Straight To Heaven. Michelle Scott

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СКАЧАТЬ were making their annual pilgrimage to the other side of the state. They had rented a cottage, and right now would probably be sitting on the deck watching the sun set over Lake Michigan.

      “Do you have a number for him?” I asked. I gave a brief explanation about Tanya and Ariel. “I was hoping Dad could give me some advice.”

      “Oh, poor Ari.” Some of the dullness left Jasmine’s voice. “As if that kid hasn’t been through enough.” I heard my stepsister shuffle through some things. “No, I don’t have the number for the cottage.”

      My heart fell. Since my dad didn’t own a cell phone, not even for emergencies, I wouldn’t be able to talk to him until he got back from vacation.

      I heard a man cough in the background, then a voice that set my teeth on edge. “Hey, Susie Sushi! Hang up and let’s go.”

      “Please tell me that isn’t who I think it is,” I said.

      “Don’t start with me, Lil,” Jas warned.

      “It’s Karl, isn’t it?” I gripped the phone tighter. “What’s he doing there?”

      There was a long pause. “We’re back together,” she said.

      “Jas, no! You can’t be serious.” Karl had been Jasmine’s boyfriend before Tommy. He was a dozen years older than my stepsister, and owned a successful computer graphics company. At first, my stepdad, Jas’s mother, and I had thought Jasmine had struck gold when she started dating him, but it didn’t take long for us to realize that Karl was a scumbag.

      When Jas was around Karl, she drank much more than normal. She also smoked pot and, if her red eyes and dripping nose were any indication, did other drugs as well. Once, after my dad, Evelyn, and I had spent months convincing Jasmine to enroll at the local community college, Karl talked her out of it because he said that the classes would be too hard for her, and she’d end up dropping out anyway. Implying that she wasn’t smart was only one of his many putdowns. Because of Jasmine’s Asian features, Karl called her ‘Susie Sushi’ and his little ‘Jap’ – which he said stood for Japanese-American Princess. I used to lay awake at nights terrified that Karl would get Jasmine pregnant and forever link her destiny to his.

      Karl spoke up in the background. “Jasmine! C’mon, chop, chop!”

      “I gotta go,” Jasmine said, miserable once more.

      I wanted to scream at her and demand to know why she was letting that cancer back into her life, but I knew from experience that if I spoke out against Karl, she’d fly to his defense. Still, I had to say something. “Maybe dating Karl on the rebound isn’t such a good idea,” I said.

      “Why, Lil? Are you planning to sleep with him, too?” she asked.

      The knife thrust went straight to my heart. Although I worked to maintain my ‘let the past stay in the past’ philosophy, my mistakes always came back to bite me. Hard. “I’m sorry about Tommy, Jas. You have no idea how sorry I am,” I said.

      But my apology fell on dead air because she’d already hung up the phone.

      Six months ago, when my stepsister, my daughter, my niece and I were all living in the cramped townhouse, I would have given anything for an hour alone. Even when the girls were in school, Jasmine would be home hounding me for money or whining because there was nothing to eat. Later, when she brought Tommy to live with us, I’d felt even more claustrophobic.

      Now however, with both girls gone, Jas not speaking to me, and Tommy out of the country, I was completely alone. The silence of that big, empty house rang loudly in my ears. It was eerie, like visiting a shopping mall after all the stores have closed and everyone has gone home. With all that quiet surrounding me, I had nothing to distract me from my own, dark thoughts.

      Deciding that I couldn’t endure another minute of the day sober, I drove to the nearest liquor store and bought a bottle of wine for me and a fifth of bourbon for my demon who begged for it like a little kid begging for candy in the checkout line at the grocery store. When I got home, I muscled down a shot of the bourbon to shut up my succubus, then poured a glass of chardonnay. I brought it over to the computer and went back to researching a way to get Ari away from her mother.

      A small, instant-message window popped up on my computer screen. It was from Tommy.

       Lil – u there?

      My heart nearly stopped. Jasmine wasn’t the only one refusing to talk to me. Since he’d left the country, Tommy had been incommunicado as well. I’d called, texted, and e-mailed, but he never answered back. The silence was terrible. I had no idea where he was, or more importantly, how he was.

      As much as I wanted to talk to him, I was afraid. I drained my glass and then took a deep breath before gathering enough nerve to reply. Hi.

      I held my breath until, moments later, his response popped up. How r u?

      I hesitated, then typed: K – and u?

      Hot. Sick of Indian food. Earth-shattering diarrhea.

      I smiled. TMI, I told him. Besides, don’t you mean earth-shittering?

      He sent back a laughing smiley face.

      Where r u? I asked.

      Aurangabad to see Ajanta caves.

      Before I’d destroyed his belief in God, Tommy had talked endlessly about his pilgrimage, and the Ajanta caves in India had been one of his favorite topics. He had shown me pictures from the Internet of the massive statues and ancient paintings hidden away in that secret place. Knowing he had finally made it there lifted my spirits. If any sacred spot would help him rediscover his faith, certainly it was that one.

      I wrote: How r the caves?

      To my surprise, he sent an emoticon that had its eyes squeezed shut and its tongue sticking out. Pain in the ass to get there, and the weather sucks. Constant rain.

      But the caves themselves r awesome, right? I typed.

      They r depressing. Just a wasted effort to impress the Great Nothingness.

      My heart clenched. His pilgrimage hadn’t done a thing to restore his faith. The Tommy I’d first met would have been raving about the unity of human spirits and the rapture of touching the divine. He would have crawled over broken glass to get to those caves. Not any more.

      Tommy sent another message. How r the girls?

      I was tempted to tell him the truth about Ariel moving in with her mother, but I didn’t want to worry him. After all, there wasn’t much he could do from the other side of the world. So I typed, Girls r good.

       And Jasmine?

      I hesitated. Finally, I typed, Still upset.

      She won’t return my calls, he said. I keep dreaming that she’s in trouble. I’m really worried.

      So that’s why he was finally speaking to me. Tommy had an uncanny connection to the supernatural world. For one thing, he could read auras. He’d also known that СКАЧАТЬ