Remembrance (The Mediator #7)(22)

“Yeah.” Becca had nodded vigorously. “I’m fine.”

“She’s not fine, Kelly.” I’d shoved Jesse’s name and number into Kelly’s manicured hand. “Take her to see him. She needs to get that cut looked at, and by a professional. Do you understand what I’m saying, Kelly?” I’d wanted to add, You dumb cow, but of course I couldn’t.

Kelly looked down at the hastily scrawled note in her hands.

“Jesse de Silva,” she read aloud. “Why is that name familiar to me?” Then a lightbulb seemed to go off in her dim, beautiful head. “Oh, my God, isn’t that your boyfriend? Wait, yes. It is! I read in the online alumni newsletter you two got engaged. Marrying your high-school sweetheart. Isn’t that cute?”

I’d felt myself turning red.

“Yes,” I’d said. “Jesse is my fiancé. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t a terrific pediatrician—”

Kelly had crumpled the note in her fist, then thrown it to the floor with all the other detritus. It was apparent her Isn’t that cute? had been sarcastic.

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” she’d said, her perfectly made-up eyes flashing. “Using your job here to drum up business for your boyfriend. I know things are bad in the medical industry, but honestly, Suze. I’d think you of all people would know better. Funny how I used to think you were sort of smart, coming from New York City, and all. I remember some of us in school even looked up to you, once upon a time, and thought you were going to go places. Well, that was a long time ago, obviously.”

She’d smirked, then stepped over a collapsed Venetian blind and added, “Sister Ernestine, you might want to rethink hiring this person. My husband is a major donor to the academy, you know. I doubt you’d want to do anything to upset him.”

Then she’d tossed her hair and left, her high heels ringing on the mission paving stones.





siete


“Geez,” CeeCee said, after I’d relayed this story to her and Gina—not the part about Lucia, of course, or the details about Becca’s wound. That would have been a violation of student-counselor—and mediator-NCDP—privilege.

“So basically what you’re saying is that this Kelly Prescott is the worst person in the world to be parenting a child.” Gina tugged on one of her short black dreadlocks. “Worst. Person. In. The. World. Got it.”

“Well,” I said. “Maybe worst stepparent. She could just be having a hard time bonding with a kid who isn’t her own.”

I felt a little bad for Kelly, since I knew she’d dated Paul. If he’d treated her in any way like the way he was treating me . . .

That wasn’t any excuse for the way she was treating her stepdaughter, though.

CeeCee had sunk her chin into her hand and was regarding me dejectedly. “I’m good with kids, you know. But God forbid a guy—even an old dude like Lance Arthur Walters—would go for a girl like me. No, they always go for girls like Kelly. Girls with pigment.”

Gina had had to get up then because, true to CeeCee’s prediction—though her aunt was the only one in the family who professed to be psychic—customers had begun coming in, as it was after six.

So that left only me to say, “Oh, come on, CeeCee. You wouldn’t want to be married to some old rich dude anyway. Isn’t it better to wait until you can be with someone you actually like, and support yourself?”

“Like you, you mean? Yeah, well, too bad I don’t have your luck,” CeeCee grumbled, her tone only slightly bitter. Then her violet eyes widened. “Not . . . I didn’t mean—with your dad . . .”

I smiled at her. “No. I get it. It’s true. I am lucky, in a way.”

CeeCee didn’t mean I was lucky because my dad was dead. He went out jogging one day when I was very young, and never came back (at least, not physically. He hovered at my side spiritually for years, offering unsolicited advice).

CeeCee meant what happened after that.

I didn’t find out about it until after my college graduation. That’s when Mom told me she’d invested all the Social Security benefits the government had been sending to me in Dad’s name, in addition to my portion of his surprisingly hefty life insurance policy. Mom hadn’t needed the money to raise me, since she’d had a great job as a local television news journalist, and now she’d gotten herself named as an executive producer of my stepfather Andy’s dorky home improvement show.

Or maybe it wasn’t so dorky, considering it had gone into international syndication and you couldn’t go anywhere without seeing Andy’s big handsome face on the side of a bus, urging you to try his new brand of drill bits.

After I’d graduated from college, I’d inherited the money. Mom said I could do whatever I wanted with it, except spend it “on drugs, designer clothes, or a boob job” (which I found insulting: I don’t do drugs, designer clothes are for people lacking in fashion imagination, and my boobs are as amazing as my hair).

“And don’t even think about spending it on a wedding,” Andy had added. “I know you and Jesse want to get married soon, but we’ll pay for it.”

I’d decided the wisest thing to do was keep the money where it was, invested in a combination of bonds and blue chip stocks (it turns out there is something about which I’m almost as conservative as Jesse: finances).