Chapter 4
Lior
I woke to wetness against my nose, followed by loud purring and a soft headbutt to the chin.
“Good morning, Gomez,” I murmured to the male half of my best friend Adeline’s two cats, my eyes still closed.
Another headbutt to my jaw and I sighed, not wanting to return to reality just yet, but slipping a hand out from beneath the comforter I was cocooned in to give him a pet.
Opening my eyes, I gave a contented sigh at the sight of Addie’s guest room, which was inspired by a hotel room she’d once stayed in during a trip to the English countryside.
Wainscoting, striped cream-and-robin’s egg blue wallpaper, and florals upon plaids upon paisley fabrics.
She had a way of making spaces looked lived in but fresh, a contrast to the cold and bare hospital room she was lying in now.
My heart sank as I thought back to the night before, my oldest friend in the world looking small and beat up, screens beeping beside her as they monitored some bodily function or another.
It had been terrifying to see her in such a state, but a small comfort when she woke for a moment to give me a bleary half-smile and diss my outfit before falling back into a medicine-induced sleep.
I stared up at the cat sitting on my chest.
“Where’s Morticia?” I asked. “She’s going to be jealous if she sees you flirting with me.”
I heard a sniff and glanced toward the bedroom door where his lovely wife sat on the threshold, glaring at me in disdain. She couldn’t be bothered with telling me she was hungry so, as usual, she’d sent her man.
Morticia and Gomez had been aptly named by Addie after the matriarch and patriarch of the Addams family.
“Couple goals,” she’d said by way of explanation.
Gomez bumped his head against my chin again. I was taking too long.
“Okay okay,” I said, pushing myself up and sending both cats skittering from the room.
Pulling on the moss-green robe I kept here for when I visited, I trudged sleepily out of the guest room and down the hall to the kitchen.
The two felines, white-haired Gomez with his dashing black mustache, and black-haired Morticia with a tiny white beauty mark beside her nose, did figure-eights around the legs of the table while they waited for me to deliver their breakfast.
I’d gotten in the day before and had immediately gone to the hospital where I’d checked in on my friend, gotten an update from her folks, met the doctor — a young guy who stared at me a moment too long before remembering he was a doctor, and then used my key to let myself into Addie’s house.
It was a no-brainer I’d stay there and take care of the cats until she could come home, which, I’d been assured, would be sooner rather than later.
She had a black eye, a broken cheekbone, a broken arm, several cracked ribs, and more bruises than I could count.
It looked like she’d gone ten rounds in a boxing ring with someone twice her size.
Or was hit by drunk driver at five am, their car ramming into hers after they’d run a red light.
Which, we’d learned, was what had happened.
The cats fed, I made myself a cup of coffee and then wandered around the house.
Addie lived in the kind of home we’d always dreamed of when we were girls.
Small, tidy, and so cute it looked like it belonged in a fairytale.
She had an eye for what looked good and could make a space look like a showroom with just a few well-chosen pieces.
It was a gift. The kind people always tell someone they should do for a living.
But Addie hadn’t wanted to be an interior designer.
She only did that for fun. She’d wanted to be in advertising.
Until she realized she didn’t and headed to vet school instead.
I smiled as I noted the nods to our friendship around the house.
A hair ribbon tied to the chain of a lamp from a dance recital the year we decided we were totally going to be ballerinas – until we found out we were expected to practice outside of practice and admitted we had only been in it for the tutus.
A smooth white rock from a long weekend in Cape Cod.
Sand dollars from the Oregon Coast. A hand-spun bowl from a trip to Costa Rica.
A dried lei from our first trip to Hawaii.
And photos. So many photos. Some framed, others carefully curated and put in a coffee table book, and still more stuck to a bulletin board in her home office with tacks in the shape of umbrellas.
I carefully removed one particular photo from the board and stared at it.
It was taken moments before we’d said goodbye at the gate for the plane that would take me to New York and my new life.
My mother, in a sentimental move that shocked us all, had bought Addie a ticket just so she could sit with me until it was time for me to leave.
We had tears streaming down our faces in the picture and were laughing.
It was us in a nutshell. My favorite memories of us were always some version of this image, and I had the same photo framed on a shelf at home.
I kissed it, then re-tacked the picture to the board just as an alert sounded on my phone. I glanced down to see a reminder. “Japan. 3pm.”
