Gold Hill (21 page)

Nate looked at little
relieved.

“
Are they planning
something?

Nate nodded.

“
Big?”

Nate nodded.

“
At the new job
site?”

Nate nodded.

“
How big?”

“
Big,” Nate
said.

~~~~~~~~

Saturday morning — 10:53
a.m.

When the salon’s front door
buzzer rang, Sandy looked up from her client. She had one client
sitting in the chair next to her while she trimmed this woman’s
hair. Saturday was her busiest day. Her assistant ran to open the
door for Sissy.

“
Sissy!” Sandy said. To
her client, she said, “My sister is here.”

“
The ballerina?” her
client asked. “I saw a picture of her dancing when Misty Copeland
was here.”

“
That’s my Sissy. I’ll be
right back,” Sandy set down her scissors to meet Sissy near the
door. Looking very anxious, Sissy was standing on one foot. Her
bike leaned up against the window outside.

“
Are you okay?” Sandy
asked.

Sissy shook her
head.

“
What’s going on?” Sandy
glanced around the room to make sure they weren’t heard.

“
You have to tell me
something,” Sissy bit her lip and nodded. “Tell me the truth.
Promise me you’ll tell me the truth.”

“
Of course,” Sandy hugged
Sissy. “Anything.”

“
Is Uncle Seth my guardian
and not you and not Aden?” Sissy asked.

Sandy gave a kind of ‘I
knew this would come up someday’ sigh.

“
It’s complicated,” Sandy
said.

“
How so?” Sissy
asked.

“
When Dad died, he was
angry with Mom,” Sandy said. “I guess we found out why a couple of
months ago right?”

Sissy nodded.

“
He was afraid, and now we
know rightly so, that you and Charlie wouldn’t be taken care of,”
Sandy said. “But he couldn’t keep Mom from being your guardian
because she gave birth to you.”

Sissy nodded.

“
So he made his pension
contingent on Seth being your guardian along with Mom,” Sandy
said.

“
Then how come we were
always broke? How come Charlie was on the streets? How come
everything was so horrible? How come we didn’t just live with
him?”

The words spilled out of
Sissy’s mouth so fast she had to stop to catch her breath. Sandy
nodded as if she understood.

“
Well?” Sissy
asked.

“
Oh, those were
questions?” Sandy asked.

Sissy nodded.

“
You rode over here to ask
me that?”

Sissy nodded. Sandy
sighed.

“
The truth is that I don’t
know,” Sandy said. “I don’t know how or why I could love you and
Charlie so very much, and care so much about how you were and what
you were doing. I mean I thought I was paying for your ballet
lessons and Charlie’s . . . whatever. How could I
not know what was going on? Seth feels the same way.”

“
Is he still my guardian?”
Sissy asked.

“
With me and Aden,” Sandy
said. “He has to be your guardian for you to get that great
insurance and Dad’s money.”

“
Oh.”

“
Why Sis? Why are you
asking now?”

“
Because that lady? The
one who came to dance with me? Misty? She said they want me to be
in the American Ballet Company in New York but Seth won’t let them
even ask.”

Sandy nodded.

“
You
knew
about this?” Sissy’s voice
raised and the women in the salon looked over at them.

“
Listen Sis, I can’t do
this now,” Sandy said.

“
Fine,” Sissy stormed
toward the door. Sandy grabbed her arm and turned her around to
face her.

“
Do you trust me?” Sandy
asked.

Angry, Sissy wouldn’t look
at her. Sandy gave her arm a little shake and Sissy looked at her.
With tears in her eyes, Sissy nodded.

“
Then meet me here at 6
tonight,” Sandy said. “We’ll get dinner and have lots and lots of
time to talk through everything.”

Sissy nodded.

“
Are you going to be all
right today?” Sandy asked. “Do you want me to call
someone?”

“
No,” Sissy said. “Wanda
and Tink are meeting me at Starbucks. We’re going to study. Can I
have some money?”

Sandy went to her drawer
and got a twenty dollar bill for Sissy. She held the money out to
Sissy then pulled it back.

“
Promise you won’t hurt
yourself,” Sandy said. “Sacred sister promise?”

“
Sacred sister promise,”
Sissy nodded. “And I’ll be here at six. What about the
others?”

“
I’ll call Aden,” Sandy
said. “Noelle is painting with Mike today at Lair O’ the Bear Open
Space. You know they run all over the mountain. She’ll be sacked
out this evening. Aden and the boys can do something
boyish.”

“
Okay,” Sissy
smiled.

“
Love you Sis,” Sandy
said.

Sissy waved and went out of
the salon. Chuckling, Sandy went back to her client.

“
Sorry,” she said, as she
picked up her scissors.

“
Teenagers!” her client
said. “Were we that bad?”

“
Never!” the client in the
next chair said.

They laughed. Smiling,
Sandy went back to her day.

~~~~~~~~

Saturday afternoon — 2:53
p.m.

The elevator to the
penthouse rose from the garage and Tanesha closed her eyes in a
silent prayer. She’d just been out in Aurora at the School of
Medicine bookstore buying her
I-could-feed-an-entire-family-on-the-cost-of-one-of-these books for
school. Rodney, her Dad, had brought her a credit card yesterday
and told her he would be ‘very disappointed’ if she didn’t use it.
She, Heather, and Mack had gone to get her books.

Tanesha smiled. For each
book Heather had calculated the number of expensive shoes they
could buy. Two pairs each was her final determination. Heather made
everything so much fun.

As the elevator neared the
penthouse, Tanesha’s anxiety rose. They were just leaving when the
movie people and their scantily clad ‘girls’ and their assistants
and their whatever else were coming in. As they had agreed, Tanesha
let Jeraine deal with it. Having years of experience of Jeraine
dealing with scantily clad women and drugs, she held her breath
when the elevator doors opened.

