“Please don’t tell her we did that,” Griff said.
Like she cares who you kiss, Aubrey almost said, but she wouldn’t hurt Griff out of spite. He was like her, pining for a person he couldn’t have. Maybe one day he would see how alike they were. In the meantime, Aubrey felt no guilt over that kiss. Normally, girl rules would apply here. Aubrey and Kate were best friends and suitemates. Until such time as Kate officially declared her lack of interest in Griff and designated him fair game, Aubrey should keep her hands off. But Kate had such bounty when it came to men, and didn’t follow the rules herself. Kate was sleeping with more guys than poor Griff, and he had no clue. Or who knew, maybe he did and he let her walk on him anyway. One of Kate’s hookups was that Lucas kid who Jenny was obviously still crazy for. Fair’s fair. Why should Kate get everything, and the rest of the world go begging?
Kate skidded toward them on the tray, whooping, and came to a stop ten feet short of where they stood.
“Agh, that sucked. What a dud! I’m going again,” Kate called. She stood up, stamping the cold from her feet, and looked past them down the path. “Jenny? You came!”
Aubrey and Griff turned in unison. Jenny hurried toward them, white clouds of breath streaming behind her. Aubrey instantly saw that something was off, something bad had happened, then told herself it was the weed talking. Pot made her paranoid. She ought to write that down on a piece of paper and carry it around so she could look at it when she was wasted, and remind herself not to fret.
But Kate looked worried, too. She strode over to meet Jenny.
“What is it?” Kate said. “Is everything okay?”
“Aubrey, your sister left a message on the room phone. Your mother’s in the hospital. She says it’s serious enough that you should go home.”
Aubrey’s brain was pleasantly foggy from the pot and the kiss. She had no sense of impending doom. How could anything bad happen on the same night that she kissed Griff?
“I talked to my mom a few weeks ago, and she sounded okay. Amanda’s just being dramatic,” Aubrey said.
But in the back of her mind, she knew that wasn’t the case. Her mother had mentioned doctors’ appointments a couple of times recently, and tests. Aubrey, with her college kid’s blinders on, hadn’t followed up. Besides, she knew her sister well enough to suspect that Amanda wouldn’t bother to call without good reason.
“I hope you’re right,” Jenny said. “She didn’t give any details. But she did say it was urgent and you should plan to go home right away. I think you should at least call her.”
“I can’t go home, not with finals coming up. Besides, I can’t afford the plane ticket.”
“Let’s go back to the room, sweetie,” Jenny said. “You can call Amanda and get the whole story. If it’s really bad—I hate to say it, but if it is—the school has emergency funds for that sort of thing. We’ll figure it out.”
Aubrey looked from Jenny to Kate and back again, her face slowly crumpling as the news sank in. Leave it to her mother to go and get sick. Life had been too much for Brenda Miller to handle ever since Aubrey’s dad walked out when Aubrey was three years old. Could you give yourself cancer? The yoga-sutras spoke of the connection between mind and body. Who knew, maybe you could. Maybe her mother had wished herself dead, because she was tired of the struggle, and managed to make it happen. At least now I won’t have to send her any more cash, Aubrey thought. Then she started to cry, out of guilt more than grief. Like her father and sister before her, Aubrey had left her mother in the lurch. Brenda came to the airport to say good-bye when Aubrey went east. She pretended to be happy, but as Aubrey was about to disappear through security, Brenda hugged her tight as a vise and whispered over and over again, Don’t leave me, stay with me, please stay, I can’t get by without you. Aubrey gave her mother a quick peck on the cheek, then pried her arms away and ran. That was the last time they saw each other, and now her mother was going to die.
*
“She can’t go alone. We can’t let her. She’s a mess,” Jenny whispered.
Jenny and Kate sat together on Jenny’s bed in the double. Aubrey had called her sister only to learn the worst. Her mother’s cancer was advanced. The doctors gave her mere weeks to live, days maybe. Now Aubrey was huddled under the covers in her bed, her chest rising and falling rhythmically, her eyes shut tight. They assumed she was sleeping but in reality she was wasted out of her mind. Her head hurt from when she whacked it traying, or else from the drugs. They’d slipped her a couple of Valiums from Griff’s stash to calm her down. On top of the pot she’d smoked, the Valium wrapped her in a fluffy cocoon where she could see the bad feelings, but not feel them. Her head pounded and vibrated, but it was happening to someone else. She listened to her friends discuss her welfare as if from miles away. The sounds reverberated strangely in her ears and dug into her brain. She would remember their words the next day, and for a long time after, but in the moment, nothing they said could cause her pain.
“She’ll be fine tomorrow,” Kate said.
“Her mother’s dying. She won’t be fine. She needs our help.”
“Who’s gonna pay for the tickets for one of us to go? She can’t even afford one ticket.”
“I told you, the college has an emergency fund. I’ll do the paperwork in the morning.”
“Maybe they’ll pay for her. They’re not gonna pay for two tickets. Sorry to inform you, but I’m flat-out broke. Besides, we have exams coming up, too.”
“Like you give a rip about exams. What kind of friend are you, Kate?”
“How dare you, Jenny? I’m a good friend, thank you very much. Aubrey wouldn’t have a social life if not for me.”
“Congratulations, but I’m afraid another drunken frat party is not what Aubrey needs right now. We can come up with the money for an extra plane ticket if we put our minds to it. She has to deal with the doctors, and from the way it sounded—” Jenny paused and drew a breath. “—funeral arrangements, too. It’s a lot for her.”
“Why should that be our problem? She has an older sister, doesn’t she?”
“The sister’s useless, and a total bitch on top of it. I’m telling you, we can’t let Aubrey go through this alone. One of us should go with her.”
“Well, I can’t go,” Kate said petulantly.
“Why not?”
“I just can’t.”
Deep inside her drug-happy cocoon, Aubrey felt a jolt of worry. Jenny should back off before Kate agreed to come to Vegas. The last thing Aubrey wanted was for Kate to come home with her, and get a firsthand view of her pathetic trashy family. Kate would never look at her the same way again.
“You owe me an explanation, don’t you think?” Jenny said.