The Elizas: A Novel(46)

Marlon blushed. “Genetics, I guess.”

“Lucky,” Dorothy said, winking at him flirtatiously.

They sat down. Marlon was still nervous and twitchy. Dorothy took a big gulp of champagne and made a face. “No wonder you’re not drinking this.” She pulled a flask out of her bag and snapped her fingers; two lowball glasses appeared. “From my special vault.” She poured brown liquid for both of them.

“What is it?” Marlon asked.

“Whiskey, darling.” Dorothy grinned.

Marlon gave Dot a skeptical look. “I’m not really into whiskey.”

Dot kicked him under the table. So don’t drink it, she thought angrily. Just don’t be a killjoy. She drank the whiskey heartily, with big swallows, ignoring the burning sensation in her belly.

Dorothy began to tell Marlon the tale of her African tribesman lover, Otufu. She included details she hadn’t told Dot—hiding in a whorehouse in some Somali village, having an assault rifle thrust into her hands in case she needed to defend herself, watching Otufu’s henchmen murder a man inside Otufu’s compound. Marlon blinked rapidly. Dorothy finally waved her hand in front of his face. “Hel-lo? You still in there?”

“I feel like I’m in a movie,” Marlon murmured.

Dorothy slung her arm around him. “Love this one, darling,” she said to Dot. “He’s a keeper.”

Steaks, then, and a limo to a club Dorothy knew about for dancing. The club was through an entrance down a dingy set of steps; halfway to the door, Dorothy paused and glared at the sidewalk. “I think it was a paparazzo,” she whispered, pointing to someone with a camera. She pulled her scarf over her head and ducked out of sight.

Inside the club: foreign types, emaciated models, drunk bodybuilders. Dorothy kept her scarf over her head the whole time, a makeshift hijab. Dot danced wildly, feeling unhinged and free. At two a.m., Marlon gently pushed Dot away when she tried to put her hands down his pants.

“Babe, you seem really drunk,” he said gently.

Dot peppered him with kisses. “Nah, I’m great!”

“I’m worried about you. I want to make sure this isn’t hurting your brain, you know?”

“I’ve hardly had anything to drink,” Dot assured him. And it was true: just a few sips of the whiskey at the restaurant and maybe one drink here over the course of several hours. She was just high on life! Euphoria flooded into her, ripening her valleys, turning her leaves green.

But then she dropped to the floor as though her knees had been chopped off. People laughed and scattered. She tried to stand, but her head lolled on her neck. Vomit rose in her throat. Her legs wobbled, then went out from under her. The last thing she remembered was hearing the bass thudding against the club’s floor and noticing feet around her, and a dropped plastic cup, and someone’s chewed-up gum.

She woke up in a white bed in a quiet room. Something was beeping next to her, and she could feel a dull ache in her arm. Her first thought was that she’d fallen through a wormhole and was nine years old again and in the hospital. The room began to take shape. She saw green-and-white-striped curtains. A flat-screen TV on the wall. Out the window, a glimmering pool, palm trees.

A man in a white doctor’s coat appeared over her. He had a broad nose, wild eyebrows, intense, dark eyes. He smelled strongly of aftershave, which turned Dot’s stomach. “Feeling better, Miss Dot?” he asked in an Indian accent.

Dot looked around. “What happened? Where’s my boyfriend?”

“Just rest, all right?”

“Where’s my mother?”

The door opened, and Dorothy rushed in. “Darling, you’re up.” She touched the man’s arm, just below his elbow. “This is Doctor Singh. I had him pop in to check you out.”

Dot blinked. She must have fainted last night. From a seizure, surely. Another tumor. She bit down hard on her tongue.

Dorothy fluffed a pillow next to Dot. “You’re in my suite. At the Magnolia.”

“Is it . . . bad?” Dot whispered.

“Is what bad?”

“The tumor. It’s back, right?”

Her aunt’s shoulders sank, and she smiled. “Oh, honey.” She pressed her cool hands on Dot’s forehead. “You just had too much to drink last night. That’s all.”

Dot tried to sit up. “Are you sure? Maybe we should have me tested. Maybe we should call someone.”

Dorothy waved her hand dismissively. “Just rest. You’re dehydrated, that’s all. Too much alcohol does that to you. You should be thanking me. Doctor Singh was very kind to come here with all this equipment.” She leaned closer. “That IV will make you feel much better.”

“Thank you,” Dot said, robotically. Something felt off. Maybe it was just that she was exhausted, and there was still the residue of fear clinging to her. That tumor pulsed inside her, she knew, still hiding; those nasty little cells were rearranging, mutating, poisoning her. She still very much believed that.

“And incidentally.” Dorothy turned away from her and peered at herself in the mirror, fluffing her curls. Dot thought she saw her snake an arm around Dr. Singh’s waist, but when she wriggled up higher in the bed, her arms were by her sides. “Don’t mention it to your mother. She was never really one for partying.” She met Dot’s eyes in the glass. “It’ll be our little secret.”