And . . . 

She leaned forward to peek
out. The apartment was silent. She took a step forward.

“
You better step back,
young lady,” an older man’s voice came from around the corner.
“We’re not in the market for any of that today.”

Tanesha turned toward to
voice. A tall, black man in his sixties or seventies wearing a
cardigan sweater over a button down shirt walked in her direction.
Tanesha raised an eyebrow in challenge.

“
I know who you are,” he
smiled. “You’re Yvonne’s daughter.”

Tanesha’s eyebrows jerked
up in surprise, and then lowered with suspicion.

“
She was one of mine,” the
man said. Seeing Tanesha frown, he added, “Probationers. I was her
probation officer. I never met your father, but you have her
expressive face. That woman could say volumes with just one
look.”

He laughed.

“
I’m Bob,” he stuck his
hand out to Tanesha.

“
Tanesha,” she shook his
hand.

“
You live here,” he
said.

“
Sort of,” Tanesha said.
“It’s Jeraine’s place. We live here until our house is done. Kind
of renting from the IRS for now.”

He smiled.

“
Sorry about all that,”
Bob took the shopping bag from her. “I’m keeping the riff raff out
of here.”

“
Who are you?” Tanesha
asked.

“
I’m Bob,” he smiled as if
he’d made a joke. “You know Jeraine is getting
some . . . help from my friend Aden.”

“
Aden is his interim
sponsor until they either kill each other or Jeraine finds
another.”

Bob laughed. Tanesha moved
toward the kitchen to turn on the tea kettle.

“
Why is that funny?”
Tanesha asked.

“
Aden,” Bob set her books
on the kitchen table. “He must really like Jeraine.”

“
I thought he was doing it
because Sandy asked,” Tanesha said.

“
Sponsor a man because his
wife asked,” Bob shook his head. “No, it’s a sacred relationship.
He wants to help Jeraine; I’m not sure he can.”

“
How did you end up here?”
Tanesha asked.

“
Jeraine called Aden this
morning,” Bob said. “Probably right after you left. Aden called me.
Of course, I know Bumpy. When I got here, there was all kinds
of . . . nonsense going on.”

“
Would you like some tea?”
Tanesha pointed to her tea stash.

“
Bless my soul, I haven’t
seen that tea since I was a kid,” he said.

“
I’ll take that as a yes,”
Tanesha said and took down two mugs.

“
There were high, half
naked girls hanging all over each other,” Bob shook his head at the
memory. “The place was rank with dope smoke.”

“
What did you do with
them?” Tanesha asked.

“
I told them to leave,”
Bob said. “I said they were distracting important business and they
should take their party somewhere else. There was a lot of drama
but I’ll tell you, a half hour after they left, the main movie guy
thanked me. Once the party gets started no one wants to be the
square who puts an end to it.”

Bob nodded to Tanesha as if
she could understand that. She smiled.

“
I’m supposed to tell you
that Jeraine, and I quote, ‘Din’t do nothin’’”

“
He sounds so ignorant
sometimes,” Tanesha rolled her eyes.

“
That’s what I told him,”
Bob laughed. “I said, ‘What are you ignorant? I’m not going to tell
your wife something so stupid.’”

Smiling, Tanesha poured
water into his cup and hers. He picked up his mug to smell the
tea.

“
Wow, this does bring it
back,” he said. “Of course, my Aunt June used to add brandy to my
tea to help me sleep. I was three or four, but I did love that
brandy.”

“
We don’t have any
alcohol,” Tanesha said. “Just tea.”

“
There’s a bunch of food
in the refrigerator,” Bob said. “The movie people had some caterers
bring lunch. You can eat.”

“
I’m okay,” Tanesha
smiled.

“
They’re hard at work,”
Bob said. “Jeraine must be good because those movie people were a
bunch of sass when they came in, but they’re doing what he says
now.”

He took a drink of his tea
and sighed. His eyes traveled to Tanesha’s face and she
smiled.

“
I want to tell you about
your Mom,” Bob said.

“
All right.”

“
The doctors will tell you
she’s brain damaged or whatever,” Bob said. “And she has some
problems. No question she has some problems. But Yvonne, she’s
smart and strong – tougher than you’d ever know. Someday, he’s
going to let her go and she’s going to come right out of this. You
watch. I always said, she . . . ”

Just then the elevator
dinged. Bob set his tea on the counter and jogged from the
kitchen.

“
Not a chance,” she heard
him say. “I said you aren’t coming in here with that.”

And she laughed.

Chapter Two Hundred and
One
Change

Sunday morning — 5:15
a.m.

“
Hey,” Aden sat down on
the side of the bed next to Sandy.

Sandy rolled over to look
at him. She smiled.

“
I have to go in.” His
voice was low and intimate so as not to wake Rachel sleeping in the
crib nearby.

“
On a Sunday?” Sandy
said.

“
I didn’t get a chance to
tell you before you left for dinner with Sissy.” His hand stroked
her cheek. “And then . . . ”

“
You were on fire after
playing paintball tag with the boys,” Sandy said.

“
I thought that was you.”
He leaned down to kiss her. “Plus, it was our boys, Teddy, all of
MJ’s team and a few people from who knows where. Crazy
game.”

Sandy smiled.

“
I should be back before
the christening,” Aden said. “It’s at ten?”

“
Ten,” Sandy said. “I’ll
get everyone ready so we can just go.”

“
How did it go with
Sissy?” Aden asked.

“
Good,” Sandy said. “But,
Aden, those ballet people want her. Not just the American Ballet
Theater either. After the photo of Sissy and Misty came out, I’ve
been getting calls and emails from the New York Ballet, Chicago,
LA . . . even as far away as London and Russia. Ivan
sends them in my direction.”