysian Fields for the owners.
Her nerves bumped a bit when she thought of seeing the owners’ doctor.
“Just a quick trip,” she mumbled. “Anyone with half a brain can see my leg is almost useless.” May brushed her hair back and studied her ceiling. Unfortunately, that didn’t take care of her shower, breakfast, or going over last-minute notes.
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