I’d forgotten to delete the reminder of my flight after cancelling the job I was supposed to be going on this week. I did so now and then hurried down the hall to shower before returning to the hospital.
“She’s got some color in her face,” was the first thing Addie’s mom said when I walked into the room and handed her a chai latte.
“I’ve got a rainbow of colors in my face,” Addie said from where she was sitting up in bed, doing an impressive eye roll with her one good eye. “No coffee for me?”
I started to hand mine over but got mean-mugged by Mama.
Everyone called Addie’s mom Mama. The tiny blonde was a force to be reckoned with and we joked that while her husband, affectionally known as Pa, could be knocked over with a kiss, Mama couldn’t be taken down by a tank.
Nerves of steel, that one. But filled with more love than one knew what to do with.
That had been my experience anyways when I’d first met her at the tender age of five.
She’d taken one look at my own mother – standing off to the side with a slightly horrified look on her face at all the small children that could so easily get germs or stickiness on her – and then swept me into a hug, whispering in my ear, “You ever need anything, Lior, even just a hug, you come find me.”
And I had. Many times over the years. Because where Liliana Flynn, my mother, lacked, Mel Warner, Addie’s mama, did not.
I glanced at my friend now with an apologetic look as I pulled the take-away coffee cup out of reach again.
“Sorry,” I said. “Can’t get on Mama’s bad side.”
“Suck up.”
“So you look… good,” I said, taking in the purple, black, and green marring the side of her face that had been nearest the driver’s side window.
“You should see the other guy,” she said, giving me a crooked smile and then wincing. “Hey Ma, can you ask them about the pain pills again?”
“I’ve got it,” Pa said and then disappeared out the door.
“He hates seeing her like this,” Mama said and I nodded. Me too.
“Here we are,” Pa said, returning not even a minute later, a nurse on his heels holding a small cup with what I assumed were the coveted pills.
The three of us stayed for an hour and then Addie’s folks stood to go with promises to be back after lunch.
“Feel better, girly,” Pa said, leaning down to gently kiss the side of Addie’s head that wasn’t bruised and stitched. “We’ll be back soon.”
“With ice cream?” she asked, meeting my eyes with her one good one and then frowning. “Wait. What day is it?”
“Monday,” Mama said.
I knew what was coming next before she said it because Addie kept better track of me than anyone else in my life. Including my agent.
“You’re supposed to be going to Japan,” she said.
“Why do you even remember that right now?” I asked, shaking my head.
“Because I wanted you to bring me back a daruma doll.”
“For the love, Adeline,” Mama said. “You could’ve been killed. Or paralyzed. You’re worried about not getting a doll?”
“They’re really cute! They look like grumpy little men and symbolize having a fighting spirit.”
“It does seem like the perfect mascot for you,” Mama said.
“I think it might be offensive to call them a mascot,” Addie said.
“Spirit animal?” Pa said.
“No, Pa!” both Addie and I said at the same time while her parents exchanged glances and shrugged.
“We’ll be back,” Pa said, moving to stand beside Addie and taking her hand. “Get some rest.”
“I will,” Addie said. “But come back soon with snacks. Good ones.”
After the elder two Warners took their leave I sat in the chair next to the bed that Mama had vacated.
“I can’t believe you’re missing Japan,” Addie said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Did you let that guy run into you on purpose?” I asked, hearing my phone buzz with a text alert and reaching for my purse. It was Katya, asking about Addie and sending a selfie from her hotel room in Tokyo, where I had originally been scheduled to meet her for a shoot the next day.
“I told you I needed new tires and wipers,” Addie said. “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
“I’d have mailed you the ruined Chanel to pay for it all… once my dry cleaner got the stain out.” I showed her the message and picture from Katya and she motioned for me to come closer. We took a selfie and I sent it.
Katya texted back a sad face emoji, followed by several questions about Addie’s status. While I texted back, Addie shifted in the bed, sucking in a breath as she tried to move and resting her uninjured hand over her broken ribs.
“Ow,” she said.
“Stop that,” I said. “Or let me help. What can I get you?”
“A time machine? Psychic abilities to see the asshole before he mowed me down?”
“Fresh out of both.” I reached in my purse and pulled out a tin. “Mint?”
“Absofuckinglutely,” she said. “It tastes like I’ve been chewing on blood.” Our eyes met. “Oh.” She winked with her good eye while I rolled both of mine.
The nurse on duty brought Addie a snack and snuck me one too. We talked, swapped Jell-o, my green for her red, watched sitcoms while she drifted in and out of sleep, and then I kissed her good cheek and promised to be back in a few hours after tending to her cats.
With Addie’s prognosis good – the doctor tentatively announcing she’d be able to go home in a couple of days – I didn’t feel too terrible telling her I was planning to fly out the following Sunday.
“Unless you want me to stay, of course,” I said. “I have a couple jobs lined up but I can cancel if you need me. Seriously. They’re not big names.”
“Snob,” she said. “But you don’t have to stay even that long. Promise to come back soon though? This does not count as a visit.”
“Agreed. You’ve been a shit conversationalist. Plus, Gomez won’t stop staring at me and I think Morticia is jealous.”
“You may be gorgeous but rest assured, Morticia is not jealous nor threatened by you. She is merely tolerating your presence and waiting for you to leave.”
“Fair enough.”
“Have you seen your folks?”
I recalled the brief phone call I’d had with my mother the day I’d gotten in.
“Just wanted to let you know I’m in town,” I’d said. “In case someone sees me, takes a picture, and posts it online, I didn’t want you to think I was avoiding you.”
God how I wished I could avoid her.
“If Addie’s in the hospital, surely you have time for a dinner with us, Lior,” she’d said.
I’d taken in a long, measured breath and let it out slowly.
“My best friend for nearly three decades has been in a serious accident. I can assure you, I don’t have time for a dinner. Next time, Mother.”
She didn’t bother hiding her sigh of annoyance.
“Fine. What hospital and room is she in? We’ll send flowers.” She’d paused then, and when she spoke again the bite had left her voice. “I hope she’s okay.”
“Thank you.”
As much as she irritated me and spoke like she didn’t care, I knew, if need be, my mother would offer to pay for specialists for my friend should she need them. She was an odd combination of indifference and caring. One should cancel out the other – but somehow didn’t.
“Addie-Boo,” I said, patting my friend’s hand and giving her a wry grin. “This trip was hard enough without seeing my mother’s pinched face and ice-lady eyes scouring my body for things to pick apart.”
“Liorzibet,” she said and I snorted at the newest nickname. “I’d argue with you, but yeah. No one needs that when they’ve had to see this.” She gestured to herself. “I ran into Cal a few weeks ago though. He looks happy as ever.”
Cal was my stepdad and one of the most decent human beings I’d ever met.
“I will never comprehend how that man ended up with that woman,” I said. “He must’ve done something truly horrific in a past life.”
“Nah. He’s just a saint. And possibly in it for the money.”
I snorted indelicately. I knew for a fact my mother had insisted on an ironclad prenup.
Any man who wanted to be married to Lilian Flynn better come with his own significant wealth.
Her money was hers and she wasn’t sharing – unless it was your birthday, an anniversary, or Christmas.
And then she went all out, so no one could ever say she wasn’t generous.
“By the way,” I said, pointing to a ridiculously huge flower arrangement on the windowsill that was overtaking all others like a giant blossom-monster. “She sent that monstrosity.”
“Did she buy out a florist?”
“Of course.”
“I’ll send one of the extra special thank you notes I keep on hand especially for her,” she said.
“Make sure to include lots of x’s and o’s. Mother loves them.”
Addie snickered then winced. My mother thought anything other than a respectful and classy salutation was juvenile.
“Don’t break a rib on her account,” I said, and then dropped a gentle kiss on her cheek and went back to her house to scrounge something up for lunch.
I left the following Sunday after getting Addie home, filling her fridge with foods she could easily warm up, and promising to be back in a few weeks.
After packing my one bag, giving Gomez a kiss on his head and shouting goodbye to Morticia, who couldn’t be bothered to see me off, I drove to the airport, dropped off my rental car, and went through the hassle that was getting to one’s gate.
Once parked in a seat with a scalding hot matcha latte, I opened my phone and scrolled all the things I’d missed or put off. Social media, emails, texts… And then, having saved the best for last, my favorite Brooklyn Tribune column, Around the Neighborhood.
It took me seconds of reading to realize something about the article felt familiar. Somehow, I already knew what – and who – this story was about.
And in a moment of absolute shock and horror, I bolted upright, dumping my latte on the carpet in front of me.
“Meet-Poop?!”